THE FOREST RESERVES 



123 



was authorized to detail troops to protect the reserves when neces- 

 sary; and, in the third place, provision was made for restoring to 

 entry any agricultural lands included within forest reserves. An 

 amendment inserted by the committee reporting the bill provided that 

 the section relating to the sale of timber should apply not only to the 

 forest reserves, but to all timber lands on the entire public domain/* 

 Although approved by the Commissioner of the Land Office, by the 

 I Secretary of the Interior, and by the American Forestry Association, 

 [this wise and conservative measure encountered a tremendous amount 

 of opposition. A variety of objections were urged. In the first place, 

 many thought, or at any rate argued, that it would stimulate forest 

 destruction. Pickler of South Dakota declared : "Our timber lands in 

 the West will be denuded of timber. . . . The very object of the law, 

 which is the setting apart and protection of these timber reservations, 

 will be defeated." Hermann of Oregon declared the bill should be 

 entitled "A bill to denude the public forest reservations." Simpson of 

 Kansas rated it a "dangerous measure," particularly on the ground 

 that it allowed the Secretary of the Interior so much power. "Not 

 only," he said, "does it allow the Secretary of the Interior to sell 

 timber on the lands in these reservations which have been set aside 

 for the special purpose of holding the moisture, but also it allows him 

 absolutely to sell the timber on any public lands in any part of the 

 United States." 



Doolittle of Washington called the bill an "infamous proposition," 

 with "no redeeming features, except the one permitting the employ- 

 ment of the army." "From my experience and observation in these 

 matters," he explained, "I know it to be true that if the lumberman is 

 once permitted to go upon a quarter section of land, having purchased 

 the stumpage, or the timber from that land, he will not confine himself 

 to his proper limits, and it is all nonsense to expect that this timber 

 can be preserved at all if you let down the bars for a single moment. 

 You might as well turn a dozen wolves into a corral filled with sheep 

 and expect the wolves to protect the sheep as to expect your timber 

 to be protected if you permit the lumbermen to go upon the reserva- 

 tion at all." Coffeen of Wyoming expressed a similar view : "The bill, 



i*H. R. 119, H. Report 78; 53 Cong. 1 sess.: Cong. Bee, Oct. 10, 1893, 2371 

 et seq.; Oct. 12, 2430 et seq. 



