The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-12-28
G|FFORO PINCHOT
 DEFENDS BUREAU Chief Forester Makes Attack Upon Predatory Wealth INJURY TO THE PUBLIC People of United States, Says Mir. Pin chot, Have Long Been Victims
 of System of Grab Con-
 trolled by Few.
INJURY TO THE PUBLIC

 chot, chief forester of the Unitd Statets, declared in a speech here today before a number of prominent publishers at the University club that special interests have made frequent attacks on us, and these attacks have increased in violence just in proportion that the service has offered effective opposition to preoatory wealth. MT. Pinchot said:
 'The American people have evidently made up their minds that our natural re- sources must be conserved. That Is good, but 1t settles only half the question. For whose benefit shall they be conserved, for tho benefit of the many or for the use and profit of the few? The great con- f1ict now being fought will decide.
 There are no other questions before us that begin to be SO important, or that will be so difficult to straddle, as tho great question between special interest and equal opportunity, between the priv ieges of the few and the rights of the many, between government by men TOT human welfare and government by money for profit. This Is the heart of tho con servation problem today.
 The conservation issue is moral is- sue. When a few men get possession Of one of the necessities of life, either through ownership of a natural resource or through unfair busipess methods. and use that control to extort undue profits, as in the recent cases of the sugar trust and the beef packers, they injure the av- erage man without good reason, and they are guilty of moral wrong. The result , is always the same-a toll levied on the cost of living through special privilege.
 Cost of Living.
 ITO the special interest an unjust rise : in the cost of living means simply higher profit, but to those who pay it that profit ! is measured in schooling, warm clothing. a reserve to best emergencies, a fair chance to make the fight for comfort. decency and right living.
 Right here the conservation question touches the daily life of the great body of our people, who pay the cost of special privilege. And the price is heavy. The price may be the chance to save the boys from the saloons and the corner gang and the girls from worse, and to mako good citizens of them instead of bad for an appalling proportion of the tragedies of life spring directly from the lack of little money.
 1 "Thousands of daughters of the poor l fall into the hands of the whilom slave l traders because their poverty leaves them without protection. Thousands of fami- lies, as the Pittsburg survey has shown us, lead lives of brutalixing overwork in return for the barest living.
 'Ts 1t fair that these thousands of fam- files should have less than they need in order that a few families should have swollen fortunes at their expense? Victims of Grab. "The people of the United States have been the complacent victims of a system of grab, often perpetrated by men who would have been surprised beyond meas ure to be accused of wronsdoing, and many of whom in their private lives were model citizens. But they have suffered from a curious moral perversion, by which it becomes praisworthy to do for corporation things which they would re- fuse with the loftiest scorn to do for themselves. Fortunately for us, all that delusion is passing rapidly away.
 T believe the American people are weary of politics for revenue only. It is time to take business out of politics and keep 1t out; time for the political activ- ity of this nation to be aimed squarely at the welfare of all of us. and squarely away from the excessive profits of a few of us
 There is no reason why the American people should not take into their hands again the full political power which is theirs by right. and which they exercised before the special interests began to null lify the will of the majority.
 Tt is the honorable distinction of the forest service that 1t has been more con- stantly, more violently and more bitterly attacked by tho representatives of tho special interests in recent years than any other government bureau. These attacks have increased in violence and bitterness just in proportion as the service has of- fered effective opposition to predatory wealth.
 Dangerous Attacks.
 "rhe more successful we have been in preventing land grabbing and the ab- sorption of water power by the special interests, the more ingenious. the moro devious and the more dangerous these attacks have become.
 "A favorite one is to assert that the forest service, in it's zeal for the public welfare, has played ducks and drakes with the acts of Congress. The fact Is, on the contrary, that the service has had warrant of law for everything it has done Not once since it was created has any charge of illegality, despite the most searching investigation and the bitterest attack, ever led to reversal or reproof by either house of Congress or by any congressional committee.
 Not once has the forest service been defeated or reversed as to any vital legal principle underlying its work in any court or administrative tribunal of last resort We hold 1t to be the first duty of pub lie officer to obey the law But we hold it to be his second duty. and close second, to do everything the law will let him do for the public good. and not merely what the law directs or compels him to do.
 Another. and unusually plausible, form of attack, is to demand that all land not now bearing trees shall be thrown out of the national forests. For centuries forest fires have burned through the western mountains, and much land thus deforested is scattered throughout the national for ests awaiting reforestation.
 Value of the Land.
 "This land is not valuable for agricul- ture, and will contribute more to the general welfare under forest than in any other way. To exclude 1t from the na- tional forests would be no more reason able than 1t would be in a city to remove tn nd