48 
Roosevelt Wild Life Bulletin 
of the proposal to transfer the National Forests from the General 
Land Office to the old Bureau of Forestry, and thus to unite the 
forest work of the Government under a single head. For more 
than three years, as I remember it, his recommendations for the 
transfer were made to Congress, while the personal pressure which 
he exerted was by far the strongest factor in our final success. 
Without him it would have been wholly impracticable to bring the 
transfer about. It was Roosevelt who made the Forest Service 
possible. 
It tells but little of the story to say that Roosevelt saved for us 
more National Forests than all other Presidents put together. 
He not only created but defended and preserved them, and when 
Congress finally took from him the power to add to their number, 
at the last moment he saved to the people of the United States 
some 16,000,000 acres more of mountain forest lands. He did 
it by using the method which has meant so much to forestry and 
conservation in America, by out-thinking the opposition. 
It was William T. Cox, now State Forester of Minnesota, who 
came to me witli the suggestion that Roosevelt should save this 
forest land Ijefore the objectionable provision had passed both 
houses. When I took Cox's suggestion to him, the President 
approved it with enthusiasm ; the Forest Service was ready ; the 
necessary field studies had been made : the maps had been drawn ; 
we knew what we wanted and we knew how to get it. It remained 
only to prepare the official proclamation for each addition to the 
existing National Forests. 
For forty-eight hours the drafting force of the Forest Service 
worked night and day. As fast as they prepared the proclamations 
they were taken to the \\'hite House. As fast as he received them 
the President signed them, and sent them at once to the State De- 
partment for safe keeping. Thus Roosevelt saved from destruction 
and set aside for all the people an area more than half as large as 
the State of Pennsylvania, and did it in the short interval while 
the bill was passing and before it passed. 
No other President has ever been, and doubtless no other ever 
will be, as practically familiar both with the forest and the range as 
was President Roosevelt. It was in the early part of his administra- 
tion that the forest and grazing problem in the Southwest became 
the livest question before the Bureau of Forestry. To the huge 
gain of the nation as a whole, Roosevelt was thoroughly equipped 
