EDITORIAL 



ARKANSAS SUPPORTS THE NATIONAL FORESTS 



THE recent Legislature of Arkansas passed an Act 

 authorizing the Federal Government to acquire 

 by purchase lands within the State for National 

 Forest purposes. This is simply another indication of the 

 changing attitude towards National Forests in the West. 

 Two National Forests were established in Arkansas sev- 

 eral years ago, and ever since have been the butt of fierce 

 attacks on the part of various congressmen from that 

 State who sought to have them abolished and thrown open 



to settlement and timber exploitation. Congress did not 

 yield to this pressure, and examinations showed that the 

 lands were not fitted for agriculture. Where any doubt 

 existed as to this classification, the areas were eliminated. 

 By this recent action the people of Arkansas have at last 

 placed the stamp of approval on the Forest administration. 

 The law will enable the government to acquire much- 

 needed areas within the forest boundaries and consolidate 

 them for fire protection and the production of timber. 



A VISITATION AND A MORAL 



THE memory of the terrors of the Hinckley and 

 Bandetti fires did more to prevent the passage of 

 the Public Domain bill in the Minnesota Legisla- 

 ture, with its proposed disruption of the State Forest Ser- 

 vice, than all other factors combined. As this is written, 

 the State is again in the grip of the fire fiend. The dan- 

 gers of these violent conflagrations, driven by the wind 

 through the tops of trees, is extreme, wherever the coun- 

 try is comparatively flat and densely covered with timber 

 or slash. They resemble the disastrous fires which at 

 intervals destroy large districts in our big cities, in spite 

 of the most thorough preparation and the high efficiency 

 of the fire departments in those communities. 



Perhaps this series of conflagrations will serve to 

 impress still more firmly upon the public mind that the 

 State Forester's Department must be kept as it is, abso- 

 lutely free from politics, and furnished with the necessary 

 funds and support to maintain at least the skeleton of an 

 organization for controlling fire in the vast timber areas 

 of northern Minnesota. Where short-sighted policy per- 



mits this department to become the prey of spoilsmen, in 

 that day the efficiency of the service ceases, and citizens 

 of the north country are left to their own devices to cope, 

 without direction or plan, with this monstrous enemy. 



The State Legislature, through the action of the 

 Senate, refused to sanction the restoration of the appro- 

 priations of the Forestry Department to the sum of 

 $75,000 from which they were reduced two years ago to 

 half that amount. The overburdened state rangers, each 

 one with over a million acres of territory to supervise, 

 cannot possibly cope with the extreme danger of a dry 

 season without more help. Yet recently the work and 

 responsibilities of these men were greatly increased by 

 imposing upon them duties formerly exercised by the 

 surveyor generals of logs and lumber in order to save 

 the State money. 



If the State of Minnesota ever expects to be freed 

 from the recurring blight of forest fires, it must be through 

 the strengthening and upbuilding of her State Forestry 

 Department, as at present constituted. 



COLORADO REDEEMS HERSELF 



A POLICY so utterly opposed to the pioneer spirit 

 of individualism as that set forth in the reserva- 

 tion and development of the National Forests was 

 certain to arouse bitter opposition in the West. New 

 ideas are not received cordially when they threaten to 

 interfere with cherished personal privileges and business 

 opportunities. Here was a plan apparently worthy to be 

 classed as a product of the brain of some utterly imprac- 

 tical theorist. The Government actually proposed, in all 

 seriousness, to set aside immense areas of public land 

 as " Forest Reserves," for purposes but dimly compre- 

 hended, except that it was evident that no more timber 

 claims could be located, nor " homesteads " filed on for 

 the purpose of acquiring title to timber. For a while, even 

 mining claims were prohibited, and grazing was prevented 

 as being injurious to the forest. 

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Western people, imbued with the spirit of liberty and 

 optimism, and impatient of restraint, accustomed to regard 

 public lands as the great field for exploitation and 

 development upon which the further progress of the 

 states depended, instinctively protested against this 

 policy, and this opposition was especially strong and 

 bitter in Colorado. 



But the founders of the National Forest policy were 

 more far-seeing than the representatives of the pioneer 

 area which was already passing. They realized the evils 

 of unrestricted private ownership, especially its efifect 

 upon the forests. They considered the effect of the forest 

 cover upon the flow of water for irrigation, and the neces- 

 sity for regulating the grazing upon these lands. Theirs 

 was a new vision, of a future era when cooperation and 

 the recognition of the rights of all classes of citizens would 



