The Republican journal., 1910-02-03


Good Friday and Easter. We were the
the evening anniversary Of its institu-
ton. We led the way in more liturgical
method of worship In all these things
we were harmonious, and this church and
people deserve no little credit for their
good endeavors in these directions.
Logging Camp in Winter.
The New England Lumber-Jack on His Job.
(Springfeld Republican,
The summer visitor or the casual tour
list to the White mountains or the Maine
lakes who may have a passing glimpse
of logging camp of several hundred
men, or visit to thriving lumber town,
finds it difficult to realize that in New
Hampshire, just over the border into
Vermont and Maine and Canada, at points
easily reached from New Hampshire,
there are each winter from Is, 900 to 20, :
600 men employed in the logging camps
These figures are not startling when We
read of the billions Of feet of logs cut
from these northern forests, according
| to government statistics, each year.
From the very heart of the old Granite
State to the Canadian border 20 long
winters these great, rough, big-hearted
men have been at their work in the dark
woods, and one needs only a passing
glimpse to see the appalling results Of
their labor in practically every township
of}the State. In the upper Penigewasset
valley, among the foothills Of the White
mountains, from early autumn, all
through the long dreary winter, and on
until the snow melts in the spring, you
will find from 1000 to 5000 men at their
work of bringing down logs from the
steep mountain-sides. Not only the
giant spruces that may still remain far
up on some lofty ridge, but even the
young spruces and hemlocks and pines.
These days the orders are everything
over four inches at the top" In the
very heart of the White mountains one
can still find enough timber left here and
there to warrant lumber camps Of 200
and 300 men, as in Jackson and Randolph,
Franconia and Livermore, and along the
swift river of the beautiful Albany In
tervale, where today are scattered some
5000 men along an 19-mile lumber rail
road. All along the Androscoggin river,
from Berlin up to Enrol and over into
Maine to the Rangeley lakes, thousands
of men are at work-here and there only
80 or 40 in jobber's camp-but hun
dreds in the large company camps. All
along the Connecticut river, from the
Connecticut lakes near the Canadian line
south for $50 miles, men are numbering
on small tracts, bringing down the great
logs to the river. In the lower central
portion of the State it is difficult to find
even single township without the
steam-mill employing from dozen to so
men, and cutting from $4,000 to half a
million feet of spruce or pine. The big
outside world has gathered an almost abb
surd and impossible idea of the life of
these men from the books and the songs
that have been written about the lumber
men OF our northern woods. One is often
impressed and thrilled with the romance
and picturesque story book side of the
woodman S life, or else disguised with
what seems an almost brutally degener-
rate lumber jack nature. But the out
side world is only seeing the woodsman
when he comes back 10 civilization,
which for him III most cases means
gambling den Or saloon, where his
hard-earned money is quickly dissipated.
One must live with these men in their
forest homes, and go about with them in
they are very lnuch the same as the rest
little above the average. Among these
woods and mills and water ways of
northern New England, fully one-third
are American farmers, most of whom
own and work their farms and who leave
their wives and families in the long Win
ter season to earn ready money to make
better farms and homes for those same
wives and children. Fully one-third of
these men in the lumber camps are
French Canadians, and the other third
are, for the most part, foreigners
either Poles or Russians a good
number of the unemployed sent out from
our large cities.
Whatever may have been the chance
these 30, 900 men had to lead decent
and comfortable existence in their homes
or previous occupations, it is safe to say
in comparison with like chance in the
woods it could not have been any worse.
These men are here for one purpose only
ITO bring down the logs" There can
be no drones or idlers in this strenuous
life; even when man is in, or laid up
for weeks from some injury received in
his work, he must pay for every particle
of food he eats and for every days lodg-
ing he spends in his sitting bunk on
bed of spruce boughs, wrapped in his
filthy unWashed blankets.
But, say what you will, it is only just
to presume that any man should at least
have chance for normal life while max
ing his living. The typical lumber camp
today does give man sufficient guam
tity of fairly well-cooked food to enable
him to keep his body strong and in con-
dition to do a splendid days work, but
the average lumber camp does not give
that same man chance to keep his body
clean and to lead a normal existence. I
have seen half-dozen steam-mill board
ing houses where man could sleep in
bed, where he could keep his body and
bis clothing clean; but have seen hun
dreds of lumber camps where, in log
howell not larger than 80 by 60 feet, a
hundred men slept in double-decked
hunks on beds of boughs or hay, with
their damp clothing, worn all day, steam
ing over their heads all night, over a
roaring fire, with absolutely no ventila-
ton and no chance to wash themselves
or their clothing.
And l have slept in dozen lumber