EDITORIAL 



171 



water used to generate electricity. The 

 experts who serve the great corpora- 

 tions know this. The people at large 

 do not. Now, obviously, is the time, 

 the psychological moment, to find these 

 water powers, buy them cheap or get 

 them without buying, and hold them, 

 using such as it may now be profitable 

 to use, but taking good care that the 

 unused ones are in safe hands. Such 

 investments, wisely managed, will pay 

 from the start ; and, when the fuel fam- 

 ine becomes acute, will be so many 

 diamond mines. 



& & X 



Why Governments Should Act 



DOCTOR HALE again drove home, 

 at the annual meeting, the fact that 

 there are special and peculiar reasons 

 why governments, State and National, 

 in contradistinction to individuals and 

 corporations, should invest in forest 

 property and maintain it on forestry 

 principles. 



The first reason is that States, un- 

 like individuals, do not usually die. 

 Ancient nations, it is true, fell, and 

 Poland was divided among her ene- 

 mies ; yet, in any practical view, such 

 facts may be disregarded. The United 

 States, as a nation, and the several 

 states which compose it may, for all 

 ordinary purposes, be conceived of as 

 henceforth co-existent with the ever- 

 lasting hills. Unlike individuals, there- 

 fore, who demand early returns say 

 eight years hence, at farthest the 

 State may properly and profitably make 

 an investment whose return will be 

 many years deferred. 



The State need be in no hurry for re- 

 turns, inasmuch as it has other re- 

 sources ; furthermore, it knows that 

 when the period necessary to mature its 

 investment has elapsed, be that period 

 long or short, its need for revenues will 

 be as real as to-day. 



Not only will its need for revenues 

 be as real ; it will be as great and 

 greater. For life assumes growth, and 

 growth implies increased need, and 

 power of consumption. Populations 

 wax; public institutions multiply: in- 

 5 



creased wants, in countless ways, fore- 

 seeable and unforeseeable, constantly 

 present themselves to organized society. 

 As Governor Hadley, of Missouri, re- 

 cently said, instead of that government 

 being best which governs least, "It is 

 admitted by all fair-minded men that 

 that government is best which governs 

 most, when that government is justly 

 and fairly administered." 



Governor Hadley also declared that 

 "The most important question before 

 the people in this country to-day is the 

 question of taxation. It is the basis of 

 organized society. It is through the 

 revenue derived from taxation that our 

 courts are maintained, our educational 

 institutions are preserved and the care 

 of our unfortunates is made possible." 



The list of objects of expenditure 

 named by Governor Hadley is modest. 

 Further, judging the future by the past, 

 the expenditures of organized society 

 to-day are meager in comparison with 

 those which will be made a generation 

 hence. And, as the experience of Eu- 

 ropean countries and Japan conclusively 

 proves, a splendid source of public reve- 

 nue may be found in the forests, pub- 

 licly owned and administered on for- 

 estry principles. What policy, then, 

 could be more sane and practical than 

 to begin now to provide for the future ? 



This is the view in which bond issues 

 in time of peace if no other means be 

 found- are abundantly justifiable as a 

 present basis for forest conservation. 



Doctor Hale also pointed out that the 

 State can protect its forest property, 

 while the individual cannot protect his. 

 The State can pass laws forbidding 

 carelessness in the use of fire, as by 

 campers, hunters, smokers, brush-burn- 

 ers, railroad companies and the like, 

 and it can enforce, the laws by arrest 

 and punishment. The individual can do 

 none of these things. At the Biltmore 

 estate where, because of the largeness 

 of the property and the scientific and 

 business talent employed in its-manage- 

 ment, private ownership is displayed at 

 its best, it is freely conceded that the 

 owner, in endeavoring to protect his 

 forests against fire, labors under a 



