The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1910-01-28
INTERESTS BACK WAR ON PIN
CHOT, HE SAYS
Clipping Sent BY Mrs. Bowerman:

l
on the United States forest service
and these attacks have increased il
violence just in proportion as thu
service has offered effective opposition
to predatory wealth." said Clifford
Pinchot, chief of the United States
forest service, today in a speech be-
fore number of prominent publish
ers at the University club on "Con
servation and Equal Opportunity.
"The American people have evil
IDENTIFY made up their minds that oul
natural resources must be conserved,
said Mr. Pinchot in beginning his
remarks. THAT is good, but it set.
ties only half the question. For whose
benefit shall they be conservation
the benefit 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 in
terests and equal opportunity, be-
tween the privileges of the few and
the rights of the many, between gov
eminent by men for human welfare
and government by money for profit,
between the men who stand for the
Roosevelt policies and the men who
stand against them. This is the es-
pence of the conservation problem to-
day.
Issue Called Moral One
"The conservation issue is moral
issue. When few men get possession
of one of the necessaries of life, eth
er through ownership of natural re-
sources or through unfair business
methods and use that control to ex-
tort undue 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 moral wrong
81 believe in one form of govern
ment, and believe in the golden rule.
But we must face the truth that mon
opoly of the sources of production
makes it impossible for vast numbers
of men and women to earn fair liv-
ing. 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.
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 q
little money. Thousands of daugh-
ters of the poor fall into the hands
of the white slave traders because
their poverty leaves them without
Thousands of families,
as the Pittsburg survey has shown us.
ead lives of brutalizing overwork in
return for the barest living.
Much Given for Little
The people of this country have
ost vastly more than they can ever
'egain by gifts of public property,
orever and without charge, to men
Who gave nothing in return. 1t is
rue that we have made superb ma
erial progress under this system, but
{ is not well for us to rejoice too
RELY in the slices the special inter-
SITS have given us from the great loaf
t the property of all the people.
The people of the United States
ave been the complacent victims of [
system of plumber often perpetrated
y men who would have been sur
rised beyond measure at accusations
wrongdoing, many of them in their t
rivate lives model citizens. But +
lese men have suffered from cur G
JUS moral pervision as a result of @
hich they considered it praiseworthy q
} do for corporation things they q
ould refuse with the Hottest scorn a
} do for themselves. Fortunately /
If us all, that delusion is passing n
lpidly away. s.
1T is the honorable distinction of s
lie forest service that it has been "
ore constantly, more violently, and v
ore bitterly attacked by the repre- o
natives of the special interests in a
cent years than any other govern e'
ent bureau. These attacks have in W
eased in violence and bitterness Just
proportion as the service has Of CT
red effective opposition to preda- az
ry wealth. The more successful we al
We been in preventing land grab to
ng and the absorption of. water n,
wer by the special interests, the Sc
ore ingenious the more devious and M