MICHIGAN'S FIGHT FOR FORESTS 



751 



products, woodlots, and the exploitation of alleged 

 farm lands, in phrasing still pertinent for most states 

 and for the nation. The Association's efforts concen- 

 trated on fire and the state's methods of handling the 

 tax-reverted lands thrown overboard by the lumber- 

 men. The resolutions of 1907 recite that within five 

 years over 800,000 acres of such tax-reverted lands 

 have been sold by the state for about a dollar an acre, 

 have been bought for the little timber left on them, 

 skinned and thrown back to the fires and the re- 

 peddling agencies of the State Land Office. 



"Let Them Theorists Rave!" 



In 1908, at Battle Creek, the Association staged a 

 protest meeting against the Game, Fish and Fire War- 

 den, alleging incompetence and negligence. Such im- 

 putations were stoutly denied by the Lansing worthies 

 who promptly pointed out that the legislature had al- 

 ways regarded game and fish policing as more im- 

 portant than fire and that the appropriations were 

 wholly inadequate for either line of work. Why blame 

 the officials when the system was at fault ? 



They got away with it. They continued to get away 

 with it until about 1919. First they pretended that they 

 were doing "everything possible with the funds avail- 

 able"; then they wrote fire reports which preposter- 

 ously minimized the damages done by fire. Having 

 killed their case in advance, the fire appropriations re- 

 mained inadequate and the old alibi w^s good for an- 

 other year. There was much mean work in fighting 

 fire, but in the game and fish organization was con- 

 siderable pie: "Let them theorists rave on!" 



The 1908 fire season was very bad and the losses 

 were tremendous and included the town of Metz. The 

 Fire Warden's report for that year is a curiosity even 

 among Michigan fire documents. Over 2,000,000 acres 

 are acknowledged to have been burned over. Total 

 damages are put at about a dollar an acre. "Benefits" 

 from the fires are solemnly listed, county by county 

 and total a quarter million dollars. The land has been 

 made easier for settlers to clear! A chapter on "Ex- 

 travagant Estimates of Damages" attends to Professor 

 Roth and the Forestry Association campaigners by 

 suggesting that such reports Virere written "from a 

 parlor car on a fast train or a first-class hotel." Any- 

 way, the Fire Warden notes, the fires of 1871, 1881 

 and 1894 were a whole lot worse than those of 1908 

 so there ! A single well hidden paragraph vaguely 

 suggests that perhaps a better fire-fighting organiza- 

 tion will sometime become available. 



With all its drums beating, the Forestry Association 

 attacked the next legislature and succeeded in getting 

 appointed an official "Inquiry Into Tax Lands and 

 Forestry." The report is a queer hodge-podge of un- 

 supported allegation and poignant fact. The state's 

 land affairs are rotten, it is charged ; graft and the 

 exploitation of agriculturally worthless lands and tim- 

 ber-skinning have become notorious and intolerable. 



Insiders Spike the Forestry Bill 



The Forestry Association put in and urged a bill. 

 The old-line insiders spiked that bill and let it go 

 through. The Public Domain Commission, consisting . 

 of Secretary of State, Auditor General, Superintendent 

 of Education and representatives from the governing 

 boards of the University, Agricultural College and 

 School of Mines, is created and given jurisdiction over 

 state tax lands, state forests, waters and immigration. 

 Game, fish and fire administration remains in the hands 

 of a Governor-appointed warden. The law required 

 that the Commission maintain at least 200,000 acres 

 of state forests. 



The Forestry Association was inclined to regard the 

 Public Domain Commission as its legitimate child and 

 seems quite to have expected to take it by the hand 

 and lead it into pleasant places. But the event was 

 quite otherwise. Having absorbed the functions of the 

 old Forestry Commission, about the first thing the new 

 Commission did was to lay off the State Forest War- 

 den and all his works. A crisis was precipitated in 

 the affairs of the University's forestry department. 

 Professor Mulford resigned to accept the chair of 

 forestry at the new Cornell school. Professor Roth 

 was left to teach a hundred students single-handed. 

 The Forestry Association became disgusted and let 

 that be known abroad, but nobody of any importance 

 seems to have cared a bit. 



Then Professor Roth resigned to return to Cornell. 

 The regents calmly attempted to find a successor, dis- 

 covered something as to the standing of their forestry 



THE GA.ME AND FIRE WARDEN HAD DISCOVERED THAT 



THE GAME AND FUR ANIMALS ABSOLUTELY REQUIRE 



GREEN FOREST COVERT. 



