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Sierra Club Bulletin. 



that the House bill could have been passed through that branch 

 as well. 



To-day, therefore, the subject stands in its legal aspects just 

 where it did at the outset of the campaign. The bill must be 

 reintroduced in the present Congress and be argued before the 

 committees just as before. But all these years of agitation and 

 effort have not been thrown away. A great body of public senti- 

 ment has been built up in all parts of the country. People under- 

 stand the question, and the underlying motives which actuate 

 both the petitioners and the opponents. As a result the course 

 of the new bill should be much easier than that of its predeces- 

 sors. Whether the new bill will provide for the utilization of the 

 receipts from the present forests, or will call for a direct treasury 

 appropriation has not been definitely determined at this writing. 

 It is certain, however, that it will follow the comprehensive and 

 statesmanlike Hnes of the recent House bill, which was drawn 

 by Representative Weeks, of Massachusetts, making its terms 

 applicable to the protection of important watersheds in whatever 

 part of the country they may be situated. 



The East congratulates the Pacific Coast and the country at 

 large upon the consummation of the long-cherished desire to 

 save the famed Calaveras Grove from destruction. That was 

 finally accomplished through the appropriation of unreserved 

 public timber elsewhere, board foot for board foot. At present 

 market prices that timber thus appropriated represents many 

 thousands of dollars which might otherwise have been sold and 

 converted into the National treasury. It is difficult to understand 

 the logic which allows the appropriation of a dollar's worth of 

 salable timber as the purchase price of what is to all intents 

 and purposes a recreation park, and yet denies that Congress 

 has the power to make a direct draft of legal tender from the 

 treasury for the protection of some of the greatest economic 

 interests in the country. 



The new bill will be introduced into the House during the 

 present extra session, that it may be ready for committee consid- 

 eration during the early days of the regular sitting in December. 

 To the East and South it is a matter of very vital consequence, 

 and once the policy is established it is as certain to prove as 

 creditable to the nation at large as is the present federal irriga- 

 tion policy, which was once opposed by some of the very 

 men who to-day are arrayed against the Appalachian National 

 Forests bill. Allen Chamberlain, Boston. 



