394 Uniied States. 



have been denounced as undemocratic and tyrannical. 

 Two courts have lately ruled that owners of timber- 

 lands may be restricted, without compensation, as re- 

 gards the size of trees they may fell on their property, 

 if the welfare of the State demands such interference. 



The argument of the Roman doctrine utere tuo ne 

 alterum noceas, which forestry propagandists have so 

 strenuously used, seems finally to have foimd favor, 

 and the inclusion of the community at large, present 

 and future, as the possibly damaged party does not ap- 

 pear any more strained. The idea of the providential 

 function of governments, as the writer has called it, 

 seems to have taken hold of the people. The democratic 

 doctrine of State rights, and restriction of government 

 functions has, even among Democrats, been weakened 

 through the long continued reign of the Eepublican 

 party, the party of centralizing tendencies, so that the 

 latest Democratic platform of a Presidential campaign 

 (1908) outdid the Republican platform in centralizing 

 and paternalistic propositions. 



It is proper to emphasize the growth of this socialis- 

 tic attitude, as it is bound to influence, and influence 

 favorably, the further development of forest policies. 



Nevertheless, it is still necessary to keep in mind 

 that the States are autonomous, and that, while the 

 federal government, in spite of the antagonism in the 

 Western States, in which the public lands are situated, 

 has been able to change its land policy from that of 

 liberal disposal to one of reservation, it alone cannot 

 save the situation. While a few of the States have 

 made beginnings in working out a policy to arrest the 

 destruction of their forest resources, which are mostly 



