80 Canadian Forestry Journal. 



sized by the representatives of these industries. It was a signifi- 

 cant fact of the Congress that leading men in railway organiza- 

 tion, in lumbering and manufacturing enterprises, were 

 prepared to come to such a meeting and give time 

 and thought to the consideration of the forest supply, and showed 

 more clearly than anything else could do the demand and the rea- 

 son for the movement which the Congress represented. 



The meeting held in the National Theatre, which was pre- 

 sided over by Hon. Jas. Wilson, was an effort to reach a wider 

 constituency than could be influenced by the regular meetings (^f 

 the Forest Congress. An address by President Roosevelt was 

 sufficient to attract' an audience that filled the theatre. The Presi- 

 dent is not an orator, but he is a clear, forcible speaker, evidently 

 earnestly seized with the importance of the question with which 

 he is for the moment dealing and desirous of driving its truth 

 home to the minds of his hearers. 



" The producers, the manufacturers, and the great common 

 carriers of the nation had long failed to realize their true and vital 

 relation to the great forests of the United States, and forests and 

 industries both suffered from that failure. But the time of in- 

 difference and misunderstanding has gone by." 



" No man is a true lover of his country whose confidence ui 

 its progress and greatness is limited to the period of his own life, 

 and we c?innot afford, for one instant, to forget that our country 

 is only at the beginning of its growth. Unless the forests of the 

 United States can be made ready to meet the va^t demands which 

 this growth. |W;U1 inevitably bring, .corw^iercial disaster is inevit- 



able." ,:,:Soh 



M ",If the present rate of forest destruction is allowed to con- 

 tixm^ a timber famine is obviously inevitable. Fire, wasteful and 

 destructive forms of lumbering and legitimate use, are together 

 destroying our forest resources far more rapidly than they are be- 

 ing replaced." 



Such were some of the statements in which the President 

 expressed his views of the situation. But the anomaly, at leasl 

 to those used to a British form of government, is that, no matter 

 how strongly the executive may consider a certain course advis- 



