The Origins of Environmental Activism, 1840–1889 59
The rapidity with which this country is
being stripped of its forests must alarm every
thinking man. It has been estimated by good
authority that, if we go on at the present rate,
the supply of timber in the United States will,
in less than twenty years, fall considerably short
of our home necessities. How disastrously the
destruction of the forests of a country affects the
regularity of the water supply in its rivers neces-
sary for navigation, increases the frequency of
freshets and inundations, dries up springs, and
transforms fertile agricultural districts into bar-
ren wastes is a matter of universal experience the
world over. It is the highest time that we should
turn our earnest attention to this subject, which
so seriously concerns our national prosperity.
The government cannot prevent the cutting
of timber on land owned by private citizens. It is
only to be hoped that private owners will grow
more careful of their timber as it rises in value.
But the government can do two things: 1. It can
take determined and, as I think, effectual meas-
ures to arrest the stealing of timber from public
lands on a large scale, which is always attended
with the most reckless waste; and, 2. It can pre-
serve the forests still in its possession by keeping
them under its control, and by so regulating the
cutting and sale of timber on its lands as to secure
the renewal of the forest by natural growth and
the careful preservation of the young timber.Source: Annual Report of the Secretary of the Interior
on the Operations of the Department for the Fiscal Year
Ended June 30, 1877 (Washington, D.C..: Government
Printing Office, 1877), [iii], pp. xv-xx, in Roderick Nash,
ed., Readings in the History of Conservation (Reading,
MA: Addison-Wesley, 1968), pp. 25-26.Document 52: Carl Schurz on the Need for Federal Forest Conservation (1877)
Carl Schurz brought from his native Germany a love of trees and an understanding of forest management.
He was the first federal official to recognize the widespread abuse of timbered lands in the United States.
As Secretary of the Interior under President Rutherford B. Hayes, Schurz tried (in vain) to control rampant
commercial exploitation of federal forests.The subject of the extensive depredations
committed upon the timber on the public
lands of the United States has largely engaged
the attention of [the Department of the Inte-
rior]. That question presents itself in a twofold
aspect: as a question of law and as a question
of public economy. As to the first point, little
need be said. That the law prohibits the tak-
ing of timber by unauthorized persons from
the public lands of the United States, is a uni-
versally known fact. That the laws are made to
be executed, ought to be a universally accepted
doctrine. That the government is in duty bound
to act upon that doctrine, needs no argument.
There may be circumstances under which the
rigorous execution of a law may be difficult
or inconvenient, or obnoxious to public senti-
ment, or working particular hardship; in such
cases it is the business of the legislative power
to adapt the law to such circumstances. It is the
business of the Executive to enforce the law as
it stands.
As to the second point, the statements made
by the Commissioner of the General Land
Office, in his report, show the quantity of tim-
ber taken from the public lands without author-
ity of law to have been of enormous extent. It
probably far exceeds in reality any estimates
made upon the data before us. It appears, from
authentic information before this department,
that in many instances the depredations have
been carried on in the way of organized and sys-
tematic enterprise, not only to furnish timber,
lumber, and fire-wood for the home market, but,
on a large scale, for commercial exportation to
foreign countries.