s to demand that all
land not now bearing trees shall be thrown out of the National Forests.
For centuries forest fires have burned through the Western mountains,
and much land thus deforested is scattered throughout the National
Forests awaiting reforestation. This land is not valuable for
agriculture, and will contribute more to the general welfare under
forest than in any other way. To exclude it from the National Forests
would be no more reasonable than it would be in a city to remove from
taxation and municipal control every building lot not now covered by a
house. It would be no more reasonable than to condemn and take away from
our farmers every acre of land that did not bear a crop last year, or to
confiscate a man's winter overcoat because he was not wearing it in
July. A generation in the life of a nation is no longer than a season in
the life of a man. With a fair chance we can and will reclothe these
denuded mountains with forests, and we ask for that chance.

Still another attack, nearly successful two years ago, was an attempt
to prevent the Forest Service from telling the people, through the
press, what it is accomplishing for them, and how much this Nation needs
the forests. If the Forest Service can not tell what it is doing the
time will come when there will be nothing to tell. It is just as
necessary for the people to know what is being done to help them as to
know what is being done to hurt them. Publicity is the essential and
indispensable condition of clean and effective public service.

Since the Forest Service called public attention to the rapid absorption
of the water-power sites and the threatening growth of a great
water-power monopoly, the attacks upon it have increased with marked
rapidity. I anticipate that they will continue to do so. Still greater
opposition is promised in the near future. There is but one
protection--an awakened and determined public opinion. That is why I
tell the facts.

CHAPTER XI

THE NEW PATRIOTISM

The people of the United States are on the verge of one of the great
quiet decisions which determine national destinies. Crises happen in
peace as well as in war, and a peaceful crisis may be as vital and
controlling as any that comes with national uprising and the clash of
arms. Such a crisis, at first uneventful and almost unperceived, is upon
us now, and we are engaged in making the decision that is thus forced
upon us. And, so far as it has gone, our d