Forest Service Circular No. 35 Forest Preservation and National Prosperity

FOREST PRESERVATION AND NATIONAL PROSPERITY.

[The American Forest Congress, held in Washington, D. C., January 2-6, 1905, was of a character altogether unique. It brought together from every part of the country eminent representatives of all the great industries directly dependent on our forests, to discuss the importance of forest preservation. Practical methods of safeguarding the broad business interests of the nation, now threatened by wholesale forest destruction, were considered by lumbermen, railroad men, engineers, foresters, and representatives of the mining, grazing, cooperage, and other interests, of the several States, and of the National Government. Passages from a number of the addresses, somewhat condensed in places, are given below.

The opening address, at the public meeting of the congress held at the National Theater on the afternoon of January 5, was delivered by President Roosevelt, and was in part as follows:]

THE FOREST IN THE LIFE OF THE NATION.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT,
President of the United States.

It is a pleasure to greet all of you here this afternoon, but especially the members of the American Forest Congress. You have made by your coming a meeting which is without parallel in the history of forestry. In the old pioneer days the American had but one thought about trees, and that was to cut them down; and it was not until half a century of our national life had passed that any considerable body of American citizens began to live under conditions where the tree ceased to be something to be cleared off the face of the earth. For the first time the great business and forest interests of the nation have joined together, through delegates altogether worthy of the organizations they represent, to consider their individual and their common interests in the forests.

The producers, the manufacturers, and the great common carriers of the nation have long failed to realize their true and vital relation to the great forests of the United States, and the forests and industries both suffered through that failure. The suffering of the industries in such case comes after the destruction of the forests, but it is just as inevitable as that destruction. If the forest is destroyed it is only a question of a relatively short time before the business interests suffer in consequence.

All of you know that there is opportunity in any new country for the development of the type of temporary inhabitant whose idea is to skin the country and go somewhere else. You all know, and especially those of you from the West, the individual whose idea of developing the country is to cut every stick of timber off of it, and then leave a barren desert for the home-maker who comes in after him. That man is a curse and not a blessing to the country. The prop of the country must be the business man who intends so to run his business that it will be profitable for his children after him. That is the type of business that it is worth while to develop.

The time of indifference and misunderstanding is gone by. Your coming is a very great step toward the solution of the forest problem—a problem which can not be settled until it is settled right, and it can not be settled right until the forces which bring that settlement about come not from the Government, not even from the newspapers and from public sentiment in general, but from the active, intelligent, and effective interest of the men to whom the forest is important from a business point of view, because they use it and its products, and whose interest is therefore concrete instead of general and diffuse.

* * * It was only a few years ago that the practical lumberman felt that the forest expert was a man who wished to see the forests preserved as bric-a-brac, and the American business man was not prepared to do much from the bric-a-brac standpoint. Now, I think we have got a working agreement between the forester and the business man whose business is the use of the forest. We have got them to come together with the understanding that they must work for a common end, work to see the forest preserved for use. The great significance of this congress comes from the fact that henceforth the movement for the conservative use of the forest is to come mainly from within, not from without; from the men who are actively interested in the use of the forest in one way or another, even more than from those whose interest is philanthropic and general.

* * * I shall not pretend this afternoon to even describe to you the place of the forest in the life of any nation, and especially its place in the United States. The great industries of agriculture, transportation, mining, grazing, and, of course, lumbering, are each one of them vitally and immediately dependent upon wood, water, or grass from the forest. The manufacturing industries, whether or not wood enters directly into their finished product, are scarcely, if at all, less dependent upon the forest than those whose connection with it is obvious and direct. Wood is an indispensable part of the material structure upon which civilization rests; and it is to be remembered always that the immense increase of the use of iron and substitutes for wood in many structures, while it has meant a relative decrease in the amount of wood used, has been accompanied by an absolute increase in the amount of wood used. More wood is used than ever before in our history. Thus, the consumption of wood in shipbuilding is far larger than it was before the discovery of the art of building iron ships, because vastly more ships are built. Larger supplies of building lumber are required, directly or indirectly, for use in the construction of the brick and steel and stone structures of great modern cities than were consumed by the comparatively few and comparatively small wooden buildings in the earlier stages of these same cities. It is as sure as anything can be that we will see in the future a steadily increasing demand for wood in our manufacturing industries.

There is one point I want to speak about in addition to the uses of the forest to which I have already alluded. Those of us who have lived on the Great Plains, who are acquainted with the conditions in parts of Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, and the Dakotas, know that wood forms an immensely portentous element in helping the farmer on those plains battle against his worst enemy—wind. The use of forests as windbreaks out on the plains, where the tree does not grow unless man helps it, is of enormous importance.

When wood, dead or alive, is demanded in so many ways, and when this demand will undoubtedly increase, it is a fair question, then, whether the vast demands of the future upon our forests are likely to be met. You are mighty poor Americans if your care for the well being of this country is limited to hoping that that well-being will last out your own generation. No man here or elsewhere is entitled to call himself a decent citizen if he does not try to do his part toward seeing that our national policies are shaped for the advantage of our children and our children's children. Our country, we have faith to believe, is only at the beginning of its growth. Unless the forests of the United States can be made ready to meet the vast demands which this growth will inevitably bring, commercial disaster, that means disaster to the whole country, is inevitable. If the present rate of forest destruction is allowed to continue, with nothing to offset it, a timber famine in the future is inevitable. Fire, wasteful and destructive forms of lumbering, and the legitimate use, taken together, are destroying our forest resources far more rapidly than they are being replaced. It is difficult to imagine what such a timber famine would mean to our resources. And the period of recovery from the injuries which a timber famine would entail would be measured by the slow growth of the trees themselves. Remember that you can prevent such a timber famine occurring, by wise action taken in time; but once the famine occurs, there is no possible way of hurrying the growth of the trees necessary to relieve it.

* * * Whatever it may be possible for the Government to accomplish, its work must ultimately fail unless your interest and support give it permanence and power. It is only as the producing and commercial interests of the country come to realize that they need to have trees growing up in the forest not less than they need the product of the trees cut down that we may hope to see the permanent prosperity of both safely secured.

This statement is true not only as to forests in private ownership, but as to the national forests as well. Unless the men from the West believe in forest preservation the western forests can not be preserved. We here at the headquarters of the National Government recognize that absolutely. We believe, we know, that it is essential for the well-being of the people of the States of the Great Plains, the States of the Rockies, the States of the Pacific slope, that the forests shall be preserved, and we know also that our belief will count for nothing unless the people of those States themselves wish to preserve the forests. If they do, we can help materially; we can direct their efforts, but we can not save the forests unless they wish them to be saved.

I ask, with all the intensity that I am capable of, that the men of the West will remember the sharp distinction I have just drawn between the man who skins the land and the man who develops the country. I am going to work with, and only with, the man who develops the country. I am against the land skinner every time. Our policy is consistent to give to every portion of the public domain its highest possible amount of use, and of course that can be given only through the hearty cooperation of the western people.