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Show ADMINISTRATION OF THE PUBLIC FOREST LANDS 597 states as should match the Federal allotment. Greeley was anxious to broaden this first step in the direction of sharing responsibility with the states by including as a third party the private owners. Only in this way, he believed, would it be possible to secure the desired results that compulsion was unlikely to achieve. Locked in combat for a time were the ultra-conservationists, followers of Pinchot, who wanted to force scientific forestry practices upon private industry and who may not have been altogether aware how far some lumber companies had already gone in this direction, and the moderates who followed Greeley and were led in Congress by Senator Charles L. McNary of Oregon who preferred cooperation between the Federal and state governments and private owners of forest lands. The Clarke-McNary Act As finally adopted in 1924, the Clarke-McNary Act borrowed from the Weeks Act the matching feature whereby the Federal government would equal state (and private) funds to provide support for cooperative fire protection, the distribution of seedlings for reforestation, studies of taxation of forest land, and aid to farm owners in developing their small woodlots by modern forestry practices. The act also broadened the authorization in the Weeks Act for the purchase of forest land so as to permit the Federal government to acquire land for national forests regardless of its location on the watersheds of navigable rivers.91 Discussion in both the Senate and the House reflects a sense of emergency and 90 Swain, Federal Conservation Policy, p. 14. 91 Act of June 7, 1924, 43 Stat., Part 1, p. 653. William B. Greeley who guided the Senate Select Committee on Reforestation which conducted 24 hearings in the West on plans that developed into the Clarke-McNary Act gives interesting background information in Forests and Men, pp. 101-111. of strong support for the measure throughout the country. Opposition was slight.92 The Copeland Report With the coming of the depression, the thoughts of social planners turned to means of halting the downward spiral of prices and economic activity. One method was to undertake large public works and relief programs. The public lands, the national forests, the national parks, and their many needs came in for fresh attention. One of the first evidences of this renewed interest was the preparation of the National Plan for American Forestry-the Copeland Report, named after Senator Royal Copeland who introduced a resolution calling for the study-which Henry Wallace, Secretary of Agriculture, presented to the Senate on March 27, 1933. This two-volume study of 1,651 pages with index, had not been cooked up over night with the coming into power of the Democrats. It was a reasoned, carefully considered, and greatly detailed investigation of the problems of public and private forest management. One can see in Wallace's letter of transmittal that the Forest Service had moved away from the emphasis upon cooperation with private holders of forests that Greeley favored to the earlier position of Pinchot-that government, i.e., the Federal government, must provide aggressive leadership in bringing modern forestry practices to the United States by acquiring additional forest land on wnich to establish these policies, by promoting through subventions to the states greater participation in these policies, and by inducing or compelling private management to follow the best practices. Permeating the entire report is the view expressed on page 59: "It is difficult to escape the conclusion that there is nothing in past experience or definitely in sight for the future which gives reason for hope that 92 Cong. Record 68th Cong., 1st sess., passim. |