A NEW MENACE TO FORESTRY 



647 



The wood technologist studies how to utilize wood more 

 efficiently. His problem is not one merely of testing 

 standard materials. The qualities of wood are very 

 closely related to the manner in which the trees grow, to 

 their age, their location, their varietal differences, etc. 

 The methods of handling wood, the changes in grades, the 

 utilization of lower grades in place of the higher classes 

 that are becoming exhausted, are problems that cannot 

 be separated from the forest itself. And the same thing 

 is tru of those industrial studies that do not pertain pri- 

 marily to statistics of prices, stocks, and distribution of 

 lumber. The Forest Service has been successful in these 

 studies because of its knowledge of the forest. They are 

 essential not only in the handling of the public forests, 

 but also in the work of extending the practice of forestry 

 to privately owned land. They bear the same relation 

 to the application of forestry as the studies being made by 

 the Department in farm economics bear to the building up 

 of agriculture. The separation of the Madison Labora- 

 tory from the Forest Service would be as disastrous as 

 separating from it the silvicultural investigations. 



* * 



The foregoing are specific reasons, and they might be 

 expanded indefinitely, against the proposed transfer. Un- 

 derlying the whole matter, however, is the question of the 

 point of view and of the objectives in handling the for- 

 est problems of the Government. In each department 

 of the Government there is a characteristic point of view 

 in regard to public problems. Thus in the Department 

 of Commerce the chief interest will always be centered on 

 commerce and industry. If that department should take 

 over the Forest Service there would be a tendency to ap- 

 proach the forest problems from the standpoint of lumber 

 production and of other industrial questions, rather than 

 from that of constructive land utilization and the building 

 up of our rural life. It is not a derogation of the War 

 Department to say that if the Forest Service were under 

 its supervision a military point of view might dominate 

 the policies of handling the National Forests in the long 

 run. The same principle holds good for the Interior De- 

 partment. Its attitude towards the public lands is the re- 

 sult of a century of disposing of the public domain. It is 

 well known that this department has not been in sympa- 

 thy with the enlargement of the National Forests or with 

 many of the policies of the Forest Service. It has fav- 

 ored a wider application to the public forests of the old 

 principles of handling the public domain. Certainly the 

 expressed attitude of the present Secretary of the In- 

 terior in many matters relating to the resources of the Na- 

 tional Forests is far from reassuring to the public, in 

 considering any plan by which these properties might be 

 placed in his charge. 



The suggestion is now made that under the proposed 

 reorganization the point of view of the engineer would be 

 dominant in the Interior Department. What is essential 

 in forestry is the point of view of the forester, the agricul- 

 tural economist, and rural organizer, and not of the en- 

 gineer. Again it is a question of point of view as well as 



of technical knowledge. In this respect the problem of 

 forestry may be as foreign to the experience of the en- 

 gineer as of the public-land lawyer. Even if technical 

 questions are left out of consideration, the danger of in- 

 troducing a new point of view in land classification of the 

 public forests, in the grazing administration, and perhaps 

 in the character of the personnel of the Service, would be 

 very great. 



The Forest Service has succeeded after many years 

 in establishing stable and consistent policies and methods 

 \in handling the National Forests. These are understood 

 and accepted by the great mass of people using the For- 

 ests. Any radical change in the organization of the Serv- 

 ice would inevitably mean changes of policy. It would 

 reopen many vexatious questions that have been satisfac- 

 torily settled. It would have a serious effect on the suc- 

 cess and permanence of the whole National Forest Policy. 

 This in turn would have its effect on the forestry move- 

 ment throughout the country. 



* * 



The service of public forests to the Nation depends on 

 keeping their administration entirely free from politics. 

 The Forest Service is a large organization and its mem- 

 bers are scattered widely throughout the country. Indi- 

 vidual forest officers have large responsibilities in hand- 

 ling the various resources on the Forests, in the disposal 

 of timber, in the employment of labor for various pur- 

 poses, and in the allotment of privileges for the grazing 

 of live stock, for the free use of timber and for other 

 purposes. It is essential that the forest officers be men 

 of integrity ; they must be men wholly uninfluenced by any 

 considerations other than impartial justice and a spirit of 

 public service. It is easy to conceive that a large or- 

 ganization of men whose work affects so many people in a 

 material way could have a powerful political influence, if 

 the element of politics were injected into the administra- 

 tion. It is perfectly clear that if politics were a factor 

 at all, there would be a grave danger of favoritism, of the 

 appointment of inefficient men, and a let down in stan- 

 dards of work. The result would inevitably be the un- 

 dermining of public cofllfi^lence and ultimately the break 

 down of the whole system. Fortunately the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture is free from political considerations 

 in its personnel and work. When the public forests were 

 under the Interior Department the entire personnel was 

 political and the administration notoriously inefficient. 

 Theoretically the question of politics ought not to be a 

 consideration in the present problem. Unfortunately the 

 question counts in a very big way and it has an important 

 bearing upon the proposed transfer of the Forest Serv- 

 ice from the Department of Agriculture. 



It is imperative from the standpoint of the success of 

 the forestry movement and the service of the National 

 Forests to the country that the Forest Service be retained 

 in the Department of Agriculture where it is free from 

 politics, where it has already won wide public confidence, 

 and where it is in a position to go forward with stable 

 policies that have been approved by the country at large. 



