ts. The right
to charge for water-power development was, however, sustained by the
Attorney-General.

In 1907, the area of the National Forests was increased by Presidential
proclamation more than forty-three million acres; the plant necessary
for the full use of the Forests, such as roads, trails, and telephone
lines, began to be provided on a large scale; the interchange of field
and office men, so as to prevent the antagonism between them, which is
so destructive of efficiency in most great businesses, was established
as a permanent policy; and the really effective management of the
enormous area of the National Forests began to be secured.

With all this activity in the field, the progress of technical forestry
and popular education was not neglected. In 1907, for example, sixty-one
publications on various phases of forestry, with a total of more than a
million copies, were issued, as against three publications, with a
total of eighty-two thousand copies, in 1901. By this time, also, the
opposition of the servants of the special interests in Congress to the
Forest Service had become strongly developed, and more time appeared
to be spent in the yearly attacks upon it during the passage of the
appropriation bills than on all other Government Bureaus put together.
Every year the Forest Service had to fight for its life.

One incident in these attacks is worth recording. While the Agricultural
Appropriation Bill was passing through the Senate, in 1907, Senator
Fulton, of Oregon, secured an amendment providing that the President
could not set aside any additional National Forests in the six
Northwestern States. This meant retaining some sixteen million of acres
to be exploited by land grabbers and by the representatives of the great
special interests, at the expense of the public interest. But for four
years the Forest Service had been gathering field notes as to what
forests ought to be set aside in these States, and so was prepared to
act. It was equally undesirable to veto the whole agricultural bill, and
to sign it with this amendment effective. Accordingly, a plan to create
the necessary National Forest in these States before the Agricultural
Bill could be passed and signed was laid before me by Mr. Pinchot. I
approved it. The necessary papers were immediately prepared. I signed
the last proclamation a couple of days before, by my signature, the bill
became law; and, when the friends of the special interests in th