EDITORIALS
PINCHOT'S DISMISSAL LATE Friday night, January 7, President Taft dismissed Forester Pinchot from the public service. The reason which the President assigns for this ac-tion is that a letter written...
...He ignores the fact that under the Constitution the executive and legislative are separate, independent, and coordinate branches of the government...
...Besides, it makes you more particular with regard to what you put into it...
...How far will it go...
...Pinchot's offense in writing a letter to a Senator to be read on the floor of the Senate, because it might influence public judgment in a matter which had been or might be the subject of executive action, the President seems quite to have overlooked the case of Mr...
...Is such a record of invaluable public service and unselfish public devotion to be sacrificed upon a pin point of official etiquette...
...Water power, scientists say, is to turn the wheels of industry in the future...
...Gifford Pinchot, the Chief of the Forest Service...
...Remember that living in a rented mind, furnished with opinions bought on the installment plan, never offers any inducement with it for the future...
...If it had not been for him, this convention neither would nor could have been called...
...But this case is too big and strikes down too deeply into the life of the American people to be disposed of lightly upon some point of official etiquette...
...Behold him ignore his superior, the President, and come by letter upon the floor of the Senate to file charges against his official colleagues of the Forest Service, members of the executive family...
...that Congress has no authority over these executive officials...
...Bal-linger's friends in Congress of this most extraordinary conduct on the part of the Secretary of the Interior in addressing his complaint against "certain forestry officials" to the Congress rather than to the President...
...Street railways and interurban lines and electric lighting at present offer the most natural and profitable field for using electric current generated by water power...
...Listen to this bit of information, quoted from the same despatch: "Work (by this syndicate) has already commenced on the first development of 12,000 horse-power on the Au Sable River and on the building of a transmission line to Bay City, Saginaw and Flint, which should be completed and ready for the delivery of power by the end of 1910...
...Of still another milk combine the net profits during the first six months of last year amounted to 26 per cent, of the company's capitalization...
...In the first place, you come to take a personal interest, which you do not feel when it is owned by some one else...
...Be it ever so humble, there is no place like a mind that you own yourself.—Life...
...No criticism is made by the President or by any of Mr...
...Likewise they are intelligent...
...They have begun fully to comprehend what it means to them for their government to retain title now and for all time to its water powers, its coal, its timber—the last remnant of its natural resources...
...He has gathered about him able, earnest, enthusiastic young men, and raised them and the Forest Service to the same high ideals...
...You take real pride in it...
...Many considerations which had not been brought home to the President's mind, as appears from his letter of September 13th, had weight with them/' * * The nine lines above quoted comprise all of the Pinchot letter which refers to the President's decision in the Glavis case...
...The labor and expense involved in the retail distribution of products is often a large percentage of the cost of manufacture or production of those products...
...He seems to have overlooked the fact that Mr...
...The Ballinger letter called forth and was responsible for the Pinchot letter...
...The reason which the President assigns for this ac-tion is that a letter written by Mr...
...but the tendency toward monopolization of water power control is plain...
...He can not exact arbitrary profits...
...And he is warning the people in order that another great monopoly, beside which all others will appear as pygmies, may not be saddled upon them and their children...
...What has this to do with water power...
...You have no one to dictate to you as to the inside furnishings and decorations...
...And he holds further that Mr...
...Then, again, the natural increase in value redounds to your own profit...
...The American people are just...
...Lyman Abbott asked several questions regarding conservation, which were promptly answered by Gifford Pinchot...
...Pinchot committed a breach of official etiquette in giving out his letter in extenuation of the over-zeal of Price and Shaw in the public interest...
...He has been wholly unselfish in his ambition...
...You will drive nails in the walls, and get generally careless about it...
...Not only this, but you are not saving up anything...
...He has discovered evidence that a water power trust is slowly developing...
...One of these questions was: "Why is it important to protect the water powers...
...Gifford Pinchot, a man of independent fortune, entered the forestry service purely for the love of it...
...Ballinger, and obviously written for the purpose of having it made public through its presentation to the Senate...
...A milk trust is quite as reprehensible as a steel trust or a Standard Oil trust...
...In all four movements my chief adviser, and the man first to suggest to me the courses which have actually proved so beneficial, was Mr...
...The service rendered by the retailer is proportionately valuable and necessary to the public...
...Nothing is more obvious than the fundamental economic principle that the retailer, in the absence of combination, is governed in his business by the laws of competition...
...He has been first and before all others in fighting waste through neglect and destruction and loss through pillage and plunder of the national wealth which belongs to this and future generations...
...It is in charge of a syndicate composed of Ho-denpyl, Walbridge & Co., of New York...
...Behold a member of the cabinet whose department has been charged with corrupt or improper practices relative to coal lands in Alaska, angered at other officials of the executive department because, as he says, they are the source and inspiration of the charges...
...The sole reference in Mr...
...Pinchot replied: "Under our form of civilization if a few men ever succeed in controlling the sources of power they will eventually control all industry as well...
...In other words, the President holds that Mr...
...We think it will be hard for the public to accept the President's decision when he declared to Gifford Pinchot that by writing this letter to Senator Dolliver he had destroyed his "usefulness as a helpful subordinate of the government and it now therefore becomes my duty to direct the Secretary of Agriculture to remove you from your office as forester...
...Secretary Ballinger...
...Of the capital of another large company, the accountant reports, more than three-fifths is "water," on which dividends of 15 per cent, have been paid heretofore and over 22 per cent, during the past year, and a surplus has been accumulated nearly double the capital...
...Pinchot's letter was called forth by one written by Mr...
...Pinchot's letter was an improper appeal to Congress and the public against his (the President's) decision in the Glavis case...
...If you live in a rented mind, you don't care much...
...Pinchot's letter to the Glavis case and the President's decision is as follows: "Action through the usual official channels and finally even an appeal to the President had resulted (because of what I believe to have been a mistaken impression of the facts) in eliminating from the government service in the person of Glavis, the most vigorous defender of the people's interests...
...So much for what we are trying to do in utilizing our public lands for the public, in securing the use of water, the oil, the coal, and the timber for the public...
...The "guilt" of these subordinates was not, as might be inferred from the use of that word in this connection, a participation in any public land steal,—but a violation of official propriety in letting the public know about an attempt upon the part of others, connived at by Department officials, as they believed, to steal the public lands...
...He does not complain that they have violated any statute or betrayed any public trust but that they have criticized and inspired criticism and charges against other officials of the same administrative household and urges that they be investigated by Congress...
...Water power, before it can be utilized in industries, must first be turned into electrical power...
...The Ballinger letter received no rebuke from the President...
...These are "retailers' profits," to be sure, but they are not profits fairly representative of the great bulk of the retail business of this country...
...They are profits made possible by the stifling of competition, and of course nobody contends that combination in restraint of trade is more justifiable in the retail business than in any other kind of business...
...They are the profits of monopolistic combination...
...Water in the Milk THE high cost of living is receiving more and more attention from newspapers and magazines...
...But when you own your own mind, you are constantly going about picking it up...
...The remaining one hundred and six lines are devoted to a discussion of the conduct of Messrs...
...The retailer's profits are, in the absence of combination, limited by the cost of performing the service of retail distribution of commodities to consumers, to a reasonable pro'fit upon his investment...
...In this field the process of combining and merging separate companies is already working...
...Own Your Own Mind HAVE you ever considered the possibility of doing this...
...Water Power Control SOME time ago Dr...
...E. W. Clark & Co., of Philadelphia, and W. A. Foote, of Jackson, Mich...
...It will be found that the difference between the wholesale and the retail price in a competitive business is generally absorbed, down to a fair margin of profit, by the expense of conducting the business...
...His business is one that cannot generally be monopolized, and in most lines of retail business a small capital and only the degree of experience and knowledge of that business such as possessed by a great many people are required...
...If he undertakes to exact excessive profits he only invites new competition...
...On the 21st day of December, Senator Jones of Washington, after stating upon the floor of the Senate that he had discussed with Secretary Ballinger "various charges" made against the Interior Department, caused to be read from the Clerk's desk a letter addressed to him by Mr...
...Pinchot to Senator Dolliver—who caused the same to be read as a part of the proceedings of the Senate on January 6, was, as the President states it: "An improper appeal to Congress and the public to excuse in advance the guilt of your subordinates before I could act, and against my decision on the Glavis case before the whole evidence on which that was based could be considered...
...In his consideration of Mr...
...In this letter, Secretary Ballinger charged that "the pernicious activity of certain officers" of the Forest Service had been tile source or inspiration of the "criticisms and representations of corrupt or improper practices" relative to "coal lands and other public domain in the Territory of Alaska" and asked that the Forest Service be included in any investigation which should be ordered...
...Pinchot's letter, and then plainly in the most friendly spirit in explanation and extenuation of the President's decision in the case,—a decision which the public has not accepted and upon which the administration has finally determined that it could not rest its case, but, as is well understood in official circles in Washington, is seeking the friendly aid of a decision at the hands of a congressional committee...
...that the President alone can deal with them, acquit or condemn, approve or punish...
...He has, with a foresight that is the genius of constructive work, wrought out primarily the great plans upon which all the government work of reclamation and conservation of the natural resources of this country, is being carried forward today...
...It is grossly unfair to criticize the profits of the retailer without taking these facts into consideration...
...The Glavis case is only referred to incidentally in Mr...
...Of Gifford Pinchot, and the nine years he had then devoted to this great service, President Roosevelt, on June 10, 1907, said: "We are doing everything in our power to prevent fraud upon the public lands...
...Ballinger, "denouncing 'certain Forestry Officials' and written to a Senator, for the express purpose of having it read during a session of the Senate as a part of its proceedings...
...Of course, many factors are responsible for excessive prices: but the one cause which outweighs all others in importance is the elimination of competition—the elimination of foreign competition by excessive tariff duties and the elimination of domestic competition by combinations in restraint of trade...
...The state's accountant engaged in this investigation has reported that out of $20,000,000 capital of one milk combine more than $15,000,000 is "water," and that the company has been able by charging "combination" prices to pay dividends of 6 to 10 per cent, on its entire capitalization, and to accumulate in addition a surplus of nearly $9,000,000 in ten years...
...The Pinchot letter Is made the basis of an executive order removing from office a man of the highest character, whose public service is an enduring monument to his name...
...That is why Pinchot has been arousing the people to the necessity of preventing the water power sites still remaining on the public domain from falling unrestrictedly into private hands...
...Pinchot should not have written a letter to Senator Dolliver to be read in the Senate, explaining the conduct of Price and Shaw, forestry officials, in giving publicity to the charges against Interior Department officials, in connection with the Cunningham coal scandals, until the President had passed upon the breach of official propriety which these forestry officials had thus committed...
...Price and Shaw in making public, records and facts properly within the knowledge of the Forest Service, because the Cunningham claims He chiefly within a national forest...
...If they succeed in controlling all industry they will necessarily control the country...
...The advantages of owning your own mind will be apparent at a moment's thought...
...Again, President Roosevelt said, in his opening address to the conference of Governors of the United States at the White House, May 13, 1908: "Especial credit is due to the initiative, the energy, the devotion to duty, and the far-sightedness of Gifford Pinchot (great applause) to whom we owe so much of the progress we have already made in handling this matter of the coordination and conservation of natural resources...
...Search the records for a case to match it...
...And again: "They (Price and Shaw) acted on what they believed to be trustworthy information...
...For it is quite as patent that the Ballinger letter was written to Senator Jones to be read in the Senate as that the Pinchot letter was written to Senator Dolliver with the expectation that it would be read in the Senate...
...The investigation of the "milk trust" in New York is only another link in the chain of evidence which can be established absolving both the honest retailer and the farmer from responsibility for high prices...
...On the first of the year a great merger of eleven street railway, power, gas and electric lighting companies in Michigan was formed...
...The trust is not yet formed...
...News despatches from Saginaw, Mich., indicate that Pinchot's warning was issued none too soon;—that what he foresaw is already coming to pass...
...The combination is capitalized at $18,000,000...
...The System press of the country, day after day, and by all manner of misrepresentation, is seeking to -fasten responsibility for high prices upon the retail dealers, and for high prices of provisions especially upon the farmers...
...It may well be admitted that Mr...
Vol. 2 • January 1910 • No. 2
