ANTI-CONSERVATION ACTIVITY 191 



vice. They must fight trespass of all kinds, investigate frauds, report 

 on the location of settlements, enforce the state game laws, scale 

 timber, and supervise cutting, and, above all, guard against fire. Able 

 and competent men were needed; and many of the men. employed 

 merely brought discredit upon the administration and upon the forest 

 reserve policy. 



Early in President Roosevelt's administration. Secretary of the 

 Interior Hitchcock gave the forest administration an overhauling, 

 and in December, 1904, Roosevelt signed an order placing the adminis- 

 tration under civil service ; but the force which was turned over to the 

 Forest Service in 1905, when the reserves were transferred to the 

 Department of Agriculture, was not a very competent body of men. 

 Immediately after the transfer, Pinchot set about to winnow out the 

 incapables, and within two or three years the force was greatly 

 improved ; but the West did not immediately forget the previous state 

 of affairs. Furthermore, the efficiency of the new administration was 

 itself a reason for hostility on the part of a certain element in the 

 West. The officials who lost their positions, the politicians who lost 

 their influence, the various classes which had profited from the earlier 

 lax administration, felt no great friendship for the new regime.^" 



OTHER CAUSES OF WESTERN HOSTILITY 



Still other factors contributed to the hostility toward the reserves. 

 The reservation of lands led to a curtailment of Land Office adver- 

 tising, and this brought some of the small newspapers into opposition. 

 The reservation policy also interfered with some of the larger business 

 interests, and this affected the larger papers, whose attitude was 

 generally determined by the interests controlling their management. 

 The reservation of lands also cut into the profits of professional land 

 locators — those who made a business of entering lands in the interest 

 of timber companies, cattle companies, and speculators generally. 



One of the causes for the hostility of western politicians had little 

 to do with the western people themselves. Some of the western senators 

 and representatives resented the policy of the President in establishing 



""> Forestry and Irrigation, Apr., 1906, 161: Report, Land Office, 1908, 27: Pro- 

 ceedings, Society of Am. Foresters, Nov., 1905, 43-50: Cong. Rec, Feb. 26, 1909, 

 3239, 3240; Mar. 12, 1914, 4750. 



