Painting by Will Larrymore Smedley Reproduced by permission of Mrs. Evelyn Graham 
EARLY MORNING IN THE BEECHWOOD 
TREES 
By wilt, larrymore SMEDLEY 
PROLOGUE: 
Your neighbor takes no heed of what you think; 
He will pay little attention to what you say; 
He confesses some interest in what you write: 
But the same truths clothed in the dignity of 
print will compel his admiration and sometimes 
—a second thought. 
T he general interest lately aroused in regard to 
our forests is a splendid and necessary move¬ 
ment in the right direction and before the 
scarcity of paper and the contingent high price serves 
to put the publication of a magazine on the plane of 
extreme luxury for both publisher and purchaser, I 
wish to add another plea for our steadfast friends 
who can neither write nor fight for their lives but 
give their bodies for the making of the very paper on 
which we plead for their preservation. 
Some of us have had the problem of the trees very 
near to heart for many years and we fully realize how 
immensely important it is that the iron shall be kept 
hot until the great tool of public opinion shall be 
fashioned into shape to do a work for the general 
good. It seems strange that in a country where every 
one lives at high speed, where the average intelligence 
is much above the ordinary, and where every contriv¬ 
ance imaginable is in use to eliminate time, where the 
cry is continually for speed and yet more speed in 
behalf of personal gain, that the wheels of consistency 
should turn so slow when the country at large is to 
receive the benefit; and this, too, in a land noted for 
its promptitude and accuracy; rather the contrary 
is true, for it seems necessary to go through exhorta¬ 
tions, entreaties, explanations interminable to accom¬ 
plish anything at all for the benefit of the people 
collectively, in this Government exclusively for and 
by the people. 
It is regrettably true that Congress has the power to 
better the conditions with regard to the forests as they 
now exist, but that body is not noted for its activities 
in the interests of the people and in reference to the 
trees it has been particularly lax, often stubborn, and 
at times a genuine stumbling-block in the path of our 
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