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Show ADMINISTRATION OF THE PUBLIC FOREST LANDS 573 Appropriations for Forest Protection and Forestry For Preventing Depredations on Timber, Protecting Public Lands Care and Administration of the Forest Reserves Division, Bureau of Forestry, Forest Service 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 $110,000 ________ 110,000 ________ 125,000 $40,000 125,000 60,000 375,000 ..._____ 260,000 15,000 $75,000 75,000 300,000 300,000 375,000 375,000 100,000 39,000 3,860 1896 1897 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 $28,520 28,520 48,520 88,520 185,440 350,000 425,140 885,000 50,000 Compiled from annual reports of the GLO and the Bureau of Forestry and the Statutes at Large. therefore, the Land Office was given responsibility for the administration of the forest reserves under the Act of 1897, it was ill prepared to carry out its new task. It had no foresters-there were very few in the country-it was staffed with politically oriented people; as in most government agencies of the time, nepotism was common; "rings" of lumbermen, timber speculators, and stockmen, it was commonly charged, had so dominated local land offices as to assure to them the choicest lands; and railroad interests were said to be unduly influential in the head offices. Some of these charges were doubtless exaggerated but settlers were ready to believe them when they saw preference given to influential applicants for land. What then, might be expected of management by the General Land Office of reserves against which there was a good deal of antagonism in the West? Binger Hermann, Commissioner of the General Land Office, was responsible for initiating a new program of management when he assumed office in 1897. Division "P" was set up in the Land Office to administer the reserves, as provided in the act of that year. A corps of investigating agents was created to prevent fire and depredations, to control grazing and limit the number of stock permitted in the forests and to exact a charge for the privilege, to control, lease and charge for the use of power sites, to sell stumpage and regulate the cutting of trees, and provide free timber, fuel wood, and fence posts to settlers. In 1901 when additional forests had been created and the staff of Division "P" had grown to more than 400 and civil service examinations had been initiated, responsibility for administration was given to a "special technical division designed 'Division R.' " 21 From the outset Hermann was troubled about the forest lieu provision of the Act of 1897 which allowed any owner or bona fide claimant to land within the reserves to relinquish the tract "and select in lieu thereof a tract of vacant land open to settlement not exceeding in area the tract covered by his claim or patent."22 Hermann maintained that it was intended to apply "to settlers or owners of agricultural lands" who feared that when their land was enclosed within forest reservations, access roads, schools and churches would be kept out and their lands would become 21 Henry Clepper and Arthur B. Meyer, American Forestry. Six Decades of Growth (Washington, 1960), pp. 178-79. 22 30 Stat. 36. |