FIFTH NATIONAL CONSERVATION CONGRESS 379 



lation and few legislation that is adequate? Why are there sections where 

 lumbermen and public are so mutually suspicious that neither supports any real 

 solution of a mutual problem? Why do we have to have forestry associations 

 and conventions? 



Evidently because the average citizen does not know much about the problem 

 himself, in spite of all we have said and done, and result dependent upon human 

 action depends partly upon the extent of desire for this result but more upon 

 the extent of knoweldge how to achieve it. We are trying to do as a minority 

 what in its very nature must be an expression of the majority. We tell the 

 average citizen it is his problem, that we have solved it for him, and that he 

 should support the project. We are wrong. We cannot solve it or reduce it 

 to a mere supportable project. We can give him the facts, but he must solve 

 it by studying the relation of his conduct and the community's to his own welfare 

 and then acting accordingly. Then, and only then, will Congress, legislatures, 

 lumbermen, foresters and public be able to work together as they must work 

 together, knowing that their policies are sound and commended, that success 

 will be rewarded, and that failure will be punished. 



We talk and write a great deal about methods, as though all that is neces- 

 sary is to make foresters proficient and lumbermen interested. This is all right 

 enough, but what is most needed is permission to apply what we already know. 

 Knowledge and interest are far ahead of opportunity. Success depends chiefly 

 upon having conditions under which they are encouraged. With such conditions 

 you couldn't stop it if you tried. 



Let us return to our average citizen who with his fellows constitute the 

 majority of our population. Suppose that in his home town, where community 

 relations are so closely under his eye that they are familiar and clear to him, a 

 single industry employs a large proportion of the population, produces the chief 

 share of all manufactured products, and pays an essential part of the taxes. 

 Let us say it is fruit-growing, or dairying, or furniture making. This citizen 

 would not think twice before conceding its necessity. Anything threatening its 

 discontinuance would be a menace to be fought vigorously; anything promising 

 to increase it would be encouraged. Town officials, chamber of commerce, 

 citizens — all would work and spend in earnest for its continuance and develop- 

 ment just as you have seen them do often when occasion offered to promote 

 enterprises of community advantages. No one in public life would dare do 

 otherwise. 



Moreover, they would know how. If it were a dairy community its average 

 citizen would know pretty well what production costs, what prices are necessary, 

 what improvements are feasible, what the State can and should do to aid and 

 regulate, what public demands are reasonable and what are unreasonable. 



The relation of forest industry to the State or nation is exactly that of our 

 illustrative industry to our suppositious town and so is its relation to every 

 citizen. Lumbering is one of the three or four greatest American industries- 

 it is our greatest manufacturing industry — and forest products are used in almost 

 every other besides being practically life essentials. Certainly it is second in 



