46 



Sierra Club Bulletin. 



State vs. Federal There is considerable reason to believe that a 

 Control of strong effort will be made in the near future to 



National Forests. turn the national forests over to the States. The 

 friends of Federal control are apprehensive lest 

 this may be accomplished in a moment when the public may not be 

 fully aroused to the danger. The Sierra Club was one of the first 

 organizations to advocate the establishment of national forest reserves, 

 as they were then called, and did much to awaken and direct public 

 opinion so that for many years California had more advanced ideas on 

 the subject than any other State in the Union. Since those pioneer 

 days, the Federal Government has, through its Forestry Bureau and 

 later its Forest Service, accomplished remarkable results in the face of 

 heavy odds. Many of the problems dealt with are national in their scope 

 and when one considers the physical location of forests, situated as they 

 are in the basins of watersheds extending from State to State, without 

 regard for political boundaries, it is evident that the protection of these 

 watersheds can be supervised more effectively under a uniform national 

 policy and control rather than by a score of State bureaus, many of 

 which, we have good reason to believe, would sadly neglect the trust 

 imposed upon them. The Federal Forest Service has built up an organi- 

 zation of splendid efficiency, and to abandon this for the uncertainty of 

 State control would in our opinion be a grave mistake, W. E. C. 



Occasion for No doubt many members of foreign and American 

 Fraternalism. alpine clubs will visit San Francisco on the occasion 

 of the World's Panama-Pacific Exposition in 1915. 

 It would be a great pleasure, and doubtless a mutual gain, to establish 

 personal relations with them. We take this early opportunity to invite 

 visiting members of mountaineering organizations to make the Sierra 

 Club rooms their headquarters and to call upon us for such assistance 

 as we may be able to render. Those who wish to visit Yosemite Valley 

 or any of the groves of big trees, or any portion of the Sierra, will find 

 the office of the Club a reliable source of information. W. F. B. 



James Bryce. Few men have won distinction in as many- fields of 

 endeavor as the retiring British Ambassador to the 

 United States. The Right Honorable James Bryce, diplomat, historian, 

 scientist, mountaineer, is one of the best known and best beloved men 

 in the English-speaking world. Not every one knows that he has 

 physical as well as intellectual feats to his credit. One of these was 

 the ascent, in 1876, of Mount Ararat, which rises to a height of seven- 

 teen thousand feet. Fourteen years ago he was elected to the presidency 

 of the British Alpine Club. Last summer he visited Australia and New 

 Zealand. At the time of his return last autumn the Directors of the 

 Sierra Club gave a little dinner for him at the University Club in San 

 Francisco, at which John Muir presided. 



