CHAPTER XXI 



A Tree for a Tree 



The part of every good citizen. 



There are two ways of handling any great public 

 problem — Revolution and Evolution. Small groups 

 of people are continually planning to cure all the 

 world's evils by a sudden cataclysmic change, 

 wiping out all the old and beginning upon an 

 entirely new basis. They become quite adept at 

 destruction, but the mind that is big enough to con- 

 struct a complete government, or even, in the pres- 

 ent complicated commercial system of the world, to 

 evolve in its entirety a permanent forest policy for 

 the United States, has not yet been discovered. 



"Keep out fire and plant trees!" That is easy 

 enough to say. "It is not up to us; let the federal 

 government and the states do it." Democratic 

 government will not, and cannot, take action unless 

 a united public opinion demands it. Two compre- 

 hensive forestry bills have already been introduced 

 in Congress but without favorable result. Why? 

 Because as to methods of regulating the lumber 



183 



