National Reports

...Last summer, a Federal district court prodded Virginia by insisting that integration should be "helped along...

...While a great many of the larger lumber companies have learned their lessons well and are cutting their timberlands on a basis to insure future crops, the majority of smaller owners are not doing so...

...Only in the past 10 or 20years have private owners, generally the industrial corporations, made an effort to practice sustained yield...

...Indeed, we may have to invent ingenious substitutes for wood, one of the most versatile raw materials, if we are to house the nation in the year 2000...

...What can we do to prevent or mitigate the timber famine...

...The Gray group discussed this method secretly in July, but its members, all legislators, quickly rejected it...

...Insuring that tuition money is actually paid to private schools once it is given to parents...

...We are still wasting a lot of usable wood...

...It was responsible for the popular election being held before the Assembly convenes in mid-January...

...The Committee feels that much of the failure to meet the need for adequate transportation lies in the present piecemeal approach to the problem...

...The Commission has also set April 1 as the deadline for completion of the entire project...

...First on the list, of course, was the hasty constitutional convention idea to enable voters to sanction private school grants to students who refuse to attend integrated schools...

...He was laughed at by lumbermen...

...At the same time, fares are being raised to a point reaching diminishing returns...

...Another legislative means exists for changing their constitution...

...The politicians are not impressed with the idea of inheriting this headache...

...By March 1 the constitution will undoubtedly be amended...

...What are the reasons for the coming timber famine...

...The ingenious Barnes has poured miles of cement, checkered the streets with thousands of gallons of white paint and put up so many signs that in some cases it is difficult for pedestrians to get around them to cross the streets...

...To further complicate matters, none of these agencies can or wants to get involved in the operational side of transit...

...Insects, disease, fire and other destructive agents kill about 13 billion board feet of timber annually-one-fourth as much as the nation cuts for useful purposes.Insects do about seven times more damage to the forests than fire, and disease three times more...

...Indeed, the answer to our timber problem seems to be contained in this excerpt from a lecture delivered by Pinchot in 1910: "The planned and orderly development and conservation of our natural resources is the first duty of the United States...

...the details will be handled by the General Assembly...

...In the next three or four decades this trend will accelerate...

...The immediate danger posed by Virginia's Gray Commission-named after its wealthy lumberman chairman, State Senator Garland Gray-lies not so much in its formidable tactics as in the appalling fact that most Virginians were until now unaware of what was being nurtured behind their Governor's closed doors...

...a wood shortage in a country so magnificently endowed with forests was unthinkable...

...The Forest Service report provides a clear answer: We have used up our forest resources in the past century at a furious pace...

...Less than three weeks after the Gray report was released, and with but a few hours of debate, it adopted the package intact...

...If the amendment goes through, the General Assembly can be counted on to swiftly pass a bill determining the election method of delegates to the Constitutional Convention and the election date...

...The demand for industrial wood will be 105 per cent greater than in1952...

...The Forest Service suggests a few remedies, such as a stepped-up planting program-50 million acres need reforestation if they are to produce timber in the reasonable future-more appropriations for insect and disease control, etc...

...Missing are such links as: Availability of grants to pupils in integrated private schools and Catholic parochial schools (there is one such school in Virginia, in addition to the Catholic parochial schools-Burgundy Farms in Alexandria...

...Even hardwoods, used for flooring and other sturdy requirements, will become relatively scarce...

...But Pinchot was right, though his timing was wrong...

...Thus unable to unload the Baltimore Transit, NCL has resorted to cutting service to a point where it is practically left with only "captive riders"-those who must either use existing facilities or walk...

...If the voters reject the plan, it will probably be dead forever...

...And he is not at all optimistic about the future: "Our present idea is to make the most efficient use of what streets we have...

...The Baltimore Transit Company is controlled by National City Lines, the largest transit holding company in the United States, with properties in other major cities like St...

...Despite some scattered lament, the people are being unceremoniously led to vote January 9 on an emergency constitutional amendment recommended by the General Assembly that would legalize the plan...

...U.S...

...Meanwhile, embattled sides are being decisively drawn...

...It is indeed difficult to understand how such a group, blessed by avowed segregationist Governor Thomas B. Stanley on August 30, 1954, succeeded in functioning secretly for over a year...

...Recently he instituted the famous "Barnes Dance," where all vehicular traffic stops and pedestrians can go diagonally across major thoroughfares...

...Cognizant that the wide-scope ruling gave it a year for action, the Gray Commission vigorously set to work...

...Many Virginians have bluntly asked how the Commission plans to circumvent Section I29 of their constitution, which states that the General Assembly shall establish and maintain an efficient system of free public schools...

...The Virginia Legislature cannot deny that it acted hastily under General Assembly pressure...

...In 1953 Mayor Thomas D'Alesandro hired one of the nation's foremost traffic engineers, Henry A. Barnes...

...Timber Famine Draws Closer By Max Farragut Portland, Oregon Fifty years ago Gifford Pinchot, father of the conservation movement in the United States, raised the cry of a coming timber famine...

...Auto Congestion Strangles Baltimore By Stephen H. Hess Baltimore Like every other major city, Baltimore finds itself on the verge of strangulation by an overabundance of automobiles and a deficiency of public transit vehicles...

...Louis and Philadelphia...

...One-fourth of our forest land is poorly stocked with trees, or not stocked at all...

...if they approve it, they remove themselves from all further association with this vital issue-which was only sketchily outlined about a month ago...

...While Barnes can't keep up with the demand for his services, the transit operator is faced with quite a different situation...

...Pointing to the wasteful exploitation of our forests, the growing use of wood and forest products and the increasing rate of population growth, he warned that the time was surely coming when a timber scarcity would seriously affect our standard of living...

...Financing and operating of private schools...

...Worst of all, nature hands our forests staggering blows...

...White students finding Negro private schools to be miles nearer than distant prescribed schools...

...It is the only form of insurance that will certainly protect us against the disasters that lack of foresight has in the past repeatedly brought down on nations since passed away...

...The Mayor has given interested parties until March 1 to file answers to the Committee's recommendations...

...This, however, would take nearly two years and give the voters the last word...

...Anticipating that mass transportation would become a hot political issue during last year's Mayoralty election, D'Alesandro, seeking a third term, appointed a committee of prominent citizens, headed by Professor Abel Wolman of Johns Hopkins, to investigate the situation...

...Besides Barnes's Department of Traffic Engineering, there is a Public Service Commission, an Off-Street Parking Commission and a Planning Commission...

...We also destroy scenic beauty, which is just as precious to a great many people as their daily bread...

...To be sure, most of them cannot afford to raise timber as a crop...

...While most of these findings could not be acted upon until the 1957 session of the State Legislature, much significance will be attached to whether D'Alesandro takes interim measures to support his committee...

...Should the January referendum kill the constitutional convention, it is difficult to predict whether the Legislature will be mindful, however belatedly, of the efforts of those communities willing to integrate wholly...

...No white child in Virginia, it declared, would be forced against his will to attend school with Negro children...

...This will probably be in mid-February...

...This will further perpetuate ironclad segregation...

...Location of all the tenable buildings needed for new private schools...

...If the forests are overcut we not only face the loss of a wood supply, we impair water-sheds and risk the depletion of water for domestic, industrial and agricultural purposes...

...Knowing that the State Supreme Court would be against stoppage of such funds, it went on to magnanimously offer its recommendations...

...To officially create its new plan, it hit upon the devious test case pattern...

...The fare is now 18 cents...

...Here are the facts: By the time the year 2000 rolls around, the U.S...

...Steady cutting of our forests in the next 45 years, says the Forest Service, will reduce our saw timber inventory from 2,000 billion board feet to 968billion board feet, or 65 per cent below our needs...

...They disliked the fact that they would be up for re-election when the integration subject was voted on...

...The definition of "non-sectarian" private schools...

...The timber famine he talked about did not occur in his generation, nor will it in ours, but before the century is out it will be an unhappy reality...

...But, as we try to use this or that device, the tide of automobiles rises higher and higher and before many years our city will be so packed-if things continue as they are-that improvisations won't give even temporary relief...

...This will result in everything from hockey sticks to houses becoming much more expensive...

...on the contrary, the longtime trend has been distinctly downward...

...When they can't get any from Federal lands they go out of business...

...Then it proceeded to devise a plan whereby the state would give aid to privately organized "non-sectarian" schools...

...Consequently, the nation has no excess forest land...

...The Committee recognizes that all agencies are dealing with aspects of the same problem and that the actions of one can and often are working at cross-purposes with another...

...The supply of softwoods, used for housing construction, will suffer most...

...Undeniably, the pupil assignment idea has caught the public fancy in Virginia...

...But the report fails to explore the most important solution...

...There was no attempt to give encouragement to communities prepared to initiate integration plans...

...To add to the confusion, the Gray Commission never revealed whether it intends to lease public school buildings to private school operators...

...But, he admits, his schemes can only give "temporary relief...

...NCL has made a standing offer to sell any line to any municipality...

...The Company feels that 20 cents is about as high as it can go...

...This relieved the Mayor of a potential sore spot and he went on to win the election...

...But the Gray Commission idea itself leaves many salient questions totally unanswered...

...The Committee, therefore, recommends "the creation of a Metropolitan Transportation Authority for the establishment of policy and for the translation of that policy into effective supervision of all aspects of transportation-traffic, mass transit, highways, parking, and myriads of detailed devices for more efficient movement of people...

...The result of a hundred years of overcutting has been relatively empty forests...

...So far no offers have been received...

...For this reason, Pinchot, our first chief foresters and some chief foresters who followed, such as Lyle Watts, advocated that the Government step in and control the manner of cutting on all forest land...

...For example, while Barnes and others would like to relieve traffic conditions in the downtown area, the Off-Street Parking Commission is engaged in luring cars into the city's core by financing the building of downtown garages...

...The commissioners, however, are too busy pushing their timetable to worry about details...

...the per capita requirements will rise from 65 to 76 cubic feet...

...It involves a majority of both houses of the Assembly and two regular sessions prior to submitting the proposed amendment to the people...

...What is sure to cause more stir, however, is the group's recommendation that the city purchase the transit company on the grounds that it must be properly integrated into the overall mass transportation system...

...Now he is experimenting with television as a means of keeping his eye on traffic flows...

...At the very outset, the Commission went on record as being strongly opposed to the Supreme Court's desegregation directive...

...The Commonwealth is a veritable loom of cross currents, illogical disputes and distortions...

...Virginia pays tuition for war orphans enrolled in private schools...

...As Pinchot said long ago, we must stop the plundering of our forests and other natural resources...

...The great bulk of the sawtimber in the East has long been cut-hardly any virgin stands can be seen from the Mississippi to the Atlantic Coast...

...will have a population of over 200 million...

...Three states, Oregon, California and Washington, have about half the nation's sawtimber, and that part of it which is in private bands is going rather fast...

...This is the essential discovery of the Forest Service's timber resource review, recently announced to the press...

...This means that while we have learned to keep forest fire damage under some control, insects and viruses go almost unchecked...

...The Forest Service says that one-fourth of the timber cut is merely left in the forest, or thrown into the trash burners of the mills...

...Equally underscored was the lawful right of local school administrators to assign pupils on numerous grounds other than the now unlawful one of color...

...There is talk of Virginia's "darkest hour" and "stain of infamy" and "VE (Virginia's Enemy) Day...

...In the five years from 1950 to 1954, automobile registrations have increased by nearly 70,000, while the transit system has lost over 54,000 passengers...

...The few million dollars we spend annually on controlling these ravages are a drop in the bucket...

...The source deciding the merits and rating of acceptable private schools...

...Some of the European countries learned long ago that forests are not just private property but wealth that belongs to the nation...

...The Gray Commission is determined to push its dual plan across before school opens next September...

...Now, after eleven months, his Committee on Mass Transportation has issued its report...

...In the Northwest, where one out of every three jobs depends on forest industries, many smaller lumber companies are short of logs...