Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1933-11-19
by RExFoRD GUY ruGwELL.

the appointment of q successor
OF peculiarly difficult time For man,
years the service had been starved anc
its activities restricted; but now, it haC
come into new period of sympathetic
interest and expansion.
The Civilian Conservation Corps
100000 strong, was working In ths
woods, $15,000,000 had been awarded
Tor forest improvements from the pub
lie works funds, and $50, 900, 600 hac
been allotted for acquisitions partly ir
the newly set-up Southern areas ano
partly In the older forests It seemed
like time Of new life and interest fol
q chief forester. There was cruel irony
In Maj Stusrt's short enjoyment OF
sympathy under the new regime.
His successor. F. A. Silcox, will in
herit this new favor, but also some diff
fcult problems. The income of the
service ought to be far greater than it
Is. It's smallness can only be accounted
for by tenderness within the service
for private interests outside, which reg
listers itself by stubborn withdrawal
from activities other than those of
guardianship. This attitude is not diff
ficult to und rS6and. The forester feels
himself charged with kind of duty to
the public lands within his care, which
Is wholly inconsistent with the duties
outside. BY staying with the service on
meager Government pay he has given
notice to the world that his interests
do not lie in the business world and
that the rewards he expects from life
are not pecuniary ones.
The Dream and the Business,
Following from this distinction his
mind divides the economic world into
two parts: That which saves, renews,
guards, builds up and looks forward be-
yond our time, and that which exploits,
destroys, uses up, tears down and thinks
only Of the profit from immediate op-
erations. 1t is always perfectly clear to
him which place he belongs in, and he
resents any attempt to blur the distinc-
ton or to encroach ON his purity of at
titude. What this results in, often, is
something quite the opposite of what
any forester would intend. The Forest
Service may be kept uncontaminated,
but the business of numbering goes on
without the influence which ought to
be executed on it by the foresters.
There has to be change in all this
IN the interest of general conservation
OF all our resources-not only those
which happen to be within the borders
OF our forests; and the service will have
TO expose itself to contacts from which
at has hitherto withdrawn. No holding
OF any natural resource as large as the
Federal Governments forests can escape
exploitation sooner or later.
II that requires the foresters to do
that thing which they think they have
sufiiciently exposed and oStracized when
they have called it "going into business"
they viii have to get used to it. The
public forests cannot always be man
aged so that they do not interfere with
the lumber operators even though it
is done in the name of a worthy prin-
c1ple And especially the structure of
the new lumber code brings the service
directly into new relationships with the
climber industry, which viii be Of the
utmost delicacy. This will be a irving
task for the new forester.
Mr.. Silcox Chief Forester.
These are some of the reasons why
2 man as strong and as experienced as
Mr.. Slcox Is was badly needed 1t is
true that he has been out of the Service
for many years, but he was reared in It
and went through some of the bitterest
struggles of our history to establish it as
something above and beyond the posi-
bi1ty Of private exploitation. These
old battles have left on him the kind
OF indelible integrity we like to asso-
has also something which is rare-a
kind of brilliant intuitive sympathy.
He Is an executive, therefore, who is
more the leader than the driver, more
the arranger than the critic.
have known him since 1917. An
incident which happened back in those
days illustrates for me the kind Of re-
eourcefulness and human sympathy he
possesses. He had recently come to
Seattle, where he then was fresh from
his experiences as regional forester in
Montana. His successes in persuading
casual labor to fight his forest fires
under the peculiar difficulties of unrest
then prevailing had resulted in his
being put in charge Of mediation actir-
ties In the Puget Sound shipyards, which
were SO rapidly expanding to meet the
demand for wartime transport.
Labor turnover was very high: ships
were going to sea whose seams opened
at most embarrassing times, and there
was a disposition in Washington to lay
all the difficulties to the activities of
the reds" Mr.. Silcox doubted this
theory. The rivets in the ships were
driven by air-hammers; and he noticed
that frequently worknen threw down
their guns" with obvious disgust and
walked out Of the yards. His investiga-
ton showed that this was attributable
TO an instinct for good workmanship
rather than desire for sabotage. For
the air pressure required for closing
fivets was 100 pounds at the gun and
the workmen we're getting only half or
two-thirds of that amount. Hasty con-
tr1vance Of equipment and poor man
agement were making 1t impossible for
them TO do decent job and no. self
respecting workman would endure it.
Thus the red" theory was exploded
and better controls instituted, so that
the ships were finally made safe and
labor turnover reduced
A man of less resourcefulneSS and
more inclined to adopt the prejudices
OF those above and around him would
not have found the fault and corrected
It. This same spirit he carried over
into his later work in the printing in
dustry. One of mis- achievements there
has been the building up of a kind of
apprenticeship education which pro-
fesslonal educators might study with
profit. He is capable of seeing problems
clearly, regardless Of theories and pre-
conceptions, and of going directly to
the solution of problems in the most
realistic way.
Silt Problem Troublesome.
Erosion is just word to most of US
and a rather meaningless word at that.
But there are many places where its
meaning does not need explaining. In
New England, for instance, there are
rocky hillsides and abandoned farms;
IN the Southeastern States there are
2O,0OO,0O0 acres of farm lands which
have had to be abandoned; in Okla
homa soil destruction has forced entire
counties into complete dependence upon
Feoeral relief. All these long drawn-ou
tragedies were erosion cases. In all
these areas the soil has gone down the
river valleys toward the sea.
Farmers IN the Imperial Valley, dis
covered, also count the disposal of silt
as one of their most troublesome prob
lens. And learned there for myself
the fiftilifV Of aftankir,rr LII. ..unL1n....