The Minneapolis journal., 1901-12-14
THE PASSING OF FORESTS AND LUM-
BERMEN

That the frontier has at last disap-
peared and that the Pacific coast is as
much a part OF American civilization as
New England itself, is vividly brought out
by the extensive purchases of forest lands
recently made in the Pacific states by
Minnesota and Wisconsin lumbermen. and
the vast amount of capital and energy
now devoted to the destruction of the
forests of the farthest west.
The advance of civilization along the
shores of the great lakes and the inter
national boundary has been marked in
every step by the ruin left behind by the
lumbermen. The hard wood forests of
Indiana, Ohio, Illinois and Wisconsin
were destroyed to make fields; they were
felled by farmers; the trees gave place to
grains But the coniferous forests, from
Maine to Minnesota, have been destroyed.
not to make way for agriculture, but TO
obtain lumber. The lumber of these for
ests has housed the settlers Of the hard
wood and prairie regions The very
farmer who burned his splendid hard wood
trees in the Minnesota Big Woods built
his house of pine lumber brought at great
expense from the woods of the north.
The pine forests have been sacrificed to
win the prairies. So. while the old hard
wood regions have been made into farms,
burned-over or scrubby underground ex-
panses have succeeded the pine forests.
With the westward movement of the
great scythe that has cut down the for
oF ho IF
hardy and successful forest destroyers.
When Vermont and northern New York
had been denuded these men of the peavy,
the ak and the saw, the scale and the skid,
descended upon Michigan, and there built
up great fortunes, which later became
the foundations of political power. A lit
tie later, and long before they had done
with Michigan, these pushing Yankees
swarmed into Wisconsin and there, too,
as Professor Turner, of the University of
Wisconsin, has lately pointed out, built
fortunes out of lumber and political
machines out of their fortunes. little
later still, began the same thing in Mime
sofa. Our lumbermen have always been
Influential in politics. The forests Of the
iii CO SbdbS5 udNe yI6luSu SuelI0ry wealth.
and political leaders.
Now the last step is being taken. The
destroying army that came out of New
England-you cannot fail to notice how
many OF our successful lumbermen are
Yankees-is striding over the plains,
stopping to overthrow a few trees in the
Rockies; and is descending, as the To-
Gusts did upon Egypt. to the conquest OF
the forests Of the Cascades.
When they have, with their colossal
methods and all powerful appliances,
felled the last Of those trees and have
reared on their stumps a Pacific plutoc-
racy or lumberocracy, what next?
Alaska may cloy their appetites
for destruction and power for
short time, and the great hardwood
forests Of the Philippines are already ex-
citing their covetousness. And after that,
what? The end of the race. The vandal
lumberman, rough-and-ready generous,
with more regard for success than ethics,
using in politics both the cunning he ac-
quired In purchasing timber lands and
the rude force he displayed in sweeping
them of their trees, square miles at
time, good friend. an implacable foe,
will be no more. Another picturesque
American type will have gone with the
good old, heroic times of the winning of
the west.