The Home Front
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
THE HOME FRONT By William E. Bohn Administering The People's Land I CAN REMEMBER when the United States Government was throwing away its real estate with both hands. Then, at the very beginning...
...I have never heard any complaints about the men in charge of the many investments, but it is obvious that this piecemeal, checkerboard way of doing business is inefficient...
...Include your old address—or address label...
...But it includes, too, our gorgeous national parks, great stretches of virgin forest and the oil deposits under the Outer Continental Shelf...
...Last year, when I made my swing around the national parks, I came to realize that our conservation policy means much more than the mere holding of real estate for future generations...
...The Department of the Interior has charge of some, the Department of Agriculture looks after others...
...First, there was the long period from the beginning down to about 1900...
...I felt sure that those old trees and those streams and lakes would be there on and on into the future...
...In 1905, 33 million acres were added to the national forests...
...This comes to mind because I have just finished reading a hook entitled The Federal Lands (Marion Clawson and Burnell Held, Johns Hopkins, S8.50...
...Since 1905, our attitude toward publicly owned property has developed to the point where every attempt to tear away any part of it meets the angry opposition of the citizenry...
...Pinchot urged the nation to save its natural wealth for future generations...
...There was a man...
...At least three weeks' notice is required for all changes of address...
...It is published for Resources of the Future, a child of the Ford Foundation, and bears every mark of representing the opinions of the inside authorities in the field of conservation...
...is in big business...
...This would simplify the present structure and provide greater flexibility with regard to the sale and purchase of land...
...What is more, it would pinpoint the responsibility for the administration of our vast real estate empire...
...it also embraces much land that private investors did not want...
...I used to spend my vacations in the Presidential Mountain Range of New Hampshire...
...In that year we entered a period not of mere conservation, but of "intense use...
...I remember hearing an old farmer say: "I won't have a wild tree on my land...
...Our authors call this the custodial period...
...Land was set aside for forests, for wildlife refuges, for parks, for grazing ranges...
...My original interest in the national forests was purely selfish...
...The third era began as recently as 1950...
...A good part of this property is, to be sure, semi-arid...
...the next year another stretch of 30 million was stashed away...
...Though the authors thoroughly appreciate the beauty, health and intelligence which are promoted by activities in connection with our public lands, they also make a good argument in favor of administering our property investments in a profitable and productive way...
...In 1955 and 1956, the income from our public lands was roughly $350 million...
...It was he who led me to see forestry as a national cause...
...Our Federal lands should be under one authority...
...Then, at the very beginning of this century, a bustling young fellow named Theodore Roosevelt moved into the White House and appointed a handsome and dignified Pennsyl-vanian named Gifford Pinchot as Chief Forester...
...Congress gives what attention it can to the widely scattered and varied interests...
...When the pine forests in and around these mountains were taken over by Uncle Sam, I experienced a new sense of security...
...Almost without intending it, the U.S...
...A little later I became acquainted with that missionary forester, Gifford Pinchot...
...Chopping them down and burning them up was a long and tiresome task which was the necessary prelude of planting and harvesting...
...CHANGING YOUR ADDRESS...
...Subscription Department NEW LEADER 7 E. 15th St., New York 3...
...The authors select . this date because 1951 was the year in which "for the first time in modern Federal land history, gross revenues from all Federal lands equalized total expenditures on them...
...The various sorts of property are under the supervision of different departments, boards and commissions...
...They include 24 per cent of the nation's total land area and contribute from their resource base something like 9 per cent of the gross national product...
...During the 18th and 19th centuries, trees were the enemies of the settlers...
...Then came the Teddy Roosevelt-Gifford Pinchot era...
...The authors of this new book divide the history of our public lands into three eras...
...The first two sentences go like this: "Federally owned and Federally administered lands are an important part of the economic and social life of the United States...
...The authors of this book urge the establishment of a Federal land corporation which would have control of all, or nearly all, of our holdings...
Vol. 41 • November 1958 • No. 42
