io PROCEEDINGS OP THE 



methods by any other means. I believe most emphat- 

 ically in sentiment, but I want the sentiment to be put 

 into cooperation with the business interests, and that 

 is what is being done. The policy is one of helpfulness 

 throughout, and never of hostility or coercion toward 

 any legitimate interest whatever. In the very nature 

 of things it can make little progress apart from you. 

 Whatever it may be possible for the Government to 

 accomplish, its work must ultimately fail unless your 

 interest and support give it permanence and power. It 

 is only as the producing and commercial interests of 

 the country come to realize that they need to have trees 

 growing up in the forest no less than they need the 

 product of the trees cut down, that we may hope to 

 see the permanent prosperity of both safely secured. 



This statement is true not only as to forests in 

 private ownership, but as to the national forests as 

 well. Unless the men from the West believe in forest 

 preservation the western forests cannot be preserved. 

 We here at the headquarters of the National Govern- 

 ment recognize that absolutely. We believe, we know, 

 that it is essential for the well-being of the people of 

 the states of the great plains, the states of the Rockies, 

 the states of the Pacific slope, that the forests shall be 

 preserved, and we know also that our belief will count 

 for nothing unless the people of those states themselves 

 wish to preserve the forests. If they do we can help 

 materially ; we can direct their efforts, but we cannot 

 save the forests unless they wish them to be saved. 



I ask, with all the intensity that I am capable, that 

 the men of the West will remember the sharp distinc- 

 tion I have just drawn between the man who 

 skins the land and the man who develops the 

 country. I am going to work with, and only with, 

 the man who develops the country. I am against the 



