9 



toward seeing that onr national policies are shaped for the advantage 

 of our children and our children's children. Our country, we have 

 faith to believe, is only at the beginning of its growth. Unless the 

 forests of the United States can be made ready to meet the vast 

 demands which this growth will inevitably bring, commercial disaster, 

 that means disaster to the whole country, is inevitable. * * ♦ j^ 

 the present rate of forest destruction is allowed to continue, with 

 nothing to offset it, a timber famine in the future is inevitable. Fire, 

 wasteful and destructive forms of lumbering, and the legitimate use, 

 taken together, are destroying our forest resources far more rapidly 

 than they are being replaced. It is difficult to imagine what such a 

 timber famine would mean to our resources. And the period of 

 recovery from the injuries which a timber famine would entail would 

 be measured by the slow growth of the trees themselves. Remember 

 that you can prevent such a timber famine occurring by wise action 

 taken in time, but once the famine occurs there is no possible way of 

 hurrying the growth of the trees necessary to relieve it. * * * 

 This statement is true not only as to forests in private ownership, but 

 as to the national forests as well. Unless the men from the West 

 believe in forest preservation the western forests can not be preserved. 

 We here at the headquarters of the National Government recognize 

 that absolutely. We believe, we know, that it is essential for the 

 well-being of the people of the States of the Great Plains, the States 

 of the Rockies, the States of the Pacific slope, that the forests shall be 

 preserved, and we know also that our belief will count for nothing 

 unless the people of those States themselves wish to preserve the for- 

 ests. If they do we can help materially ; we can direct their efforts, 

 but we can not save the forests unless they wish them to be saved. 



I ask, with all the intensity that I am capable of, that the men of 

 the West will remember the sharp distinction I have just drawn 

 between the man who skins the land and the man who develops the 

 country. I am going to w^ork with, and only with, the man who 

 develops the country. I am against the land skinner every time. 

 Our policy is consistent to give to every portion of the public domain 

 its highest possible amount of use, and of course that can be given 

 only through the hearty cooperation of the Vv^estern people. 



In closing I wish to thank you who are here, not merely for what 

 you are doing in this particular movement, but for the fact that you. 

 are illustrating what I hope I may call the typically American method 

 of meeting questions of great and vital importance to the Nation — the 

 method of seeing whether the individuals particularly concerned can 

 not, by getting together and cooperating with the Government, do 

 infinitely more for themselves than it would be possible for any gov- 

 ernment under the sun to do for them. * * * 

 21462— No. 33—05 m 2 



