208 Report of the Forest Commission. 



provision — and, on the other hand, extending to the reservations the 

 free permit system by which settlers and miners may supply their 

 needs free of charge — a most objectionable provision. 



Nevertheless, the pissage of the bill is of highest importance, as it 

 recognizes by legislative enactment the status of forest reservations, and 

 places them under special protection (with the aid of the army) and 

 control of the Secretary of the Interior. It will now devolve upon the 

 association to make strenuous efforts for the passage of this bill by the 

 Senate during the present session of Congress, and then to secure by 

 executive proclamation the further reservation of public timber lands 

 from sale and entry. 



It may be proper in this report once more to refute the imputations 

 made on the floor of the House of Representatives, that the bill was 

 inspired or its passage in any way influenced by the lumberman's inter- 

 ests of the west. These interests have been naturally against the bill, 

 and the restrictive amendments may be traced to that influence. 



The objections to the bill proceed either from ignorance as to the condi- 

 tions which it seeks to remedy, or from distrust in the capacity of the 

 executive to carry out its provisions with due care, or else from the 

 personal interests of timber-land owners, who, according to their 

 condition, either desire to make unpopular the reservation policy and 

 avoid further withdrawals from the market of accessible timber of 

 merchantable quality, or else fear the competition if the Government 

 should sell stumpage. 



It may also be proper to state that the association does not consider 

 the present bill as its ideal, but only a first step towards a more 

 rational treatment of the public timber lands. For its ideal, it still 

 adheres to the bill, Senate 3235, Fifty-second Congress, which became 

 known as the Paddock bill. This provides for a fully organized 

 forestry management of the public timber lands, and has been aban- 

 doned only temporarily on account of the difficulty of having such a 

 comprehensive measure discussed or enacted at the present time. 



It should be noted with satisfaction that the president in his message 

 to Congress fully and strongly indorses the policy for which this 

 association stands in the following language: 



" I fully indorse the recommendation that adequate protection be 

 provided for our forest reserves, and that a comprehensive forestry 

 system be inaugurated. Such keepers and superintendents as are 

 necessary to protect the forests already reserved should be provided. 

 I am of the opinion that there should be an abandonment of the policy 

 sanctioned by present laws under which the Government, for a very 



