had ample legal authority 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. Since the creation of the Forest Service the expenditure of
nearly $15,000,000 has passed successfully the scrutiny of the Treasury
of the United States. Most significant of all, not once has the Forest
Service been defeated as to any vital legal principle underlying its
work in any Court or administrative tribunal of last resort. Thus those
who make the law and those who interpret it seem to agree that the work
has been legal.

But it is not enough to say that the Forest Service has kept within the
law. Other qualifications go to make efficiency in a Government bureau.
A bureau may keep within the law and yet fail to get results.

When action is needed for the public good there are two opposite points
of view regarding the duty of an administrative officer in enforcing the
law. One point of view asks, "Is there any express and specific law
authorizing or directing such action?" and, having thus sought and
found none, nothing is done. The other asks, "Is there any justification
in law for doing this desirable thing?" and, having thus sought and
found a legal justification, what the public good demands is done. I
hold it to be the first duty of a public officer to obey the law. But I
hold it to be 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
compels or directs him to do.

It is the right as well as the duty of a public officer to be zealous in
the public service. That is why the public service is worth while. To
every public officer the law should be, not a goad to drive him to his
duty, but a tool to help him in his work. And I maintain that it is
likewise his right and duty to seek by every proper means from the legal
authorities set over him such interpretations of the law as will best
help him to serve his country.

Let the public officer take every lawful chance to use the law for the
public good. The better use he makes of it the better public servant he
becomes. One man with a jack-knife will build a ladder. Another with a
full tool-chest cannot make a footstool. The man with the jack-knife
will often reach the higher level. I am for the man with the jack-kni