he most accessible of the world's statesmen. At the same time there
came into my life another remarkable personality. To the United States
Forester of that day I owe my earliest interest in the Conservation
policy. In counsel with him I came to regard the Conservation and Rural
Life policies as one organic whole. So I must say here a word about the
man who, more than any other, has inspired whatever in these pages may
be worth printing.

I first met Gifford Pinchot in his office in Washington in 1905. I was
not especially interested in forestry, but the Forester was so
interesting that I listened with increasing delight to the story of his
work. I noticed that as an administrator he had a grasp of detail and a
mastery of method which are not usually found in men who have had no
training in large business affairs. I thought the secret of his success
lay between love of work and sympathy with workers, which gained him
the devotion and enthusiastic cooperation of his staff. It is, however,
as a statesman rather than as an administrator that his achievement is
and will be known.

When I first knew the Forester, I found that already the conservation of
timber was but a small part of his material aims: every national
resource must be husbanded. But over the whole scheme of Conservation a
great moral issue reigned supreme. He clung affectionately to his task,
but it was not to him mere forestry administration. In his far vision he
seemed to see men as trees walking. The saving of one great asset was
broadening out into insistence upon a new test of national efficiency:
the people of the United States were to be judged by the manner in which
they applied their physical and mental energies to the conservation and
development of their country's natural resources. The acceptance of this
test would mean the success of a great policy for the initiation of
which President Roosevelt gave almost the whole credit to Gifford
Pinchot.

There is one other name which will be ever honorably associated with the
dawn of the Conservation idea which Mr. Roosevelt elevated to the status
and dignity of a national policy. In September, 1906, Mr. James J. Hill
delivered (under the title of "The Future of the United States") what I
think was an epoch-making address. It is significant that this great
railway president opened his campaign for the economic salvation of the
United States by addressing himself, not to politicians or professors,
but to