THE ROLL CALL
An Entering Wedge AT THE LAST SESSION of Congress, finally was passed the forestry conservation law. The passage of such a law has been demanded each session of Congress since 1901. In seven...
...While the promoting of navigation is one of the important objects of a wise conservation policy, looking to the protection of watersheds, other objects equally as important, or perhaps more important, are the conservation of power sites and of soil fertility and the prevention of destructive floods and freshets...
...The investment in forest conservation on the one hand will be a remunerative investment in property of growing value, whereas the battleships after five to ten years service are consigned to the scrap heap...
...The law is an entering wedge and as such it is most welcome to the people...
...The measure urged by President Roosevelt for conservation of forests and reforestation of deforested areas in the Appalachian and White Mountains was a much broader measure contemplating the undertaking on the large and aggressive scale which the public interest demands and which called for a sufficient appropriation to make this work effective on that scale...
...A third weakness of the law as passed is that concession to the constitutional obstructionists which confines the Commission to the acquisition of lands, the control of which "will promote or protect the navigation of streams on whose watersheds they lie...
...The leading industrial societies of the country have asked for it...
...Action Forced at Last AT LAST, however, came the end, as there must always be an end of successful opposition to popular measures by schemes of legislative jugglery, and when the end came on the 15th of February the bill was finally passed in the Senate with only nine dissenting votes...
...But the Aldrich Cannon machine resorted to manipulation to defeat them...
...Notwithstanding its importance to the south, there was from that section a considerable opposition on the part of adherents of a strict, old-fashioned states rightsism, and the unfavorable influence of party leaders was strong in the middle west...
...In seven consecutive messages President Roosevelt urged vainly upon Congress the indisputable wisdom and the great public necessity for this legislation...
...Here was a measure which had the endorsement of three successive Presidents of the United States, of intelligent citizenship all over the land, as voiced by practically every great national organization that is working for the public welfare, by commercial and industrial bodies, by the federated women's clubs of America and an almost unanimous periodical and newspaper press...
...One state ought not to be allowed to prevent the conservation of stream flow, affecting directly the welfare of many other states and of the country as a whole, because the lands necessary to be -quired for that purpose are located within its boundaries...
...Congress only, obedient to System masters, opposed it...
...The Law a Small Concession THE LAW as passed is but a small concession yielded grudgingly by a reluctant Congress to the public demand for the "conservation of natural resources...
...The people of the country have been almost unanimous for it...
...On roll calls in both branches of Congress no majority could be got to oppose them...
...In the Senate there was a bitter sectional hostility from the northwest, which finally melted away leaving Senators Heybuen of Idaho and Clark of Wyoming, as its sole exponents...
...Concessions to Opponents of Conservation BY A STINTED appropriation, the great policy of conservation as undertaken in the new law is ridiculously hampered and restricted...
...The appropriation made to cover the next five years is $10,-000,000, or about the cost of a modern, equipped dreadnaught battleship, such as our modern militarism demands of the public treasury at the rate of two a year...
...The Conference of Governors, called by President Roosevelt, recommended it in strongest terms...
...At first the bills died in committee...
...By this provision the operations of the Forestry Commission are restricted to lands the control of which can be shown to affect navigation...
...When public opinion would no longer permit this course, the bills were reported for passage...
...Neglect of these may occasion great loss of national resources through the failure to protect and conserve the watersheds of streams on which there is no navigation...
...So far as evidence has appeared, this opposition in our national legislature has had no support outside of Congress, and it is remarkable that it has held out so long against an unusually broad, national and non-partisan public demand...
...The concession to antiquated states-rights-ism in requiring the assent of the states in which forest lands are to be acquired is another serious defect in the measure...
...The law as passed the last session of Congress is not directed in terms to the redemption or conservation of any particular areas of forest lands...
...Of the passage of the bill, an editorial in "American Forestry" says: "The passage of the bill is a notable triumph of enlightened public sentiment over political obstruction...
...Notwithstanding such support as would seem to have assured its prompt enactment, it met in Congress from year to year a most stubborn opposition, directed by the leaders "of the party organizations on both sides of the House...
...Perhaps the people should be deeply grateful to their masters in Congress for conceding in this law the principle of the conservation of natural resources by federal control of lands suitable for forest culture as an aid to the conservation of moisture and the regulation of stream flow, the promotion of navigation, the prevention of destructive floods, and, most important of all, the conservation of soil fertility...
...Passed in one House with large majorities, the bills were retained in committee in the other House until the closing days of Congress and then reported out for passage with amendments, too late for concurrence by the other House...
...A National Forest Commission is created with power to acquire lands the control of which "will promote or protect the navigation of streams on whose watersheds they lie...
Vol. 3 • April 1911 • No. 13
