ixtieth of that sum, or $2,750,000. _If given any chance
to do so, the area deforested in only ten years would actually
earn the people of our five western forest states $27,500,000 a
year._

Almost nothing is being done to make it do so. As the result of
the same popular neglect, this annual loss of nearly twenty-eight
millions of dollars is added to that of forty millions caused by
destruction of merchantable timber by fire, and the injury to tax
revenue, water supply and countless dependent industries still
remain to be reckoned. And to this sacrifice of wealth we add that
of scores of human lives, incredible suffering, and the wiping
out of homes and villages by forest fires.

PLAIN WORDS FOR OUR PRESENT POLICY

Let us draw a parallel: If riot or invasion should sweep our Pacific
coast states, killing unprotected settlers, plundering banks and
treasuries of $40,000,000 of the people's savings and business
capital, and by destroying the producing power of commercial enterprise
reduce the community's income by twenty-eight millions more, the
catastrophe would startle the world.

If this stupendous disaster should threaten to recur the following
year and every year thereafter indefinitely, annually taking $67,000,000
from the earnings of the people, diminishing their invested wealth
and paralyzing their industries, the situation would be unbearable.
It would dominate the minds of men, women and children. All else
would be forgotten in their preparation for defense.

_Forest fire destruction is a danger in every way as real and immediate
as riot or invasion, equally measurable in losses to us today and
more far reaching in effect upon future prosperity. Although less
sensational, it demands no less prompt action._

THE ACTION WE MUST TAKE

The foregoing facts prove that our present forest policy is unprofitable
to the state and its citizens. What, then, is the remedy?

At first thought it may seem that the responsibility for this lies
with the man who controls the land, the timber owner and lumberman.
He does have his part to play, which is discussed elsewhere in
this booklet. But he will not, indeed cannot, do so until the rest
of us play ours. The community must not only cooeperate, but in
some directions must act first, because from the beginning the
lumberman is governed by many conditions which are fixed by the
people. It is for the people to make these conditions reasonably
favorable so that he will hav