oM 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



Without question the graves of those 800 innocent 

 men, women, and children ; and the scattered ashes of 

 those thousands of homes are a gruesome memorial to 

 the misplaced parsimony of the state legislature. It is 

 doubtful if the action of the legislature regarding pro- 

 tection from forest fires met with the approval of the 

 people in the past. It is certain that it will not be ap- 

 proved in the near future. We are fighting the greatest 

 war of the world as a protest against the unwise use of 

 arbitrary power in Germany ; how long must we put up 

 with it at home? 



The settlers who were burned out in this great fire 

 were tax payers. For what were those taxes paid if not 

 for fire protection ? It is almost all that some of them 

 can get. The argument has' been raised that protection 

 should be furnished for the state lands alone. It would 

 be a fine city fire department that would protect nothing 

 but the city hall. 



It is to be hoped that the people and the legislature of 

 Minnesota will now see the light. The old saying that 

 "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" is 

 nowhere more applicable than to a forest fire. 



PRESS COMMENTS ON THE FOREST FIRES 



IT is interesting and informing to note the reports and com- 

 ments on the forest fire disaster in the leading papers. 

 Condemning the parsimony of the Legislative body in Min- 

 nesota, the Minneapolis Journal says editorially : 



The Legislature of 1915 reduced the annual appropriation for 

 the Minnesota Forest Service from seventy-five thousand dol- 

 lars to forty thousand dollars. This was done by the Senate 

 Appropriations Committee in the face of the estimate of the 

 Service that the appropriation should be doubled, in order to 

 provide adequate protection from forest fires. 



Certain State Senators, however, desired to punish the Forest 

 Service for its share in securing the adoption by the people of 

 the Forestry Amendment, Number Nine, to the State Consti- 

 tution. It was speciously argued that the expense of fire pro- 

 tection should be paid by the lumber companies and the railroads, 

 and not by the State. Accordingly the appropriation was cut 

 almost in two. 



The Forest Service had planned to put a patrolman on each 

 ten townships in the dangerous districts, instead of one to 

 twenty-five townships as it had been doing. But the Legisla- 

 ture gave it only money enough to give each patrolman the 

 vast area of forty or forty-five townships to guard. 



The service had already demonstrated the value of its work 

 in fire prevention. Before its organization fire losses in Minne- 

 sota had averaged a million dollars a year, with occasional 

 disasters like the Hinckley and the Baudette fires, which not 

 only destroyed much property, but caused great loss of life. 

 Organized in 1909, the Forest Service had in six years prevented 

 any great conflagration, and in 1914 had held the property loss 

 down to sixty-one thousand dollars, although 265 fires broke out. 

 In the face of this showing and of the pleadings of Northern 

 Minnesota for better protection, the Legislature of 1915 per- 

 sisted in reducing the appropriation to a meager forty thousand 

 dollars a year. Commenting on this state of affairs, the 

 Journal on April 22, 1915, said : 



"It is to be hoped that, until another Legislature can act with 

 wisdom in protecting the forests, no great forest fire gets beyond 

 the control of the crippled Forest Service and destroys lives 

 and property." 



This hope was borne out, so far as fires were concerned. 

 There was no great disaster before the next Legislature met. 

 But that body showed no greater wisdom than its predecessor, 

 and in a spirit of false economy held the appropriation to fifty 

 thousand dollars a year. 



The terrible harvest of this legislative parsimony has now 

 been reaped in the fire stricken sections. A thousand useful 

 lives have been wiped out under appalling conditions. The 

 State of Minnesota saved a few thousand dollars, and now loses 

 perhaps as many millions. And the property losses fall, not on 

 the railroads and the lumber companies, but on the cities and 

 villages and heaviest of all on the poor settlers through this 

 region. The merchantable timber has mostly been cut from 

 these devastated lands, which were covered with dry brush, 

 slashings and other inflammable material. The Forest Service, 

 crippled fatally by legislative hostility, has been unable to detect 

 and stamp out fires as quickly as they broke out. 



The State of Minnesota and its citizens will now spend many 

 thousands of dollars for relief of the fire sufferers. The State 

 will lose, too, the taxes on the property that has been burned 

 up, and the products of the industries and the farms that have 

 been wiped out. 



Is it necessary for our Legislatures to learn wisdom at the 

 expense of such torture to human beings and such tremendous 

 property loss? Will the coming Legislature provide adequate 

 protection for the life and property in other regions of the North 

 Country now untouched, but quite as liable to disaster? 



And in its issue of October 17th, approving the plans of the 

 State for relief and protective measures, the Journal continues : 



The decision of the State Public Safety Commission to devote 

 all the funds remaining at its disposition, some $284,000, to the 

 pressing work of relief in the fire-swept districts, will of course 

 be generally approved. It was eminently the right thing to do 

 despite the fact that the Legislature foresaw no such use of the 

 money. But neither the last Legislature nor its predecessor 

 ever displayed any foresight with regard to the possibilities 

 of such disaster in Northern Minnesota. 



There is ample justification for the assertion in resolutions 

 adopted by the people of Hibbing and Stuntz, that the State of 

 Minnesota is "morally responsible" for the loss of life and 

 property, because it has never afforded adequate protection 

 against the constant menace of forest fires. The mass meeting 

 demanded that an extra session of the Legislature be called 

 at once to furnish immediate relief, to "set on their feet again 

 hundreds of settlers who have lost everything they had," and 

 to pass such laws and make such financial arrangements as will 

 prevent a recurrence of similar catastrophies, "a recurrence 

 which is absolutely certain, unless protection is afforded by this 

 State." 



With the provision of an immediately available fund by the 

 Public Safety Committee, supplemented by voluntary contri- 

 butions from all over the State, and with the new Legislature 

 scheduled to meet early in January, it is probably not necessary 

 to call an extra session at this time. But there is crying need 

 for comprehensive legislation that will provide not only for 

 adequate protection in future, but for the huge task of recon- 

 struction. 



If the State is morally responsible for what has happened, it 

 is only fair that the State should bear the entire financial bur- 

 den of what must be done. In this way the expense, duly spread 

 on the tax rolls, would be equitably distributed among the tax- 

 payers. It ought not to be necessary to ask the public, which 

 has already responded to numerous "drives" for war philan- 

 thropies, and which is soon to be called on to fill the "war 

 chest" for the coming year, to make these extra contributions 

 at this time. But the need is exigent, the public is deeply 

 touched by the tragic condition of the fire victims, and subscrip- 

 tions are already flowing in with increasing volume. There 

 is immediate use for every dollar. 



At the earliest opportunity the Legislature is bound to pro- 

 vide a fire department that will guard other large areas in the 

 North Country from similar visitations. Every city of any 

 account has a fire department to protect the lives and property 

 of its citizens. What possible excuse is there for the State to 

 do less for its citizens in the regions where forest fires are 

 an ever-present menace? 



The Philadelphia Inquirer lays the blame for the conflagration 

 to unprotected slashings, and says : 



So long as Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota continue to 

 leave their forests and pine-slashings unprotected, just so long 

 may great conflagrations like that of the last few days be 

 expected. They have been periodical since the white man began 

 his murderous onslaught on the pine trees, and will continue 

 until scientific care, such as the Federal Government exercises 

 over its own great reserves in the Far West, is enforced. 



Those who have traveled through the forests of the States 

 mentioned have been amazed that no greater damage has been 

 done. The seeker after pine or hemlock logs leaves behind him 

 all the materials for a first-class conflagration at any moment. 

 After a dry autumn, such as has been experienced this year, 

 there seems nothing for a fire to do but run its course. The 



