HOSTILITY TO NATION AL FORE STS 293 



Criticisms of the Forest Service naturally involved a considerable 

 criticism of Gifford Pinchot, for many years the head of the Service. 

 He was accused of ruling over the reserves as a f«^udal lord over his 

 demesne ; and "Pinchotism," in the vernacular of certain congressmen, 

 was meant to imply all that was arbitrary, unreasonable, and despotic. 

 The fact that he was an eastern man, wealthy, and represented by 

 some as an aristocrat, did not raise him in the estimation of some of 

 the western people.^® Representative Humphrey also criticised Pinchot 

 for not having protested against the operation of the Forest Lieji 

 Act, and several western men accused him of being in large measure 

 responsible for the frauds arising under that act.^" 



HEYBURN'S CRITICISMS 



It is perhaps hardly worth while to point out all the various criti- 

 cisms made by Senator Heyburn in his opposition to the Forest Ser- 

 vice : his assertion that the Forest Service was in politics ; that for- 

 estry officials in Idaho had admitted they were instructed to see that 

 he was not reelected to the Senate; that forest rangers were accus- 

 tomed to get their tree seeds by robbing squirrels' nests, thus leaving 

 the squirrels to starve, etc. There may have been truth in some of his 

 charges, but, as pointed out in a previous chapter, Senator Heyburn 

 was so wholly lacking in judicial poise when he spoke of the Forest 

 Service that his statements have to be received with considerable 

 caution. ^^ 



Senator Heyburn was wont to tell a great many stories about the 

 atrocities committed by the Forest Service. One story he several times 

 recounted was that of Robert Byrne, a miner, who was shot from 

 ambush for refusing to vacate ground from which he had been ordered 

 by a forest ranger. Another story was of the mayor of Senator Hey- 

 burn's town, who, riding along the road with his family one day, met 



i» Something of the acerbity of some of the western writers may be judged from 

 the following editorial from one of the western newspapers: "Of the asininity of 

 Pinchotism, of the unfeeling selfishness with which mad theorists plan to build up a 

 Federal empire in the sovereign states of the West and in Alaska, . . . Seattle long 

 has had knowledge." {Cong. Rec, Mar. 10, 1914, 4636.) 



20 Cong. Rec, Jan. 7, 1910, 393-399; Mar. 10, 1914, 4636; Jan. 22, 1915, 2151, 

 2152; Apr. 18, 1916, 6390, 6395; Jan. 6, 1910, 366: Forest Bui. 67, 1905. 



21 Cong. Rec, Mar. 8, 1910, 2885, 2893; Mar. 1, 1911, 3771, 3774. 



