STORY OF OUR NATIONAL FOREST 113 



icy. Characteristically he bent Congress to his will, 

 defying opposition. Foreseeing the future, he cre- 

 ated organizations within the government which 

 long after became beneficent and powerful bureaus. 

 The big stick was never used with more efficiency 

 than in the interest of conservation. 



Let Roosevelt summarize this period himself. 

 The following is from the "Autobiography" : 



"When I became President, the Bureau of For- 

 estry (since 1905 the United States Forest Service) 

 was a small but growing organization under Gif- 

 f ord Pinchot occupied mainly with laying the foun- 

 dation of American forestry by scientific study of 

 the forests, and with the promotion of forestry on 

 private lands. It contained all the trained foresters 

 in the Government service, but had charge of no 

 public timberland whatsoever. The Government 

 forest reserves of that day were in the care of a 

 Division in the General Land Office, under the man- 

 agement of clerks wholly without knowledge of for- 

 estry, few if any of whom had ever seen a foot of 

 the timberlands for which they were responsible. 

 Thus the reserves were neither well protected nor 

 well used. There were no foresters among men who 

 had charge of the National Forests, and no Govern- 

 ment forests in charge of the Government foresters. 



"In my first message to Congress I strongly 

 recommended the consolidation of the forest work in 

 the hands of the trained men of the Bureau of For- 

 estry. This recommendation was repeated in other 



