EDITORIAL 



249 



tirely different. We have learned now 

 that our national resources in forests 

 are not inexhaustible and that the high- 

 est scientific skill must be used to foster 

 the supply. There are large areas of 

 land suited only for forest production 

 .and in no respect adapted to agricultu- 

 ral purposes which can add to the 

 wealth of the nation only by growing 

 forests. It is perfectly well understood 

 that the growing of forests in these 

 mountains offers too many difficulties 

 for the private owner and will only be 

 carried on by the state or the nation, 

 and that if they are not so managed and 

 controlled, they will fall into the hands 

 of great corporations which will exploit 

 them for immediate profit and thereby 

 the permanent interests of the nation 

 will suffer. And this suffering falls 

 most on the people of those states in 

 which the forests are situated, and 

 which are necessarily the most direct 

 beneficiaries of the many blessings the 

 forests can bestow upon the people in 

 whose territory they lie. The Chieftain 

 goes on to admit this point and states 

 the case very clearly. 



But it has been a defect of the land laws 

 that they have tended toward the creation of 

 monopolies. This is not true of agricultural 

 lands, because the nature of their use and 

 occupation has made it difficult to keep large 

 holdings in individual ownership, and the 

 tendency has been rather to break up large 

 holdings, where these existed, into smaller 

 farms. 



But with the mines and the forests the 

 case has been different, and the mines and 

 the forests and lands not suitable for farm- 

 ing have increased greatly in relative impor- 

 tance in recent years. This is especially 

 true of the coal fields, of the oil fields, of the 

 water powers, and of other resources that 

 lend themselves easily to single ownership in 

 large bodies and that increase rapidly in 

 value without the expenditure of money for 

 their maintenance or development. 



The conservation movement owes its 

 initiation and its strength to the knowledge 

 that the national resources are in serious 

 danger of waste, of depletion, of extortionate 

 exploitation, and that the only remedy for 

 these imminent dangers must be found in 

 such a modification .of the land laws as will 

 give the people of the nation, acting through 

 the government, power to protect themselves 

 from these evils. 



For many reasons the conservation move- 

 ment might be better left in the hands of 

 the state governments, rather than in the 

 hands of the federal government, if it were 

 not for the fact that in many cases the states 

 themselves are held in the power of precisely 

 the powers and influences against which it 

 is necessary to guard the people's inheritance. 

 In some western states it would be nothing 

 more than a farce to turn the coal lands, the 

 water powers and other resources over to the 

 state legislatures for protection, when the 

 majority of the members of those legislatures 

 are customarily elected and controlled by the 

 big corporations of those states. 



That it is entirely possible to conserve 

 the national resources in such a way as to 

 prevent monopoly and at the same time to 

 secure the original purpose of the land laws, 

 is not a matter of doubt, for it has been de- 

 monstrated by the very effective work that 

 has already been done. 



The objects of the conservation movement 

 ought to include a reasonable use and devel- 

 opment of the national resources, and this 

 use should be equally free from the extor- 

 tions of a private monopoly and from the 

 service charges of the federal government. 



If by service charges of the federal 

 government, the Chieftain means rea- 

 sonable charges for use for grazing, 

 waterpowers, and so on- its view that 

 such charges are improper is an incor- 

 rect one. The government, the fed- 

 eral treasury, are not things apart and 

 served in and for themselves. The pay- 

 ments made for the use of the national 

 domain are for the benefit of the whole 

 people whose territory this is. Those 

 who derive the direct benefits of use 

 therefrom may fairly be expected to 

 pay to the people a fair compensation 

 for what they receive, as to any other 

 owner. We are slowly outgrowing the 

 idea that the nation through its govern- 

 ment can recognize any favored class 

 or individuals. This is a matter of 

 simple democracy and equity and not 

 tyranny, oppression or extortion. We 

 think that this is where some of our 

 western friends make their mistake. 

 They went out to open a new country 

 and everything was free and the work 

 of the pioneer was deserving of reward. 

 Rut the country has been built up and 

 large expenditures are being made by 

 the national government to develop it. 



