1908 EDITORIAL 



179 



even patience, upon such a measure as IK- exclaimed sarcastically: "What 



the Appalachian-White Mountain Bill, is to become of post I < h. the 



The Secretary of the American For- natural resources are being destroyed ! 



estry Association has addressed a let- In forty or fifty years we are t<> fn 



ter to Hon. John J. Jenkins, chairman to death because there is \r, m< 



of the House Committee on Judiciary, and there will be no more lumber, no 



reminding- him of his promise made at more timber. Burning the candl- 



the hearing before that committee on both ends! I suppose we ought to 



February 27 that the measure would freeze now, that fifty years from now 



be promptly considered, and asking they may have something to warm 



him when a report could be expected. th< "lie expressed his faith that 



The Chairman replies he cannot tell. the Caucasian race would find some 



way to meet conditions which may 



Pessimism A correspondent writes : arise, and declared that he was not 



Y s -. 'T do not believe any as- "losing sleep." 



sociation or individual I" closing, he thought it "neces- 

 can do anything toward the protection sary" for lumbermen "to pursue a dif- 

 of the forests. They are bound to go, ferent policy toward the preservation 

 in this country, even down to the rail- of your holdings in the forest : that in- 

 road ties and prop timbers. Assess- stead of cutting it clean, you should 

 ments are so high that no one can be more careful about the cutting." 

 afford to hold them to grow up into But added: "You will do it becau-e 

 timber again. I have no sympathy it is to your interest to do it. and that 

 with the movement at all." is greater than anything else. It is 



Over against this should be put the greater than law." 



speech made by Speaker Cannon be- Between the pessimism of our cr- 



fore the National Wholesale Lumber respondent and the "optimism" of 



Dealers' Association in Washington Speaker Cannon, the reader may take 



on the I2th. his choice. The chief difference be- 



Mr. Cannon declared himself to be tween the two is that the latter is in 

 "an optimist." He ridiculed the idea the place of power. He sees no oc- 

 that our forests are facing destruction, casion for anxiety, and no ground for 

 He scorned the notion that special ef- action by the community thr. nigh it- 

 fort should be made to conserve our agency called government. For such 

 natural resources. He sneered at slight corrections as may be necessary, 

 "men who make reputation in public he relies wholly upon cold-blooded 

 life, in departmental life, in legislative self-interest and unregulated individ- 

 life, by denouncing the criminal waste- ual initiative. In so far as this speech 

 fulness touching the destruction of the is an index, his political economy is 

 forests," and added: "I sometimes that of a hundred years age, as voiced 

 hear them talk; I sometimes wonder by David Ricardo : Laisses fair e, each 

 how much they know." for himself, self-interesl the grand 



He described his early pioneer life automatic regulator of our whole in- 

 in Wabash County, Indiana, when it dustrial mechanism! Is it any won- 

 was necessary to clear thr> forests to der the Appalachian bill finds rooks in 

 provide land for farming: and then the channel through which it mu-t 

 inquired: "Is there a man here * * * travel? 

 who would put us back to fifty " \fter us the del- 

 years ago. when there was nothing "I suppose we ought t :e now, 

 but the wild beasts and the adventur- that fifty years from now they may 

 ous pioneer to be found in that vast have something to warm them." 

 domain known as the Northwest Ter- The world has not yet 'he 

 ritory. that would turn the hands back speech of !.,.->- XV. to Pompadour. 

 up; in the dial fifty or sixty years Perhaps this ,-h c,f Speaker Can- 

 age,?" noil'- ma;. ' rove historic. 



