FIFTH NATIONAL CONSERVATION CONGRESS 383 



Now all this is by no means chiefly the fault of Senators or Congressmen. 

 There is nothing in it for them,, except so far as it can be made to strike a re- 

 sponsive chord in their constituents. With the public half as well informed on 

 the production of the lumber it needs as it is on the getting of its parcels by mail 

 or the price of sugar, there would be an expression on an American forest policy 

 that would leave no statesman uncertain. We cannot blame him if there is no 

 such expression nor can we blame his constituents for not seeing that he gets it. 

 It is because they have not been told the facts in convincing business language. 



Come now to our States. Many have done nothing. Few have comprehensive 

 farseeing policies, covering their own opportunity on State-owned lands and ade- 

 quate encouragement of good private management through efficient fire protec- 

 tion and just taxation. It is not enough for the reformer to present good laws 

 and recognize bad ones. Why is there little trouble in passing laws for protection 

 and advance of agriculture, horticulture and dairying? Not because these in- 

 dustries are more useful and deserving, but because people understand their gov- 

 erning conditions and see the point of such laws readily. The chief reason they 

 do not so imderstand forest conditions is that the reformer himself makes forestry 

 a creed and not a business. 



In my opinion forestry will never succeed in the United States until it is so 

 closely allied with lumbering that neither forester, lumberman nor public makes 

 any distinction. This is the case in Europe and everywheire in America that there 

 has been successful progress. So long as the lumberman suspects forestry of 

 being antagonistic, he will not help. So long as he does not help, the forester 

 cannot talk intelligently to the public. After all, the private owner controls most 

 of our forest area.. His use of it, our use of it, and the effect of our relations 

 upon our joint use of it, largely determine our forest destinies. 



Were foresters in proper touch with the business and of producing forest 

 products they would have the support of all lumbermen and jointly they would 

 have an irresistible argument. Were forest economics understood and forest 

 industry given its proper rating compared with other industries, suspicious lum- 

 berman and suspicious public would alike see a common object and make mutual 

 cause to further it. A State with a hundred times more revenue to be expected 

 from lumbering than from wool growing would not appropriate $500 for forest 

 protection and $80,000 for coyote scalps. A community that applauds its chamber 

 of commerce for getting a shoe factory and gives it a free building site would not 

 carelessly burn up a forest capable of employing a thousand times as many men 

 and then tax the owner so he cannot afford to hold and protect the land for a 

 new crop. A State that is glad to see its farmers get a good price for wheat, 

 even if it does use some flour, would not rejoice when its sawmills are forced to 

 accept a low price for lumber. A lumberman who prefers to let his trees stand 

 until Americans need them, rather than cut them at a loss for foreign export, 

 would not be accused of conspiracy to bleed the consumer any more than would 

 a farmer who decides not to raise potatoes when they don't pay for raising. A 

 country that applauds fruit growers for systematizing to assure reliable grades 

 and intelligent marketing, sends publicly paid experts to help improve their orch- 



