4 PROCEEDINGS of THE 



It always takes time to get the mind of a people 

 accustomed to any change in conditions, and it took 

 a long time to get the mind of our people, as a whole, 

 accustomed to the fact that they had to alter their 

 attitude toward the forests. For the first time the 

 great business and the forest interests of the nation 

 have joined together, through delegates altogether 

 worthy of the organizations they represent, to consider 

 their individaul and their common interests in the 

 forest. This Congress may well be called a meeting 

 of forest users, for that the users of the forest come 

 together to consider how best to combine use with 

 preservation is the significant fact of the meeting, the 

 fact full of powerful promise for the forests of the 

 future. 



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 the forests and industries 

 both suffered from that failure. The suffering of the 

 industries in such case comes after the destruction 

 of the forests, but it is just as inevitable as that 

 destruction. If the forest is destroyed it is only a 

 question of a relatively short time before the business 

 interests suffer in consequence. All of you know 

 that there is opportunity in any new country for the 

 development of the type of temporary inhabitant whose 

 idea is to skin the country and go somewhere else. 

 You all know, and especially those of you from the 

 West, the individual whose idea of developing the 

 country is to cut every stick of timber off of it and 

 then leave a barren desert for the homemaker who 

 comes in after him. That man is a curse and not a 

 blessing to the country. The prop of the country 

 must be the business man who intends so to run his 



