EDITORIAL 169 



west. So far as evidence has appeared, this opposition in our national legis- 

 lature has had no support outside of Congress, and it is remarkable that it 

 has held out so long against an unusually broad, national and non-partisan 

 public demand. 



It is a weakness of the American people to develop great enthusiasms, 

 embody them in law and then forget them, to become absorbed in their daily 

 vocations and in fresh interests. This disposition has nullified many good 

 laws. Let it be remembered in this hour of triumph that the ultimate success 

 of this new forest law will depend upon the continued interest and intelligent 

 support of those whose etforts have secured its enactment. In the face of pub- 

 lic indifference it will become a useless instrument. Forcefully and intelli- 

 gently sustained, it may be the beginning of greater good to the people of the 

 whole country than even its most ardent friends have claimed. 



ITS CONSTITUTIONAL ASPECT 



THE new forest law in its present form must be regarded as partial, since 

 it provides for maintaining forest cover only on drainage areas neces- 

 sary for ''conserving the navigability of navigable rivers." This is in 

 deference to an opinion given by the Judiciary Committee of a former House 

 of Representatives, and to the views of many constitutional lawyers as to the 

 powers of the general government. We have always deemed it unfortunate 

 that the discussion of this great public question was forced as a matter of ex- 

 pediency into so narrow a channel by the dictum of a political committee 

 which is in no sense a judicial body, although made up of very able lawyers. 

 Its members sit upon the committee as advocates rather than as judges in 

 many cases, and this was especially true in connection with the Appalachian 

 bill, which involved so many points of controversy and had aroused strong 

 feeling. At the time that the opinion was rendered upon the Appalachian bill, 

 several members of the committee, including its chairman, represented the 

 spirit of intense hostility to the measure which guided the action of the lead- 

 ers of the House organization. Under these circumstances we could hardly 

 expect that an opinion would be rendered such as we should look for from the 

 Supreme Court of the United States. 



The views expressed by the committee are not unquestioned and we be- 

 lieve that time will teach the American people that an adequate timber supply, 

 the preservation of the flow of streams for water power and the public health, 

 and the sanitary influence of the mountain forests, are as necessary to the people 

 as the navigability of their rivers, that is, that they are essential to the gen- 

 eral welfare. In the debate last summer in the House no arguments for the 

 bill were more gratifying than those of Mr. Mann of Illinois and General 

 Keifer of Ohio, both of whom took a strong stand for the power of the general 

 government to preserve our forests on the ground of the general welfare. Hoke 

 Smith, Secretary of the Interior under President Cleveland and twice elected 

 governor of Georgia, is on record with a similar declaration. None of these 

 men is a radical, or a dangerous loose constructionist. They have with them 

 many lawyers equally able and learned with those on the other side. It is the 

 lesson of our whole history from the time of the Louisiana Purchase, made by 

 the greatest of all the strict constructionists, that when a great national need 

 has arisen, the provisions of the Constitution have been found to be ample to 

 safeguard the nation. In academic constitutional discussions, the general wel- 

 fare clause is but little regarded. When practical need arises, it is realized 

 that the wise and cautious statesmen who debated almost every word of our 

 great instrument of government, did not insert those words for mere verbiage. 

 They knew what some lesser interpreters of the Constitution seem to forget, 



