One of the bravest, most intelligent and
most effective fights for forestry that I have known of was that of the
women of Minnesota for the Minnesota National Forest. It was a superb
success, and we have that forest to-day. I have known of no case of
persistent agitation under discouragement finer in a good many ways than
the fight that the women of California have made to save the great grove
of Calaveras big trees. As a result the Government has taken possession
of that forest and will preserve it for all future generations.
Time and again, then, the women have made it perfectly clear what they
can do in this work. Obviously the first point of attack is the stopping
of waste. Women alone can bring to the school children the idea of the
wickedness of national waste and the value of public saving. The issue
is a moral one; and women are the first teachers of right and wrong. It
is a question of seeing what loyalty to the public welfare demands of
us, and then of caring enough for the public welfare not to set personal
advantage first. It is a question of inspiring our future citizens while
they are boys and girls with the spirit of true patriotism as against
the spirit of rank selfishness, the anti-social spirit of the man who
declines to take into account any other interest than his own; whose one
aim and ideal is personal success.
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