Daily Arizona silver belt., 1907-12-04

the forests which supply this timber are rapidly being exhausted and that, if ], change takes place, exhaustion will
 come comparatively soon, and that tn,
 effects of 1t will be felt severely in the
 everyday life of our people. Surely
 when these facts are so obvious, there
 a be no delay in taking preventive
 measures. Yet we seem as a nation to be
 willing to proceed in this matter with
 happy go-lucky indifference even to the
 immediate future. 1t is this attitude
 which permits the self-interest of very
 few persons to weigh for more than the ultimate interest of all our people. There
 are persons who find it to their immense
 pecuniary benefit to destroy the forests
 by numbering. They are to be blamed
 for thus sacrificing the future of the
 Nation as whol to their own self in- terest of the moment but heavier blame attaches to the people at large for per
 hitting such action, whether in the
 White Mountains, in the southern Ale ghenies or in the Rockies and Sierras.
 A big numbering company, impatient for immediate returns and not caring
 to look far enough ahead, will often deliberately destroy all the good timber in region, hoping afterwards to move on to some new country, The shiftless man of small means, who does not care to become an actual home-makcr but would like immediate prifit, will find it to his advantage to take up timber land simply to turn it over to such q big company, and leave it vaIueless for future settlers. A big mine owner, anxious only to develop his mine at the moment, will care only to cut all the timber that he wishes without re- gard to the future-probably not look. ing ahead to the condition of the coun
 try when the forests are exhausted, any more than he does to the condition when the mine is worked out. I do not blame these men nearly as much as l blame the supine public opinion, the indifferent public opinion, which permits their action to go unchecked. Of course to check the waste of timber means that there must be on the part of the public the acceptance of tenn porary restriction in the lavish uuse of the timber, in order to prevent the total loss of this use in the future There are plenty of men in public and private life who actually advocate the continuance of the present system of unchecked and wasteful extravagance, using as an argument the fact that to check it will of course mean interfer- ence with the ease and comfort of cer- tain people who now get lumber at less cost than they ought to pay, at the ex- pense of future generations. Some of these persons actually demand that the present forest reserves be thrown open to destruction, because, forsooth. they think that thereby the price of lumber could be put down again for two or three more years. Their attitude is pre- cisely like that of an agitator protesting against the outlay of money by farmers on manure and in taking care of their farms generally. Undoubtedly, if the average farmer were content absolutely to ruin his farm, he could for two or three years avoid spending any money on it, and yet make a good deal of mon ey out of it. But only savage would, in his private affairs, show such reck- less disregard of the future; yet it is precisely this. reckless disregard of the future which the opponents of the for estry system are now endeavoring to get the people of the United States to show The only trouble with the move ment for the preservation of our for ests is that it has not gone nearly far enough, and was not begun soon enough. It is a most fortunate thing, however. that we began it when we did We should acquire in the Appalachian and White Mountain regions all of the for est lands that it is possible to acquire for the use of the Nation These lands because they form a National asset, are as emphatically national as the rivers which they feed, and which flow through SD many states before they reach the ocean.