Omaha daily bee., 1909-12-28
MEN OR MONEY?-PINCHOT
Chief Forester Says Conservation Has
Become Moral Problem,
GREAT QUESTION OF FUTURE
Declares Attacks on Service In
crease I'm bitterness Just as
Service Becomes More
Effective.

NEW YORK. Dec. 26.-"Special inter
ests have made repeated attacks on the
United states Forest service and those
attacks have increased in violence just
in proportion as the service has offered
effective opposition to predatory wealth"
said clifford Pinchot, chief of the United
States Forest service, IN a speech today
before a number of prominent publishers
at the University club. Mr.. Pinchot took
as the subject for his speech at the Peo-
pies Forum Conservation and Equal
Opportunity" Mr.. 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 the benefit Of the many, or for the
use and profit of the few? The great
conflict now being fought will decide.
There is no other question before us that
begins to be so important-or that will
be so difficult to straddle- as the great
question between special interest and
equal opportunity; between the privil-
eyes Of the few and the rights of the
many; between government by men for
human welfare and government by money
for profit, between the men who stand for
the Roosevelt politices and the men who
stand against them. This is the essence
Of the conservation problem today.
Conservation Moral Issue.
9TH conservation issue is a moral issue,
When a few men get possession of one of
the necessaries OF life, either through
ownership of a natural resource or
through unfair profits, as in the recent
cases of the sugar trust and the beef
packers. they inJure the average man
without good reason, and they are guilty
of q MOI al wrong.
IL believe in one form Of government and
1 believe In the Golden Rule. But we
must face the truth that monopoly of the
sources of production makes it impossible
for vast numbers of men and women to
earn a fair living. Right here the conser-
walton question touches the daily life of
the great body Of our people, who pay
the cost of special privilege. And the price
is heavy. That price may be the chance
to save the boys from the saloons and the
corner gang, and the girls from worse,
and to. make good citizens of them instead
OF bad, for an appalling proportion of the
tragedies of life spring directly from the
lack of a little money. Thousands Of
daughters of the poor fell into the hands
of the white slave traders because their
poverty leaves them without protection.
Thousands of families, as the Pittsburg
survey has shown us, lead lives Of brutal
izing in return for the barest
living.
People victims of Inc
The people of this country have lost
vastly more than they can ever regain by
gifts of public property, forever and with
out charge, to men who gave nothing in
return. 1t Is true that we have made SUI
perb material progress under this system.
but it Is not well for US to rejoice too
freely in the slices the special interests
have. given us from the great loaf of the
property of all the people.
people of the United States have
been the complacent victims of a system of
plumber often perpetrated by men who
would have been surprised beyond measure
to be accused Of wrongdoing, and many Of
them in their private lives were model
citizens. But they nave suffered from
curious moral perversion by which it be-
comes praiseworthy to do for a corpora
ton things which they would refuse with
the Hottest scorn to do for themselves.
Fortunately for us, all that delusion is
passing rapidly ava
Bitter Attacks on Service.
"It is the honorable distinction Of the
forest service that it has been more con-
stantly, more violently, and more bitterly
attacked by the representatives of the spe-
cial 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. The more successful we have been
In preventing land grabbing and the
absorption OF water power by the special
intareSfa tina mora ip0aninuS tho r,oro
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 brakes with the acts of con-
gress.
THE fact is, on the contrary, that the
service has had warrant of law for every
thing 1t has done. Not once since 1t 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.
Attempt to Curb Publicity.
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.
Still another attack, nearly successful
TWO years ago, was an attempt to prevent
the forest service from telling the people,
through the press, what it is accomplishing
for them, and how much this nation needs
the forest.
Sine the forest service called public
attention to the rapid absorption of the
water power sites and the threatening
growth of a great water power monopoly,
the attacks upon it nave increased with
marked rapidity. L anticiuafe that thpv
win continue to do so. stll greater OPP
position is promised In the near future.
There is but one protection, mean,
awakened public opinion. That is why
give you the facts"