EDITORIAL 



389 



ture in his estimates had asked for $200,000 for this 

 purpose, which was approved by the Senate. The House, 

 however, cut the item to $75,000, which was finally 

 raised in conference to the compromise sum of $125,000. 

 This co-operative fire protection fund has proved an 

 exceptionally effective means of stimulating State action 

 and bringing about improved fire protection in the 

 various co-operating States. No question exists as to the 

 value of the work performed and the returns received 

 upon investment. What is needed now is a larger ap- 

 propriation of at least a million dollars and the removal 

 of the present restriction limiting the use of the fund to 

 forest lands on the watersheds of navigable streams. 



Taking the Forest Service appropriation as a whole, 

 the most noteworthy fact is that it has remained prac- 

 tically stationary for years. This means that with con- 



stantly increasing costs for labor and for supplies and 

 equipment of all sorts, the work of National Forest ad- 

 ministration is being carried on with practically no in- 

 crease in funds. When the decreased purchasing power 

 of the dollar is taken into consideration, the work of the 

 National Forests is being conducted for approximately 

 half what it was a few years ago in spite of a constantly 

 increasing volume of work. To a considerable extent, 

 this handicap has been passed on to individual employees 

 in the form of relatively stationary and inadequate sal- 

 aries, which have failed to increase at all proportionately 

 to the increase in the cost of living. This situation can- 

 not continue indefinitely. Increased appropriations along 

 all lines are vital if the Forest Service is to retain its 

 effectiveness and the public property included in the 

 National Forests is to be efficiently administered. 



KENTUCKY'S DISGRACE 



THE great and sovereign State of Kentucky occupies 

 the unique but unenviable position of having offi- 

 cially abandoned, by deliberate legislative enactment, the 

 conservation of its forests. Once endowed by nature 

 with a forest domain of unusual richness, variety, and 

 magnitude, it had seen these forests dwindle in extent 

 and diminish in value and importance during the last 

 quarter of the nineteenth and the opening decade of the 

 twentieth century. Then it bestirred itself. It did a 

 splendid thing in a thorough-going and practical way. 

 In the spring of 1912 it enacted as complete and adequate 

 a forestry law as any in the country at that time. More- 

 over, it followed up that enactment by securing the 

 services of an experienced and technically trained 

 forester to make effective the forestry work the State 

 had set out to do. 



Now just eight years afterwards, lacking a day, we 

 find written on the statute books these words : 



"Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the Com- 

 monwealth of Kentucky : That * * * all laws now 

 in force relating to * * * the State Board of 

 Forestry * * * are hereby expressly repealed." 



Inasmuch as practically all previous forestry legisla- 

 tion has centered around the State Board of Forestry, 

 this sweeping provision effectively cripples the forest 

 work of the State. Among other things the authority to 

 organize and maintain a forest fire warden system ap- 

 pears to have been abolished. If this is so, the State has 

 forfeited its right to co-operation with the Federal 

 Forest Service in forest fire protection under the Weeks 

 Law. Organized forest fire protection by the State thus 

 becomes a thing of the past, and the development of 

 forest work along other lines is abandoned. 



In an apparent attempt to save its face and to ward 

 off some of the criticism to which it knew its action 

 would subject it, the Assembly adopted a last-minute 

 amendment to the repeal bill providing for a State 

 Forester under the Commissioner of Agriculture, Labor, 



and Statistics. The bill also carries a total appropria- 

 tion of $6000 for forestry work, $3000 of which is for 

 the salary of the State Forester. All property relating 

 to forestry, such as maps, reports, forestry library, 

 nursery stock, nursery utensils, and forest reserves (of 

 which there are none), are turned over to the care of the 

 Commissioner of Agriculture, who is to "take such steps 

 as may be necessary or expedient for their preservation," 

 in other words to provide for their safe keeping only. 



These provisions add an ironical touch to the death- 

 blow dealt by the Assembly to the forestry work of 

 Kentucky. A going concern is abolished, and in its 

 place is set up a dummy officially known as a State 

 Forester without authority and with a fund of $3000 

 to protect and develop the forest resources of a State 

 with some nine million acres of wooded lands! One of 

 the earliest pioneers in forestry south of the Mason and 

 Dixon Line thus proclaims its lack of interest in one of 

 its most important resources and sets a precedent which 

 it is to be hoped no other State will follow. 



It is difficult to believe that the action of the Assembly 

 represents the real sentiment of the people of Kentucky. 

 Petty partisan politics appear rather to be the cause of 

 so reactionary a step. It is significant that the State 

 Board of Forestry, which was created by a Democratic 

 administration, should have been so promptly abolished 

 by the Republicans on their accession to power some 

 eight years later. No serious charges of inefficiency 

 had been brought against either the Board of Forestry 

 or the State Forester, and even had such charges been 

 brought and substantiated, they would not have excused 

 any such drastic and illogical action as that taken by the 

 Assembly. Politics, .as played in America, has given 

 similar examples of "statesmanship" before, and offers 

 a more reasonable explanation of unreasonable legisla- 

 tion. How long will .the people sleep while the politicians 

 play? 



