last forever, began to look to the woods of the Northwest with covetous
eyes.

[Illustration: Cedar Trees of the Northwest

With these giants the logger daily matches his strength and skill. The
profit-greedy lumber trust has wasted enough trees of smaller size to
supply the world with wood for years to come.]




Stealing the People's Forest Land



The history of the acquisition of the forests of Washington, Montana,
Idaho, Oregon and California is a long, sordid story of thinly veiled
robbery and intrigue. The methods of the lumber barons in invading and
seizing its "holdings" did not differ greatly, however, from those of the
steel and oil kings, the railroad magnates or any of the other industrial
potentates who acquired great wealth by pilfering America and peonizing
its people. The whole sorry proceeding was disgraceful, high-handed and
treacherous, and only made possible by reason of the blindness of the
generous American people, drugged with the vanishing hope of "success" and
too confident of the continued possession of its blood-bought liberties.
And do the lumber barons were unhindered in their infamous work of
debauchery, bribery, murder and brazen fraud.

As a result the monopoly of the Northwestern woods became an established