American Forest Congress ii 



land skinner every time. Our policy is consistent to 

 give to every portion of the public domain its highest 

 possible amount of use, and, of course, that can be 

 given only through the hearty cooperation of the west- 

 ern people. 



I would like to add one word as to the creation of a 

 national forest service which I have recommended 

 repeatedly in messages to Congress, and especially in 

 my last. I wish to see all the forest work of the 

 Government concentrated in the Department of 

 Agriculture. It is folly to scatter such work, 

 as I have said over and over again, and the policy 

 which this administration is trying to carry out through 

 the creation of such a service is that of making the 

 national forests more actively and more permanently 

 useful to the people of the West, and I am heartily 

 glad to know that the western sentiment supports more 

 and more vigorously the policy of setting aside national 

 forests, the creation of a national forest service, and 

 especially the policy of increasing the permanent use- 

 fulness of these forest lands to all who come in contact 

 with them. With what is rapidly getting to be a 

 practically unbroken sentiment in the West behind 

 such a forest policy, with what is rapidly getting to be 

 a practically unbroken support by the great staple 

 interests behind the general policy of the conservative 

 use of the forests, we have a right to feel that we have 

 entered on an era of great and lasting progress. Only 

 entered upon it ; much, very much, remains to be done ; 

 and as in every other department of human activity 

 our debt of gratitude will be due, not to the amiable 

 but shortsighted optimist who thinks you have made a 

 good beginning and the end may take care of itself; 

 still less to the man who sits at one side and says how 

 poorly the work is being done by those who are doing 



