THE FOREST RESERVES 121 



^Hhe Interior made this appeal for legislation; and Cleveland, in his 

 second annual message said, "I concur with the secretary that ade- 

 quate protection be provided for our forest reserves, and that a com- 

 prehensive forestry system be inaugurated."* In 1893, the Secretary 

 of Agriculture complained of the wasteful lumbering and destructive 

 fires on the forest reserves,® and the following year the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science adopted a resolution 

 lling for better administration and protection. 



Criticism of the inaction of Congress was accompanied by definite 

 ggestions as to the best methods of protection. Perhaps no proposal 

 is more often urged than that of somehow linking up the forest 

 service with the military service of the United States. In 1890, the 

 Secretary of War had complied with the request of the Secretary of 

 the Interior that troops be sent to the protection of some of the na- 

 tional parks in California, and each year for several years thereafter, 

 troops had been detached for this purpose.^*' In 1894, Secretary of the 

 Interior Hoke Smith and Commissioner Lamoreux called upon the 

 Secretary of War for troops to protect the new forest reserves against 

 fires and other encroachments, particularly against the sheep men, 

 who sometimes did great damage to the forests by setting out fires 

 to improve the grazing for their flocks. The acting Secretary of War 

 declined to make the details, however, basing his refusal upon the 

 opinion of the acting judge advocate general of the army, that the 

 employment of troops in such cases and under the circumstances 

 described by the Secretary of the Interior, not being expressly author- 

 ized by the constitution or by act of Congress, would be unlawful. 

 Perhaps this decision was justified by a strict interpretation of ex- 

 isting laws, although it seems that the law of 1827 authorizing the 

 President to take proper measures to preserve the live oak timber on 

 the public lands, might have been stretched to include the protection 

 of timber generally without subverting the government. Certain it 

 is that this decision prohibited the adoption of a very economical and 

 efficient means of timber protection. 



8 Report, I-and Office, 1893, 27. 



9 Report, Sec. of Agriculture, 1893, 31. 



10 Report, Sec. of Int., 1893, LX. 



