706 



CONSERVATION 



He repeats that such a transfer 

 would, of course, be opposed by Mr. 

 Pinchot, but he opines that if "Secre- 

 tary Ballinger believes in the transfer 

 and says so, it is a reasonably safe 

 guess the President will urge Congress 

 to authorize the change." 



All of which, of course, is refreshing. 



From the tone of the article, one 

 might imagine the writer looked upon 

 such a transfer as in the line of a nat- 

 ural evolution. 



Whether or not he knows it, how- 

 ever, the evolution is in exactly the op- 

 posite direction. On February i, 1905, 

 the administration of the Forest Re- 

 serves, hitherto in the Land Office of 

 the Department of the Interior, was 

 transferred to the Secretary of Agri- 

 culture and turned over to the Forest 

 Service. 



As everybody knows, who knows 

 anything about it, this step was one of 

 the most momentous and beneficent ever 

 taken in the history of Government 

 land or forest administration. 



Hitherto the Government forests had 

 been in charge of men who knew noth- 

 ing about forests, while the trained for- 

 esters were in the Agricultural Depart- 

 ment, where they had little or nothing 

 to do with forests. The act above 

 quoted brought the forests and forest- 

 ers together,, where, of course, they had 

 from the first belonged, and the results 

 have amply justified the move. 



But now comes the Portland Ore- 

 gonian, which ranks along with several 

 Denver papers in opposition to conser- 

 vation policies, and proposes that the 

 Government beat a retreat. 



Again, the Washington Post recently 

 published an editorial to show that the 

 Interior Department is doomed to dis- 

 appear. With the appropriation of the 

 public lands by settlers, the work of 

 the Land Office will be finished. The 

 Reclamation Service belongs with the 

 Agricultural Department ; the Pension 

 Office, with the Bureau of Commerce 

 and Labor, and so on. But the Ore- 

 gonian would reverse this process and 

 build up the Interior Department at 

 the expense of the Department of Agri- 

 culture. 



The suggestion that the Forest Serv- 

 ice "be placed on an equal footing with 

 the Land Office, and under the control 

 of the same Cabinet officer" should 

 arouse enthusiasm in certain quarters. 

 The general standing of the Land Of- 

 fice is such that the Forest Service 

 should feel proud of such company. 



Within a week, an employee in the 

 Land Office has been heard to remark, 

 unchallenged, in the presence of other 

 employees of the same office, that in 

 the course of a recent vacation trip it 

 had been impossible to discover any- 

 body who regarded any one connected 

 with the Land Office as above sus- 

 picion. 



Members of the force of that office 

 are, of course, equal in point of hon- 

 esty with other people, and many, if 

 not most of them, sympathize with the 

 Pinchot policy ; but that such an opinion 

 as above expressed should have gained 

 prevalence is a sad commentary upon 

 "Land Office methods" with which the 

 country has become all too familiar. 



The notion that the Forest Service 

 has nothing in common with the other 

 work of the Agricultural Department is 

 characteristic of the view of the timber- 

 thieving, resource-plundering class. 



The idea of raising successive crops 

 of timber on a forest, as a farmer raises 

 successive crops of grain on a field is, 

 of course, quite beyond them. 



With them, timber harvesting is sim- 

 ply a matter of "once and out ;" and 

 that "once" for the individual as against 

 the public. Government control, under 

 the Pinchot management, discourages 

 this process, hence their antagonism. 



That Secretary Ballinger and his con- 

 stituents are supposed to be backing 

 this transfer should be enough. With 

 the record that officer has already made, 

 one may guess the result of his control 

 of National Forests. 



Let these once be committed to the 

 tender mercies of his department, to 

 which the principles of scientific for- 

 estry are unknown, and the public do- 

 main is but spoil for individuals, and 

 the looters will once more have their 

 innings. 



