FROM ADDRESS AT EVERETT, WASH., MAY 23, 1903
There are few problems which so especially concern Washington, Oregon, and California as the problem of forestry. Nothing has been of better augury for the welfare and prosperity of these great States as well as for the other forest States than the way in which those actively engaged in the lumbering business have come of recent years to work hand in hand with those who have made forestry a study in the effort to preserve the forests. The whole question is a business, an economic question; an economic question for the Nation, a business question for the individual. East of your great mountain chains the question of water supply becomes vital and becomes inseparable from that of forestry. Here that question does not enter in. The lumbering interest is the fourth great business interest in point of importance in the United States. There is engaged in it a capital of over six hundred millions of dollars, and every year the wage-workers in that industry receive one hundred millions of dollars. Such an industry so vitally connected with many others in the country can not with wisdom be neglected, the interests depending upon it are too vast. I do not have to say here in Washington that fire is a great enemy of the forests. Here in Washington it is probable that fire has destroyed more than the axe during the decade in which the axe has been at work.
Our aim should be to get the fullest use from the forest to-day, and yet to get that benefit in ways which will keep the forests for our children in the generations to come; so that, for instance, the country adjoining Puget Sound shall have the lumbering industry as a permanent industry. Recently the trade journals of that industry have been dwelling upon the fact that its very existence is actually at stake, and nowhere in the whole country can the question of forestry be handled better than in this region, because nowhere else is it so easy to produce a second crop. You are fortunate in having such climatic conditions, such conditions of soil, that here more than anywhere else the forest renews itself quickly, so as in a comparatively short number of years to be again a great mercantile and industrial asset. The preservation of our forests depends chiefly upon the wisdom with which the practical lumberman, the practical expert in dealing with the lumber industry, works with the men who have studied forestry under all conditions. I am glad indeed that such co-operation is more and more being accepted as a matter of course by both sides.