upy with their own men the
strategic points in business, in social, and in political life. It is
our fault more than theirs. We have allowed it when we could have
stopped it. Too often we have seemed to forget that a man in public life
can no more serve both the special interests and the people than he can
serve God and Mammon. There is no reason why the American people should
not take into their hands again the full political power which is theirs
by right, and which they exercised before the special interests began
to nullify the will of the majority. There are many men who believe, and
who will always believe, in the divine right of money to rule. With such
men argument, compromise, or conciliation is useless or worse. The only
thing to do with them is to fight them and beat them. It has been done,
and it can be done again.

It is the honorable distinction of the Forest Service that it has been
more constantly, more violently and more bitterly attacked by the
representatives of the special interests in recent years than any other
Government Bureau. These attacks have increased in violence and
bitterness just in proportion as the Service has offered effective
opposition to predatory wealth. The more successful the Forest Service
has been in preventing land-grabbing and the absorption of water power
by the special interests, the more ingenious, the more devious, and the
more dangerous these attacks have become. A favorite one is to assert
that the Forest Service, in its zeal for the public welfare, has played
ducks and drakes with the Acts of Congress. The fact is, on the
contrary, that the Service has had warrant of law for everything it has
done. Not once since it was created has any charge of illegality,
despite the most searching investigation and the bitterest attack, ever
led to reversal or reproof by either House of Congress or by any
Congressional Committee. Not once has the Forest Service been defeated
or reversed as to any vital legal principle underlying its work in any
court or administrative tribunal of last resort. It is the first duty of
a public officer to obey the law. But it is his second duty, and a close
second, to do everything the law will let him do for the public good,
and not merely what the law directs or compels him to do. Unless the
public service is alive enough to serve the people with enthusiasm,
there is very little to be said for it.

Another, and unusually plausible, form of attack, i