The Forest Service established and enforced regulations
which favored the settler as against the large stock owner; required
that necessary reductions in the stock grazed on any National Forest
should bear first on the big man, before the few head of the small man,
upon which the living of his family depended, were reduced; and made
grazing in the National Forests a help, instead of a hindrance, to
permanent settlement. As a result, the small settlers and their families
became, on the whole, the best friends the Forest Service has; although
in places their ignorance was played on by demagogues to influence them
against the policy that was primarily for their own interest.
Another principle which led to the bitterest antagonism of all was
this--whoever (except a bona-fide settler) takes public property for
private profit should pay for what he gets. In the effort to apply
this principle, the Forest Service obtained a decision from the
Attorney-General that it was legal to make the men who grazed sheep and
cattle on the National Forests pay for what they got. Accordingly, in
the summer of 1906, for the first time, such a charge was made; and, in
the face of the bitterest opposition, it was collected.
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