A History of Forest Conservation in the Pacific Northwest, 1891-1913

I. E. T. Allen

Administration of the National Forests came under the Department of Agriculture in 1905, and Pinchot was given the opportunity to run things his own way. One of the first steps he took was a reorganization of the administration, to give more regional autonomy. Formerly matters having to do with administration of the national forests, such as selling timber or buying tools for fire fighting, had to be cleared with the Washington office. Local problems could not be solved on local grounds, as Pinchot desired, under this system. After consultation with Henry Gannett, F. E. Olmsted, E. T. Allen and others, a policy of district decentralization was developed. Though the change was not completed until 1908, a beginning was made in 1905. Chief inspectors were chosen for each district, whose duties would be to improve personnel of the forests, and inspect and report on actual work done in regard to permits, contracts, protection and improvement of the forests. [1] In Washington and Oregon, District 6, the district inspector was E. T. Allen, a man who for over thirty years exercised a powerful influence in forest management, both in the Pacific Northwest and in the United States.

Edward Tyson Allen [2] was born in New Haven, Conneticut, the son of Professor O. D. Allen of Yale. He was first educated at a grammar school; but at the age of ten his formal education ended. His father at that time resigned his position and moved west, settling in heavily timbered country in the Nisqually valley near the foot of Mt. Rainier, sixty miles by foot or horse trail from the nearest settlement or road. There Allen grew up, and was educated by his father. Young Allen met Pinchot on one of his trips west in 1896 or 1897, and served him as packer. In 1898 he worked as a ranger under the old Land Office regime. That fall he worked for a time on the Tacoma Daily Ledger as a reporter, but by December 2, 1898, had decided on forestry as a career, and wrote to Pinchot telling him of his decision. Pinchot encouraged him in this. [3] The next year Allen was selected as a Student Assistant, and spent the summer with Alfred Gaskill in the northwest, making a study of red fir for the Bureau.

In 1900 Allen again worked in the northwest, gathering information for a technical treatise on the western hemlock. Farsighted lumbermen like Frank Haines Lamb had long been concerned over the loss of revenue, and waste, caused by the non-salability of western hemlock. The treatise was intended to benefit lumbermen by explaining the possible uses of the wood and facts about its growth and reproduction. Allen, with one assistant, studied old growth hemlock from April to June in Snohomish County and second growth hemlock in Cowlitz County. Pinchot sent him eight assistants in July, and he continued the work, doing the falling himself because of the July shutdown of mills. This was, he wrote, "about as well, anyway, to get the Harvard rubbed off the students before they come in contact with the loggers." During this time he managed to ingratiate himself with Senator A. G. Foster, vice President of the St. Paul and Tacoma Lumber Company, whom he had met the year before with Pinchot and Overton Price. As he wrote in his letter:

My ostensible purpose in seeing him was to ask for suggestions. I thought it would jolly him a little to appear to be anxious to carry out any wish be might have in booming fir and hemlock. My true reason, was to use him as a lever to wrest something out of the St. P. and T. L. Co., which is a mulish and disobliging corporation.

The attempt was signally successful. He finally worked up considerable interest in our methods of obtaining yield tables, rate of growth, etc., and repeatedly turned to his secretary and remarked, "Well, well, there's more in this than I thought there was." He asked my opinion on several of the problems of the forest reserves, and finally grabbed me by the arm and started on a tour of the mill, introducing me to the superintendents and asking them to give me any assistance they could.

By November 3, Allen had gained Foster's confidence to the point that Foster was asking Allen for assistance in a speech he was preparing, to point out that proper management of forest watersheds was more desireable than excpenditures for storage basins. [4]

Allen's work for the next five years was varied. He was loaned to the Department of the Interior for a year or more, first to clean up an administrative tangle in the Black Hills, and later as a special agent of the Department in other parts of the country. In 1902 his treatise on western hemlock was published. Later he did inspection work in the Priest River country of Idaho, and in Wyoming and Colorado.

In 1906 he went to California. That state had long been in the vanguard of states cooperating with the Federal forest policy. In 1903, the legislature passed an act permitting the State Board of Examiners te enter into contract with the Bureau of Forestry to investigate the forest resources of the state and formulate a state forest policy. One of the recommendations that came out of the study was that a State Forester be appointed to carry on the state forestry work. Pinchot recommended Allen for the job, and Allen accepted, retaining a foothold in the Service, however, as Inspector.

Allen's work was mainly educational, awakening the public to the value of forestry work and fire prevention. The California Promotion Committee, which represented all commercial organizations, the boards of trade, chambers of commerce, and other groups were all called on for support, through special appeals, personal and circular letters, newspaper articles and pamphlets. Similar appeals were addressed to stockmen, miners, land owners, and water users.

The response of the organizations was on the whole favorable. Writing to Pinchot December 17, 1905, Allen told how the California Promotion Committee had passed resolutions on the reserve work, asking for extension of reserves, and had also passed resolutions on grazing on the reserves. Allen wrote,

I got on the resolutions committee and in that way got them through. A lot of fool forest resolutions were handed in but I wrote a substitute and stuck the grazing clause in the middle so no one caught its importance in time to kick.

In Southern California he found sentiment strong for the reserves—almost too strong, in fact. Fruit growers near Pasadena and San Bernadino were so anxious to have fire line and trail work pushed near the reserve that they offered to contribute two thousand dollars from their own pockets for the purpose of financing it. When a reduction of forest forces became necessary for reasons of economy, Superintendent T. P. Lukens of the San Bernardino and San Gabriel Reserves protested. Lukens, a former mayor of Pasadena, asked the Chamber of Commerce of that city to protest also, and other remonstrances came from the Pasadena Board of Trade, the Merchant's Association, and other civic groups. Allen had his clashes, sometimes with men of prominence and influence. He disputed with W. B. Greeley, then stationed in southern California, over their relative spheres of authority, and with Stewart Edward White, who had the ear of the President and rendered well-meant but unsolicited advice on how to handle the reserves.

Yet Allen's achievements, in his year in office, were considerable. He began a systematic administration of the California State Redwood Park; secured the cooperation of five counties in fire preventive work with the State Forestry Board; and worked out agreements on protection against range fires with the Stockmen's Preventive Association of Alameda and San Joaquin counties. He felt, at the end of his term, that he had succeeded in changing public opinion for the better. His work, he wrote, had been primarily educational; the work of his successors would be to use this foundation for better administration of the state's forests. [5]

In July, 1906, Allen was appointed to the post of Forest Inspector, in District 6, composed of Washington, Oregon and Alaska. [6] By both training and aptitude, he was eminently qualified to fill the position. His training as a newspaper man, and his work for the state and the Bureau of Forestry, had taught him the value of good public relations, and the channels by which the people could be reached. He was both an experienced technical forester and a trained administrator. Moreover, he was known and respected by the lumbermen, whom he knew both through working with them and through his book on western hemlock. Though personally shy as a deer, and far from being a glad-hander of the Chamber of Commerce type, he inspired the confidence both of the public and of the men under him in district work.

II. Personnel and Public Relations in District Six

The chief problems of the new district inspector were three in number: To create a favorable climate of opinion toward the Forest Service; To tighten up and improve local administration of the forests; and to supervise, and improve, use of the forests. On these tasks he set to work with vigor; with such vigor, indeed, that within three years he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and had to take a rest cure in Tahiti.

Allen used all the tricks he had learned as newspaper man and as administrator to create a favorable public opinion. He befriended C. S. Jackson, editor of the Oregon Journal, and invited him to a series of supervisor and ranger meetings as his guest. [7] On the state level, in Oregon, he was able to work closely with Governor Chamberlain during this period, but in Washington relations remained strained until 1909, because of a close tie-up of interests hostile to the forest service with state newspapers and politicians.

A favorable public opinion, however, depended primarily on how local problems were handled by the men administering the forests. Much depended on the local district organization, the ability of the supervisors and rangers to meet the public and to work with them in solving local problems. It was one of Allen's chief problems in the first two years of his administration, and one of his greatest lasting achievements, to get a strong working district organization.

The supervisor and ranger posts were, at the time of Allen's arrival, manned by Land Office appointees, who had got their jobs before 1905. The actively dishonest ones had been weeded out, but none of them were technically trained foresters. Some were excellent men, making up in intelligence and industry what they lacked in technical training, and having a knowledge of local conditions that was extremely valuable. Allen's task was to weed out the obvious incompetents, and fill their places with competent men; to get a nucleus of men with professional training; and to transfer the men to the posts they were best suited to fill.

Allen had from the beginning some competent trained help. H. D. Langille, W. H. B. Kent, and others engaged in boundary work were, when the boundary work slackened off, available for other duties. Fred Ames, a technically trained forester who had worked in the southwest, came out as an assistant to Allen in February, 1907; [8] and Shirley Buck, a clerk in the Wenaha forest who had shown unusual competence, was transferred to Allen's Portland headquarters in 1907. [9] Granville Allen, E. T. Allen's brother, was appointed supervisor of the Rainier National Forest. [10]

In addition, some of the men in the supervisor and ranger posts were above the average in capability. Such a man was M. J. Anderson, supervisor of the Siskiyou forest, who has been mentioned before in connection with the Minto-Muir dispute. Anderson, a well educated man who had an excellent knowledge of land laws, had built trails in the mountains and told the people of the benefits of the reserve, with the result that the Service had become popular in the section. E. T. Allen, in attending a meeting of the Oregon Irrigation Association at Grants Pass, wrote that in the three days the session lasted he had not heard a work of criticism of the Forest Service, As he wrote, "The banner above the stage bore the words, 'We appreciate the Forest Service.' Resolutions were passed praising the Service and the National Forest Policy." That such was the feeling was due to Anderson's work. [11]

There were other men of similar caliber. In the Olympic Forest, Supervisor Fred Hanson and Ranger Christ Morgenroth were capable woodsmen; both were squaw-men, and this circumstance helped create better relations with the Indians in the area. [12] A. S. Ireland, a native Oregonian of pioneer stock, was made supervisor of the western division of the Blue Mountains, and helped avert a range war in the Prineville district. [13] Cy Bingham, a man of cockney and Irish ancestry who had been in turn cowboy, millwright, miner, stationary engineer, blacksmith and assayer, in 1903 settled down and became a ranger, and for five years, with his wife, patrolled the Cascade forest. He became supervisor of the Deschutes, and served there for thirteen years. [14]

Some of the men were valuable for other reasons in addition to their administrative worth. One of these men was Smith C. Bartrum, who had become a ranger in 1899 and was promoted to Supervisor of the Umpqua forest later. In January, 1907, Allen received word that the Oregon legislature planned to attempt to enact a forest fire law, and that he might aid in getting the right kind of a law passed. Allen sent Bartrum, who was a former politician, to act as lobbyist. Bartrum was instrumental in getting the law through, and was nominated to the Oregon State Board of Forestry as a Forest Service representative. As Allen wrote, "I feel that Mr. Bartrum's service in passing the bill makes it impossible to name anyone else." [15]

In 1908 a district reorganization was put into effect. As Overton Price wrote to Allen, then taking a rest on Tahiti, "In its larger aspects it is the same one that you and Olmsted and several more of us have had in mind for a great many years." [16] Men like Overton Price, F. E. Olmsted and E. T. Allen were convinced that district independence would be the answer to the question of solving local problems on local grounds. The forests to that time had been run, in all essentials, from Washington, but Washington was so remote that it was difficult to get a smooth and efficient local organization with healthy local initiative. The District Inspector idea had aided to some extent, but did not go far enough. The reorganization of December 1, 1908, divided the forests into six virtually independent districts, in charge of district foresters. Each was to be a Washington in miniature, with the Washington functional organization, and the district forester was given practically full authority to run his district. The organization was carried down to the national forests, under their supervisors; and the forests in the northwest were cut into twenty-six smaller national forests for convenience in administration. [17]

The change meant a much larger staff for the district, and much greater responsibilities for Allen, as District Forester. He returned to Portland, and made arrangements for the influx of technical men and clerical help that would arrive in December. A list of the new personnel came on October 31, and Allen rented office space in the old Beck building for them. [18] To the new staff, and especially the female clerical staff, the move was a high adventure. Will C. Barnes, the chief of grazing, caught some of their spirit when he wrote, on the eve of their departure:

Oh, they're whispering in the corners
And talking in the hall
They are scheming and a-planning
Where to migrate in the fall,
They are telling one another
Of the places they like best;
Oh, the whole blame outfit's "locoed"
'Cause we're going out West.

"Have you ever lived in Portland?"
"Is it wet or is it dry?"
"Do you think you'd like Missoula?"
"If you do, please tell me why."
"Is the living high in Denver?"
"Are the ladies there well dressed?"
Oh these are the burning questions,
'Cause we're going out West.

"Now I want to go to Frisco
Even though the earth does quake."
"Well, I'm wild to see a Mormon
So I'd much prefer Salt Lake."
"Do you think that I'll get homesick?"
"Are the Frisco fleas a pest?"
What a turmoil has been started
'Cause we're going out West.

"Oh, they say that board's expensive
In the town of Albuquerque."
"But you needn't take a streetcar
For to reach your daily work."
"Well, I've heard the living's awful
(Now please don't think me silly)
But really, do they live out there
On only beans and chili?"
Oh, such like doubts and troubles
Daily agitate the breast
Of each one in the Service
'Cause we're going out West. [19]

With the newcomers, District Six was at last on a solid basis. George Cecil, whose love of the out-of-doors led him to leave his father's shoe factory for the Forest Service, was Assistant District Forester; C. J. Buck, Chief of Operations; Fred Ames, Chief of Silviculture, and Howard O'Brien, former supervisor of the Imnaha, Chief of Grazing. Technical experts such as Juluis Kummel, Chief of planting, and Thornton T. Munger, of Silvics, were brought in. The group was a good example of the young, capable, intelligent, enthusiastic young men Pinchot was capable of recruiting and inspiring with his own idealism. They were able to grow up with the job. As Fred Ames, reminiscing later, wrote:

I some times marvel at the nerve we all had in tackling the jobs entrusted to us. Fortunately for the public, our organization, and ourselves, although the amount of work was no less, the responsibilities and chances for costly mistakes were infinitely smaller than they are now. We had a chance to grow up with the business.

Shirley Buck, writing of Daniel F. McGowan, of Claims, wrote:

In December, 1908, it was clear that Dannie could discern little difference between a lien selection and a mineral claim, but now in 1923, after 20 years of hard work, the Northern Pacific Railway will attest that he has fathomed all the intricacies of the public land laws and ranks as the discoverer of the million dollar comma, which he uncovered before a Congressional committee. [20]

The supervisor staff was also strengthened by appointment of some able men. Some of the larger forests were divided into smaller units, for convenience in administration; and some of the weaker supervisors were replaced. H. O. Stabler, a Yale graduate, was appointed to the Columbia National Forest, a part of the old Rainier; T. T. Sherrard, one of the founders of the Society of American Foresters, to the Mt. Hood; M. L. Erickson to the Fremont, and Burt Kirkland to the Snoqualmie. A. H. Sylvester, a former civil engineer who had surveyed the Mt. Hood quadrangle for the Geological Survey, became the first supervisor of the Wenatchee, and made a remarkable record there. As with the district forester job, the individual responsibility was great, and the positions required big men to fill them. As one supervisor wrote, "Here and there an inspector might be fairly close on the supervisor's trail, but on the whole a supervisor was pretty much on his own." [21] They did, on the whole, a competent job under conditions which were difficult at times, meeting new emergencies with ingenuity as they rose. The inspection report, and the correspondence of Allen, Ames and Kent reveal a variety of personalities and problems, and a variety of interpretations of the Use Book to meet them. [22] One thing all the reports have in common, however, then as now the bane of the field force; complaints against the endless number of official forms to be filled out in triplicate for the files. Nor was the complaint confined to Rangers and Supervisors; E. T. Allen, in one of his rare moments of leisure, composed a satire on the subject, a literary gem as timely now as it was then. In it the hero, a ranger of the steriotyped novel or movie variety, finds both his field work and his love affair interferred with by the vast number of forms to be filled out. [23]

Allen attributed much of the success of the Service to the district system of organization. In his farewell note to Pinchot, on leaving the Forest Service to head the Western Forestry and Conservation Association, he spoke of the lack of friction and fine esprit de corps among them, and ended, "The district system has had an important effect by establishing personal acquaintance and confidence among lumbermen and others." [24]

Numerous problems arose in regard to the personnel, however; and one of the most troublesome stemmed from suspicion of field men toward office men, and the distrust of those with technical training toward those without. Supervisors and rangers, so far as good men were available, were picked from local men. As the business managers of each forest, who had responsibility for local administration; and as public relations men, whose success might make the difference between local hostility and cooperation, men who had roots in the community had definite advantages. Their job required general ability rather than a knowledge of technical forestry.

These abilities, however, did not imply an ability to get along with the technical men. The trained men in special branches of the service, as grazing, silviculture, and so on, worked and reported to their special branch, but did their work under the supervisors on the ground. The work was planned to enable the technician to make use of the supervisor's local knowledge of an area; but in practice bad feelings often developed. A trained man from an eastern school might justifiably feel that he knew more about forestry than his superior; on the other hand, the local man might well feel that the technical man had learned too much from books and not enough from life.

A number of such incidents occurred. [25] Pinchot and Allen were both concerned over the matter, and looked for some solution. Allen's point of view was that there was a definite need for technical man, and would be more need in the future. But there was also need for practical and local knowledge. There were two ways of achieving this balance; first, teaching the practical man the scientific end of the work; and second, teaching the technical man the local end of it. The first had not succeeded, as Western woodsmen were not willing to spend the time and money needed. On the other hand, technical men were at first inefficient when faced with new conditions, but did learn to cope with them.

The problem was a difficult one. The ranger deserved to be rewarded for improvement in his work by higher wages and promotion, and might leave the Service if he did not get such rewards. On the other hand, if the technical man had no chance for promotion he also would leave. There was, Allen wrote, already trouble in getting and holding foresters.

"First, we try to meet the Western point of view by giving our technical men Western experience. Second, we are criticized by the West for doing so to the extent we have. Third, the technical man complains because we offer him no opportunity."

However, technical men should not be merely technicians; they should learn the forestry work as a whole, starting as apprentices on the local level. Eventually there would be room for both types. The work would, Allen thought, increase so much that technical men would be advanced to posts outside the Supervisor's position; also there would be more need for deputy supervisors and rangers, as time went on. Meantime, Allen tried to meet the situation by periodic meetings of supervisors and rangers with technical men in the various districts, to create mutual understanding; by detailed inspection work, to know more of the forests and the men; and by training of rangers in the Use Book. [26]

Allen discussed the matter with Pinchot in the late winter of 1908, on a trip to Washington. It is probable that as a result of this and other conferences that Pinchot conceived the idea of using the off season for training of rangers and lower personnel at ranger schools. In 1908 the Forest Service decided that rangers might take short courses at professional forestry schools, if such could be arranged, to improve their competence, and draw pay and transportation costs while so doing. [27]

Both the University of Washington and Oregon Agricultural College had been giving some instruction in forestry, the former under Edmond Meany since 1894; but the instruction was not on a professional level, and to Allen seemed of indifferent value. [28] Growth of interest in forestry led President Thomas F. Kane of the University of Washington to establish a professional school of forestry.

Kane hired Francis G. Miller, a graduate of the Yale Forestry School, who had been teaching forestry at the University of Nebraska, to head the new school. Miller started his course in 1907, with an initial enrollment of seven forestry majors, which had increased to eleven by the second semester. [29]

By October, 1908, plans were made to start a short course in the winter, when work was slack. [30] Miller, who was teaching singlehanded, asked to borrow A. H. Sylvester of the Wenachee National Forest, to teach topographical mapping; and Allen secured permission for him to do so. [31] Allen also prepared a list of recommended courses, of the kinds which would be of most value for the rangers. The list included Forest Measurment (cruising and scaling), to be taught by a professional cruiser with Miller's aid; Surveying (land surveying, mapping, and engineering), to be taught by the University staff; Law (trespass, and federal and state laws), to be taught by the Forest Service law officer; Forest Administration, also to be taught by the law officer; and Silviculture, to be taught by Miller. [32]

The course flourished, and did much toward establishing the School of Forestry on a firm foundation, as well as making more competent rangers. Thirty to thirty-five rangers each year got a degree of technical training for the twelve week period of the winter months. The number of Forest Service officers used in the program increased; the schedule of 1910 shows as teachers J. B. Knapp of Protection, W. E. Henry, Engineer, T. P. McKenzie of Grazing, C. J. Buck of Lands, T. T. Hunger of Silviculture, and F. E. Ames, of Sales and General Silviculture. Several members of the Service were borrowed for greater lengths of time, including Burt Kirkland and W. T. Andrews. [33]

In 1910, the ranger short course received a set-back. Probably in connection with the whole campaign against Pinchotism, protests were made by congressmen and others that rangers and Forest Service men attending school duties were receiving pay while absent from their field work. About the time the short course was due to start for the year 1910, the Solicitor of the Department of Agriculture ruled that Forest Service men could not be absent from their duties with pay to attend school, nor could transportation be allowed for that purpose. Despite this, all but two or three of those at the University of Washington elected to stay for the course at their own expense. [34] The next year, President Kane asked the Secretary of Agriculture for a new ruling on the matter. He stated that the ranger courses were organized on a cooperative basis, with the University furnishing most of the equipment and the Forest Service men giving courses of special interest in their field. Thirty men desired to attend the course that year. If the Forest Service instruction was curtailed, he wrote, it would lessen the value of the course; also the University would find it hard to reemburse the Forest Service instructors, since it was the end of the biennium. E. T. Allen supported President Kane, stressing the value of the course, the duty of the Department to back its men, and the fact that it was the off season for field work. Secretary Wilson compromised to the extent of stating that the Forest Service would meet the expenses of men and lecturers in traveling between Portland and Seattle, provided the University payed for their subsistence while in Seattle. [35]

The next year a new policy was adopted. Forest Service members whom the University desired to hire for the short course were given leave without pay. Lectures in connection with the course could be given freely by officers in cases where there was no expense for travel, i.e., where officers were stationed in the same town. Members of the Service in other parts of the region could give lectures to a limit of forty days, but the travel and subsistence would be paid by the University, and the lectures would necessarily be pertinent to Forest Service work. [36] The short course continued under this arrangement for some years.

The short course was valuable not only in training personnel, but in getting increased cooperation in forestry between state and national government. Such men as W. T. Andrews, J. P. Hughes and Burt Kirkland were borrowed by the University to aid in their forestry education program. In so doing, they aided those they taught in understanding Federal forest policy. Professor Miller, in cooperation with the Forest Service, aided in a study of forest taxation in Washington. In education, there was growing cooperation between state and Federal government. [37]

III. Grazing

Grazing policy in the national forests was well established by 1905, through studies by Coville, Pinchot, and Potter. The policy was based on favoring the local stockmen at the expense of "tramp" or out-of-state stock owners. Permits for grazing on the range in national forests were allotted in order of preference to (1) stockmen resident on the national forest; (2) stockmen with a ranch on the forest, but resident without; (3) stockmen living in the vicinity of the forest, and (4) outsiders with an equitable claim, based on prior use of the forest range. A fee was charged for grazing; though challenged it was upheld by Supreme Court decision in 1911. Grazing allotments would be decided by Forest Service officers, working in cooperation with local stockmen's associations who would act in an advisory capacity. Locally, the Forest Service encouraged the formation of local livestock associations, for the purpose of creating better understanding among the stock owners, and better use of forest forage resources. The permittees cooperated in enforcement of special rules adopted for users of a given range, after the rules were approved by the Forest officer in charge. Such matters as salting, roundups, use of purebred bulls, clearing of stock driveways, improving springs and the like, were worked out by the associations, with the cooperation of the Forest Service. [38]

Relations of grazers with the Forest Service in the Pacific Northwest were remarkably harmonious during this period—more so, probably, than in any other region. There were several reasons for this. One was that the success of Coville's pioneer work in 1897 gave the northwest a headstart in regulated grazing over other districts. A second factor was the complicated range situation in eastern Oregon and Washington, where tramp sheepmen and absentee owners plagued the local stockmen. Local stockmen wanted regulation of grazing, to protect their own interests. The great sheep trails were closed by 1908, and the tramp sheepmen left to the unappropriated public domain; the only area of conflict left was among local stockmen. A third was that the large livestock associations had but little strength in the region; local livestock owners felt their loyalty to the local livestock association, the "company union," that the Forest Service had fostered to solve local problems. [39]

In a given area, much depended on the skill of the local ranger or supervisor in settling local problems. Thus W. W. Cryder of the Colville Forest reported sentiment favorable there on the ground that grazing regulation benefitted the local community, and kept outsiders out of the forest; and C. H. Chidsey, Supervisor of the Heppner National Forest, was liked by the stockmen and "instrumental in changing public sentiment adverse to the forest policy to one very favorable." [40] In the Okanagan country a series of range wars broke out just previous to creation of the forest, between resident cattlemen and invading sheepmen. Three thousand sheep were killed. Then, as one cattleman said, "The national government adopted a system by which the national forest reserve could be used for grazing, a policy which proved a God's blessing to all of us." Grazing permits were issued; allotments for sheep and cattle made; and L. E. McDaniels, of the Grazing division, helped the local men form the "Buck's Peak Cattle and Horse Raiser's Association" to help work for range peace. [41] In the Imnaha forest, a move to have a large area of the reserve, a 1907 addition, returned to the public domain, was blocked by stockmen, who petitioned to have it retained in the forest. The supervisor estimated that ninety percent of the stockmen favored Forest Service regulation. [42]

Various problems rose in the local level. Light-burning by stockmen remained a problem, particularly since fire is no respecter of boundaries, and fires that started on private land or on the public domain often swept into national forests. The great fires of 1910 educated some stockmen, and more stringent state fire laws also aided, but the problem still remained. In the Wenaha forest which is situated both in Washington and Oregon, protests arose over the relative allotments of Oregon and Washington sheep. [43] Some controversies were tedius, and time consuming, even comical, but were not serious. Such was the case of Cornelius Finacune, who asked to graze 1200 sheep on the Goose Lake Reserve. The Supervisor, M. L. Erickson, turned down his request on the ground that he was not a landowner; had no record of prior use of the range, had no established range, and did not specify any particular range in his application. Erickson topped it off by writing, "Furthermore, you are of doubtful citizenship, and in view of the above, your application cannot be approved." Finacune took the remark on his citizenship as personal insult, and appealed to Senator Fulton, who in a letter to Pinchot, warmly defended his Irish constituent. [44] In the Wenatchee, where Basque rather than Irish sheepherders were hired, a different situation arose; the herders could not understand the instructions of the rangers, written or spoken. H. A. Sylvester suggested that the notices be printed in several language. [45]

The system of working out grazing problems through the local protective associations and on the local level was highly successful. Disgruntled grazers at first appealed to their congressmen, to the disgust of the regional staff; but Albert Potter, of the Washington grazing office, advised the regional administration to treat such communications with courtesy and respect. [46] Matters were usually settled on the ground, however. In the Fremont forest, the closing of the old California mutton sheep trail, the leasing of the Weyerhauser lands, and the work of Guy Ingram, in charge of grazing there, made relations easy to handle. When disputes arose, Ingram rode out with the disputants to the area in question, and settled the matter on the spot, acting as arbitrator. [47] The same policy was carried out by Cy Bingham of the Malheur, who handled delicate relations between sheepmen and cattlemen by meeting with representatives of both and arbitrating their differences of opinion. [48] The District Forester, in his report for 1912, found only two complaints from advisory boards, and both these were settled in a satisfactory manner. [49] The chief complaints from the larger state associations was that more Forest Service men were not present. Washington administrative policy permitted only the District Forester and the District Chief of grazing to attend such meetings; but in the minutes of many meetings regret is expressed that the supervisors and other local officers did not attend, to help thrash out local problems. [50]

Other factors aided in creating harmonious range relations. Cooperative agreements were worked out with other owners of range land. One of the main problems in land use was caused by the "checkerboard" holdings of railroads and Weyerhauser lands within or adjacent to the national forests. Since the sections met at a tiny point, there was no access from one section of railroad land to another without tresspass over government land, and vice-versa. Hence, whoever leased the railroad land had control of the alternate sections of government land; for nobody could enter the government land because the railroad land barred ingress. Grazers in such an area of mixed ownership would have to deal with both the private owner and the government for getting on allotment.

In 1908 George S. Long, local manager of the Weyerhauser interests, conferred with Allen in solving the problems of grazing on the 300,000 acres of Weyerhanser in the Fremont and Goose Lake district. Long gave Allen a free hand, and Allen worked out an agreement. The Forest Service would determine the area to be grazed, the block including both railroad and Forest Service sections. Permittees would get their permits through the Forest Service, to apply to the whole area, and would pay the grazing fee for the Forest Service permit. The company, which usually charged for grazing by the acre, rather than the head, would collect the grazing charge for their own acreage. Similar agreements were made with the Northern Pacific and the Great Northern railroads. [51]

Work was also done in improving the range. In 1907 the Service, in cooperation with the Bureau of Plant Industry, began a study of sheep ranges, under the general direction of Arthur Potter and Frederick V. Coville. Beginning in the Hilly Meadows country of the Wallowa Forest, a series of grazing surveys were carried out, aimed at finding new range and increasing the range's carrying capacity. In the region, the work was carried on first under the leadership of James Tertius Jardine, a special agent of the Forest Service in range and livestock management, who later became director of the Oregon State Experiment Station; later, as local men, such as Guy Ingram gained competence, it was carried on by individual workers in each forest. In 1910 the Office of Grazing Studies was set up as a new function within the organization, and the work went on at an increased tempo. C. S. Chapman, Allen's successor as District Forester, took a special interest in the work of discovering new range and new water supplies for stock.

The good relations between grazers and the Service showed to good advantage in 1911, when in January of that year both the Oregon Woolgrower's Association and the National Woolgrower's Association held their meetings in Portland. The Oregon association meeting preceded that of the national by a day. At this meeting, District Forester Chapman praised the work of this sheepmen in helping control the fires of the previous year, and spoke of the value of sheep driveways as fire lines. Both he and Thomas P. McKenzie, regional Chief of Grazing, described the work of the Service in range reconaisance and drilling for water in the Paulina Mountains, to increase the carrying capacity of the range, The resolutions of the Association praised Chapman and the Forest Service for their work. [52]

The National Association meeting opened January sixth. The meeting began with a long attack on Pinchot and Pinchotism by the Idaho delegates, but closed on a note of friendship to the Service. This was largely due to the work of the Oregon delegation. The key to the friendly tone was a resolution by the Wallowa delegation, passed unanimously, that advisory boards be appointed for the state and national associations. Writing to the Forester about this, Chapman reported:

Undoubtedly, there has never been such good feeling on the part of the state associations toward the Service as at present. Through opening up of new range in Washington and endeavoring to develop water in the Paulina Mountains, the Oregon wool growers feel that the Service is really trying to help them and are in an attitude to cooperate with us to the fullest extent.... It was extremely fortunate that the Oregon Association met the day preceding the opening of the National. The support of the Oregon grazers tended very largely to temper the proceedings of the national meeting, which, in the past, has been anything but fair to the Service. A few talks were made attacking the policy of the Service, but on the whole the proceedings of the National were far more friendly than I judge they have been in the past.

The Forester complimented Chapman on his handling of the affair, almost his last official act before leaving the Service. [54]

IV. Timber: Fires, Sales and Research

Fire remained one of the chief problems of the forest. The most important features of this, in the perfecting of a fire fighting organization involving state, Federal and private owners, is the theme of the next chapter. Within the district organization, however, there were important developments in fire fighting, techniques, and in agreements with agencies other than the timber business.

Techniques of fire fighting were not highly developed, and the Service men had to feel their way. Trail systems were built to areas of fire danger, so far as funds permitted. Patrols, rather than lookouts, were relied on as the best way to spot fires, though opinions varied from forest to forest, and each supervisor had his pet method. Lookouts were usually platforms of some sort placed in the top of trees, with some sort of primitive alidade to assist in locating the fire; the Osborne firefinder was still some time in the future. The Washington National Forest, for example, reported "Lookout towers, 40 ft. high, 12 ft. square at the base carrying a platform 8 ft. square, will be built on forests where there need is practicable. Upon the platform will be a routable; upon the table a map, and upon the map a coat of shellac, also the cardinal points of the compass." [55] Other forests recorded similar contrivances to aid in locating fires. Charles Flory, Chief of Operations, worked out in 1912 a system using "a circular protractor with a disk removed from the center so as to leave only a graduated permiter" fastened to the map. By the swing of an indicator balanced on the map to indicate the lookout point, the bearing of the fire could be read. By pointing the azimuth to another point a cross shot could be made. [56]

Actual work in putting out fires was usually a matter of hand work with axe and shovel, using packhorses or mules if they were available, for transportation. By 1911 or 1912, however, the mechanical revolution had begun. Supervisor Bartrum and a local representative of the Fairbanks Morse Company about that time designed a gasoline pump for fire fighting. Heavy in weight, the pump was nevertheless useful on a railroad flat car in areas where railroad logging was carried on. [57] By 1911 a motorcycle was used in the Crater forest on patrol work, though it suffered difficulty in getting through the "pumy" dust; and in the open pine forests of the Deschutes, the Model T Ford, with its high wheel clearance and general dependability, was used widely for going on fires. [58] By 1911 also, Cy Bingham had invented a collapsible plow for building fire lines. [59] Nevertheless, mechanical changes were slow in coming; it was not until 1924 that Ranger John Kirkpatrick could write in his diary:

Automobiles, graded trails, and good roads are softening us and making the performances of past years seem like a dream.... Times have changed and men too or their inclination to stand hard knocks. [60]

It remained for the next twenty years to bring about the great era of experimentation in fire fighting; the heliograph and carrier pigeon experiments, the development of the bulldozer, the tank truck, and the portable gasoline pump, and the first use of air patrol and radio.

Relations with state forestry agencies and with private owners will be discussed in the next chapter; but several of the cooperative agreements with other groups should be mentioned here. Many of the fires were started by railroads, on lines that crossed national forests, which spread from the railroad right of way to the forest. On March 14, 1910, agreements were reached with both the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific lines, that the companies would pay all expenses, exclusive of the regular wages of the protective force, for fires started within two hundred feet of the track, or for which the railroad was otherwise responsible. Similar agreements were reached between the railroads and the fire fighting associations in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana, regarding railroads crossing private holdings. [61] Agreements also were made with some of the eighty cities of the northwest which drew on sources within the Pacific Northwest, so that by 1917 cooperative agreements, generally sharing the cost of watershed protection on a 50-50 basis, were reached with Tacoma, The Dalles, Baker City, Oregon City, Dufur and Toledo. [62] Relations were less happy between the Forest Service and the Reclamation Service, when difficulties broke out in connection with the clearing and slash burning by the Reclamation Service near Lake Keechelus, on the Wenatchee National Forest. Fire spread from the slash to forest land, and the Forest Service attempted to get the Reclamation Service to pay part of the cost of putting out the fire. This the Reclamation Service refused to do. [63]

Timber sales were not large during this period. Private timber was still available and accessible, and most of the actual cutting done on the forests was in the form of special use permits for local settlers, and small sales. The cutting policy for the future, when the national forests would be an important source of the nation's timber, engrossed the attention of the men in the district, however. They were concerned with two phases of it: the future needs of the industry, and the need for information on the timber resources of the region.

On August 8, 1908, E. T. Allen wrote to the Forester his views in regard to timber sales. He believed that in general the national forests would supply a rotation of crops when private timber was exhausted. Hence, needs of the future was the important factor, and should be the prime aim in directing policy, even if it meant ignoring present demands. The cutting rules should be primarily set up as a means of establishing good silvicultural conditions, rather than making money for the government; hence, stumpage prices should be set on the basis of whether it was desirable to increase or decrease sales. The needs of the future should govern the number and size of sales. There was also need for more research, even if it meant neglecting current sales work. On the west slope forests, no information was available as to safe cutting practices. More was known about east side forest types, but even there there was need for more research. More had to be found out about production; productive and non-productive areas; classification of age groups and relation of the stand to age and differing conditions. Fortunately, the lumber industry was too depressed to admit of any large application for a year or so, and Allen believed that there was no immediate need for worry about sales. [64]

By January, 1909, terms of sale for the district were worked out. The policy allowed the district to make sales on its own of twenty-five million board feet per sale west, and ten million east, of the Cascades. Larger sales had to have approval of the Chief Forester. Allen had desired the right to make independent sales of fifty million west and twenty million east of the mountains; but it was felt to be better policy to have the Forester approve or disapprove large sales, to avoid establishing a set policy too soon. The purchaser, of course, had to follow rules set by the Forest Service in selective cutting, fire control, and slash disposal. [65]

National policy and regional desires clashed to some extent later that year. Allen's wish was to spend time in research. So, ideally, was Pinchot's; but he ran into political difficulties. One of the big talking points in favor of transfer of the reserves to the Department of Agriculture was that they would pay for themselves; but this prediction was not realized. The lumber market was in the doldrums; much of the reserve timber was inaccessible, and the Service lacked a trained personnel to handle sales. Pinchot wrote to Allen a number of times, asking him to push sales, to get receipts above that of the previous year. The Service, he wrote, was committed to raising more revenue; and mature timber in the woods was rotting faster than it was being cut. [66] Nevertheless, the sales in 1909 was not large; a total of 16,532 M. was sold, valued at $27,283; and 20,954 M. was cut, valued at $23,621. [67]

Sales policy in the district was described in a paper by Fred Ames, in charge of sales. The Forest Service, he wrote, was in the position of a man with some technical training and some practical experience called in to take charge of a large concern. He needed to know the class of goods in stock; the sources to whom he could supply them, and the details of marketing and manufacturing them. Through reconnaisance studies, classification of timber types and research, they could arrive at the yield at a given time, and decide when a second crop could be grown. So far, however, only very crude methods had been used to regulate cutting on the national forests. Complete utilization, in the form of low stumps and small tops; assurance of a second crop, and safety of the timber from fire was as far as they had gone. As to sales policy,

Of necessity the sales policy has varied to meet the pressure of circumstances which bore no relation to silvicultural regulation of cutting. The revenue had to be increased, it was necessary to demonstrate that the Forests were 'paying propositions,' the idea that the 'reserves' bottled up the resources of the country had to be dispelled.

So far they had played safe in the district. They had few large sales, with no possibility of overcutting; for the future they needed to know what they had, where it was located, what regulation was needed, and what type of reproduction was best. For the future it would be well for the Service to take the initiative in making sales; to sell timber past its period of maximum growth, to set the forests in working plans as soon as possible, on the basis of a substantial annual yield; to take care in making cruises and estimates; and to make prices on the merits of the stand, rather than allowing recommended prices to become a straitjacket. [68]

Forest sales increased in 1910, to 52,106 M., an increase of 215%; and the value of timber sold increased to $113,888, an increase of 317%. The price of stumpage had stiffened, and several bodies of mature and accessible timber were found in the Umpqua and the Olympic forests. Moreover, the lumbermen were gaining some acquaintance with, and confidence in, the Forest Service personnel. E. T. Allen resigned that year, to head the Western Forestry and Conservation Association. His successor, C. S. Chapman, had years before done work for the Weyerhauser Company in the old Division of Forestry, and was known and trusted by the Weyerhauser interests. The man in charge of timber sales, Fred Ames, was a quiet, competent man with a deep-rooted New England sense of honor, and quickly gained the respect of the lumbermen. In 1911 the first large sale of the northwest, the Pelican Bay sale of 103,512 M. was made in the Crater Forest. [69] Large scale cutting in the National forests, however, had to wait for the war years.

The District Six reorganization of 1908 was marked also by an increase in investigative work. It is to Pinchot's credit that, with great pressure on the Service for boundary and administrative work, he still managed to allot each year sufficient funds to carry on research. Work in the field before 1908 had been done largely as an offshoot of other work; but in 1908 a section in Silvics was set up, headed by Thornton T. Munger, a recent Yale graduate in forestry. Munger had come out earlier that year to investigate the relationship of lodgepole pine and ponderosa pine in the Deschutes pumice land, a silvical matter first brought to the attention of the Service by W. H. B. Kent. [70] Under Munger and others many problems were studied; such as the role of fire in reproduction of Douglas fir; the effect of slash burning on future reproduction; damage to ponderosa pine by base scars in light-burning areas; reforestation of the sand dunes in the Siuslaw forest, and other regional matters. Experimental reforestation was carried on in the Olympic forest in 1909, and seed planting was tested in 1910 in the old burns of the Siuslaw.

In 1908 Raphael Zon interested Pinchot in establishing Forest Experiment stations in the various National Forests. The purpose was to carry on

...experiments and studies leading to a full and exact knowledge of American silviculture, to the most economic utilization of the products of the forest, and to a fuller appreciation of the indirect benefits of the forest.

Stations would be established in typical areas, and each station would deal with problems peculiar to that region. Such a system would develop a scientific basis on which a forest policy for the region could be founded. [71]

The first of these stations was established in Colorado. By 1911 plans were made to establish one in the Pacific Northwest. In May of that year, W. B. Greeley wrote to the District Forester, stating that a sum of $3000 would be available for establishing such a station in a fairly typical locality in the region. The District Six personnel were luke-warm toward the idea, fearing that it would be established at the expense of the Division of Silvics, which had enough work of its own to do, and also fearing that the area was too complex for any one station to study more than local problems. Establishment of the station was postponed for a year; but a portion of the grant made available for special silvical studies on amabilis fir, grazing, ponderosa pine reproduction, sand dune experiments, and studies of cut-over areas. [72] By the next year, T. T. Munger had looked for suitable areas, and decided on the Wind River valley, out of Carson, Washington, as the best place. He pointed out in his report that there were seven main timber areas in the district—the fog belt of the Coast Range, the west slope of the Cascades north of the Umpqua River, the south of the Umpqua, the Blue Mountains, the Siskiyou Mountains, the east slope of the Cascades in Washington, and the pumice stone east slope in Oregon—and that each area had problems peculiar to itself. Brush disposal in the pumice stone area had to be studied there, as did chapparal brush in the Siskiyou in that area, and so on. The pressing problem of the area, however, was study of artificial reproduction of Douglas fir, and this could well be studied at an experiment station.

The Wind River valley had several assets. It had a climate typical of the Douglas fir region; not so humid as the coast or the Snoqualmie areas, but more moist than the Santiam or Cascade forests. The area was accessible, eleven miles by road from Carson, which was fifty-eight miles by rail from Portland. Its location in the center of the Yacolt Burn made it handy for fir studies of all kinds of reproduction, at all altitudes and in all varieties of soil. In addition there were other silvical studies that could be made in the area, such as natural reproduction in the 1902 burn; studies of 75-90 year old second growth Douglas fir, and test plots of various kind. [73]

The station was established the next year. C. R. Tillotson began the investigative work, succeeded by C. P. Willis, who in turn was succeeded in the Spring of 1913 by Julius Valentine Hoffman. [74] The establishment of the station and the independent silvical studies carried on at the same time, permitted remarkable progress to be made during the next decade.

V. Lands

The chief activity in regard to lands centered around enforcement of the agricultural lands acts, and especially the Forest Homestead Act of June 11, 1906. Often, in drawing the boundaries of the National Forests, small tracts of agricultural land had been included; this act permitted these tracts to be homesteaded. The bill had its origins in the findings of the Public Lands Commission, and was backed by the Forest Service. [75] The bill was undoubtedly desireable, as it would tend to stop the continual agitation for such lands as were located in the reserve; but the fact that it might serve as a cloak for land grabs and a sounding board for enemies of Federal forest control was appreciated by the Forest Service and its friends. John B. Waldo, writing to Pinchot about the bill, stated his belief that all public lands should be reserved, and feared the effects of the bill, on the ground that at some time the fox might be in charge of the chicken coop. "Were the friends of the Forest Reserve system to be always in charge, things would be different. But suppose a Heyburn becomes Secretary of Agriculture or Chief Forester—everything would go for agricultural lands that anybody wants." [76] And Senator Fulton, one of those who, like Heyburn, Borah, Mundell and Carter were sympathetic to, or in league with the land looter, aroused a storm of protest in suggesting that 50,000 acres in the vicinity of Cottage Grove be eliminated as agricultural land from the Cascade Range Reserve. Residents said there was not a hundred acres of agricultural land in the area; and an indignant mass meeting was held in Cottage Grove on the matter. [77]

The burden of the work in regard to this and other land claims in the National Forests fell on the Forest Service. The Departments of Agriculture and the Interior made an agreement in 1906, that Forest Supervisors would make reports on the validity of mining and agricultural claims rising within their forests. The reports would be transmitted to the Department of the Interior, and serve as a basis for determining whether a contest should be initiated against the claim. At first, the General Land Office generally rejected any claim where an adverse report had been submitted by the Forest Service. [78]

Almost immediately there came difficulties over interpretation of the laws. The task of determining agricultural lands was more than an academic one. G. F. Allen, Supervisor of the Rainier Reserve, wrote to the Regional office asking advice on some of the lands. The area in which he was supervisor, on the upper reaches of the Cowlitz, was timbered to the very banks of the streams. Some of the homesteads there had been made by local boys on timber lands. Their economy was a mixed one; they would clear a garden spot, split cedar shakes for sale, and work out part of the year. Such lands were not, within the meaning of the June 11 act, homestead lands, yet the occupants were engaged in genuine homestead activities. On the other hand, listing such lands as homestead lands would logically make all level timbered lands subject to elimination or settlement.

There was also difficulty in the administration over interpretation of the law. On April 5, 1907, Allen received a letter from Overton Price, the Associate Forester, urging liberality in interpretation of the law on the grounds of political expediency. In line with this, Allen listed some of the lands in the Rainier forest, the least valuable for timber, as homestead sites. Price later that year acknowledged that he had been in error, and gave orders for the future to resolve doubts in favor of the Forest rather than the applicant. [79]

R. E. Benedict, Supervisor of the Olympic National Forest, discussed the matter at a Supervisor's meeting in March, 1910. He explained the purposes of the act, to open up agricultural land in the forests, usually in the narrow valleys of rivers. The bill referred to agricultural land only, and was not meant to extend to any others. The examiners were urged to be conservative in their judgments. There was, he pointed out, ample undeveloped farm land outside the forests. Of the total area of 15,713,280 acres in Washington, 5,970,670 was not available for agricultural use, being in national forests, parks, or military reservations, or city and farm lots. Of the remaining 9,735,610 acres, 415,600 was improved farm land; 267,360 prairie land; 2,168,040 cut over land; and 5,549,410 timbered land. Thus there was 9,320,000 acres awaiting development outside the forest.

Benedict felt that the points for examiners to bear in mind were (1) whether the areas were needed for public purposes, such as recreational grounds, reservoirs, town sites, rights of way or gravel pits; (2) whether they were needed for forests, either for watershed protection, to prevent erosion, or to provide timber for the community; (3) whether the area was mineral land; (4) whether it was valuable timber land; and (5) whether it was valuable for agriculture. Above all, the examiners should use care to protect the interests of the Government. [80]

Three areas furnished special trouble for the Service in regard to such claims; the Methow valley, the Curry county region, and the upper Skyomish river. Not only did they afford an administrative problem, but the protests were used by conservative politicians, states rights groups and speculative interests as a spring board for attacks on the Service as a whole.

In the Methow valley, the creation of the Washington Forest Reserve in 1897 had included the whole valley; but on protest from settlers the bottom lands had been eliminated from the reserve. Lee Harris examined the area thoroughly in 1906-07, and established a definite boundary; but after passage of the June 11 act many fradulent claims, some mining and some timber, were established. George Milham, Supervisor of the forest, was in a difficult position. Though hard-working and conscientious, he lacked experience; and the Washington office failed to back him up.

Protests poured in to the Forest Service about the injustices done to hard-working home-seekers and their wives and children. The chief spokesman was F. F. Ventzke, U. S. Commissioner and deputy land surveyor. Ventzke was interested in forcing the Forest Service to let loose of timbered land, and in collecting fees for filing and final proof. Senator Wesley Jones, a man with a quick ear to the complaints of constituents against the Forest Service, came to the aid of the claimants, as did Senator Piles and the local newspaper. Also Pinchot did not back up his own man; he answered Jones' letter of protest in a favorable manner, without consulting with Milham. However, later that year, on his western trip, Pinchot looked over the matter on the ground, in company with Harris, Milham and Allen. He found that on the basis of the Harris surveys there was no real ground for the claims. [81] Finally, in 1909, Jones and Pinchot came to an agreement and Jones, in view of the low value of the land and its remoteness, agreed to let the matter drop. [82]

The Curry County and Skykomish claims were in part an outgrowth of political attacks on the forests. Woodrow Wilson, in his campaign for the presidency, had promised a greater role to the states in developing their own resources; and this encouraged those hostile to the Federal forests in states of the West to revive old land claims and old charges against the Forest Service. The theme of the Public Lands Conference held in Salt Lake City in 1913 was States Rights. Typical of the local agitation was a series of remonstrances against the Forest Service by Curry County residents. W. A. Wood, manager of the Curry County Abstract Realty Company of Gold Beach, wrote on February to Henry Graves, the Chief Forester, on February 7, 1913, protesting forest policy, and stating, "The methods used by the underlings of the department would cause a Revolution in Mexico, slaughter in Turkey, and the election of a new Parliament in Great Britain." He reported that people often went into the reserve and selected places to homestead, only to find that the ranger wanted it for a ranger station. In addition, he stated, claims of people who had lived on the forest for years were being contested. Graves replied that he would investigate any specific cases that came up. Later that year, a resolution from the Curry County Commercial Club, full of wrath and "whereases," was sent to the Forest Service and to the Oregon Congressional delegates. The resolution abounded in statements about "resources withheld from use," "aid to capitalist vs. homesteader," officers "bigoted, and without authority of law," engaged in a "system of petty espionage;" loss of $30,000 per year in taxes, and the "unbelievable tyranny of all officers connected with the Forest Service, from the Secretary of the Interior (sic) down to the lowest menial." It recommended that all national forest reserves within the country be opened to settlement. [83]

The movement was aided by a lax administration on the part of the Department of the Interior. President Wilson's Secretary of the Interior, Franklin Lane, was no friend of the Forest Service; in this respect he was perhaps even worse than Ballinger. A westerner, he believed in the disposal of the public domain. The reins had already been tightened on the power of the forest supervisors to determine adverse claims, in that a departmental ruling in 1910 required them to turn all their findings in to the Department of the Interior, that the law officers there might determine whether they were justified in putting the claimant to the expense of a hearing. [84] More important than this was a new interpretation of land laws by the Land Office, especially those regarding residence.

In 1913 the Land Office changed several of its rulings. A ruling of 1886 was reversed, which permitted claims to lands within the National Forests to be reinstated without regard to Forest withdrawal from entry. Another, reversing a ruling of 1901 by Secretary Hitchcock, permitted "That an entry which is invalid at the date of the Forest withdrawal, because of the claimant's failure to comply with the law, may be revived by subsequent visits." A third interpretation permitted brief periodic visits, and summer resident to be interpreted as meeting the requirements of continuous residence for five years, in taking up a homestead. Failure to maintain a residence could not, by the new ruling, be established by showing that the claimant had his home elsewhere; was employed elsewhere; was never found on the land; or had not harvested his garden. [85 The new interpretation inaugurated a new outburst of claim hunting and of attempts to revive long dormant squatter's claims, as means of getting timber. This was the period of the Big Creek claims in Idaho, described by both Henry Graves and David Mason as the most flagrant cases of timber fraud on record, and of many similar cases in the northwest. John Maki, a claimant in in Siuslaw forest, cultivated no land during the first three years of his claim; though in the fourth he sowed one sack of potatoes and twenty pounds of grass seed. "He did not ever eat or sleep in the cabin for 3-1/2 years after the entry, and 1-1/2 years after the forest withdrawal" yet the Land Office interpreted his claim as a genuine one. Oscar L. John, a claim holder in the Snoqualimie, had a claim on a north slope, of 45% slope, "after ten years of alleged occupancy the claimant succeeds in cultivating one-twentieth of an acre, on land that rose from an elevation of 1320 feet on one side to 6800 on the other and contained twelve million feet of timber." Here again the claimant was upheld. [86]

In the Pacific Northwest, the set of claims that had the greatest publicity were situated on the north fork of the Skykomish River. Henry Graves gave them considerable attention in his compendium on timber frauds in 1913. Of these he wrote:

This group is important not because the claims show any features essentially different from those already described, but because of their wide publicity and the public and political support which the claimants have sought in the effort to make their cause successful. Bills have been introduced in Congress to clearlist five claims, which were cancelled because of a conclusive showing of failure to meet the requirements of the Homestead Law.

The claims were in the Skykomish River valley, a narrow canyon not over one-quarter mile wide, with steep slopes rising from 1500 to 3500 feet above the river. The Valley is in the torrential portion of the drainage, evidenced by rubble and silt deposits over the level portion of the valley. It had a heavy stand of timber, however.

The claimants were not squatters, but vacationists. One was by profession a hotel keeper in Index, living ten or fifteen miles from his claim; another a carpenter, living and working in Everett; a third, a real estate man of Snohomish; the fourth, an agent for the Singer Sewing Machine Company; and the fifth owned a home and operated a laundry at Snohomish. Graves wrote, "There can he no clearer and more convincing evidence of the widespread effort to cure public timber fraudulently by technical manipulation of the land laws than that such a group should claim the rights of squatters on locations many miles up in the rugged mountains."

The Forest Service protested these claims in 1908. [87] The claimants immediately thereafter became more regular in their visits and made some slight improvements; but any genuine equity in their claim should have to be established, before 1908, when examination was made. They were given a hearing before the Land Office in 1910, and the claims cancelled in 1912. Since then, they had been representing themselves as pioneers, dispossessed by a bureaucratic Forest Service; Senator Jones and Representative Falconer introduced private bills to clearlist their claims; and they were aided by the cries of the conservative press, raging against governmental injustice toward the homemaker "whose hair has turned gray while he and his family strove against heavy odds to wrest a livelihood from the fertile lands along the North Fork of the Skykomish." [88]

On the lands question, then, the Service came under heavy fire. Graves, new to his position and under fire from several directions, was forced to make concessions not altogether to his liking, nor to that of the district personnel. In 1913, yielding to pressure from interested groups, he reduced the size of the Deschutes reserve, releasing some land that might marginally be regarded as better for other purposes than growing trees. It was not, he explained, a matter of saving the area concerned; it was a matter of saving the national forest program. The District force felt that he had made unnecessary concessions; and it is probable that this was the case. [89]