The Coconino sun., 1909-12-31
Equal Opportunity for All.

of the forest bureau in the Agrl- cultural Department. His name was a synonym for about every thing that was good in citizenship and wise in manhood The popu- lar verdict in favor of the chief forester was nearly unanimous. Now as the year closes he has many friends, but his fellow countrymen are sharply divided in their present estimate of his wisdom. at least. Mir. Pinchot may have carefully counted the cost and his course may possibly be patriotic and right from the standpoint of his own conscience. There will probably be a few of us who will even yet question the uprightness of his pur- poses or the goodness of his inten- tions.
 To speak exact truth, as during recent weeks the chief forester has gone one step farther after another in his contention. he has constantly approached the dividing line that separates the conscientious, un- affected patriot from the dema- gogue. His most recent utterances in New York City, made during the present week. if not to be charac- terized as demagogical, certainly come too close to the mark. This speech sets up a loud clamor for "equal opportunity to all. v It is just as loud as its broad, unquali- fled denunciation of multitudes of unnamed persons by insinuation al legged to have robbed the public do- main for years past, That is pure demogagy. It is the rant of the bewhiskered, sockless Populist.
 There has been at all times in the United States equal opportuni- ty to all so far as the public do- main goes. The great source of wealth in the public domain has been agricultural lands. The land laws of the United States have been absolutely just and have gwen an opportunity to all ever since the first of them was passed. Under these laws the enterprising, the en- ergetic, those with nerve and res0- lution. have gone out from comfor table homes in the midst of civi- lization and taken up land claims in the wilderness. They slept up on their old flintlocks to protect their families from marauding h. dians and they sat under the lee ward side of haystack many a frosty winter night to protect their stock from marauding wolves. They ate corn pone three times a day, wore coarse clothes and cow hide boots. They lived far from schools. from churches and from all that goes to make life sweet as we'll as comfortable. They were the real winners of the West. They went down into Texas when that great territory was under the Mexican flag. They went up into the wild Northwest and wrested Oregon and Washington from under the paw of the British lion. Dur. ing all these years. for the person who underwent these hardships' privations and trials to subdue the wilderness and make the desert fruitful hundred stayed at home and enjoyed the comforts of civiliz- ation.
 Perhaps where more filching has gone on than any other part of the public domain has been in the for ests of the United States. But however numerous such instances may have been. they surely do not lay any foundation whatever for MT. Pinchot to rant as if the pio- neers of the West had nearly all been engaged in highway robbery against the government. and, worse than all. as if the government off cials up to the time of the appear ance of Mir. Pinchot on the scene had connived with the robbers.
 There has been no wholesale plundering of the public domain al any time in the United States There is none of it going on al present. The United States has never had an unpatriotic presi' dent. The Cabinet officers in all administrations have been as a rule patriotic and thoroughly honest a: well as thoroughly competent men