MAN'S SECOND FALL 



BY JOHN PRATT WHITMAN 



"Oh, what a fall there was, my countrymen; 

 Then you and I, and all the world fell down." 



Julius Caesar. 



ONE large full grown tragedy facing America is the 

 destruction of her forests. A leading publisher 

 and consumer of white paper has stated that fifty 

 years will see the end of these proud emblems of Ameri- 

 can freedom. 



"I love thy woods and templed hills." How much do 

 we love them? That is the question. From a study of 

 the public's affection in 

 this direction it would 

 appear that the dollars 

 which the lumber brings 

 are dearer than any 

 sentimental emotion 

 aroused. Here we are 

 singing our delight in 

 the trees, while lumber- 

 men and pulp manufac- 

 turers are sawing off the 

 limb on which we are 

 depending. Presently the 

 bough will break and 

 down comes the cradle 

 of liberty and all. 



"Of all the dear old 

 pictures that hang on 

 memory's wall the one 

 of the grand old forest 

 seemeth the best of all," 

 wrote Phoebe Cary. The 

 time is not far distant 

 when we shall be com- 

 pelled to go to memory's 

 wall as the only place 

 where any view of the 

 grand old forest can be 

 seen. 



A terrible dilemma 

 con fronts newspaper and magazine publishers as well as 

 poets, advertisers, and creators of the funny supple- 

 ment. We are all wildly trying to build up circulation 

 and to be read. We give prizes, make rates, push sales 

 in every possible way. In consequence the United States 

 uses half of the world's white paper, and makes enough 

 paper pulp to create a pile four feet wide and eight feet 

 high forty-five hundred miles long yearly, a mushy path 

 from Boston to Honolulu, and then some. No less than 

 thirty billion feet of lumber go into paper while seventy 

 billion feet are used up for other purposes, and the news- 

 boy shouts with all the energy of his practiced lungs, 

 "ex-tree ! ex-tree !" 



To people who live in cities, and most Americans do, 

 ibis forest question is remote, and is often looked upon 



POSTERITY FACES DENUDED, ERODED SLOPES AND DESERT 

 WASTES IN PLACE OF THE "WOODS AND TEMPLED HILLS" 

 OF AMERICA, THE BEAUTIFUL 



as sentimental. They can grumble about high rents and 

 the difficulty of procuring lumber, without connecting 

 such shortage with actual growing trees. The difficulty 

 of impressing urbanites, therefore, with the seriousness 

 of a timber shortage is large for those who feel per- 

 sonally and keenly the approaching forest disaster. 



If it were possible for public libraries and theatres to 

 post signs stating that it is now impossible for Shakes- 

 peare's "As You Like It," with its scenes in the forest 

 of Arden, to be produced or printed because of the lack 



of white paper depend- 

 ing upon trees for its 

 manufacture, or that 

 "A Midsummer Night's 

 Dream" could be seen or 

 read no more owing to 

 the destruction of the 

 American paper pro- 

 ducing spruce and pine 

 trees, the ease-loving 

 pleasure-seeking citizen 

 in the large metropolis 

 would perhaps take no- 

 tice. "We are sorry," 

 might announce one 

 large publisher, "but all 

 stories dealing with 

 Robin Hood and the 

 merry greenwood tree 

 have been taken from 

 our list of publications 

 because the merry green- 

 wood tree has been re- 

 duced to a stump, and 

 the sylvan dells to 

 parched fields and un- 

 mossed rocks." Indeed 

 such an announcement 

 would be a piece of in- 

 spirational dynamite suf- 

 ficient to jolt the easy optimists out of their chairs with 

 horrified faces turning toward the forestry situation. 



There are those who say there is to be a second fall 

 of man. The first great descent came, we are informed, 

 when human beings, then represented by Adam and Eve, 

 were driven out of the forest, bag and baggage. We 

 have ever since been struggling to win back some por- 

 tion of the bliss enjoyed by those first parents in their 

 honeymoon days spent in the Garden of Eden. Now 

 the time has come, say experienced theologians, when 

 forests are to be driven out from the abodes of men. 

 It is prophesied that woes upon woes will follow, and 

 the human being's burden doubled with the loss of the 

 Garden. "And it came to pass, that in those days the 

 Lord warned His people lest they destroy the great 



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