Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1907-10-24
TIMBER LAND Rating.
As GIVEN BY SECRETARY OF AGRI.
CULTURE WRONG.
Assertions Which Are Misleading
Are Given by Government Official.
Either He is Not Well informed or
He Has Been riiSquOied or SOme-
thing else.

In recent interview published in
the Washington Post, the secretary of
agriculture is reported as having
said: THE forests of the West
through fires and the inroads of the
lumbermen, are disappearing much
more rapidly than they are growing.
Generations must come and go before
we can replenish the virgin forests
of a few generations ago. One man
out in that country already has thir-
ty million. acres under his control.
We have only five times that amount
under the control of the government.
We hold our supply to protect the
watershed. He holds his for profit.
In a quarter of century from now,
when the supply of timber is almost
gone and the demand for it has vast
increased, think of what those thirty
million acres, and perhaps more that
may be added to them, will be
WORTH" The secretary said that he
knew the name of this one man who
had amassed this wealth of timber
but declined to give it.
People who are at all familiar with
the subject also know the name of
the man to whom the secretary re-
ferred, and they also know that the
secretary has made statements that
are both misleading and false. They
also know that If the secretary had
taken the least trouble to inform
himself, he would know that his
statements are misleading, if he does
not know 1t already. The question is
whether or not he willingly made the
statements for the purpose of Great
ing prejudice against the lumbermen
OF the country, and, incidentally, to
gain favor for the government forest
policy. So far as the lumbermen are
concerned, they are already favorable
to the forest reserves, excepting in
such instances as the government has
direct harm to long establish
ed manufacturing plants by with
drawing completely supplies upon
which these industries depend for
life. Fortunately these are not many
and the forest service has shown an
inclination to consider the rights of
the lumber manufacturers in such
cases. But it is not necessary nor in
good taste for government official
to make statements which are not
true, and which will create prejudice
against prominent business men of
the country.
His statement that one man con-
trolls thirty million acres of timber
in the West is not true. That state
ment was published in a monthly
article early in the year,
along with lot of other untruths
about this prominent lumberman,"
but was promptly denied by him, and
the denial was published in a num-
ber of papers. The untruth of the
particular statement lies in two
facts: First, that the large amount of
timber land credited to the gentle
man in question is neither wholly
o yned nor half-owned by him. 1t is
the property of syndicate of lum-
bermen numbering a score or more,
and the prominent lumberman"
owns less than one-half the stock in
the syndicate. Second, the total
holdings of the syndicate and other
in which he is interested,
including lands owned in fee and
timber that is to be cut under con-
tract from government lands, do not
equal one-sixth part of thirty mil
lion acres. These various lands are
located in Oregon, Washington, Mon
tana, Idaho, Minnesota, Wisconsin
and Arkansas. When the number of
acres accredited by the secretary of
agriculture to this one lumberman
is divided by six to get more nearly
the correct number owned by the
in which he is interested,
and then again divide by the number
Ga score or more) of partners in
these concerns, the statement Of the
secretary that "the lumber king of
the future will far surpass Rookie
feller in the riches at his command"
loses much Of it's force.
OF people outside Of the lumber
business and not familiar with the
timber areas Of the country it is
probable that not more than one in a
hundred will hesitate to believe the
statement that one man controls this