The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1930-01-02

family will suffer, for nothing that
we use or eat or wear can be pro-
duced, manufactured, or transported
without the help of wood.
Lumberman interested in continu-
ing the profits they make from forest
devastation have spent great sums in
propaganda intended to make people
believe that the future American
forests are safe. Many have been de-
ceived, when the fact is That nothing
could be farther from the truth.
Most commercial cumberland own
ers who endanger our future by dew
astating their forests for profit are
opposed to stopping it while any
thing is still left to devastate. For
more than thirty years continuous eff
forts have been made to induce them
to cut their timber without injuring
the public interest. With few ex-
ceptions, honorable in purpose but
negligible in amount, they have gone
on slashing.
The area of commercial timberlands
| today under conservative cutting IS
insignificant. 1t does not even prom
Use to exercise any influence worth
considering on the central forest
problem in America, which is to stop
forest devastation and keep lands
chiefly adapted to forest growth ac-
tually growing disable trees.
Many lumbermen, especially on the
Pacific Coast, are today in trouble
chiefly because they got together,
largely by fraud, greater holdings of
timberland than they can profitably
carry under the present conditions of
industry and population. The public
is now invited to make good their
losses, which are directly due to-
improvident greed or actual fraud, or
let forest devastation go on until the
lumbermen can see profit in practic-
ing forestry.
This amounts to saying that the
profits of the lumbermen are more
sacred than the welfare of the peo-
pie. We assert, on the contrary, that
the public welfare comes first; that
every forester is in duty bound to OPP
pose forest devastation and help to
stop it, whether it pays the lumber
men or not; and that the public has
no obligation to guarantee the profits
of any business, unless that business
is a public utility with a limit on
profits, and is regulated as such.
A sound forest policy for the Uni
ted States must put an end to des-
tructive numbering on large CONNER
cial timberlands. 1t should not at
tempt to control cutting on farm
woodlots or other small parcels of
forest land. This is properly mat
ter for the individual States.
We protest against further delay
by investigation or any other dilatory
measure. What is wrong is known,
and what to do about it. Forest de-
vastation has gone too far already.
Public opinion, under courageous
leadership, is ready to put an end to it.
The ownership of property involves
responsibility to the public for the
proper use of it. No householder is
allowed to use his property in a way
to injure the public welfare. Neither
should any lumberman. They should
be required by law to stop forest de-
vastation and practice conservative
numbering.
Regulated numbering is neither
new nor strange. Laws for the pub
lie control of cutting on privately
owned timberlands are already in sue
cessful operation in nearly every civil
lized nation on earth that is engaged
in woods operations on any large
scale. Without such laws private
forests have never been permanently
safe. Such laws also stabilize and
protect numbering as a business.
Nearly everywhere the lumbermen
who operate under them are their
staunch supporters.
The only way to stop forest devas
tation is to stop it. The longer it
goes on the more it does the Nation
harm. We recommend the prompt
passage of law by Congress to pre-
vent commercial cumberland owners
from injuring the public by forest
devastation, and require them to keep
their timberland growing wood, I'M
less public authority finds it better
adapted to some other useful purpose.
This can be done under the Con-
stitution. The Capper Bill shows how.
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