It is
our fault more than theirs. We have allowed it when we could have
stopped it. Too often we have seemed to forget that a man in public life
can no more serve both the special interests and the people than he can
serve God and Mammon. There is no reason why the American people should
not take into their hands again the full political power which is theirs
by right, and which they exercised before the special interests began
to nullify the will of the majority. There are many men who believe, and
who will always believe, in the divine right of money to rule. With such
men argument, compromise, or conciliation is useless or worse. The only
thing to do with them is to fight them and beat them. It has been done,
and it can be done again.
It is the honorable distinction of the Forest Service that it has been
more constantly, more violently and more bitterly attacked by the
representatives of the special interests in recent years than any other
Government Bureau. These attacks have increased in violence and
bitterness just in proportion as the Service has offered effective
opposition to predatory wealth. The more successful the Forest Service
has been in preventing land-grabbing and the absorption of water power
by the special interests, the more ingenious, the more devious, and the
more dangerous these attacks have become.
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