120 OUR FEDERAL LANDS 



passing through the Senate, in 1907, Senator Ful- 

 ton, of Oregon, secured an amendment providing 

 that the President could not set aside any additional 

 National Forests in the six Northwestern States. 

 This meant retaining some sixteen million of acres 

 to be exploited by land grabbers and by the repre- 

 sentatives of the great special interests, at the ex- 

 pense of the public interest. But for four years the 

 Forest Service had been gathering field notes as to 

 what forests ought to be set aside in these States, 

 and so was prepared to act. It was equally unde- 

 sirable to veto the whole Agricultural bill, and to 

 sign it with this amendment effective. Accordingly, 

 a plan to create the necessary National Forests in 

 these States before the Agricultural Bill could be 

 passed and signed was laid before me by Mr. Pin- 

 chot. I approved it. The necessary papers were 

 immediately prepared. I signed the last proclama- 

 tion a couple of days before, by my signature, the 

 bill became law; and, when the friends of the spe- 

 cial interests in the Senate got the amendment 

 through and woke up, they discovered that sixteen 

 million acres of timberland had been saved for the 

 people by putting them in the National Forests be- 

 fore the land grabbers could get at them. The op- 

 ponents of the Forest Service turned handsprings 

 in their wrath; and dire were their threats against 

 the Executive, but the threats could not be carried 

 out, and were really only a tribute to the efficiency 

 of our action. . . . 



