Looters of the Public Domain/Chapter 29
Chapter XXIX
This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, Stand like Druids of old, with voices sad and prophetic.— From Longfellow's "Evangeline."
THE chief opposition to the Government's forestry policy comes from a source inspired by selfish motives. In the efforts that are being made to have the reserves, or the best portions of them, restored to public entry, there exists a powerful reminder of a greedy herd feasting its eyes upon a farmer's inclosed cornfield, whose waving plumes excites a beastly appetite that can only be satisfied by the sacrifice of the crop intended for human comfort.
That self-interest is the basis of nearly all this agitation against the creation of forest reservations, is evidenced by the fact that none of its advocates have yet advanced a single argument that appeals to common sense. They have indulged in glittering generalities, and purposely ignored every phase of reason and practically all elements of truth in their representations pertaining to the actual situation.
No person imbued with a grain of intelligence can voice any honest protest against the creation of the reserves in accordance with President Roosevelt's well-defined plans; no one possessed of a clear and unbiased knowledge of conditions prevailing in the mountainous regions of the West is in any position to raise sincere objections to a measure that is founded upon the lofty principle of preserving the forests for the benefit of future generations, and for the purpose of protecting the watersheds and conserving the rainfall, that the people of the present age may not suffer.
The greater portion of my life has been passed among the mountains and forests of the West, and for upward of 25 years I have been actively engaged in exploration of this vast domain. This has afforded ample opportunity for studying conditions existing in the forests, and I have no hesitancy in asserting that had not the President interfered when he did in October, 1902. and put a stop to the carnival of looting then in progress by making provisional suspension of the affected districts for forest reserve purposes, it would have resulted in the enforced consideration of problems the solution of which no prophet could have foretold, and would have become merely a question of time measured by a short span of years when the Sierra Nevada and Cascade ranges of mountains would have become shorn of their magnificent heritage, and the broad valleys of California and Oregon left to the mercy of the elements.
The winter of 1906-7 gave timely notice that the wholesale devastation that has been in progress for more than a quarer of a century must reap its own harvest of perpetual injury to mankind. The principal watercourses of the interior of the two states named, overflowed their banks as they had never done before, notwithstanding the scientific methods of restraint that had been adopted from time to time to meet just such emergencies. 'ast inland seas wrought their consequent mark upon the prosperity of rich communities, and that was only the warning note.
History is constantly repeating itself, and the history of the tremendous floods that have occurred again and again throughout the lower Mississippi Valley, is the indellible record of the crime of those responsible for denuding the headwaters of the great stream of its standing timber; and the history of this shameful condition shall be the history of similar conditions that the next generation will have to face in all the principal valleys of the West, if those who are advocating the abolition of Governmental control over the public forests are permitted to have full sway.
Already the rainfall in the arid regions east of the ranges in question has been visibly affected by the loss of trees; already the writing is on the wall for all who run to read if the hands of commercial greed are not stayed.
In a speech delivered at Portland, Oregon, during the Lewis and Clark Exposition of 1905, James J. Hill, the great railway magnate—and incidentally heavily interested in Western timber lands—declared that one acre of timber land possessed more intrinsic value to a railway corporation than forty acres of agricultural land.
Why?
Because, 25 years hence, James J. Hill will have been gathered to his fathers, and he had no thought beyond the grave.
It is preposterous to believe that he was giving expression to an honest opinion, for the reason that the 40 acres of agricultural land will be producing constant revenues for his transportation lines ages after Mr. Hill is dead and forgotten—long after 40.000 acres of timber land has ceased to yield any profit for his roads if the policy shall henceforth be to throw down the bars for the cattle to get in and devour the crop.
Seemingly, this antagonistic feeling against reserves is inspired by the old hoggish instinct that has stood as a barrier against the proper development of the West since the earliest period of its attempted settlement. It is the ghost of the desire which characterized the action of the hydraulic miners in the early days of California to ruin the navigable streams of that state at the expense of the general public, that their greed for gold might be satiated; the same old phantom of selfishness that has haunted the action of sheep and cattlemen on the Great Plain.to acquire control of all that portion of the universe that their herds might multiply upon the ruins of individual rights; a relic of the warfare that has raged for centuries throughout the civilized globe in the struggle to make public interest subservient to private gain.
Dr. Harry Lane, the Mayor of Portland, Oregon, is an enthusiastic advocate of the idea that the forests should be under Governmental control, and advances many potent reasons for his views upon the subject.
He was born in Oregon, and for more than half a century has made a close analytical study of the forestry question. On account of his knowledge in this respect, his opinions carry much weight, and he is regarded generally throughout the Northwest as an authority in the premises. Trade journals devoted to timber interests have eagerly sought contributions from his pen bearing upon the various problems incident to the situation, and his remarks in relation thereto before civic bodies has been productive of a wide range of intelligent thought. In discussing the matter recently with the writer, he said:
"I am decidedly in favor of the plan for the Government to have absolute control over the forests of this country. It is not a new idea, by any means, as the wisdom of such a measure has been long recognized in Germany, Sweden and Norway, where the people of the present age are sawing up lumber from trees that were planted by their ancestors a hundred years previously.
"I do not pretend to be familiar with conditions existing anywhere beyond the borders of the Pacific Northwest, but here I have lived practically all my life. 
"That the forests should not he permitted to fall into the hands of private individuals, is a doctrine that even the aborigines were prompt to recognize, and in their tribal relations it was one of their fundamental principles, down to within a few decades ago. to exercise virtually the same kind of supervision over the forests, in their crude way, that the Government is now seeking to establish in a more enlightened form.
"I have personal knowledge that the Indians of California. Oregon, Washington and the British Possessions were accustomed to extend the most careful guardianship over the forests, and until the white man came with his ideas of commercial greed, and destroyed the savage instincts of protection. there had never been a great forest fire of any serious consequence in all this vast wilderness, by any act of human hands, and there is no doubt that conflagrations of this character wreak more damage to standing timber than all the other causes combined. "In the Fallfi it had been the custom of the redmen since their earliest authentic history, to burn out the dry grass and light undergrowth in order to provide fresh range for the following season, and as a measure of expediency in clearing unnecessary obstructions to a full view of wild game, or perhaps also as a stroke of precaution against ambush by enemies. In consequence, the underbrush never attained any important headway, and whatever fires occurred under these circumstances went through the forests like a flash, without damaging the larger trees to any appreciable extent.
"Frequently, in passing through heavy bodies of timber even now, the casual observer is struck by the appearance of some giant of the forest with charred trunk, and attributes the fact to the pranks of lightning, but in reality it is merely an isolated instance where the pitch and abnormal quantity of bark has contributed an extra attraction to the flames, although the main body of the tree might have suffered an insignificant amount of damage by the operation, so swiftly had been the course of the flames.
"The practice of setting out these fires at that period of the year, and causing the atmosphere to assume a murky hue under the stimulus of heavy volumes of smoke from all directions, has clothed the season with the poetic designation of 'Indian Summer,' and this name has adhered to it through all time, although, as a matter of fact, civilization is responsible for the density of the undergrowth in our time, and civilization must answer for the sin of forestry destruction by the great fires of the present age.
"It is usually quite difficult to trace the real blame for starting them. Huge rocks have been known by forest rangers to become dislodged from mountain sides, and plunging down deep ravines as they pursue their maddening course, bounding from crag to crag, have thrown flinty sparks that ignited the accumulation of decaying leaves and decomposed vegetation; or perhaps the neglected embers from the campfire of some careless hunter has furnished its share of devastation, but the result is the same, and we must delve deeper than the surface for the real cause, and when we do, it will be found to exist in the general tendency to permit the undergrowth to attain too much headway.
"It has come to my own knowledge, through Sam Heiple, a well-known frontiersman of this state, that a destructive forest fire originated by a globule of pitch from a fir tree concentrating the sun's rays in a manner productive of the effects of a burning glass, and the intense heat thus generated, communicating with the dry leaves and miscellaneous dead foliage, caused a conflagration that wrought immense damage before expending its fury.
"All this demonstrates the extreme necessity of taking the control of the forests away from private ownership, and placing it in the hands of some central power where aboriginal ideas may prevail in a modernized form.
"There is no doubt, in my mind, as to the probability that this region. has retimbered itself within the past thousand years or so. Every evidence points in the direction of the fact that oak predominated here centuries ago. Fir timber is an interloper, and descended from the remote mountain peaks step by step. until it had supplanted the sturdy oak, which in the cycle of ages had probably gained the ascendency over some other variety of tree growth. It is an actual fact that this transformation has been occurring in my own lifetime, because I can remember, as a boy, when oak timber disputed with the invading hr the supremacy of the Willamette valley.
"I think the soil eventually becomes exhausted for a continuous kind of timber, just as it does with one sort of farm product. It is nature's way of encouraging a rotation of crops, and is not necessarily a question of the survival of the fittest, any more than barley is superior to other cereal products."
"lr. Puter, the author of this book, is probably as well-versed in forestry matters, from a practical standpoint, as any man in the West. He was born and reared amidst the redwoods of California, and has been engaged in handling timber lands nearly all his life, his judgment as to value of standing timber being recognized by buyers all over the country, as his recitals show. I have discussed frequently with him the subject of the Government's forestry policy as outlined by President Roosevelt, and he is firm of the opinion that the ideas embodied therein are strictly conformable to the demands of logic.
"It may be bad for the land sharks," declared Mr. Puter in the course of one of our conversations, "but nobody can safely deny that it is highly beneficial to the general public, on account of the adequate protection it affords to standing timber, thus operating as a permanent safeguard to the watersheds and insuring a uniform rainfall.
"The headwaters of nearly every stream in California, Oregon and Washington—which may properly be classed as the district embracing the more important lumber-producing forests of the West—are invariably heavily timbered, and it strikes me that it is nature's way of holding the floods in check. The ground is shaded by the dense foliage, so that the snow is not only stored by the operation, but on account of not coming in direct contact with the sun's rays, is permitted to melt away gradually; whereas, if there was too much exposure of this character, it would have a tendency to cause an immediate dissolution of the snow, which would therefore rush down the streams in the form of torrents, and floods and irreparable damage to the lower country would be the inevitable consequence.
"In addition to these benefits, the Government can derive a profitable and perpetual income from its holdings by marketing the 'ripened' or merchantable lumber in the reserves at a reasonable price, and I cannot see why such a plan should not prove acceptable to any fair-minded person.
"Another strong point that must be taken into consideration lies in the fact that the establishment of reserves will prevent, to a large degree, the disastrous forest fires that have swept over the best portions of the timbered regions at frequent intervals, and threatened to wipe out everything in their pathway. The staff of rangers, wardens and other guardians maintained b}- the Government and states will form the nucleus for a well-organized fire department, and with well-defined trails, telephones, signal stations and other modern appliances, they will be in a position to put out promptly any incipient blaze; and it has been my experience that great fires that have raged for days, destroying immense quantities of valuable timber, could have been suppressed in their first stages with a wet blanket. As soon as they obtain headway, however, no power on earth can stay them, and they must, of necessity, run their course.
"I find, also, that reserves are beneficial to owners of adjacent property inasmuch as they afford them excellent protection against fires, and I think, under the circumstances, that these outside owners should be taxed more in proporion on that account. Anyhow, they ought in some way to help hear the extra burden incident to the maintenance of the reserves because the hitter certainly give their holdings an added value.
"The period covered by the months of July, August, September and October embraces the most dangerous season in regard to forest fires. I would suggest, therefore, that during this spell additional rangers should be employed. There is not much danger at any other time of the year, and very few men are needed. Through the danger period referred to, patrols should be posted all around the reserve, at distances of ten miles apart, while on the high peaks within the confines of the reserve, at a distance say of 20 miles apart, there should be signal stations, arranged so that the location of a fire could be determined instantaneously, as too much importance cannot be attached to the matter of quick action whenever a fire is discovered."
The system pursued by the Forestry Service in the management of the National Reservations contemplates the division of the forests of the country into districts, constituted as folows:
- District No. 1—Montana, Northern Idaho, Northwestern Wyoming.
- District No. 2—South Dakota, Southeastern Montana, Eastern Wyoming, Minnesota. Nebraska. Kansas, Colorado, Southeastern Utah.
- District No. 3—Southern Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma.
- District No. 4—Southern Idaho, Western Wyoming, Eastern Nevada, Utah, Northern Arizona.
- District No. 5—California, Western Nevada.
- District No. 6—Washington, Oregon, Alaska.
The act of June 4, 1897, provides that "any mineral lands in any forest reservation which have been or which may be shown to be such, and subject to entry under the existing mining laws of the United States and the rules and regulations applying thereto, shall continue to be subject to such location and entry," notwithstanding the reservation. This makes mineral lands in the forest reserves subject to location and entry under the general mining laws in the usual manner.
The act also provides that, "The Secretary of the Interior may permit, under regulations to be prescribed by him, the use of timber and stone found upon such reservations, free of charge, by bona fide settlers, miners, residents, and prospectors for minerals, for firewood, fencing, buildings, mining, prospecting, and other domestic purposes, as may be needed by such persons for such purposes; such timber to be used within the State or Territory, respectively, where such reservations may be located."
In June, 1907, a Public Lands Convention was held in Denver, and was attended by delegates from every public land state in the Union, Colorado being especially well represented, as it was apparent that the representatives from that state were axious to control the convention, and force through a set of resolutions calculated to create the impression that the whole country was up in arms against the President's forestry policy. The schemers failed lamentably in this undertaking, however, those from outside states being sufficiently aggressive to keep down any expression of extremely hostile sentiment, and the publicity given the proceedings through the press indicated that the President had a sufficient number of adherents in attendance to thwart all attempts to cast discredit upon his policies.
This convention was the medium for a wade range of discussion relative to the respective merits of the various issues involved, and called forth opinions from every section, the consensus of which was to sustain the President's policies upon public land questions, and to condemn the action of the Colorado delegation in seeking to secure the adoption of expressions from the general body that reflected nothing more than local feelings of prejudice. On the last day of this convention, a letter was read by Secretary of the Interior James R. Garfield, from President Roosevelt, wherein was reflected the latter's views upon the questions coming before the body. The President's letter follows: There has been placed in my hands a paper purporting to be issued by the programme committee of the Public Lands Convention to be held at Denver. The preliminary discussion of the general subject in this paper contains several statements to which I desire to call your especial attention, as they not merely misrepresent the attitude of the Administration, but portray that attitude as the direct reverse of what it really is.
The first and most important of these misstatements is to the effect that there has been a change in the public land policy of the Government, which change will result in depriving the Western States of the right to settle the public lands with American citizens. This allegation directly reverses the actual facts. The course the Government is now pursuing is to carry out the traditional home-making policy of the United States as to its public lands. The men most interested in opposing the action of the Administration are those who are endeavoring to upset the traditional course of the Government, and are doing all in their power to turn the public lands over to be exploited by rich men and powerful corporations whose interests are hostile to those of the homemakers.
The policy of the present Administration has steadily been, and is now and will be, to promote and foster actual settling, actual home-making on the public lands in every possible way.
We have incurred the violent hostility of the individuals and corporations seeking by fraud and sometimes by violence, to acquire and monopolize great tracts of the public domain to the exclusion of settlers. The beneficiaries and instigators of, or participators in, the frauds, of course,, disapprove the acts of the Administration. But if the Administration's policy is upset, the one man who would be irreparably injured would be the settler, the homemaker, the man of small means who has taken up a farm which he intends himself to work, and on the proceeds he intends to support and bring up his family.
Lastly, the coal lands that were withdrawn from settlement to enable Congress to consider a law to protect public interests against the coal monopolies, by leasing the rights to mine the coal. Unfortunately, Congress failed to act in the matter and most of the coal lands have been already restored to entry, while the remainder are being restored as rapidly as the necessary examinations in the field can be made.
As a matter of actual fact, most of the coal lands have hitherto been taken under some forms of entry other than those of the coal entry laws, and in many cases by actual fraud. The Administration will certainly renew its efforts to get Congress to pass a law which will do away with the fraud.
The writers of this programme state that the plan of Government control of the range submitted to Congress last winter involved the perpetual ownership of the lands by the Government. This statement is not in accord with the facts. This proposed law specifically provides that the range land under Government control should be open to entry or location under all of the public land laws and provided in every way for the protection of the rights of the settler. As a matter of fact, one of the prime reasons for advocating its passage is because if enacted it will safeguard the rights of the homemaker on the public range far more effectively than they are now safeguarded, and would make settlement easier and safer than it can possibly be under present conditions. Administration, but portray that attitude as the direct reverse of what it really is.
As to the forest reserves, their creation has damaged just one class; the managers and owners of great lumber companies, which by illegal, fraudulent or unfair methods, have desired to get possession of the valuable timber of the public domain, to skin the land, and to abandon it when impoverished well nigh to the point of worthlessness.
It has been alleged that the Government intends to make the users of water for irrigation pay for their water. There has never been any such intention, and no such course will ever be followed while the present Administration is in existence. But owners of water power within National forests should certainly pay something for the valuable services rendered to them by the Government. They are not being charged and cannot be charged for the water, so far as the National Government is concerned, but for the protection to their watersheds which they themselves would have to bear the cost of supplying if the Government did not supply it for them.
The last day of the proceedings at the Denver convention was also marked by the speech of Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot, wherein the head of the Forestry Service of the Government set forth some salient facts in regard to the conduct of his bureau. In the course of his remarks, Mr. Pinchot said:
"The National forest policy, as we now have it, began when the people of the United States themselves began to realize that the timber was being cut faster than it was being reproduced. The American citizen uses wood more freely and depends upon it for his comfort and well-being more directly than the citizen of any other nation. Ours is a civilization of wood as much as it is of coal and steel. We are using every year three times as much wood from our forests as they are growing. A great timber famine is not only in sight, but it is approaching with bewildering speed. "After the final forests (called forest reserves) were created under the law of March 3, 1891, it began to appear that a few rich men were getting hold of vast areas of public timber lands often by methods which I will not stop to describe. These men saw not only that there was going to be a great shortage of timber, but also that when the shortage came it would be enormously profitable for them to control what timber there was left. Their reasoning was good, and they went vigorously to carry it into effect. But President Roosevelt was awakened to the situation. He saw that it would be vastly better to have some of the timber in the Government's hands for the benefit of all the people, rather than have it all in the hands of a few great owners strictly for their own benefit. Action was needed. He acted, and created many million acres of National forests.The above is a fair sample of the enormous timber growth of the Siletz country, and reveals an abandoned cabin after final proof had been made. The horse and buggy are those of a Special Agent who investigated the claim. He found no evidence of cultivation or habitation, but the claim was passed to pateทt by the General Land Office, notwithstanding numerous fraud reports"In view of this action of the President, taken to prevent monopoly and consequent excessive price of lumber, it is curious to find some good men honestly convinced that the creation of National forests is a bad thing, because, they say, it is raising the price of lumber to the consumer. It is the general scarcity of timber, not the National forests, that is raising the price of lumber to the consumer, and this is proved by the fact that prices have risen far more rapidly in the East, where there are no National forests, than in the West, where there are many.
"Another very powerful reason stands behind our forest policy. It is needed to protect the watersheds of streams used for irrigation, for domestic water and manufacturing supply and for transportation.
"It has often been asserted that the Government is trying to make money out of the National forests. This is a profound mistake. The forest service is not in business in the ordinary sense of the word. What it is trying to do, and trying hard, is to make the National forests pay expenses by handling theme in a business-like way.
"The returns from the sale of timber will in the end be very large. We can and do give away large amounts of timber to the small man who is making his home, but there is only one safe and clean way to dispose of timber to men who use considerable quantities of it in their business and that is by auction to the highest bidder; then there can be no question of favoritism or graft.
"The case of the range in the National forests is wholly different. The charge for range amounts to but a small fraction of its actual market value. The range, however, is not a transportable commodity like timber. It must be used by the people who live reasonably nearby and it has been in use by them.
"The effect of range protection in the national forests is already strikingly evident. In many localities it has been possible to increase the number of stock carried because of marked improvements of the range under more reasonable use. Very much of the range in the National forests was badly overgrazed. It is recovering, on the whole, with most gratifying rapidity.
"The protection of the forest and the protection of the range by wise use are two divisions of a problem vastly larger and more important than either. This is the problem of the conservatism of all our National resources. This is the basic problem, and it is a very practical and definite one. If we conserve our natural resources we shall prosper. If we destroy them, no amount of success in any other direction will keep us prosperous. It is the question both of the present and the future."
Discussing this feature of the situation, the Portland Oregonian, in an editorial published June 21, 1907, under the caption of "The People and the Forests," and evidently written by some person in full touch with the facts, had this to say:
Control and disposition of the public lands is one of the most important problems now before the American Government, for we have reached a period in our development when control of natural products vitally affects the personal and business interests of all the people. That the public land should be given free to the people has long been one of our most cherished principles. This principle was based upon the theory that free land meant cheap homes and consequently many homebuilders. To the extent that free land, or even cheap land, increases the number of home-owners who get their living from the land they have thus acquired, the policy of giving away the public domain is a wise one and has never been seriously questioned or attacked. But there are different kinds of public land and different purposes for which ownership is desired. The public land policy was framed at a time when the Great West meant the prairie region east of the Rocky Mountains, where the settler could build his cabin, plow the sod, sow the grain and raise a crop the second season, if not the first, after settlement. The expression "public land" conveyed a mental picture of land that could be tilled or that was suitable for home-building. While it was then known in a general way that much of the public domain was timbered or contained deposits of coal, the ultimate value of these natural products was not appreciated. Heavily timbered laud was scarcely considered in forming the policy which contemplated the giving away of the public domain to home-builders.
In recent years, however, we have come to realize the value of timber and coal lands, und understand that purchasers of either do not seek the land with a view to building homes thereon. We now perceive that the public land policy, as it applies to tillable land, should be different from the policy that determines the disposition of timber and coal lands. The man who acquires tillable land usually expects to go upon it and make it productive. The man who acquires timber land hopes to sell it to some large corporation. The corporation, founded by men who foresee a scarcity of timber, expects to hold the timber hind until it has greatly enhanced in value. The wait may be ten. twenty-five or fifty years, but the certainty of advancing value makes the purchase a safe speculative investment. Much of the timber land goes into the possession of corporations that do not desire it for milling purposes. but expect to make a profit by reason of the future conditions of supply and demand. Tillable land goes to the people—timber land to the capitalistic few who expect to levy tribute upon the people who eventually must buy the timber in the form of lumber.
Out of this difference in the character and the purposes for which it is acquired has grown the forest reserve policy, which contemplates the reservation of lands not suited to homebuilding but which are either valuable for present growth of timber or may become valuable when trees now young reach maturity. To prevent wanton destruction of timber, young and old, and to retain ownership in the Government, is the end to be accomplished by the forest reserve policy. At no time has the reserve policy contemplated the withholding of lands suited to settlement or the withholding of timber needed for the manufacture of lumber. The forest reserve policy therefore includes neither the retarding of settlement nor the hampering of the lumber industry. Incidentally, the forest reserve policy extends to the regulation of grazing on a reservation, the building of roads, cutting of timber, etc.
It would be easy to foresee that the forest reserve idea would meet strong opposition from those persons who wish to acquire timber lands and those who wish to graze their cattle upon the public domain unrestricted. The capitalist with money to invest can see no good in a forest reserve. The cattle owner who feels confident of getting his share of the range, if left to his own devices entirely, has no word of commendation for a system of regulation which guarantees to a weaker cattleman a just share of the public range. One would expect, too, that the great majority of the people, who have no interest except that possessed by every citizen, would favor the forest reserve system, for it proposes to retain for them the vast wealth that is theirs.
That there has been strong opposition to the forest reserve idea is due in part to the abuses which were permitted to grow up in it, chief among them the scripping evil, which enabled large corporations to exchange their worthless lands for good and still retain their good lands within a reserve. In a few instances some lauds may have been included in a forest reserve which should have been omitted. This, with some inconvenience in securing grazing permits, may have caused some opposition to the reserves. But, in the main, the fight now being waged in the public lands convention at Denver against the policy of conserving the public lands has its origin in the selfish desires of men who want free timber or free range. The forest system undoubtedly has its faults, but its defects are not serious enough to justify throwing down the lines of the reservations and permitting all who wish to rush upon the last of the timber lands, seizing them in sections and townships to hold until the needs of the people and the concentration of control shall enable the holders to dictate the price of lumber There are some indications of an effort on the part of the timber interests to control the convention and determine its expressions upon public land questions. If such a movement has been undertaken and should succeed, the opinions voiced by the convention would have but little weight with the people. On the contrary, it would tend to make them more than ever supporters of the policy which is designed to retain for the people the land that belongs to them.
The argument offered that the creation of a forest reserve withholds land from taxation is a shallow one. If a timber syndicate can afford to buy a township of timber and pay taxes on it for ten years in order to make a profit on the advance in value, cannot the people afford to retain that same land and go without the taxes in order to realize the profit on the advance in value? Wherein are the people gainers if they lose the large profit represented by growing value, and gain the small amount of money paid in the form of taxes? And more—wherein have the people profited if they sell the standing timber to a speculator today and buy it back from him ten or twenty years hence at many times the price he paid? If a sawmill proprietor needs logs for his mill, let him buy from the people's supply of timber at prices that prevail today; but let him not buy the timber in large tracts at present prices to hold until he can exact from the people a much larger price because he controls the supply.
The forestry policy of the National Government, more popularly known as President Roosevelt's forestry policy, is all that stands in the way of ultimate annihilation of the American forests, according to the arguments presented by Assistant Forester Sherrard, in an article appearing in the Agricultural Yearbook for 1906.
The forestry question has been argued pro and con for such a long time that its main features are well understood, but the subject has never been discussed from a practical business standpoint more clearly than in the article in question. In his paper entitled "National Forests and the Lumber Supply." Mr. Sherrard reviews briefly the history of Eastern forests, showing that Maine and New York, once the great lumber centers of the United States, long ago dropped out of sight as lumber producers when their forests were all but destroyed, and now produce lumber for little else than wood pulp. The lumbermen moved over to the Great Lakes region and there wrought the same havoc that marked theirJames Rudolph Garfield, Secretary of the Interiorprogress in the virgin forests of New England and New York. Finally the forests of the lake region were denuded of all their desirable timber and the manufacturers scattered, some to the South which had been but little exploited 15 years ago, and others to the Pacific Coast. It was not until they reached the Coast that they encountered the Government's forestry policy, and it has only been within the last year or so that the lumber manufacturers have found it necessary to go into reserves and buy up timber at a fair stumpage value. Yet the time is coming when the demand for reserved timber will assume large proportions.
But even before that time, it is argued by the writer that the reserves, or National forests, as they are now called, will act as a regulator of the price of timber in the forest. in that they will compel the payment of a fair price for private stumpage during the present days of plenty on the Coast, and will act as a restraint against exorbitant prices when the timber in private ownership has largely disappeared. All in all, the article presents a number of forceful arguments.
The following extracts present the salient features:
"The old process of exhausting the supply of timber in a region and then seeking new fields is very nearly over. Already the industry is turning back on its tracks. A quality of timber is eagerly sought in the Lake States which a few years ago was passed over as utterly worthless, and certain sawmills have depended for a part of their supply upon the recovery of logs which have sunk in the waterways in process of transportation. In the South the whole pine region is being gone over in close search of the old field pine. This inferior and once despised growth of timber is now bought up at prices greatly in excess of those once paid for the magnificent timber of the virgin forests.
"Great improvement in logging and sawmill machinery, signal success in reducing the waste in manufacture, wonderful railroad extension, concentration, and systematic organization of producers to reach the consumer most effectively through the markets, have all combined to cheapen the cost of production and increase the profit in the lumber business. Yet the price of lumber has never before been as high as in the year 1900. This increased price is in spite of an increased production which it taxes the railroads to transport.
"The price of stumpage is far more stable than that of lumber, and responds very tardily to fluctations in the lumber market. The usual policy of disposing of Federal and State timber for practically nothing has acted powerfully, particularly in the West, to keep the selling price of stumpage far below its legitimate value. It is not surprising that it has always been impossible for the bulk of the owners of timber to have a broad view of the lumber industry and close acquaintance with the lumber market, for most of the cost of producing lumber lies in logging and manufacture, and the margin of profit has varied widely. The price of stumpage has always been artificially depressed, and has lagged far behind the constantly increasing value of lumber.
"The timber and stone act provides for the purchase of public timberland at the uniform price of $2.50 per acre. The purpose of Congress in enacting this law was to make it possible for settlers, miners, and other actual users of timber to satisfy their needs. Records of the General Land Office show that in 1904 over 55,000 entries had been made under this act, covering an area of nearly 8,000,000 acres. Probably 10,000,000 acres of carefully selected public timberland has by this time passed into the control of private owners under this law alone.
"It is well known that most of the entries under this law have been made, indirectly, by nonresidents for speculation. And the great bulk of the entries have almost immediately passed into the hands of timber .syndicates, with profit to the original entryman amounting to no more than bare wages. Thus the law has reacted greatly to the disadvantage of the very classes whom it was intended to help, and the bona fide settler and miner and the small sawmill man have seen the public timber rapidly withdrawn and pass into the hands of speculative syndicates.
"The land laws, while they have provided for the rapid disposal of public timberlands, have tended strongly to the segregation of large holdings of timberland for speculative purposes.
"Money receipts from the sale of timber for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1905. were $50,000. During the present fiscal year receipts from timber sold will probably exceed $500,000, and contracts for the sale of timber, extending from one to five years, will reach a value of over $1,500,000.
"The money return which the Government realizes from these sales is in striking contrast to that received from the sale of timberland under the land laws. Under the timber and stone act timberland could be bought for $$2.50 per acre, and under the lieu land law it could be acquired in exchange for denuded and worthless land without money payment. Timber from the forests is now purchased by the thousand board feet, and payment is made upon the actual scale of the logs when cut. The cut varies from 5000 to 20,000 feet per acre, so that, at the comparatively low stumpage rate of $2.50 per thousand feet. the Government receives from five to 20 times as much for the timber as it received under the timber and stone act and retains the land. To cite a single example: A sale of 12,000,000 feet of timber was recently made on a National forest in Wyoming, at the rate of $5 per thousand feet. The proceeds from the sale of the timber alone will be $60,000. The timber averages 8000 feet per acre and covers 1500 acres. Had the sale been made under the timber and stone law it would have yielded but $3750 for both timber and land.
"It might be argued that the Government is not in the lumber business and that it should dispose of its remaining timberlands as rapidly as possible, leaving it to private enterprise to exploit them. But public opinion is emphatically in favor of a more conservative use of what remains of the National forests than would be possible were they turned over to lumber companies, whose sole concern would be their quick conversion into cash. The Government has been forced into the lumber business solely that a supply of forest products may be guaranteed to future generations.
"Probably 65 per cent of the total stand of merchantable timber within the forests is located on the Pacific Coast, where for a long time the enormous supply of privately-owned timber will satisfy most of the demand. This more accessible private timber surrounded the forest as the meat of an apple surrounds the core. But this belt of private timber has been entirely eaten away in many places, while in others it is locked up for the purpose of speculation. The thing to remember, then, is that this immense body of public timber is there as a great reserve against the time when private timberlands will be depleted, and for use as a weapon against monopoly. Already, even on the Pacific Coast, actual operators, who are not speculating in timber, but who, if they are to meet the demands of commerce, must have logs to supply their mills, are turning to the National forests.
"The advantages in the purchase of timber from the National forests to the actual operator, and especially to the sawmill man of small means, are man3^ There is no large initial investment required in acquiring timberlands and no possibility of annoying litigagation over defective title to lands. The purchaser is entirely relieved of taxes and the cost of protection. The Government assumes the entire risk of loss by fire or other causes.
"The first effect of National forests upon prices, particularly where there is still a great deal of available timber, is to raise the price of stumpage toward its intrinsic value by withdrawing the excess supply of low-priced timber from the market. On the other hand, as the supply of timber dwindles and values are forced upward by holding for speculation, the effect of the forests will be to check advance in prices and make them lower.
"In the Rocky Mountain states and territories the major part of the small remaining supply of timber is in the National forests, and here their beneficial effect upon the lumber supply may be more plainly seen than on the Pacific Coast. The demand for timber from the forests throughout this region has come very generally from small sawmills which supply towns and ranches located off the railroads and from mines which use the timber for their own development.
"From the forester's standpoint, mature timber should be cut in order to give the small trees more light and a chance to grow and to make way for reproduction. From the standpoint of National economy, the mature timber on the forests should be utilized as needed for the development of the West, provided the local supply is not reduced below the point of safety. The whole weight of the movement in favor of National forests is squarely against a reckless use of the timber resources, but it is emphatically in favor of the legitimate use of timber. The points of vital importance are that the remaining supply of timber must be used with the utmost economy and that in every case reproduction must be absolutely assured.
"Far beyond the present influence of the National forests upon the lumber supply will be their importance in the future. The United States is now facing a serious decrease in the available supply of timber. That from the National forests will aid greatly to bridge over the period of inevitable lack of mature timber which will last from the time the old trees are gone until the young trees are large enough to take their places. The definite. result, therefore, of the sale of timber from the forests will be to sustain the lumber business, to maintain a steady range of timber values, and thus to lessen speculation, and far more important still, to render possible the uninterrupted development of the great industries dependent upon wood."
Ample provision has been made in the Act of June 11, 1906, for the acquisition of title to any lands in forest reserves found to be agricultural in character. It is provided that the Secretary of Agriculture may in his discretion, upon application or otherwise, examine and ascertain as to the location and extent of land within permanent or temporary forest reserves, except the following counties in the State of California: Inyo, Tulare, Kern, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Orange, Riverside and San Diego, which are chiefly valuable for agriculture, and which, in his opinion, may be occupied for agricultural purposes without injury to the forest reserves, and which are not needed for public purposes, and may list and describe the same by metes and bounds, or otherwise, and file the lists and descriptions with the Secretary of the Interior, with the request that the said lands be opened to entry in accordance with the provisions of the homestead laws and the aforesaid act.
Upon the filing of any such list or description, the Secretary of the Interior shall declare the said lands open to homestead settlement and entry in tracts not exceeding 100 acres in area and not exceding one mile in length, at the expiration of 60 days from the filing of the list in the land office of the district within which the lands are located, during which period the list or description shall be prominently posted in the land office and advertised for a period of not less than four weeks in some newspaper of general circulation published in the county in which the lands are situated.
Patent may be obtained within five years from the date of settlement by the entryman making proof showing a compliance with the act in question.
