CHAPTER VIII. 59 



Tax evasion is general amongst those using the public forests for 

 pasture. Use in common of our forests has resulted in cruelty and in- 

 justice. It has been almost exclusively for the benefit of the rich and 

 powerful. It has been accompanied everywhere by violence and fire. 

 It has been the occasion of constantly recurring arson and murder. 

 Who can defend such a system? It is no system. It is anarchy, with 

 the true accompaniments of anarchy— FIRE, KNIFE and GUN. 



RELIEF FROM THSSi!. ABUSES. 



The defense of these uses or misuses of our public forest lands is 

 confined to those engaged in the business. These persons acting together 

 have influenced politicians to prevent regulation or removal of abuses. 

 We must take politics as they are in seeking a remedy. This means an 

 organization of the general public, led by irrigators and intelligent pub- 

 lic-spirited citizens generally to show the politicians that the vast pre- 

 ponderance of voting power is opposed to the robbery and destruction 

 of the public forest property. Such an organization will end these 

 abuses. Such an organization is now in process of formation in South- 

 em California. Stock and sheep men are now taking a more intelli- 

 gent view of the public land question. Nearly all desire relief from 

 the present irregularities and uncertainties. These men endorse a 

 lease system, and admit that exclusion of all stock from some sections 

 is essential for the safety of the public interest. 



While we take up this line of practical politics, none of us should 

 overlook the need of modification of our present political system. It 

 is the system that is at fault. It is not the people nor popular govern- 

 ment that is more defective than in other times, but the system of get- 

 ting at the people's will that has been outgrown by industrial changes 

 and by our vast increase and concentration of population. We cannot 

 now go into this question. It must satisfy us to say that human nature 

 has not changed much In the historic period, and that men are at least 

 as good now as they ever were. It is then by a sound, honest, practical 

 system that we will get our best men into public life and get the best 

 instead of the worst there is in a man into use, when he goes into public 

 life. 



