Emanuel Fritz, teacher, editor and forestry consultant : transcript, 1958-1967

Oral History Office Regional Oral History Office

Forest History Society >ne Bancroft Library

Santa Cruz, California University of California, Berkeley

Emanuel Fritz
Teacher, Editor, and Forestry Consultant

An Interview Conducted by
Elwood R. Maunder

and
Amelia R. Fry

(5) 1972 by The Forest History Society and
the Regents of the University of California

All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal
agreement between the Directors of the Forest History
Society and the Regents of the University of California
and Emanuel Fritz, dated 16 September 1969. The manu
script 1s thereby made available for research purposes.
All literary rights in the manuscript, including the
right to publish, are reserved to Emanuel Fritz during
his lifetime and to the Forest History Society and the
University of California thereafter. No part of the
manuscript may be quoted for publication without the
written permission of the Executive Director of the
Forest History Society or the Director of The Bancroft
Library of the University of California.

Requests for permission to quote for publication
should be addressed to Forest History Society, P.O. Box
1581, Santa Cruz, California 95060, or the Regional Oral
History Office, 486 Bancroft Library, University of
California, Berkeley, California 97420, and should
include identification of the specific passages to be
quoted, anticipated use of the passages, and identifica
tion of the user. The legal agreement with Emanuel
Fritz requires that he be notified of the request and
allowed thirty days in which to respond.

FOREWORD

This interview is part of a series produced by the
Regional Oral History Office of Bancroft Library, University of
California at Berkeley, under a grant from the Forest History
Society, whose funding was made possible by the Hill Family
Foundation .

Transcripts in the series consist of interviews with:
DeWitt Nelson, retired head of the Department of Natural Resources,
California; William R. Schofield, lobbyist for timber owners, Cal
ifornia Legislature; Rex Black, also lobbyist for timber owners,
California Legislature; Walter F. McCuIloch, retired Dean of the
School of Forestry, Oregon State University, Con/all is, Oregon;
Thornton Munger, retired head of U.S. Forest Service Experiment
Station, Pacific Northwest Region; Leo Isaac, reti red, si I viculture
research in the Forest Service Experiment Station, Pacific North
west Region; and Walter Lund, retired chief, Division of Timber
Management, Pacific Northwest Region of the Forest Service;
Richard Colgan, retired forester for Diamond Match Lumber Company;
Myron Krueger, professor of forestry, emeritus, U.C. Berkeley; and
Woodbridge Metcalf, retired extension forester, U.C. Berkeley.
Copies of the manuscripts are on deposit in the Bancroft Library,
University of California at Los Angeles; and the Forest History
Society, University of California at Santa Cruz.

Interviews done for the Forest History Society under other
auspices include: Emanuel Fritz, professor of forestry, Univer
sity of California, Berkeley, with funding from the California Red
wood Association; and a forest genetics series on the Eddy Tree
Breeding Station with tapes by W.C. Gumming, A.R. Liddicoet, N.T.
Mirov, Mrs. Lloyd Austin, Jack Carpender, and F.I. Righter, cur
rently funded by the Forest History Society Oral History Program.

The Regional Oral History Office was established to tape
record autobiographical interviews with persons prominent in the
history of the West. The Office is under the administrative
supervision of the Director of the Bancroft Library.

Wi I la Klug Baum, Head
Regional Oral History Office

Regional Oral History Office
Room 486 The Bancroft Library
University of California
Berkeley, California

111

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE by Henry J. Vaux v

INTRODUCTION by Elwood R. Maunder vii

I EARLY LIFE 1

The Fritz Family in Baltimore 1
Baltimore Polytechnic

Cornell University 11
Teaching at Baltimore Polytechnic

Botany in Cornell Summer School 18

II YALE SCHOOL OF FORESTRY 20

Classes, Professors, and Field Work 20

Gifford Pinchot 27

Contrasts in Forestry Education 32

III BEGINNING A FORESTRY CAREER 36

The Context of Government and Industry 36

In the New Hampshire Forestry Department 40

In Montana and Idaho With the U.S. Forest Service 47

Fort Valley Experiment Station, Arizona 59

IV WORLD WAR ONE AIR SERVICE 68

V PINCHOT AND FEDERAL REGULATION 74

VI TEACHING AT UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA IN THE TWENTIES 79

Courses 79

Faculty 90

German vs. American Forestry in Early 1900's 97

A School of Forestry at Stanford? 103

VII THE REDWOODS 107

Second Growth Investigation 107

Projects With the U.S. Forest Service 117

Industry Cooperation and Forestry Attempts 127

The Union Lumber Company 127

Consulting in the Redwoods 130

The Tree Farm Movement 138

CRA forester for the NIRA Lumber Code (Article X) 141

Logging Conferences 145

VIII SOCIETY OF AMERICAN FORESTERS 151

Role of the Society 151

Journal of Forestry Work 157

The "UnhoTy Twelve Apostles" 173

Reed's Dismissal 189

Protection of Members 202

The Cox Case 202

The Black Case 208

iv

H.H. Chapman 221

IX THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 234

S.A.F. Revolt: Chapman vs. Interior Foresters 236
Pinchot's Tour in the West During the Transfer Controversy 238

X THE CALIFORNIA FOREST PRACTICE ACT 242

Legislation Attempts for Acquisition of Cutover Lands 242
Consultant to the Legislative Forestry Study Committee

(The Biggar Committee) 250

The Legislation 257

The Douglas Fir Region 265

The Redwood Region 270

XI THE FOREST PRODUCTS LABORATORY 274

XII FOUNDATION FOR AMERICAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT (FARM) 281

XIII GENERAL COMMENTS 291

APPENDICES 299

INDEX 318

PREFACE

If one were to characterize in one word tne personality and impact of
Emanuel Fritz — whether as professional forester or as teacher — no doubt
the word should be independence. Fritz's career included work in a wide
variety of professional contexts: in forestry education at the University
of California; in government programs in the Forest Service and Department
of the Interior; in organized industry with the California Redwood
Association; in the organized profession as editor of the Journal of
Forestry; and in a considerable array of private relationships as a highly
respected consultant. But within each and every one of these varied
contexts, Fritz was always Fritz.

I knew him first as one of his students. It was in the mid-1950s
when forestry seemed, in the eyes of most, to have become largely a
government enterprise and when industrial forestry seemed impotent, if not
actually dead. But Fritz confidently offered his students a different
view, a vision of commercial forestry on a sound financial base imbued
with the vitality inherent in an important sector of modern industry.
This was truly only a vision in the 1930s, but it was due in no small
measure to men like Fritz, and the students intrigued by his ideas, that
the vision of the Thirties became the reality of the Sixties.

Fritz has never been reluctant to speak his views plainly, even
bluntly. He has no hesitation in challenging the "conventional wisdom"
and does so in any gathering where he can arouse interest in forestry.
As a result, to many within the profession he has often appeared as a
dissenter. But these same qualities have given him the interested atten
tion of people outside of forestry. Not only did this earn him the
cognomen of "Mr. Redwood" among many Ca I ifornians, but, more importantly,
it introduced basic ideas of forest management among many land owners and
public officials who simply were not hearing the forestry message being
preached in other quarters. Foresters have often been self-critical of
their tendency to talk only to themselves. Fritz has been a model
exception to this generalization. Hence, his influence on forestry develop
ment in California has been profound. His work with redwood forest
landowners led to many constructive improvements in the management of large
redwood landhol dings. As a member of the California Forestry Study
Committee, he influenced strongly and constructively the landmark forestry
legislation adopted by the state at the end of World War II. And in later
years he was among the first voices to point to needed revision and
strengthening of several features of the state's forestry policies.

Fritz's strong and independent voice lent balance to discussion of
many forestry issues. Many students learned from him the importance of
considering all sides of controversial policies. His practical approach to
forestry, reinforced by a lifetime of astute observation in the woods, has
helped innumerable people to think of forestry as a practice rather than
as a theory. His unbounded interest and enthusiasm for redwood have been
transmitted to a host of his listeners both within and outside the
forestry profession.

V?

Fritz's profound Influence on forestry in California and elsewhere has
recently been recognized with the award to him of the Gifford Pinchot Medal,
This may have surprised Fritz, whose evenhanded criticism has at times
fallen even on the "Father of the Profession," Gifford Pinchot. But to
those who have seen Fritz's own contributions at close range, the award
was fitting recognition to an outstanding figure in the profession.

Henry S. Vaux
Professor of Forestry

4 July 1972

217 Mulford Hall

University of California, Berkeley

VI

INTRODUCTION

In the developing history of forestry in America certain men and women
emerge as major figures in the arena of conservation and forest policy.
Emanuel Fritz of Berkeley, California, is one of these. Professor Fritz
has long been a familiar figure in forestry affairs. Widely known as
Mr. Redwood, he wears this appellation with considerable discomfort.
"It is a questionable moniker to hang on anyone," he scoffs. "Whenever
I hear it, it makes me feel as if I am being identified as some kind of
character and without realization that my life as been spent in work on
many species besides Sequo i a semperv i rens . "

But to a considerable company of foresters who have studied under the
strong-minded professor of lumbering and forest products at the world-
renowned School of Forestry and Conservation on the University of
California's Berkeley campus, Fritz is Mr. Redwood, and their number is
considerably bolstered by a large contingent of laymen whose concern for
the forests of America has brought them into frequent touch with the
feisty professor in public meetings or through his extensive writings.

Emanuel Fritz was born October 29, 1886, in Baltimore, Maryland, to
German immigrant parents, John George* Fritz and Rosa Barbara Trautwein
Fritz. The family enjoyed the fruits of a prosperous new business and
gave major consideration to the education of Its offspring. Young
Emanuel grew up speaking German, learning English from his friends in the
streets of Baltimore. He was sent to school at the Polytechnic Institute
of Baltimore along with his younger brother, Theodore. Another younger
brother, Gustave, attended the City College. Both brothers are deceased.

The Fritz family was devoutly religious in the evangelical tradition
of the Lutheran faith. Daily Bible reading was part of family life.
Young Emanuel 's early interest in nature derived, perhaps, from his
father's active attention to birds, animals, and plants. When city
neighbors objected to a swarm of bees brought home in a gunnysack from the
country, the elder Fritz packed up his family and moved to a suburb.

After graduation from the Polytechnic Institute, Emanuel went to
Cornell University following a major interest in engineering. Fritz took
a generous variety of nonengineering courses through his years at
Cornell, economics, corporate finance, contracts, and music. He sang
regularly in the Cornell Chapel Choir, and, as he likes to recall,
"received credit for it." In retrospect he now regrets not having
pursued a degree in the arts as well as the mechanical engineering degree
that he earned. Athletic skill was demonstrated by rowing stroke on the
Engineering College crew. In intermural competition he came to know Fritz
Fernow, stroke of the Arts Col lege crew. Fernow was the youngest son^ of
the first professional forester in America, Bernhard Eduard Fernow.

Fritz turned to forestry some years after teaching a stint at his old
alma mater, Baltimore Polytechnic Institute. He went to Yale University's
highly-touted School of Forestry and in 1914 was awarded the master's

V I I I

degree in Forestry. Franklin Hough's Trees of North America sparked an
interest in wood technology that led him into a life-long study of uses
of the redwoods and other western species.

In 1914 he resumed a summer job he had previously landed as a student
at Yale, working for the New Hampshire State Department of Forestry. The
following year he joined the growing ranks of the United States Forest
Service. This Involved him from 1915 to 1917, first, in fire suppression
and prevention work and, secondly, in si I vicultural research. His exper
ience with the Service ended with America's entry into World War I.

Immediately after the war, Fritz moved into the ranks of academic
forestry. From 1919 to 1954 he rose from Assistant Professor to full
Professor in forestry at the University of California. During these
years he taught wood technology and timber utilization. He emphasized
with his students that forestry must be brought out into the woods.

In line with this philosophy, from 1934 on, he served as consultant
forester to the lumber industry, particularly in pine and redwood. Among
his numerous positions and honors can be listed that of wood technologist
for the California Pine Association and the West Coast Lumbermen's
Association; forestry advisor and V ice-President of the Foundation of
American Resource Management; Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Forestry;
and Founder and Secretary of the Redwood Region Logging Conference.

Fritz was not one to ignore the role of federal and state government.
Though advocating minimum public regulation of private forestry, he
served, from 1938 to 1940, as consultant to the United States Department
of the Interior and, from 1943 to 1945, as forestry consultant to the
California Legislative Interim Committee.

His work thrust him into contact with a bustling lumber industry
which was already showing signs of the sickness that was to provoke the
critical analyses of William B. Greeley, David T. Mason, and, later,
Wilson Compton. Fritz felt a sympathy for loggers and lumbermen and
defended them against critics both within his profession and in the
muckraker press. It was this attitude, maintained throughout a long
career, which has brought upon his head the frequent accusation that he
is a stalking-horse of industrial interests. The bitter battle over
management of the nation's forest resources in this century, continuing
with heightened fury today, creates fertile ground for such accusations.
Historians of the future will appraise Fritz's role from the careful
examination of his personal papers, preserved in the University of
California's Bancroft Library, as well as his voluminous published
record of American forestry.

That Fritz took up the cudgels frequently in the great battles of
recent forest history, often opposing one of his leading mentors at Yale,
H.H. Chapman, is a part of this work which will draw special attention
from scholars. Whatever future analyses of Fritz may produce, it is

*ln the course of these interviews with Emanuel Fritz the Forest
History Society also obtained funding from the California Redwood Associa
tion for the inventorying and indexing of the Fritz papers in The Bancroft
Library. This was done by Marion Stuart of the Forestry Library, University
of California, Berkeley.

ix

without doubt that he made a clear and unequivocal impact upon the record
of American forestry.

The Fritz interviews were made over a period of nine years. I
made the f 1 rst, interview .in San Francisco. on January 2, 1958. This

was followed by another Interview of mine made in Berkeley on November 5,
1958. Mrs. Fry conducted separate interviews on November 12, 1965, and
August 28, 1967, in Berkeley. Working from rough drafts of these initial
interviews, Mrs. Fry and I made further interviews with Professor Fritz
in Berkeley on February 27, 1967, and on March I, 2, 3, and 4, 1967. The
volume is composed of major portions of all the various interviews.

This volume of oral history interviews with Professor Fritz is one
of a series of works focusing upon Western American forest history and
made possible by grants from the Louis W. and Maud Hill Family Foundation
and the Weyerhaeuser Family Foundation. The Hill and Weyerhaeuser grants
were made to the Forest History Society during the 1960s to permit the
making of selected in-depth interviews with westerners who had been
either major participants in or keen observers of developing patterns of
western forest land use.

A considerable list of desirable interviews was compiled with the
aid and assistance of colleagues in the major western universities and
colleges with which the Forest History Society has enjoyed a symbiotic
relationship for nearly two decades. Interviews were planned with a final
high-priority list. Preparatory research for the interviews included
searching published sources as well as examining available documentary
materials relating to the men and women to be interviewed. To conserve
funds, interviews were planned to take advantage of the attendance of
respondents at regional or national meetings held on the West Coast.*
Experts in the oral history method in western universities were employed
to assist in the program, particularly from the Regional Oral History
Office of the Bancroft Library at the University of California in Berkeley.**
Professor William H. Hutchinson of the History Department at Chico State
University was also recruited to make interviews which explored the folk
lore of the western woodlands.***

*George L. Drake, tape-recorded interview in 1967, and David T. Mason,
tape-recorded interview in 1965, 1966 and 1967, by Elwood R. Maunder,
Forest History Society, Santa Cruz, California. In process.

**Among these interviews were, C. Raymond Clar, tape-recorded interview
in 1966 by Amelia R. Fry, in process; Leo A. Isaac, "Douglas Fir Research
in the Pacific Northwest, 1920-1956," typed transcript of tape-recorded
interview by Amelia R. Fry, 1967; Woodbridge Metcalf, "Extension Forester,
1926-1956," typed transcript of tape-recorded interview by Evelyn Bonnie
Fairburn, '1969, University of Ca I iforni a Bancroft Library Regional Oral
History Office, Berkeley.

: ***W.B. Laughead, typed transcript of tape-recorded interview by William
H. Hutchinson, Forest History Society, Santa Cruz, California. 1957.

As the principal investigator I was privileged to make approximately
half of the interviews. Amelia Roberts Fry of the Regional Oral History
Office, Berkeley, is co-author of this work and the author of other
interviews In this series. Wi I la K. Baum, Director of the Regional Oral
History Office of Berkeley, assisted In directing the processing of

Interviews. The preparatory research on the large Fritz connection, which
1s a comprehensive documentary resource for all areas of his professional
life, was done by Amelia Fry; my Yale University colleagues Joseph A. Miller,
Judith C. Rudnicki, and Margaret G. -Davidson did much of the research from
related deposits in the Forest History Society and the Yale Historical Manu
scripts Collection. Susan R. Schrepfer and Barbara D. Holman did the final
editing of the manuscript, created its index, and saw the volume through
the last steps of publication.

Acknowledgment of advice of many others who aided in the arrangements
for interviews would require several pages to record here. Of particular
noteworthy assistance were Carwin Wool ley, Executive Vice-President of the
Pacific Logging Congress; Bernard L. Orel I and Irving Luiten of the
Weyerhaeuser Company; Dave James of Simpson Timber Company; Foresters
Thornton T. Munger, David T. Mason, Henry J. Vaux, Henry E. Clepper,
Frank H. Kaufert, George A. Garratt, and Paul M. Dunn. Hardin C. Glascock
of the Western Forestry and Conservation Association, now Executive Vice-
President of the Society of American Foresters, was a most helpful
consultant and critic.

Special appreciation is expressed for the encouragement and patience
of the sponsors, in particular A. A. Heckman and John D. Taylor of the Hill
Family Foundation, Frank B. Rarig and Frederick K. Weyerhaeuser of the
Weyerhaeuser Family Foundation, and Philip Farnsworth and Kramer Adams of
the California Redwood Association.

Oral history is a new and demanding discipline. The great volume of
work involved in designing, planning, and carrying out the processing of
all the many interviews was done without intrusion of any kind upon the
team of scholars who labored so long and hard upon it. Many of the men and
women who were interviewed have since died. That their vivid memories of
the history of western forestry and conservation have been preserved in the
interviews of this series is a tribute to all who have been associated
with the project.

It is our hope that more interviews in this series may be published
and that excerpts from other unpublished interviews can be submitted as
articles to scholarly and popular journals. Funds are now being sought
fror the National Endowment for the Humanities and other sources cf
philanthropy to assist us toward these goals. A significant number of
articles from oral interviews have already been published in Forest History
and American Forests.

The potential of oral history has only begun to be realized. Much
progress has been made since Professor A I Ian Nevins began to develop the
method at Columbia University in 1950. It is a matter of pride to the
Forest History Society that its first exploration of the method was made
only two years later, the result of conversations I had with Professor

xi

Nevins. Today the ranks of oral historians are growing at a rate that
amazes even those optimistic advocates who championed the method in the
face of considerable criticism during the early fifties. The Oral
History Association now stands on sturdy feet, counts numerous members
on its rolls, and gains prestige with the counting number of fine books
and articles published. The Forest History Society is proud to add this
volume to the library of American oral history.

Copies of this manuscript, either in manuscript or microfiche form,
can be purchased from the Forest History Society.

Elwood R. Maunder, Interviewer
Executive Director
Forest History Society

30 November 1972
Forest History Society
733 River Street
Santa Cruz, California

xi i

LI wood l\. Mjuridor was cjrodudtotJ from I ho llnl ver^i ly of Minno-joKi
in 1939 wi rh a B.A. in journalism. He was a reporter and editor of Hie
Minnesota Dai I y and an officer of his class. From 1939 to December, 1941,
he was a reporter and feature writer for the Minneapolis Ti mes-Tri bune and
the Minneapolis Star-Journa I . He enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard
December 21, 1941, and served as a combat correspondent in both the
European and Mediterranean theaters of war on landing craft for infantry
and combat transports. He was editor of the Ninth Naval District's
magazine, Sound! nqs, at the conclusion of the war. He was graduated from
Washington University at St. Louis in 1947 with an M. A. in history. He
attended the London School of Economics and Political Science for one
year and worked as a freelance foreign correspondent and British Gallup
Pollster. He was a member of the staff of the U.S. Department of State
during the Meeting of Foreign Ministers in London in 1947 and 1948.
Returning to the United States he was named director of Public Relations
for the Board of Missions of the Methodist Church, later director of
public relations for the Ohio area of the Methodist Church. In 1952 he
was appointed executive director of the Forest History Society. He is
the author of many articles, has produced more than one hundred oral
history interviews, and edited with Margaret G. Davidson A Hi story of
the Forest Products Industries: Proceedings of the First National
Col loqu i urn, sponsored by the Forest History Society and the Business
History Group of the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration.
He is the publisher and long-time editor of Forest History, quarterly
journal of the Forest History Society. He is an Honorary Member of the
Society of American Foresters and a Fellow of the Forest History Society.

XI I I

Amelia R. Fry was graduated from the University of Oklahoma In
1947 with a B.A. in psychology. She wrote for the campus magazine. She
received her Master of Arts in educational psychology from the University
of Illinois in 1952, with heavy minors in English for both degrees. She
taught freshman English at the University of Illinois from 1947 to 1948
and at Hiram College in Ohio from 1954 to 1955. Mrs. Fry also taught
English as a foreign language in Chicago from 1950 to 1953. She writes
feature articles for various newspapers and was reporter for a suburban
daily from 1966 to 1967 and writes professional articles for journals and
historical magazines. She joined the staff of Regional Oral History Office,
University of California, Berkeley, in 1959, first specializing in the
field of conservation and forest history, then public administration and
politics. She is currently director of the Earl Warren Oral History
Project at the university and secretary of the Oral History Association.

S.F. CHRONICLE
Thursday, December 15, 1988

OBITUARIES

UC Forestry Expert
Emmanuel Fritz

Emmanuel Fritz, a forestry ex
pert nicknamed "Mr. Redwood"
and the oldest faculty member at
the University of California at
Berkeley, died last Thursday in his
Berkeley home at the age of 102.

Mr. Fritz was involved in nearly
every aspect of the redwood indus
try and was considered a forestry
and conservation authority for 70
years.

He advised elected and appoint
ed officials on the need to balance
demands for lumber in a rapidly
growing state with the need to pre
serve old-growth groves, replant
logged areas and set aside areas for
protection.

"He encouraged reforestation
and cooperation between the log
ging industry and conservation
groups," said John DeWitt, execu
tive director of the Save the Red
woods League, of which Mr. Fritz
was a longtime member.

Mr. Fritz wrote a pamphlet in
1932 entitled "The Story Told by the
Fallen Redwood" which is still dis
tributed by the Save The Redwoods
League to schools across the coun
try. DeWitt said.

Millions of people who do not
recognize Mr. Fritz's name probably
remember reading the book at
some point during their childhood,
DeWitt said. The book describes1
how tree rings, fire scars and other
markings can provide a detailed
chronology of an ancient redwood's
history.

When Mr. Fritz turned 102, he
earned the distinction of becoming
the oldest faculty member in UC
Berkeley history. Cal's previously
oldest professor, chemist Joel Hiide-
brand, was 101 when he died in 1963.

Mr. Fritz helped create Califor
nia's State Forest program and ad-

» vised Governor Earl Warren on for
est and logging matters. And he was
the founder of the Redwood Region

^Logging Conference, which honor
ed him on its 50th anniversary earli
er this year for his prominence and
his influence on forestry practices.

His personal papers are at UC
Berkeley's Bancroft Library, noted
for its collection documenting the
"history of the Western United
"States.

Mr. Fritz was a member of the
Commonwealth Club and of the Bo
hemian Club. At the Bohemian Club
he established a museum to depict
the life, history and ecology of the
trees on the club grounds along the
Russian River.

Mr. Fritz was born in Baltimore
] on Oct. 29, 1886. He received a bach
elor 's degree fromjCorneU in 1908
" and a master's from Yale in 1914.

He was a forester for the New
npshire State Forestry Depart-
• ment before moving West to work
' for the VS. Forest Service and serv
ing as an Air Service captain in
! World War I.

Mr. Fritz joined UC Berkeley's
' Division of Forestry in 1919 and re
tired in 1954, retaining the title pro-
» f essor emeritus.

fc. He is survived by two daugh-
; ters, Barbara Fritz of Berkeley and
. Roberta Fair of Eugene, Ore. At his
' request, no services were planned.

Donations ire preferred to
Save the Redwoods League, Alta
.Bates Hospice, S232 Claremont Ave-
, nue, Oakland, 94618 or to the Soci-
L«y of American Foresters' building
•Jund, 5400 Grosvenor Lane, Bethes-
JOa,Md., 20814-2188.

I EARLY LIFE

The Fritz Fami ly in Baltimore

Maunder: Emanuel, can you start out by telling us something about your

family origins and where you were born and something perhaps of
your early childhood?

Fritz: I was born in Baltimore, Maryland, October 29, 1886. My father
was born in Ebersberg, Wurttemberg, on February 14, 1855. My
mother was born in Stuttgart, Wurttemberg, on February 2, 1856.
Father was nearly eighty-three when he passed away and mother was
just past eighty-two.

Father was a tailor, learning the trade in Switzerland to which he
went before he was twenty. He came to the United States in about
1880. Mother came to the United States about the same time and they
were married in Baltimore on April 15, 1884.

When they came to this country, they went to night school at once
to learn the language, and in my father's case, he also learned
bookkeeping so that he could set up his own business. While he
finished his apprenticeship In Switzerland, where he spent most of
his youth although born in Germany, he decided that the thing to
do in the United States was to have his own business. He set up
one shortly after he was married and the business prospered. The
only tough times we knew as boys were those of the 1892-1893 period
in the very severe depression of those years. My parents often
spoke of those days, but they pulled themselves out of the slump
without help, as did the rest of the country.

Maunder: Your father's name was what?

Fritz: John George Fritz. And my mother's maiden name was Rosa Barbara

Trautwein. Her parents and ancestors were all soldiers. My father's
were soldiers and farmers. My father was exempted from military
service because of a bad leg.

Maunder: What brought him to this country? Was it the economic opportunity?

Fritz: Well, in those days of course many young men in Europe felt that the
streets of the United States were paved with gold, and they thought
they'd come over here and pick up some of it. My father often told
me that in this country one is compensated in accordance with how
hard he works and what he knows, while in Europe, one's station in
life, as to birth, pretty much determined how far you could get.

Maunder: When did he come to this country?

Aunt Carrie Trautwein Muth with Emanuel Fritz, ca. 1890

Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:
Maunder:
Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

It must have been about 1880. I was born in 1886, October 29th.
Mother and father, as I said, met in this country and they were
both nearly thirty when they married.

Was there any particular reason for their settling in Baltimore?

No, unless it was the church. My father was a very devout church
man. He joined the church while he was a young man in Switzerland.
He was somewhat of an orator — at least he liked to speak before
groups — and I have an idea the church gave him an opportunity to
express himself.

This was one of the evangelical churches?
That's right, a Lutheran offshoot.
Which one?

It was called merely the Evangelical Church. That's my recollec
tion. 1 should remember it more clearly but frankly we boys (three
of us in the fami ly and I was the oldest) had to go to church and
Sunday school so much in the course of a week that we, you might
say, got a little too much of it. There was a lot of dogma and
fear of the hereafter. But my father insisted on it and as long
as he was the boss, we went.

Has that persisted through your life?
churchman as a result of this?

Have you not been an active

I really did enjoy going to church while in college, both at Cornell
and at Yale. Attendance was purely voluntary. They had invited
preachers, a different one nearly every Sunday, and they were really
great men and good speakers. They spoke with good sense and I en
joyed attending those sermons, but since then I haven't been very
active in any church. As youngsters, we would occasionally go to
a synagogue or a Catholic church to see what it was like.

Was this a German community that you lived in as a boy in Baltimore?

In part. It was changing. Baltimore had a large number of Germans
and Irish. Italians, largely from Naples and Sicily, were beginning
to arrive in large numbers.

The Germans had Turnvereins (gymnasium clubs). I belonged to one.
And they had a lot of societies and singing groups (Saenger verein).
They would go during the summer to their Schuetzenpark for their
Schuetzenfest, as they called it. "Schuetz," of course, would be
a guard.

I don't know what the origin of those organizations was and why
they were set up but as a result of the First World War and the
strong feeling against the Germans, all those organizations came
to a quick end. It was rather unfortunate because they were very

Fritz:

M.-iunder:
Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

good social organizations and very loyal to America. The Germans
we came In contact with were mostly from south Germany, kind, fun-
loving, religious and not militaristic as were the Prussians. They
became citizens as soon as they could and prized their new status.

Did you grow up speaking both t'ruiIKh ,in<1 Herman?

I spoke German until I was eight, and when I was about eight, 1
picked up English on the street and to some extent in school.

I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about your family life
and your growing up as a young man in the eastern United States.
What do you recall most about your boyhood?

Well, it was a very happy boyhood. Our parents took a great deal

of interest in us and gave us every opportunity. Of course, trans

portation in those days wasn't what it is today. We had to ride

streetcars or we walked or rode our bicycles.

Even though we lived right in the city I had to walk to school as
far as Abraham Lincoln was reported to have walked and mine was
always on hard city streets — but no mud. The Polytechnic Institute
was about two miles from home but we enjoyed walking. When 1 say
"we," I mean my younger brother Theodore and I. There were a lot
of Interesting windows en route, especially Schwartz's Toy Store,
which was always fascinating.

Where did your middle brother gc to school?

He went to the Polytechnic as I did, but did not finish. Theodore
thought it was very foolish to stay in school so long when you
could go out and make money right away, so he quit the Polytechnic
early and entered business college. He was one of the first to
operate what is today a "stenotype" machine.

As soon as he graduated from this business college — I think it was
Strayer's — he got excellent jobs and he worked himself up very
rapidly in business. His principal employer at the time, as I
recall, was Armour and Company. Later he had a large steel dis
tributing business, everything from chain link fencing to tool
steels.

Maunder: But your younger brother went along with you through the Polytechnic?

Fritz: That was Theodore. The other brother, Gustave, was four years

younger and went to the City College. Baltimore in those days had
no high schools for boys under that name. It had only the Baltimore
Polytechnic Institute and they had the Baltimore City College, both
for boys only.

My youngest brother Gus had decided to become a doctor so that meant
that he would go to the City College where he would be prepared to
enter either Hopkins or the University of Maryland. He chose the

Fritz: University of Maryland and developed an excellent medical practice.
Both brothers are deceased, Gus at fifty, Ted at sixty-eight. Both
were hard workers.

Maunder: Your parents were in a position to give you all the very best of
education as you were growing up?

Fritz: Yes, they insisted upon it. They were not always in comfortable

circumstances but they generally had enough. They were very frugal
and they made a dollar go a long way. They taught us the same
principle. They encouraged us to do some work on the outside with
the result that when 1 went to college 1 financed my first two
years myself and made nearly enough money in the summertime and
at odd times to help me through the third year, although my father
and mother contributed a considerable share.

They were very independent people, especially my mother. They
felt that one appreciated more what he had to work for. Mother
was very practical. Father, on the other hand, was pretty much
of an ideal ist.

My father was a diligent student of the Bible and he read very
widely on biological subjects, medical and zoological. Living
in the city, we had little opportunity to have any biological
interests except that father raised Newfoundland dogs and fancy
pigeons for show purposes and others for racing. Since the birds
didn't need the floor of the cage, I was permitted to have some
guinea pigs and a squirrel, but that was the extent of that. How
ever, we bicycled often to the country and particularly to the fine
Druid Hill Park to see something green.

Even though the back yard was small, as in all those city houses,
we built some boxes on the porch in which we had flowers and vines.

My father's interest in birds and animals and plants, which he
couldn't really develop in the city, led him finally to quit the
city and move to the country. He had been on a Sunday walk in the
country with my mother, beyond the end of the car line. He found
a swarm of bees and he told mother that swarm was going to belong
to him. So he went to a nearby farm house for a gunny sack, slipped
the sack over the swarm and took it home. Although it meant being
absent from church that Sunday night, he stayed home and made him
self a beehive out of, I believe, a cracker box, and the next morn
ing we were amateur apiarists.

Those bees were very active and had to forage pretty far and wide
in the city to get what they needed. Some of the neighbors com
plained, so my father said, "If the neighbors don't like my bees,
I'm going to move where nobody can be bothered by them." So he
bought himself a little place of about seven acres about a mile
from the end of the Belair Road car line at a place called Kenwood
Park. There was a newly completed house on the property which was
up for sale because the owner had lost his wife. It was a large

Fritz: house, very well built, and the grounds gave father a chance to
have not only bees and pigeons but chickens and everything else.
As a result of that Interest, a few years later 1 built him an
aviary about twenty by twenty, in which he raised pheasants of
five or six different kinds.

The chicken house, as I remember it, was pretty much like a modern
four-room house. On the second floor he had pigeons and on the
first floor there were chickens—fancy chickens, by the way. Mother,
being rather practical, couldn't see the sense — being generally badly
bent financially—of raising show birds, so she insisted on birds
that would lay eggs and cause no tears if they were laid on a block
and decapitated. So she had her own flock of Plymouth Rocks and
Leghorns for eggs and the big Orpingtons for meat, so we were on a
chicken diet at least once a week and we had more eggs than we
knew what to do with.

An interesting sidelight on that was this: they moved to the
country while 1 was a junior at Cornell but I didn't spend the
following summer with them. That summer I spent in Steelton,
Pennsylvania, working for the Pennsylvania Steel Company.

After college graduation, I became a teacher at the Baltimore Poly
technic Institute. (This is jumping ahead a little, on this chicken
business.) Our chickens were doing so well laying eggs that we
thought it deserved some attention as a business. It happened
that in the summer of 1910, I think it was, 1 worked as a drafts
man for the Cambria Steel Company in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Two
other draftsmen also liked the outdoors so we three used to take
walks Saturday afternoons and all day Sundays in the woods and
talked over our future as young fellows will.

I noticed that one of them could identify grasses. He apparently
was a farm-bred boy and could distinguish one grass from another
merely by the fruit. I thought that was very interesting. The
other one knew some trees while 1 didn't know any of those things.
We decided it would be interesting to have a little hobby, or a
little sideline, so two of us enrol led in Pennsylvania State Col
lege extension courses, correspondence courses in fact.

I recall my first course was the propagation of plants in which we
learned how plants live and grow and how they are propagated. That
opened an entirely new world to me and it came to be very fascinat
ing. I couldn't wait for the next exercise to come in the ma i I .
Then I took courses in poultry husbandry and in fertilizers and
so on, but the poultry husbandry course was the one I look back
upon with real amusement.

The courses told us that chickens will lay well if treated well,
what chickens needed in the way of treatment was this and that.
So when 1 got back to Maryland for the winter term of teaching I
decided to put some of these principles into operation. First of
all, I learned that our chicken house, which was a pretty fancy

Fritz: affair, faced the wrong way, according to the book. It should have
faced south whereas it faced west to the residence. 1 turned the
house ninety degrees with the help of some of my husky cousins one
Easter Monday. I had everything ready: the new foundation had
been poured earlier and the hor^e had been raised up on skids,
properly greased. So when the youngsters were asked to heave and
they did heave, the house spun right around ninety degrees. Then
it was easy to lower it on the new foundation blocks. That was
possibly my first use of my engineering training by actually build
ing something.

Well, we put in all the appurtenances required by the book and as
a result the chickens laid at a great rate, and we had eggs coming
out of our ears — we didn't know what to do with them. It happened
that one of our neighbors, who were all farmers, thought it rather
amusing for city people to come to the country and even attempt
to run a little kitchen garden and to have some chickens, but he
asked all kinds of questions as to why our chickens laid eggs and
his did not. So we told him that as long as he hadn't eggs to
supply his trade, we'd sell him our excess.

My brother Theodore and I got excited over that and we thought that
if we could raise eggs by that simple procedure it ought to be a
good business to get into. Being a businessman working for Armour
and Company, he went to the hotels in Baltimore and at each one
was told that if he could guarantee a certain number of dozen eggs
every morning he could have all of their business.

He came home all steamed up and soon we had it all planned out as
to where the new chicken houses were to be, and even had a delivery
truck all picked out. It would have been one of the first motor
trucks in that locality. Things were going very well and we were
on the verge of going into the chicken business when Armour and
Company transferred him to Cuba.

That settled that venture, and I'm very glad it did because a man
who raises chickens is really a slave to them. He has to be there
morning and night. In fact, it was a good thing because I was
weakening on engineering anyway.

The experience of being out in the country and having so much free
time — all of Saturday and Sunday and all the vacation days were
spent out there — was a real education. Father had some excellent
men working for him; one was an avid reader of every document that
was ever published by the U. S. Department of Agriculture up to
that time. It was from him that I learned the difference between
hay and straw and what humus is, and so on. He was a very well-
read man although he had no formal education. I learned later
that he worked for us in the off-season only, because his major
interest was following the races; and he was with us only waiting
for the Piml ico race track season to open. I learned a great deal
from him and also from the other men and I got interested in grow
ing things.

Fritz: My father, of course, was always playing with his bees and birds
and animals. We had to have a horse to drive us to the streetcar
line a mile away, and we thought we ought to have a cow to have
fresh milk, although it probably would have been a great deal
cheaper to buy It from the locr i farmers. He also experimented
with grafting and I used to watch him, and as the thing went along,
after a few years I got to feeling that engineering was not nearly
as exciting as the biological fields like growing things and watch
ing bees at work and so on. Incidentally, father had an "observation
hive" from which one could take off a cover and see what went on in
side. I recommend it to others. It's an eye-opener.

As a result of this experience in the country,
engineering eventually and study forestry. I'l
little separate story of that because that goes
farther. Do you have a question at this point?

decided to quit
have to make a
back a I i ttle

Baltimore Polytechnic

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

Can you tel I us of the progress
entered forestry school?

of your education up unti I you

The early years of education I spent in a Lutheran parochial school
where the language was practically all German for the first two
years; and then shortly after that I went to the F. Knapp's Institute
Baltimore which was also a private school but run by an American-

in

born man of German descent,

father before the Civil War

a school that had been
in the same buildings.

started by his

I recall there was quite a wing at the back of the school in which
the slaves had been kept before the war. This wing had the same
number of floors on the same levels as the floors in the main build
ing and each floor had its own slave. It was a very thorough school.
They taught pretty much with the stick. The teachers were first-
class people, men and women. They knew how to teach and they made
us feel that we wanted to learn.

Incidentally, this was the same school that H. L. Mencken attended.
Later on, I attended another school which was also Mencken's school.

nstitute. That school, by the way.

the Baltimore Polytechnic

in his

set up

would work out. Baltimore was always, as I remember it

mental area for schooling, possibly brought about by the presence

of Johns Hopkins University in the same city.

was

time known as the Baltimore Manual Training School. It was
as an experimental school to see how vocational training

an experi-

You got a stern type of discipline and education in this school?

There was discipline from morning until you were released in the
afternoon. There was no monkey business about giving one extra
hours to study. We were expected to study at home. There was no

Fritz: choice of courses; all were prescribed, and if your grade average
wasn't up to a certain point you were canned. This had the pre
dictable results.

From Knapp's Institute I went to the Polytechnic, entering the
sixth grade and staying seven years. "Poly" was being elevated
from a purely vocational school with three lower grades, sixth,
seventh and eighth, and three high school grades. The grammar
school grades were to be phased out and the three high school
years were to be raised to four. It developed into a very highly
rated school, really a secondary engineering school from which
its graduates could enter Lehigh or Cornell as sophomores. Some
of the engineering textbooks were the same used at the U. S. Naval
Academy. There were no biological courses whatever. Dr. J. B.
Conant, who made a study of secondary schools in the I940's, con
sidered It a top school.

I was graduated twice, first at the end of three years and then
again at the end of four years in 1905. The school was always
headed by a retired naval officer who insisted on good discipline.
The curriculum was all prescribed; there was no choice.

The school was really remarkable and I'm happy to say that the
man who followed the last naval officer was a close friend of mine
and a near classmate. He retires, I believe, this month, in Janu
ary of 1958. He's a Cornell graduate, as I am, and he maintained
the same policy that was carried on by Lieutenant William R. King,
who was principal for about twenty years.

Incidentally, going to a school like that makes one think back as
to who had the greatest influence on him in later life, and It's
pretty hard to say which one of the teachers had the greatest in
fluence on me. There were all men — no women teachers — and no girls
in the school. It was quite different than it would have been in
an ordinary high school. All those men were primarily teachers.
They loved teaching; they loved being among the boys; they loved
talking with the boys in off hours; and they insisted on fairness,
scholarship and good behavior. The only thing that they were weak
on, as I think back, was penmanship. They never made us learn to
write a really legible hand as the kids were taught in those days
in the parochial schools. 1 wasn't in the parochial school long
enough to really learn to write a good hand.

Maunder: By parochial school, what do you mean? Is this one that was carried
on by your father's church?

Fritz: It wasn't my father's church; it was a Lutheran church in our neigh
borhood. Our own church did not have a school. I call it a paro
chial school, although it was Lutheran. Generally the parochial
schools are looked upon as Catholic schools but that is not neces-
sari ly true.

Fritz: The principal of the Polytechnic was a most understanding man. He
was not only firm but he was also fair and he knew his stuff. He
had an idea that the time for a boy to learn was when he was very
young, so, this being a polytechnic institute, he was naturally
charged with the duty of turning OUT men who would go into the en
gineering or manufacturing fields.

The school was strong on mechanical and electrical subjects, of
course, but at the expense of such subjects or fields as history,
literature and English. What history and English and literature
we had was excellent, but I wish there had been a great deal more.
The men we had for teachers were wonderful and I can sti I I remem
ber to this day much of the poetry that we had to learn by heart.
In fact, these men imbued us in the short time that we were with
them with an interest in English and literature and history, and
in my own case it has never left me.

The school was possibly a little more advanced than it should have
been for boys of our age. We had to take mathematics every day
the entire time we were in the school — for me, it was seven years.
We started out with arithmetic and we wound up with ten units of
calculus, both integral and differential, after ten units of ana
lytical geometry. In both cases, it was twice as much as was
required to enter Cornell University's engineering department.

I recall the instructor in calculus, a man more than six feet high,
well built, a former oarsman, but not a college graduate. His name
was Uhrbrock. (I think only one teacher in that school at that
time was a college graduate.) He got us so excited about calculus
that most of us ended the course with an average of more than
ninety percent, and I recall in my case, prior to the examination,
I worked out each problem in the book just for the fun of it, not
necessarily for the examination. That helped a great deal when we
went to college. Some of the boys went to Lehigh and once in a
while one went to M.I.T. Having a good grounding in mathematics,
our courses at Cornel I were much easier.

I might say also that the steam engineering we got at the Poly
technic Institute and the course in mechanics were in many respects
superior to that which we got at Cornell. Cornell permitted us to
enter as sophomores but refused to give us credit for the mechanics
course because they thought that was so important they wanted to
be sure we got mechanics the way they wanted it taught. But as a
result of having to take mechanics all over again, five units a
week for an entire year, every boy who came from our Polytechnic
to enter Cornell finished the mechanics course with a grade of
ninety percent or more. I think I got ninety-six or ninety-seven,
and one of my classmates got ninety-eight or ninety-nine. We were
always the top in the class, not because we were any better but be
cause we were merely repeating the course.

That was one of the most interesting courses I ever took. The book

10

Fritz: was written by Irving P. Church. I remember him very well. He

was a typical teacher type and all tied up with his mechanics. If
he were alive today, he would probably be working out some of the
mechanics involved in space vehicles. He was a very short man; he
could write with both hands. In one hand he would have a piece of
white chalk and in the other a piece of colored chalk. He'd draw
his diagrams and present the problem and then show how it would be
worked out. By the time he got through, his black swallow-tailed
coat was pretty well covered with chalk dust. He was a great
teacher.

The steam engineering we didn't have to take until we were juniors
at Cornell, and that course was so simple, and merely a lecture
course, that I would take along my other courses for study because,
although the man giving the lectures — the dean of the College of
Engineering, "Uncle Pete," as we called him, Professor A. W. Smith —
knew his stuff, but we Polytechnic graduates were way ahead of him.

The Polytechnic principals had all come from Annapolis and were in
the Navy's engineering department before their retirement. I must
admit though that at the Polytechnic, my brother and I were team
mates in some of the difficulties we got into.

Maunder: You make it sound as if you were a real juvenile delinquent.

Fritz: Oh no. Nothing like that. [Laughter] Not with the kind of parents
I had. As I said earlier, the teachers we had were excellent, but
we did have one or two that were rather weak and couldn't handle
the classes, and of course the students took charge. Word would
get to the principal once in a while that the classes were running
away with the teachers and that the Fritz brothers were leaders.

They were innocent pranks, but when you get into difficulty once,
then you're accjsed of every other prank that is committed. For
example, I was accused once of having stolen a skeleton from one
of the laboratories, putting a rope around it and hanging it in
the flies of the theater stage, and of being about to lower it on
the stage during commencement of the class before mine, to excite
the audience; but the janitor found the skeleton in time and cut it
down. Well, I suppose they still think, if they're still living,
that I swiped that skeleton. I knew nothing about it until after
the ceremony.

Maunder: That skeleton really doesn't belong in your closet, is that right?

[Laughter]
Fritz: Nope, not that one.

II

Cornel 1 Un i versify

M.iunder: You attended Cornell how many years, Fmanuel?

Fritz: Three years. I could have gotten my mechanical engineering degree
in two years by attending one summer session, but I preferred to
stay a year longer because in those days there was a nation-wide
feeling that engineers were not being educated, just like today
we talk about the lacks of engineering education. Feeling that I
could benefit by more liberal education, I took the extra time
that I had available at Cornell to take courses in economics, cor
poration finance, contracts, and so forth. I even took music. I
sang in the Sage Chapel choir and received credit for it. I also
enjoyed some of the sermons at the chapel .

Maunder: Do you remember some of those men, who they were?

Fritz: The man I think who had the most impact on me was old Dr. Lyman

Abbott. He was the editor and publisher of the old Outlook maga
zine. He had a very, very long beard and I understand that he had
never shaved. He not only preached in the beautiful and inspiring
Sage Chapel but he also held informal gatherings Sunday night which
I enjoyed attending. He also preached in Woolsey Chapel at Yale,
and I never missed qoinq to hear him.

3 3

Dr. Henry Van Dyke also appealed strongly to me. I believe E. E.
Hale also preached there. He was a venerable man at the time. A
rabbi preached once and made an excellent impression. These men
all showed great learning and good philosophy. I don't recall
that a Catholic priest ever appeared, and that was a loss. I sang
in the choir at Cornell. It added much to the pleasure of attend-
i ng chapel .

I must add that my father retired from business rather early, got
even more active in the church, and became a pinch-hitter for
preachers (in the Methodist church this time) who were either ill
or on vacation. Father enjoyed substituting for them and he could
preach in English as well as in German — one of the old-fashioned
hell-fire and brimstone sermons.

I had almost enough credits for an A.B.
got the M.E., but engineers looked down
it wasn't practical. As I look back on

degree at the same time I
on the A.B. degree because
it now, I feel that I should

have taken less engineering and more of the letters and science
courses. An odd thing about that whole educational program was
that I had not one single unit of any biological subject, and later
on when I decided to enter forestry school, I was afraid I wouldn't
be able to handle it because all my previous training had been in
the physical sciences. Going later into forestry, a biological field
with strange scientific terms and names — but that's another story.

12

Maunder: It's interesting that you should say you feel

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

education
Would you
training and

in the fields of
say that this is
why?

that you lacked
the humanities.

social science and

a very important part of an engineer's

I think an engineer should have a better general education because
he deals not only with machines and bridges but also with people.
For example, when a bridge is first proposed, you might go to an
engineer and ask him if it's feasible. The engineer might say,
after some computation, "Yes, it is feasible from an engineering
standpoint, but is it feasible from an economic standpoint? Will
the bridge be used enough to pay it off? Should beauty of design
be considered?"

So many engineers don't have an understanding of economics even
to this day, or of dealing with people, so that they are looked
upon as being merely slide rule operators and designers or opera
tors of engineering plants. I found in my own case that the art
of speaking English and writing It and conversing with others is
possibly even more valuable or more important than knowing a lot
of formulae.

This seems now to be borne out in what top management in industry
is doing in some of its recruitment of new leadership. They re
quire not only people who are well trained in a specialized field,
but they want people of rather broad education.

Yes. I think that business in the past fifteen years has been so
extraordinarily good that many men reached the top in industry,
engineering, banking and business because they couldn't help it.
The market came to their doors. But now that there's a little
recession, I
Ions because

think you'll see heavy mortality among the top eche-
of poor background.

Yes. I was going to ask what was the real beginning of your in
terest in forestry and how do you trace that development in your
life?

Fritz: I've often thought about that and wondered about it, but I think
I can pinpoint it fairly clearly. My mother's father had been a
soldier all his life, and when he was retired to the Civil Service,
as often happened in Germany, he was made what in this country
would be called a ranger in the Wurttemberg Forest Service. The
King owned the forests. Grandfather was probably in charge of a
smal I district.

Now it would appear that having a grandfather and also an uncle
who were in the Forestry Service in Germany, that would have been
an influence, but it had none whatever. In fact, it rarely oc
curred to me that grandfather was a forester at one time.

The real start, I think, came while I was a junior in engineering

13

Fritz: at Cornell. I had made a Sunday trip, or a hike, with some of my
classmates, although they were civil engineers while I was a me
chanical engineer. On this walk (and of course, the country around
Cornell campus was wooded and beautiful) they got to arguing about
the identification of certain trees. I couldn't contribute any
thing because a tree was just a tree to me. They were arguing as
to whether a certain tree was a hemlock or a spruce. To me they
were both evergreens and looked pretty much alike. But the fact
that there was some point of difference made an impression and I
looked up some Information on trees in the library.

Now at this time also — that was 1906, 1907 — it was the era of
preachment by Gifford Pinchot and Theodore Roosevelt in behalf of
conservation, and the two men were in the newspapers a great deal.
T. R. , of course, had the big platform. Pinchot fed him the ma
terial although he himself was an excellent speaker and an excel
lent writer. I read everything that the newspapers published about
these two men and also read some of their articles.

It happens that at that time I was enrolled in a public speaking
course, and one week we were asked to prepare a speech, to be
given the week following. We were permitted to copy a speech
from someone else or write our own. So I thought it would be a
good idea to make a speech on conservation. I took some of Pin-
chot's stuff and some of Fernow's, and some of Roosevelt's and
some of the others, and fitted them together and had my own speech.
I still have that speech at home, written in lead pencil on yellow
paper. I must look it up and preserve It.

One question, Emanuel . Was all of this reading and acquaintance
with the controversy over conservation derived from reading what
we might call the popular press, the newspapers and popular maga
zines, or did you delve into the more specialized periodical
1 iterature?

Yes, it was, most of it, general stuff for popular consumption, and
as I look back on it, it was a strong pitch to get the public inter
ested in conservation. There was very little specialized material

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder;
Fritz:

available. But I did get
My copy carries the date
copy of Fi I ibert Roth'
1895.

a copy of Pinchot's Primer of Forestry.

got it—January 20, 1907.
s Bulletin Number Ten, on wood,

I a I so got a
pub I i shed i n

How about the American Forestry magazine?

Well, at that time it was published in a different form, and I saw
very little of it. But in the engineering magazines that I read,
there were occasional articles on wood and the likelihood of a
timber famine. Of course, that would be of interest to an engi
neer because wood in those days was an important engineering mate
rial.

14

Fritz: Well, the reading and contact with the wonderful outdoors at Cor
nell, which was quite a thing for a boy coming from a large city,
I think was what sparked an interest in my surroundings — the trees,
plants, geology, and so on. Pinchot, being a forester, spoke and
wrote mostly on forestry.

While I was at Cornell, I learned that it had had a forestry school
but that it had been closed a year or two before I entered. I made
some inquiries about it and learned about its fate. Incidentally,
one of my classmates, who was majoring in Liberal Arts, was the
youngest son of Dr. Bernhard E. Fernow. The son was named Fritz,
his first name. It happened later in my senior year, he was the
stroke of the Arts College crew and I was the stroke and captain
of the engineers' crew. Although the engineers had the best crew,
of course, we had a little hard luck with our number two man catch
ing a "crab," and then another one, and letting the Arts College
crew get ahead of us and beat us; but it was nice to be beaten by
a fel low I i ke Fernow.

Come to think of it, Fernow may not have been the stroke; it might
have been LeRoy Goodrich who later became an attorney and is still
living in Oakland, California. Rowing was my principal interest in
athletics in college except for some cross-country running, but
rowing better fitted my physical dimensions which weren't too ample
anyway. I got off the track somewhere, didn't I?

Maunder: Were you ever influenced at this time directly by anyone in for
estry? Were there any holdovers there at the university from the
School of Forestry who influenced you in any way?

Fritz: Not that I know of. I had no contact with them whatever. Of course,
the Engineering College was at one end of the campus and the Agri
culture College was at the other, and engineers in those days looked
upon the agricultural students as "hayseeds" and didn't mix very
much. We rather looked down upon them; and furthermore, the Agri
culture College was a state-supported college while Sib ley College
at Cornell was private, and as youngsters we probably considered
ourselves a little superior.

I remember one day at the boarding house — I was not a fraternity
man — one of the waiters, who was a short-course student in agri
culture during the winter, was asked by one of the boys at the
table, "Are you going to the fencing match tonight?" And he
replied, "Fencing match tonight? We do our fencing in the spring."
So that, 1 think, shows the gap between the agriculture students
and the engineering students in those days.

No, no individual had anything to do with it at Cornell, only the

reading; and if any individuals had an influence I would say they

were Gifford Pinchot and Theodore Roosevelt, but only in a vicar
ious way and because of their writing.

15

Fritz: 1 might add that in 191 I while I was back on the Cornell campus
for summer school to study botany, I met the dean of the Col lege
of Engineering. He remembered me and asked what 1 was doing. I
told him I was going to study 'orestry and lumbering, and he said,
"Why do that? There's no future in it. Wood Is an obsolete mate
rial, not only because It Is belnq cut too fast but also because
metals will supersede It."

In other words, lumbering was a dying industry and therefore for
estry would have no future. That was Dean Dexter S. Kimball, a
fine man, and a classmate of Herbert Hoover. He was reared in the
Seattle area and he apparently had no use for the lumber industry
because of its destructive nature in those days. But like most
people at that time, he saw only the destruction rather than the
reasons for it, nor did he do anything to find an explanation of
the situation. Pinchot was in the same category.

At Cornell, I had a lot of spare time because, although engineer
ing was a pretty tough course, my advance credits gave me consider
able leeway. So I spent a great deal of time in reading magazines
and books. You may remember possibly the old World's Work maga
zine and the old Munsey's and the old magazine that carried the
articles by the woman who castigated Standard Oil. What was her
name?

Maunder: I know who you mean — Ida M. Tarbell.

Fritz: They were classed as "muckrakers." They saw only the dark side
of the cloud. My favorite magazines were Iron Trade Review,
Atlantic Month I y , Outlook and Literary Digest.

Actually my interest in forestry didn't develop and didn't really
come to a head until I had graduated and moved back to Maryland
with my folks in Kenwood Park outside of Baltimore, and I was ex
posed to the outdoors more than I ever before had been. While
there, I had a chance to do a lot of building. The house had not
been finished when we bought it. Only the six rooms on the first
floor were finished. The second floor was a huge open area and
there was an attic above that, or could have been, so I laid out
the six rooms for upstairs and had a carpenter put up the studs
and so on. I helped him.

We had only kerosene lamps, so we had power brought a mile from
the main line to our house, and I wired the entire twelve rooms
with concealed wiring. This was quite a job in a house that's
already partly completed. I put in a pressure water system, a
sewer system, and built a driveway with concrete curbing, and
stuff of that kind.

All the time I was interested in what the men were doing in the
garden, and once in a while I'd help them and when they'd help me
we'd talk about plants. So being in a locality where there was

16

Fritz: considerable farming and plenty of opportunity to hike, I got in
terested in knowing one tree from another and also one flower from
another. I bought myself a copy of Franklin Hough's Trees of North
America. It pictured and described not only the tree but a Tib its
wood. this was a lucky selection. I still have the book. It was
an excellent job and just a few years ago I recommended to Double-
day that they get the plates and republish it, only to find out
that another publisher was on the way to doing it.

From this book I learned the trees on our own place. We had about
three acres of woodland, mostly oaks, and then the neighbors' lots
had many other species. There must have been twenty species of
trees in that locality and I identified them all from that book,
or I thought I did.

I also collected wood specimens from some of these trees, and when
I entered forestry school several years later, I had a good collec
tion of wood samples. That is, the samples were good, but many
labels proved later to be incorrect. I had those samples until
the year I was retired from the University of California, when I
gave them to one of my students — after I corrected the labels!

It was a lot of fun collecting wood and finding out some of the
differences. Of course, while I was at the Polytechnic as a stu
dent I got an excellent training in wood working as well as metal
working. So wood collecting became somewhat of a hobby, and it
stHI is. When I returned as a teacher in engineering, I used
the school's excellent facilities for preparing specimens.

As I look back on it, I can understand why laymen know so little
about wood. I knew nothing about wood. Wood was something that
was easy to saw and easy to plane and easy to nail and put to
gether. We could tell walnut from oak and soft pine from hard
pine, but beyond that we knew nothing. I sympathize today with
people when they can't identify woods because their eyes have just
not been opened up to its distinguishing characteristics. As I
said, that Hough book was the starting point of my interest in
wood technology as well as an interest in the identification of
trees.

So, in answer to your question, you might say my interest in for
estry began while an engineering student at Cornell, and that my
interest in wood began while a student and teacher at the coJy-
technic in Baltimore. The interest was whetted by my parents hav
ing moved to the country. When my brother Ted was transferred to
Cuba and thus scotched our joint poultry idea, I started thinking
of forestry. Perhaps the crusading spirit of the times also had
an effect. Like many young men, I had more than a little of it.
Perhaps too, 1 inherited some of my father's idealism but my
mother's practicality probably helped toward a sounder balance.
Years later that spirit received some hard jolts when I noticed
that crusaders for conservation were, like some religionists,

Fritz: not without a selfish interest and hypocrisy.

It seemed such a natural thing in those days for a man to go Into
conservation work because it was certainly a good movement. Just
the definition of the word — wise uso — would get a young man inter
ested, especially one who had some altruism and also a desire to
get into some kind of public service.

Teach i ng at Ba I timore Polytechnic

Fritz: I might say that I would never have been a teacher in the engineer
ing department if it hadn't been for the depression of the years
1907 and '08. I was headed for the Pennsylvania Steel Company at
Steel ton, Pennsylvania, now a subsidiary of Bethlehem, in the chief
engineer's department. I worked there the summer of 1907. Appar
ently he liked my work because he invited me to come back, and told
me he had a very fine job for me, and asked me to write to him.

I did write to him in February of 1908 but industries at that time
were laying off men rather than employing them. Although this was
a large company, they laid off hundreds, but I had a very wonderful

letter from Mr. Hawkins, the chief engineer — Elmer Hawkins, I think
his name was — who said he regretted very much that conditions were
such that he couldn't give me the Job he had promised me. So I was
out on my ear and I had to look for something else.

So I took a job with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad as a special
apprentice, a two-year apprentice class. In order to get into that
class one had to have a mechanical engineer's degree or a civil
engineer's degree. I worked in the Mont Clare shops helping take
down and reassemble a locomotive.

Just prior to that, the Polytechnic Institute principal, Lieutenant
King, asked me i f I would consider going to the Polytechnic as a
teacher. Naturally I jumped at the chance because the B & 0 em
ployed us for not much more than twenty-five hours a week, and at
fourteen cents an hour, I was hardly making much more than carfare
and certainly not board and room. Possibly the time I had off in
the teaching years gave me a chance for more reading and more think
ing than I would have had if I had gone into an eight, nine or ten-
hour day job. Otherwise, I might have remained in engineering.

I taught at the Polytechnic Institute for four years after my gradu
ation from Cornell. During the week I had a room at the YMCA with
my brother Ted and on Friday afternoon I would go home and spend
Saturday and Sunday. A I I the vacation days were spent out there
except the long summer vacation.

The more my interest was excited in plants, the more books I got
hold of and read on the subject. We also subscribed to a beautiful

Fritz: magazine called Country Life in Ame r i ca . It was a very fancy maga
zine — about the format of Fortune today. From the reading of course
we learned more and more — or I did; I was the only one interested.
My youngest brother was living »t home while he was a student in
medical school, so we talked about biological things once in a
wh i le.

Botany j_n_ Cornel I Summer School

Fritz: Anyway, I kept on reading about forestry and began to ask my uncle,
my mother's brother, about what forestry was like in Germany; and
mother told me something of her father's life in the woods and the
activities. Then I made inquiries about forestry schools. I
learned that Cornell was going to have one again, Yale had one,
Michigan, and there was one at Biltmore.

I also learned, to my dismay, from the literature they sent me
that in order to enter, one must have botany. Well, I had no botany
nor any other biology except what I had read on my own, so I thought
if I have to have botany to enter, then I'd better study it in sum
mer school .

So In the summer of 1911, I went to Cornell summer school to study
it. That was a very happy experience. We had excellent profes
sors. One was W. W. Rowlee; another was Harry P. Brown who later
became professor of wood technology at Syracuse and was a close
friend until he died. The third was Dr. Anderson who gave physi
ology; Brown taught morphology and Rowlee gave trees and other sub
jects. Anyway, they were excellent teachers and my classmates were
in part students who needed some extra credits or some makeup work,
and a very large number of them were school teachers.

I say it was happy because of the close relationship between stu
dents and faculty and also the thrill I got out of studying botany.
I discovered that the Latin and Greek names were not so difficult
and also that botanical science followed natural rules like physical
sciences and wasn't so difficult, but if anything is interesting,
it simplifies itself from the start.

We made a number of field trips in addition to having the labora
tory sessions, and at the close of that six weeks' concentrated
botanical course, I determined in another year to enter forestry
school; so I returned to the Polytechnic for my fourth year of
teaching and gave notice that next spring I would quit. In
cidentally, the classic names helped improve my interest in Eng
lish, so much of which stems from Latin and Greek.

In the same year, in Baltimore, I enrolled in an afternoon course
in botany given by a Baltimore City College teacher. The inside
lab work and the field trips were very helpful in spite of the

19

Fritz: distraction of the women, mostly natural science teachers, I be
ing the only male!

Maunder: You were teaching at the same Polytechnic Institute from which
you had been graduated?

Fritz: The same school. The principal was the same principal when I was
a student at the Polytechnic. He knew that I had a great respect
for him, and he liked my family and even though I was the usual
hell-raising kid, he forgave a lot of that. He bailed me out a
number of times when I got into trouble, thinking that maybe I'd
settle down after I graduated from college and got a real job.

In the teaching I had mostly shop work, the machine shop and the
pattern shop, and believe it or not, I also had a class in black-
smithing which was very, very interesting. Blacksmith ing in those
days was a part of engineering. A man had to know how to make a
weld that would stick and would be as strong as the component pieces,
A blacksmith in those days was called upon for a lot of work that a
machinist couldn't do on his machines. Of course, it was also a
good experience to know what the metals were capable of doing, es
pecially In heat treatment.

Gradually I was given more and more responsibility, and when I de
cided to quit teaching, I was told by the principal that he re
gretted it because he had me lined up to head the engineering de
partment in the year that was to follow. I had previously turned
down a chance to go to Purdue as instructor in engineering and
get a master's degree in engineering at the same time, but that
came when I was weakening on engineering, and I decided that I'd
better stay where I was and make up my mind about what I wanted
to do.

It's a pretty good example about how a lot of boys go to college
not knowing exactly what they want. In my case all my background
had been engineering, seven years of it in the Polytechnic, so it
seemed only natural to elect engineering in college. But it turned
out to be the wrong thing — for a time, as you'll learn when you
query me about what I taught at the University of California.

20

I I YALE FORESTRY SCHOOL

Classes, Professors, and Field Work

Fritz: I had learned, as I said before, that Cornell was going to reopen

its forestry school after a lapse of some years, and it had already
appointed a dean; so while I was on the campus in 1911 for the sum
mer school, I went up to the College of Agriculture and called on
this dean, or the man who was to be dean. It turned out to be Wal
ter Mulford. I told him if there was to be a forestry school there,
I'd like to be considered for entrance because Cornell was my under
graduate university and I'd like to go there; but I was treated so
coldly and Mulford had his watch in front of him and kept touching
it every few moments, indicating that I was a very unwelcome in
truder, so I quickly grabbed my straw hat and walked out.

(As a strange coincidence, Mulford was the head of the Forestry
School when I came to the University of California to teach, and
he was my boss for about thirty-two of the thirty-five years I was
on the faculty. So I was right back in engineering because ! was
to teach sawmi I I ing and wood products. )

Then I decided to enter the Yale Forestry School. It was a toss-up
between Michigan and Biltmore and Yale, but I decided as long as I
had to pay my own way, I might as well go first class and so I
selected the Yale Forestry School. Biltmore closed the year fol
lowing so it was fortunate I didn't enter there. Perhaps I should
have gone to Michigan because the Michigan professors, at least
some of them, were more practical than the ones at Yale.

Maunder: Who was at Michigan at that time?

Fritz: Filibert Roth, a German forester, was the dean.

Maunder: Then you went to Yale in 1911, is that right?

Fritz: Nineteen-twel ve, the following year. The course at Yale at that
time was wholly prescribed. There were no electives. The course
began in June, or was it July, on the estate of Gifford Pinchot
near Mi I ford, Pennsylvania. He called his place "Grey Tcwe'-s."
We were in the summer school there in tents for twelve weeks.

It was a wonderful locality, very similar to the one in Ithaca,
and had the same land formations and the same origin apparently —
a number of deep gorges in slate and shale, beautiful waterfalls
and very interesting woods, mostly hardwood. The school in earlier
years had done some planting so there were some plantations avail
able for study.

21

Fritz: That summer of twelve weeks on the Plnchot estate was a clincher,
and I was more determined than ever to complete forestry. It
wasn't so difficult after all, learning the botanical names, bio
logical terms and so on. But I was disappointed over some parts
of It. For example, we had a course called mensuration, that is,
tree measurements, and they used some statistical methods which
were very, very crude, and they applied statistical analysis to an
object which seemed to me was not too well suited to statistical
analysis because it was so extremely variable. I still feel that
way about it today. Some bad crimes have been committed in publi
cations by applying statistics blindly without a good enough know
ledge of tree physiology.

The teachers in the summer session were Ralph C. Haw ley and Sam Record,
Sam J. Record was pretty much of a humorist and made a game out of
identifying the trees. Hawley was a serious fellow, a very practi
cal, no-nonsense man. In my opinion he was the best, as to real
istic forestry, of the entire faculty, as I met them later on in
New Haven. He knew his stuff and he knew the limitations of the
knowledge of the day. He had an objective in management. He had
actual trees and forests to manage whereas the others were more
academic.

This was a few years after Henry Solon Graves had left to become,
in 1910, Chief of the U. S. Forest Service. Pinchot, as you will
recall, was thrown out by President Taft. We forestry students,
of course, were being inoculated with the philosophy of the day
that Pinchot was a sort of messiah in forestry and that everything
he did was correct, so we swallowed it all. Later I had to change
my mind about some of it. As I look back, I think Pinchot deserved
being discharged from his Chief Forestership. He was certainly
insubordinate and 1 believe also he got to the point where he had
about run his course anyway.

Pinchot did a magnificent job in the basic legislation and in or
ganizing the U. S. Forest Service. It was organized on the basis
of railroad organization with departments and branches and a chain
of command and so on, but the odd thing was that nobody in the
Forest Service knew much about the subject. They were mostly fel
lows with the same education I was getting and without very much
experience. Pinchot, of course, had gone to a forestry school in
France — Nancy. Henry S. Graves, who followed him as Forest Service
Chief and the first Dean of the Yale Forestry School, was also
a graduate of a forestry school — this time, in Germany. Although
they both wrote books, they were pretty much on the German pattern.

I must say this: Pinchot's principal contribution to forestry un
derstanding was, in my opinion, his Primer of Forestry, which came
out in two volumes in hard covers. In those days one could get
Department of Agriculture publications free. I got the Pinchot
Primer of Forestry while I was still at Cornell, in 1907. I still
have these books and the date is still in them. At the same time

22

Fritz: I got a copy of old Bureau of Forestry Bulletin 10, of 1895. The
title was Timber by Flllbert Roth. That was an exciting thing;
that was more nearly In my field. That was wood, an engineering
and building material, and I leaned some basic facts about wood
from It to help me in my collection of wood samples.

I stl I I look upon the Primer of_ Forestry as the best book for an
American forester to read first". It has all the framework of for
estry within a very few pages, and excellent illustrations. Much
of the material, of course, is based upon European experience and
practice. The books on silviculture of today can't teach a man
any more than those two volumes of Pinchot's.

The silviculture books of today are written too much from the of
fice desk and chair by men who have had very little experience in
the woods. They jump in and out of the woods from the highway,
pick up a few scattered thoughts and come back and put them into
print. The only way to learn silviculture, I believe, is to get
the basic facts out of a book like Pinchot's, and then spend a lot
of time deep in the woods really observing and trying to interpret
what he sees — at least, try to piece together the story as the
forest develops.

Well, Henry S. Graves was the Chief Forester in my student days,
and the Dean of the Forestry School at Yale was James W. Tourney.
Professor Tourney was a delightful and gentlemanly person. He was
a botanist, very heavily interested in trees, and he had had some
experience, I believe, in the old Bureau of Forestry trying to set
up some nurseries. Tourney was, in my opinion, a good teacher.
Some of my classmates didn't think so. Though he read the same
lecture notes every year, he had an inflection and he expressed
himself in such a clear manner that It was a pleasure to hear him
speak. He made dendrology a very intriguing subject.

At Yale we had a lot of field work, an excellent idea for any for
estry school. We were out once or twice a week with Jim Tourney
and once or twice a week with Ralph Haw ley. These field trips were
eye-openers. They began to make the whole story of the forests un
fold. Knowing something about trees made ordinary hikes for pleas
ure much more entertaining and satisfying.

Some of the geology and soils lore that the professors spoke about
in teaching us about silviculture rubbed off on me and added to the
value of the field trips. (I had never had a course in geology.)
It happened also that one of my classmates, Temple Tweedy, had been
a major in geology as a Yale undergraduate. His father was in the
U. S. Coast and Geological Survey. He and I used to take hikes on
which he would tell me a good deal about land forms and the glaciated
country in the New England states. I recall one time he pointed out
some scratches which he claimed were made by the glaciers on some of
the rocks around New Haven. Then on East Rock, on another hike, he
pointed out the pentagonal, or was it hexagonal, pattern of lava

23

Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

Maunder ;

Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

"crystals." I'd never seen them before. In fact, rocks were just
rocks to me before that and soil was just dirt. One learns as much
from his fellow students as he does from his professor, especially
In graduate school where the sti'dents come from a number of other
universities and from many different major subjects. That was cer
tainly true at the Yale Forest School.

Who were some of the other professors at Yale?

Jim Tourney gave the course in dendrology and silviculture, that is,
the lectures on silviculture. I think it was called "Si Ivies" the
first semester. H. H. Chapman gave forest management, as it was
called, and he gave another course too. I think it was forest
economics. Then Sam Record gave the course on wood, its properties
and uses, its anatomy and so on.

Ralph C. Bryant taught us logging and lumbering. He was a most
likable man. I learned early that he was the first forestry gradu
ate of an American forestry school — Cornell. Cornell, of course,
had the first forestry school and he was the first one to graduate.
Being four years or more older than most of my classmates, Bryant
and I became very close friends. I was also very close to Sam Re
cord and when he wrote his book on the mechanical properties of
wood, I helped him on it and got credit for it in the preface. Of
course, that was very simple because I had had so much of that kind
of material at the Polytechnic and also at Cornell.

What else can you do to
school and its faculty?

fill us in on the history of this important

Of the men I have mentioned, I would say that Haw ley and Bryant
had the most practical approach to forestry. They believed that
forestry had to pay before it would ever be practiced. Thev were
also decidedly not socialistic in their viewpoints. In fact, I
don't think any of those five men (Hawley, Bryant, Record, Chap
man and Tourney) had a socialistic viewpoint.

On the other hand, Chapman, for one, was very anti-industry; and
in his lectures, which were extremely involved and very difficult
to follow, he would frequently resort to castigating certain in
dividuals in the lumber industry, and not only in that industry but
in forestry itself. He would even lay out Gifford Pinchot for some
things that he did. In fact, we got the impression that no one was
right but Chapman.

To what do you attribute this quality?

I would say that he was just naturally a pugnacious person and he
comes apparently from a line of square-jawed people. I understand
that his grandfather, Haupt, for whom he was named, was a general.
I think he was the Quartermaster General of the Union armies in the
War Between the States. I believe that in the past few years Her
man Chapman has been writing a sort of a biography on the old

24

Fritz: gentleman. He probably was a good Quartermaster General. I under
stand from those who heard more about the biography locally that
Herman Chapman himself felt that the old man was a little too
h igh-handed.

Maunder: Well, Chapman has had a rather influential part or role in Ameri
can forestry circles over the years, hasn't he?

Fritz: He had a very great influence. He gave the impression of sincerity,
and I believe the man really believed what he said, but he was very,
very suspicious. He was very much like Theodore Roosevelt. He
was easily led into quarrels by some who had ulterior motives and
used Chapman as their hatchet man. He loved a fight.

Maunder: Did you ever go on any of the field trips in the South with H. H.
Chapman?

Fritz: Yes. As I said before, Yale had a great deal of field work, and

that was in my opinion the lifesaver. If they had taught forestry
only from lectures and from books, it wouldn't have been worth a
damn. You must remember that most of the students were reared in
an urban environment. The field work is what made it a training.
In the field, a man could see for himself and draw his own conclu
sions.

Maunder:

Fritz:

We started with twelve weeks on the Pinchot estate in New Haven.
We had field trips several times during the week, and then at the
end of the first year — it was a two-year course — we spent two weeks
in the Adirondacks with Ralph Hawley at Ne-ha-sa-nee Park. It was
a private estate, a wild, beautiful area.

Most of us took jobs in the woods during the summer of 1913. The
second year, the senior year, closed a few weeks after Christmas
and we were all ordered to the South for three months. Chapman was
in charge and handled the forest management instruction while
Bryant handled the work in logging and milling.

My class had its field work on the property of the Great Southern
Lumber Company in Mississippi, a few miles from Columbia in Marion
County. That was on the Pearl River, all virgin long-leaf pine
timber except for some second growth which occupied farm lands
abandoned after the Civi I War. Two weeks of those three months
were spent in Bogalusa, Louisiana, at the company's great sawmill.

What would you have to say about the pioneering that some southern
companies were doing in conserving the natural resources?

Not so much conserving, but everywhere the doors were open to the
professors, especially Bryant who was teaching lumbering. They were
open to Chapman also. Chapman claims to have initiated the idea of
burning longleaf pine lands to aid the seedlings overcome a needle
disease.

25

Fritz: Anyway, these lumber people felt that if there was anything in

forestry they'd better find out what it is, and they gave the school
permission to hold its senior field work on their property. Both
Chapman and Bryant did consulting work for several companies.

For example, I recall we had to do not only forestry work but also
logging work. We were ordered by Ralph C. Bryant to make a study
of log lengths. Logs in those days were mostly sixteen feet long.
With a tape, we measured each log to the nearest inch, p I us a trim
ming allowance. Then we made a report on how the log lengths varied
and what effect this had on the financial status of the company.

(Of course, if a log was one inch too short then the log really was
two feet less and would have to be knocked down from a sixteen to a
fourteen-foot log because the lumber lengths were all in increments
of equal two-foot lengths, but if the log was an inch over, it didn't
make so much difference, although that inch might have made it pos
sible to add two feet to the top log, depending on imperfections.)

Well, we made a report and that report found its way through Pro
fessor Bryant to the office of the manager of the company in Boga-
lusa, Mr. Sullivan, quite a character and a big man in that region.
Apparently, we hit the Jackpot. He had us in his office one day —
the class was small, only about twenty, and we went down there in
halves, so my half of ten students was in the office — and Mr. Sul
livan said, "Well, boys, I'm glad this season is coming to an end.
You've been an awful lot of trouble to us. You've been in the way
of my logging crews, you've been riding our log trains against our
safety rules, and I've seen some of you ride the tongs at the load
ing machines, and we've spent a lot of money building a camp for
you," and he went on in that vein for a little while.

We were getting a little nervous and we thought, well, maybe we
weren't so welcome after all, when very suddenly he changed his
attitude entirely and developed a broad smile and grin, and he said,
"But boys, I want you to know we've made money on you. Do you re
member that report that you wrote about the log lengths? Well, I
didn't know that that was going on in the woods. My foreman didn't
tell me about it so I had it checked by one of my own engineers,
and sure enough, the log lengths were not as correct as they should
have been.

"So all the expense that you boys have put us to has been more than
compensated for by the saving we have made in watching our log
lengths a little more closely. I want you to know also we were
actually very happy to have you here and we hope that some of you
will want a job with our company when you graduate." Then we felt
better about it.

Incidentally, that sawmill was the biggest sawmill in the world at
the time. As I recall, it had four sides, four band headsaws, two
gangs, several resaws, and while we were there they were adding a

26

Fritz:

Fritz:

Maunder;

Fritz:

twin band headrlg for slabbing a small log on two sides and then
running the cant to a gang mill. The plant had a huge burner
which was about thirty-five feet In diameter and more than a hun
dred feet high. The refuse conveyer to the burner was chocka-
block full with refuse all day long. The sawmill was really a
wonder from an engineering standpoint and for me it was a lot of
fun. It was the only big sawmill I had ever visited, the sawmills
I had visited before being very small in New England and in Mary
land, but this mill was really something big.

When Bryant asked us to prepare a report on the entire operation
at Bogalusa, I really had a field day. My mechanical drafting and
my knowledge of engineering, steam engineering in particular, and
moving parts, came in very handy and I had a lot of fun writing
the report. I spent my Saturdays and Sundays doing it and was com
plimented by Bryant when he said that he'd I i ke to have that report

to copy for the Yale Forestry Library,
not, I don't know.

Whether it's there now or

Maunder: You don't have a copy?

I had my
one over

own copy for many years,
to the Yale Forest Schoo

and I be I leve that
I Library. I don't

I turned that
recal I , but I

think it's there. It had something like 120 pages and was very well
illustrated with pencil drawings of the plant. I was able to help
my classmates a good deal on that study because none of them had
any mechanical training, and I recall several of them standing at the
log deck wondering what made the carriage go back and forth when
one of them said, "I know how it works. That boy riding the car
riage presses a lever and the steam goes into that pipe under the
carriage."

Well, actually the pipe under the carriage was the pipe that led
steam to the setwords and the carriage rider had nothing to do with
the forward and back motion of the carriage, but that was to be ex
pected when young fellows were thrown into a big plant like that
without any engineering background. Of course, as a teacher later
on, I felt it was not good practice to take a student to the very
large sawmills but to take them to a one-side mill where they could
study every step more thoroughly at the same time.

Did you study
field trips?

the use of fire in the woods in the South on these

Oh yes. Of course, we had fire protection courses in New Haven,
and one of the professors would frequently blow his top because of
the carelessness of the American public with fire, and particularly
the lumber people, and more particularly, the woods natives who
fired the woods each spring "to kill ticks" and invite more grass.

As I said earlier, Chapman gave the use of fire, as a si I vicul tural
tool, considerable study. There is a classic set of editorials in

27

Fritz: the local paper of Crossett, Arkansas, in about 1930, berating the
Yankees for trying to stop the wild fires set annually by the na
tives. Chapman's Idea was to stop all burning except an occasional
one under strict control to remove the high grnss around longlenf
pine seedlings. The seedlings were not permanently Injured. Chap
man had a running feud with public foresters and extension agricul
turists on the subject.

Gifford Pinchot

Maunder: Could you give us a little bit of the picture of the controversy

over conservation as it was going on at the time you were a student
in college? Surely you must have been on the inside of a great
deal of discussion there at Yale, because it was the seat of the
Pinchot-Graves forestry group, and there must have been a good deal
of discussion within the ranks of forestry students and faculty
about all this at the time.

Fritz: Well, of course I was only a student but I was four or five years
older than most of my classmates. I heard the professors talk
about the matter, and I read a great deal about it. I think there
should never have been a controversy over conservation. The con
notation of conservation, if one does make his own definition, is
something everyone would endorse. But men like Pinchot made an
issue of it.

By constantly feeding information to the general public of a kind
designed to frighten, conservationists made a lot of enemies; and
I feel to this day that if Gifford Pinchot had then taken a dif
ferent attitude, forestry would be much farther along today that
it is, and there would not have developed that schism between for
esters and the timber owners that held it back.

It was quite a shock to me, coming from the engineering field where
controversies were pretty well limited to technical matters. Con
troversies in conservation were too much like those in religion of
which I had heard enough as a boy. The whole conservation movement,
which was all forestry in those days, was pretty much slanted. There
were certain people who were determined to get their views adopted
by the general public. Even to this day, conservation is a wonderful
platform for a politician.

I never knew Pinchot as intimately as those associated with him in
the Forest Service, but I saw a good deal of him. I first met him
while I was a student in the summer camp of my junior year at the
Yale Forest School. As I told you earlier, we started our Yale
training in camp on the Pinchot property near Milford, Pennsylvania.
The house looked to me like a baronial castle.

We students one day were invited to Grey Towers for what you might

28

Fritz: call "tea" — Plnchot at that time was a bachelor. We were all de
ll qhted to meet the great man. Until that 1iiw, I had novor mnl
a man of such captivating personality as 01 f ford Plnrhot. Me hofl
a magnificent bearing; he was trjl and straight, above six feet;
he looked distinguished with his wonderful mustache; and he spoke
with such fervor about politics, conservation and forestry that I
was captivated by the man.

I regret that, in later years, I felt justified in looking at the
man in an entirely different way. He was canned by President Taft,
in 1910, for insubordination. When I entered the forestry school
in 1912, the matter was still fresh. Pinchot, of course, being a
man of tremendous energy, had to have something to do. He was
wealthy, and he had so much experience with politics in Washington
that the natural thing for him to do was to go into politics.
Politics ruined the man as far as I'm concerned because then he
exhibited qualities that no one suspected before — an uncontrollable
selfishness and vi ndictiveness.

Maunder: In what ways did these qualities manifest themselves in your
observation?

Fritz: By the way he talked and acted. The vi ndicti veness first showed
up in his helping to form the third party. His friend, Theodore
Roosevelt, was not above some vi ndicti veness himself. Pinchot,
standing on the lawn of Grey Towers, gave us a talk about what
happened at the Bull Moose Convention in Chicago in 1912; how im
portant it was to put T. R. back into the White House because he
was the real strong man. He was fervid but not too convincing.
Though I was captivated by his personality, he spoke too much like
a he I I -fire and brimstone Sunday preacher.

I was later soured on Pinchot by his injecting politics into his
own department of forestry when he became governor of Pennsylvania;
his determined effort to socialize the forest industries; his wear
ing two hats, one for political speeches and one for Sunday: and
his downgrading of county and state governments without doing any
thing to improve them. He seemed to regard the federal government
as the only form of purity and the only one to wield a stick. He
craved power.

Taft was no weakling. I've since met some people who were very
close to him from whom I learned much that is not in print. I
think Taft's place in history will grow as the years go by, pretty
much like Herbert Hoover has grown in stature after he was sepa
rated from the White House by the voters.

Theodore Roosevelt's suspicions were easily aroused, and I think
it was this quality in T. R. that was played upon by Gifford Pin
chot, especially while T. R. was in Africa, that brought about the
formation of the third party, the so-called "Bull Moose," or Pro
gressive Party. Of course, that was just Gifford Pinchot's meat.

29

Fritz: Men like Harold Ickes who joined with Pinchot in promoting T. R.'s
candidacy were of a similar order — idealistic, dedicated, aggres
sive, egoistic, and over-zealous.

Maunder: Do you think that the Bull Moose Parry might never have come into
being if it hadn't been for Gifford Pinchot?

Fritz: I do, indeed. I think also that T. R. would never have been so

violently turned against President Taft if it hadn't been for Gif
ford Pinchot's needling. Pinchot, of course, was somewhat vindic
tive and he was going to get even in some way, and he did so by
setting up a third party. It killed William Howard Taft politically
and made it possible for the Democrats to win. The election of
Woodrow Wilson pleased me because it seemed to be time for a change,
and Wilson was a man of great learning and distinction in the field
of government. I would have voted for him, but living in New Haven,
Connecticut, at the time and absentee ballots having not then been
permitted, I lost my vote in that year.

Maunder: Would you rate Taft as strong a personality and as great a presi
dent as either Teddy Roosevelt or Wilson?

Fritz: He accomplished a great deal in a quiet way, and possibly more

within the lines of legality. Theodore Roosevelt acted and asked
questions afterwards. A good example was his deal for the Panama
Canal Zone. Taft didn't seem to care so much about preaching to
the public. Woodrow Wilson, of course, was an excellent president
but his idealism had the better of his practical side. I'm speak
ing as one who knows nothing about politics except that it stinks.
The opponent is always wrong if he is of the other party and if
his proposals would strengthen his party. It's a case of party
before country.

Maunder: Well, now, what was the row
from where you observed it?

between Pinchot and Ba I linger all about
How do you interpret that fight?

Fritz: I was then only a student. One of the professors harangued us

against Ba I linger, but I knew too little about it to judge. How
ever, I felt that his accusers were making a mountain out of a
molehill and were out to get somebody for some reason I didn't
understand. I believe that Harold Ickes was quite sincere when,
in later years, he said that he was wrong about Bal linger. Ba I lin
ger was probably a scapegoat. Pinchot, of course, found the con
troversy just wonderful to get himself before the public as its
champion. Pinchot loved publicity. He was quite an actor.

Would you be interested in a story told me by George M. Cornwall,
founder and editor of The Timberman, published in Portland, Oregon?

Maunder: I would.

Fritz: | knew George Cornwall very well. For a number of years we lived

30

Fritz: in adjoining blocks in Berkeley, and he often came to our house.
He knew the situation as well as Plnchot, how the forests were be
ing handled, and did a great deal to improve it through his maga
zine and the Pacific Logging Congress, which he founded.

I asked whether he ever met Pinchot, and he said, "Yes. I must
tell you about the first time 1 ever met him. It was at the Daven
port Hotel in Spokane, Washington. Pinchot was out there for some
kind of a meeting, and being a publisher of a trade magazine, I felt
that I should interview him."

So Cornwall went to Pinchot and
said, "Well, I'll be glad to be

asked for an
i nterviewed,

interview. Pinchot
but let's go up to my

room

where
it i

it will be quiet." When they got to his room Pinchot
said, "I can think a lot better if I lie flat on my back on the
floor," and Cornwall, being very guick-witted said, "Well, I'll lie
down right alongside of you with my notebook and you go right
ahead."

Maunder:

So he put a pillow under his head, and Pinchot started off giving
some of his background, about his father, how he happened to go to
France to study forestry and how he got Into forestry work in this
country. In short, it was something like this, as I recall it:
Pinchot, feeling that, as a wealthy man's son and a Yale graduate,
he had an obligation to improve the world, discussed it with his
father. His father asked, "What do you want to do?"

Gifford replied, "I'd like to be useful and I think this conserva
tion movement which is being talked about so much nowadays should
be a good thing," and the father said, "Okay, what do you want to
do about it?" The reply was, "I want to go to France and study
forestry." This shows Pinchot's fervor for conservation came early
and undoubtedly was sincere.

Did George
Timberman?

M. Cornwall's account of this interview appear in the

Fritz: That I can't tell you. The interview took place possibly in 1910,
maybe earlier. I understand the Timberman has developed an index
for all its back issues so you might be able to find it there.

Pinchot's Breaking New Ground has got to be read with some under
standing of the times, of the man himself, and of the man who is
thought to have prepared the material for publication, Raphael Zon.
The book is one-sided in glorifying Pinchot. It is silent on other
points. For example, you won't find Hetch Hetchy Valley mentioned,
and certainly not his part in turning Hetch Hetchy over to San
Francisco to be flooded for a reservoir. Another example is the
sketchy and down-grading mention of Dr. C. A. Schenck, the stiff-
necked German forester Pinchot had imported.

Maunder: Of course, isn't that typical of almost all books as memoirs, that

31

Maunder: they hold forth the things that people like to remember about them
selves rather than being very critical of their past?

Fritz: Yes, that may be true, but Zon -orshipped Plnchot and was himself
a vindictive type of person and not above plagiarism.

Maunder: Could you spell that out, the fact that Zon was, as you say, a
plagiarist? In what area did he plagiarize?

Fritz: I recall Zon coming to Fort Valley, Arizona, where I was in the

Forest Experiment Station. In my presence at least, he said nothing
that was helpful. When he left, my boss, Gus Pearson, a wonderful
boss for anybody to have, was quite disturbed. He didn't trust Zon
because Zon would go through our data and when he found something
he could use, it came out for his own use.

Several years after I resigned as editor of the Journal of Forestry,
I got the Russian professor, Vyzsotzky, to prepare an article on
shelter belts. He was then about eighty years old. He was des
cribed to me as being the leader in Russia of shelter belt science,
and even though it was in Stalinist Russia, a letter went through.
I suggested that he write an article on shelter belts because that
was a big issue of the day when President Franklin Roosevelt was
asked to crisscross the whole continent with shelter belts, to
ameliorate the climate even in distant cities.

Maunder: Wasn't the major reason for the shelter belts to alleviate the
dust bowl problem?

Fritz: The dust bowl focused attention on the benefits of windbreaks.- But
a government employee thinks expansively, and simple windbreaks
became border- to- border belts of trees. Windbreaks are an old story
in the United States — on the plains, in the California citrus area,
and elsewhere, long before the invention of the equally expansive
New Deal of F. D. R.

Maunder: Where did Zon get involved with this Russian scientist?

Fritz: Well, he wasn't involved with him directly. I wrote to the pro
fessor for an article on shelter belts, and I told him in my let
ter, as I recall the letter, that there was so much controversy
about shelter belts, ! think the Journal o_f_ Forestry should carry
an article by someone who knows about shelter belts, how they oper
ate, and how good they are for ameliorating climate in the immediate
vici n ity .

I told him also that much of our data on windbreaks seems to have
come from Russia. Professor Vyzsotzky came back very promptly
with an article that was published in the Journal of Forestry
when Franklin Reed was the editor. In the last paragraph, the
author accused Zon of using his material without credit. The
Vyzsotzky article was really excellent and gave us a better

32

Fritz: understanding of shelter belts and how they operate.

Maunder: Is tho correspondence you had with the Russian author sill I In
ex I stence?

Fritz: It's in my files in Berkeley.*

Maunder: That would be very interesting documentation to back up this
oral history interview.

Fritz: I hope some day to go through my correspondence files and winnow
out the letters that might have some value in the future. I must
have several thousand or more — much more than that — to go through.
I started on it several years ago and got as far as the letter D
or E. It thinned the files considerably, but even then they
contain some stuff that isn't worth saving.

Maunder: May I make a suggestion to you in that regard? Don't do too much
winnowing because the person who is a skilled manuscripts expert
would find things of historical interest which you might think
very trivial or minor in interest.

Fritz: Before we go on to another topic, please let me say a little more
on Pinchot. I have been critical of him so far in this interview.
Others, too, have been equally critical, for example, Wallace
Stegner in his book, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian (Houghton-
Mifflin Company, Boston, 1954). Nevertheless, Pinchot's lasting
merits outweigh his demerits. He was an excellent organizer and
administrator.

The U. S. Forest Service is his monument. It has sturdily con
tinued the high standard of public service inculcated by Pinchot.
His charm and general charisma drew a large coterie of enthusiastc
supporters. He had enormous energy and drive and inspired his
colleagues to work as hard as he drove himself. He must be
recognized forever as the leader in a great cause.

Contrasts i n Forestry Education

Maunder: I'd like to throw out one more question before we leave the

discussion of your education. How would you contrast engineering
and forestry education in those days?

Fritz: There's no comparison. Even in those days, engineering was really

The Papers of Emanuel Fritz are deposited in Bancroft Library,
University of California, Berkeley, California.

33

Fritz: a tough subject. It was about as tough as medicine. I saw what
medicine is like because my younger brother was a medical student,
and while he had thicker books than I had, he didn't have to work
any harder than I did. It meant sitting up late at night and do
ing mathematical problems and laboratory reports, engineering
test reports and so on. Two, three, or four of us who worked to
gether would often sit up until one and two o'clock, working up
the data. Of course, it could have been done in much less time,
but my party happened to be interested and wanted to turn out re
ports that we could use ourselves later on in engineering practice,

Maunder: Do you mean that this kind of hard work was not necessary in for
estry education? There was no burning of the midnight oil?

Fritz: Not at all. I probably had to work harder than the other stu
dents in my forestry class because I had no background of biology,
and it was rather tough having shifted from a physical science to
a biological science, but at the same time it was a fascinating
subject.

I think our forestry professors did the very best they could with
the equipment they had. By equipment, ( mean the knowledge of
forestry. What they taught us Is what they learned only a few
years earlier from their own professors, and they In turn got it
from the Germans or the French. So there wasn't too good a basis
for forestry in America. It was mostly forestry by the book.

Of course, in a course like dendrology given by Jim Tourney, that
was different. That was merely applied botany and Tourney did have
a great background in biology and botany, and he made the course
in dendrology extremely Interesting. He actually made the trees
live for us, and although we had never seen many of those trees
except from his word pictures, we could get pretty good mental
pictures of the trees he was talking about, and we had to learn
about five hundred. Nowadays I think they teach only about fifty
or seventy-five, picking out the most important commercial species.

Well, as to the contrast between the two, there couldn't have been
the thoroughness when I was a student that is possible today.
Most of the teachers at that time didn't have a biological back
ground and no background in economics, or a very thin one, and no
background in engineering. It's amazing that they did as good a
job as they did. In contrasting the two, I would say that in en
gineering, we had such a broad background for engineering in mathe
matics and physics, a little bit of chemistry, a world of theoreti
cal mechanics, and laboratory work, and actual work on machines
that could not have been duplicated at that time in forestry.

The forestry teachers of today are equipped far better than we
were in my own teaching career, and the students we have today
are those who will become the teachers of the future and, in turn,
will be far better equipped than the present teachers. Of course,

34

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

that's true of the entire teaching profession,
somewhat the idea?

Does that give you

Maunder:

Fritz:

I think so. Do you think there Is ^uch difference in teaching
techniques today, in comparing them with earlier methods?

There was an awful lot of crusading that crept into teaching then.
We don't get much of that today. For example, I think I said
earlier that in one course, the professor would stop and in very
strong terms, condemn this or that individual or industry. I'd
never heard anything like that in engineering school, but it seemed
to be the thing to do in forestry, and it seemed also that it was
the purpose of some of the teachers to make zealots or crusaders
out of their students. That's something I didn't like.

Do you think that could be explained by the fact that forestry
was a new profession emerging on the American scene, and it was
striving mightily for recognition by the dramatic method of tak
ing up a holy crusade? Do you think that entered in, or is that
not a valid interpretation?

Quite so. American forestry teaching was new. There was almost
no practice of forestry in the woods. The first teachers had to
write the textbooks. There was almost no research. Basic principles
were derived from the Germans and French.

The conservation movement goes .back many years. It had its formal
beginning, I should say, in 1875 when the American Forestry Asso
ciation was founded, and it had articulate proponents all the
years since, beginning with a man by the name of John A. Warder
and running all the way down into and through the Pinchot days.
Some of the men who were in the top echelons of the Forest Service
following the Pinchot days, and I would say a few even up to the
present, also had that crusader idea. For a long time, I think
some of the top Forest Service men tried to emulate or imitate
Gifford Pinchot.

Some were socialistic and felt that forests should be publicly
owned and managed. Socialism is only one step removed from a dic
tatorial and wasteful bureaucracy. For one who was brought up in
the private enterprise atmosphere, as I was at home, socialism is
anathema. We felt that one should work for everything he gets and ze
compensated accordingly. If he gets something for nothing, he has
less respect for it.

I still think this theory is right. I couldn't stomach some of the
propaganda that was handed out in the early days of my forestry
career, that everybody, under pain of ostracism, should run for the
banner of those who are arguing for federal ownership, or at least
federal control. I do believe, however, that forestry teachers soon
developed a strong independence of Pinchotism and helped halt the
trend toward socialism.

35

Fritz: The lack of forestry was due to the abundance of timber which, in
turn, begat too many sawmills and invited instability and a migra
tory industry. The owners were burdened with holding charges, taxa
tion, interest, protection, adrl nlstration and so on. A few of them
made a lot of money and became weal Thy men as a result of their own
ership. But It was just like mining — It isn't every hole you dig
that is going to bring up pay dirt. A lot of lumbermen went broke.

36

II! BEGINNING A FORESTRY CAREER

The Context of Government and I ndus'i ry

Maunder: Let's go back to your career again and start you off as a practic
ing forester. When did that actually begin and where?

Fritz: First of all, you're making it appear that my career was really
of some importance. It is a fact that during my lifetime, I saw
the conservation movement really get underway, the national forest
system set up, the philosophy of liquidation changing over to a
philosophy of holding and tree farming, also a change in the atti
tude of the federal government, and of course, a big change in the
national forest system in that the public lands are now actually
in the timber selling business in a big way. But my own part was
that of an i ndi vidual .

Maunder: There have been some big changes in industry, too. It has often

been characterized as being a sick Industry in those days, Emanuel.
How would you characterize the industry as you recall it in the
years just preceding World War I?

Fritz: As I said earlier, there was too much timber available for cutting.
It would have been better if more of it had been kept on ice in
the public domain and sold only as the market needed it. By "sold,"
I mean "in fee." Before World War I, the wail was, "What's wrong
with the lumber industry?" Whatever was wrong was the result of
too many land owners forced into building mills to earn funds for
taxes and interest. The consequence was too many mills, overpro
duction, and no, or too little, profit.

Maunder: You mean a really sick industry?

Fritz: It was sick in the same sense that farming has always been sick.
Too many men were trying to produce a product that too few people
were ready to buy. In lumbering, the very fact that certain people
owned timber was an impelling motive to operate that timber, to get
it off the stump, through the mill and into a salable product before
the bond holders would foreclose. The result is that the producing
capacity of the sawmill industry was far above what the market re-
qui red.

You still have the same thing in farming today except that in farm
ing you are actually paying a man to create a surplus whereas in
the lumber business, those who created a surplus suffered from it
themselves, and of course made the rest of the industry suffer also.
That has now changed because the economic situation is different,
the preponderance of old growth is now a thing of the past, and
those who own what old growth is left — what's in private hands —
know that they've got to husband it and handle it more carefully

37

Fritz: than they ever did. They're now making money, making money as

industrialists rather than merely as timber holders, and they have
set up the successlul troo farm system at no cost to the public.

Maunder: You recall Thomas B. Walker, the lumberman who came out here from
Minnesota and became a big pine land owner in northern California?
He wrote an article for the editor of Sunset magazine in January,
1910, entitled "Forests for the Future?" TrTthis article, he evi
denced a serious concern for conservation of forest resources and
he recognized some of the main reasons why the harvest of wood up
to that time had left approximately two-thirds of the product to
waste and took only one-third for use.

He cites as the main reasons for this rather terrible waste: I)
excessive local taxes on standing timber, 2) competition of more
cheaply produced Canadian lumber (and this reason Walker said was
very much overlooked, yet in his estimation it was perhaps the
greatest factor responsible for waste in the woods), and 3) need
for conservation and reforesting was fully expressed at the time,
but no definite plan was suggested by anyone or outlined by anyone,
whereby and through which provisions for future supply could be
provided either by the Forestry Commission or the Forestry Depart
ment or any other group of the community.

Walker in this article purported to present a practical plan which
he thought might deal with this problem, and the plan which he
proceeded to outline involved a pattern of government control and
regulation, both of prices and of labor and of the tariff and all
the rest, which would seem rather far down the road to socialism
by many businessmen today. Yet here was one of the biggest business
men in the lumber industry of his day suggesting a plan of this kind.
Th is was in 1910.

Fritz: Do you recall the month in which that appeared?

Maunder: That was in January, 1910, pages 59 to 65, Sunset magazi ne.

Fritz: I must look that up. I didn't know about that article until you

mentioned it, but I must say that it certainly was not in character
for T. B. Walker to ask for public regulation because he was first
of all an individualist.

Maunder: I think you'll find the reading of that article quite a surprise.

It certainly was to me, to see this coming from the pen of a prominent
bus! nessman.

Fritz: He was a very large owner, and he spent a great deal of money as
sembling that big property from the small separate ownerships, but
I can understand in a way why he should have felt that way at that
time. I recall that in 1915 when I was in the Forest Service in
Montana, I was one of the younger assistants on a study of the lum
ber industry in the Inland Empire, and some of the lumbermen I

38

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

talked to had somewhat the same idea, that the timber should never
have been allowed to get out of government hands on such a large
scale. Of course, that sounded all right at that time, but look-
Ing back, I don't think It wou'd have solved anything because the
government is not better than private industry in managing a business,

Now Walker, like some of the others, understood that the producing
capacity of the sawmills was far greater than was required by the
market, and by having some kind of control, I think he felt that it
would prevent the construction of some sawmills which made it im
possible for a reasonable number to operate at a profit.

He also indicated that he would be in favor of curtailing the pro
duction of those sawmills which were already in production. In
other words, they could only produce a certain percentage each year.
This was part of his plan.

That sounds almost like the crop-control
probably would have been a good thing if

schemes of today. It

it could have been run by

the industry itself,
of federal policing.

I'm much more in favor of self-policing than

think it was Walker's idea that this thing should be tried first
of all on a voluntary basis and that if this failed, then the
federal government should step in and lower the boom on those who
wouldn't abide by the regulations.

Fritz:" I want to digress for a moment because I feel that the federal

government is basically responsible for that situation. The fed
eral government, beginning in the early 1860's when Abraham Lincoln
signed the Homestead Act, started the breakdown of the timbered
domain into small ownerships. The philosophy was to get the land
into the hands of the public in 160-acre parcels. The law was
designed primarily for homesteading prospective farm land, but it
was absolutely bad and self-defeating when it was applied to tim
ber I and.

I think that was brought out very, very well by an early director
of the U. S. Geological Survey, Major J. W. Powell. He got himself
into a lot of unpleasantness because he protested the application
of the Homestead Law to the timbered areas of the West. That has
been brought out again in more recent books bearing on Major Powell's
life and his philosophy, and also books on the winning of the West.

Maunder: In other words, the western lands, forested lands, were not sus
ceptible of development in the same way as the prairie farm land?

Fritz: Correct.

Maunder: Would you explain a little bit how you feel it would have been

better, how the land policy of our government might have been more
wisely carried out?

39

Fritz: First of all, let's see how it actually worked out. The Homestead
Act made it possible for a citizen to obtain title to 160 acres of
valuable timber. Later the Timber and Stone Act was passed to pro
vide for a similar breakdown. One hundred and sixty acres might
make a good farm, but it can't support a sawmill. It takes a large
area of timber to operate a sawmill economically and certainly a
great area to do it on a sustained-yield basis.

By breaking the land down into I60's, Congress practically invited
the patentee to cash in at once by sel ling to a sawmi I I man. Be
ing mountainous and rough, the land couldn't be farmed anyway. Many
of these 160-acre "claims" were settled on with full knowledge that
the timber was easy to sell. Fraud was invited. Timberland locators
took train loads of "homesteaders" west, went through the simple
formality of filing each on a 160, paid each one maybe $150, and
sent them all back home. This is only a slight oversimplification
of the situation.

In other cases, the timber agent would file fraudulent claims for
nonexi sting people. Thus large blocks were reassembled. The
agent was actually representing a timberland investor who financed
him. It caused a scandal and some agents, along with several con
gressmen, were jailed. The U. S. was paid the full price per acre,
but the intent of the law was clearly violated, even though the
intent was an error. What Uncle Sam had fragmented, the timber in
vestors reassembled.

Unfortunately, the process of reassembling the quarter sections
into manageable blocks stopped too soon. As a result, we suffered
the consequences up to and through the I940's. Northwestern Cali
fornia presents a good example. There, many of the "homesteaded"
or Timber and Stone Act quarter sections remained in the hands of
the original patentees or their heirs. This was in a region of
Douglas fir forests, east of and adjoining the redwood forest belt
and considered inaccessible.

Came World War II with its tremendous lumber requirements. It hap
pened that many of the small loggers of Oregon and Washington,
finding themselves out of timber and hearing about the large area
of "inaccessible" Douglas fir in northern California, looked it
over and liked it. Much of it was owned by ranchers who had tried
for years to get rid of it by burning to create more grass. Some
sold their stumpage for as little as one dollar per M board feet,
at which price even a small logger could afford to build roads into
it.

The result was a multitude of small logging operators each laying
out his own road system, independent of his neighbor. Small loggers
generally are heavily in debt for equipment and working capital. So
they had to economize and did so by doing horrible jobs of high-
grading. The lands still show the effect. They and the owners took
unfair advantage of the state's Forest Practice Act, passed in 1945.
Now some areas are a shambles, even unfit for grazing.

40

Fritz: As I said earlier, it was a mistake to throw the timbered parts
of the public domain into the laps of the general public just by
signing the two land laws I mentioned. The eventual owners, most
of them, had to be able to buy solid blocks cheap and hold them
until the market Justified another fully integrated lumbering op
eration. Much of this land has been, held thirty to forty years
to give the eventual sawmill another twenty years of life. The
last acre of some of it wi I I not be reached until the year 1990
or 2000. All the while, it is being taxed but returns no dollars.

Maunder: This is one of those things where we can look back very easily
with the advantage of hindsight and say that this was a bad law
from a certain point of view. Of course, it wasn't as easy to
see it in those days as it is now.

Fritz: There were people who saw it. Major Powell saw it. The lumber
people saw it. Otherwise they would not have undertaken the re-
assemblage of the fragments into large efficiently operable blocks.

Maunder: But that didn't come until considerably later than the I860's, am
I not right?

Fritz: Major Powell was a contemporary of the early founders of the con
servation movement that jelled in 1875 with the formation of the
American Forestry Association. They were still for reconstituting
solid large tracts in the I930's when land was cheap. Uncle Sam
should have done better.

But such things move slowly — take, for example, the wasteful mix
ture of public lands in the Oregon and California Railroad land
grant areas. Here, 2,500,000 acres of Douglas fir, administered
by the Bureau of Land Management of the Department of the Interior,
intermingle with National Forests of the Department of Agriculture
in a checkerboard pattern. Many people have recommended that
trades be undertaken between the two bureaus, the state of Oregon
and private owners to eliminate the checkerboarding. While in
the Interior Department on a three-month writing assignment in
1938, I tried to stir up some active interest in the realignment
of the lands for more economical administration and operation but
got nowhere. Federal bureaus cherish their status quo.

In the New Hampshi re Forestry Department

Maunder: Suppose we go back again to your early days after leaving Yale.
You had worked in New Hampshire for a while. What was your job?

Fritz: I was in New Hampshire on three jobs: the summer of 1913, two
weeks at Christmas, 1913, and seven months after graduation in
1914.

The summer of 1913, with the help of two boys, I made a forest

41

Fritz:

survey of two properties, of about five hundred acres each. One
was on Sunapee Lake and the other was on Thorndike Pond. They were
small properties owned by wealthy people who had heard a lot about
forestry and wanted to give It P. fling to see what was in it. I
might say that an awful lot of people In those days heard about
forestry and thought they'd look into It, but generally were dis
appointed because it just didn't make sense when there wasn't a

market to buy
cost money.

their forest product. Also, good forest practices

However, I still think that there are a lot of things that an
owner could have done that wouldn't have cost him much but which
would have left his land in a more viable condition after logging.
You can see that a I I over the West where some good practices were
followed merely by chance.

Maunder: Were you making up these management plans as a private consultant
or as a member of the Forest Service?

Fritz: I was employed as an assistant in the Forestry Department of the
state of New Hampshire. Edgar C. Hirst was the State Forester, a
very fine man. It was a great pleasure to work for him. In fact,
all the immediate bosses I had in state and government service in
forestry were top men.

Maunder: Is this the same Edgar Hirst who is now a banker?

Fritz: President of the First National Bank of Concord, and still a fac
tor in New Hampshire conservation, and particularly forestry. I
think he's president this year of the Society for the Protection
of New Hampshire Forests.

That was an interesting experience, that summer in New Hampshire.
Here was I, a graduate student at the Yale Forestry School, sent
out to make two management plans, and frankly, I was confused as
to the application of the theory I had learned in the classroom.
Perhaps too, I had some skepticism of its practicality. When I
was a junior at Cornell in engineering, I could have gone out and
done a more responsible job in sawmill ing. But I think that the
lack of competency in forestry was largely due to the newness of
the art, and perhaps it was still as new to the teachers. However,
I think I learned a great deal on these jobs that was of inesti-
mab le va I ue later.

Maunder: Forestry was just beginning to get its feet under it in this country
and had nobody of real experience on which to draw.

Fritz: That's right. I don't lay it to the teachers. Perhaps being city
bred made the forestry management phase a mystery. I still have
the maps I made for those two plans and they look pretty much like
Joseph's coat because of the many colors.

Maunder: Were your plans followed?

42

Fritz: On Thorndike Pond, when the word got around that there were so-
called timber cruisers on this property, a wealthy man who owned
property on the other side of the lake — a wealthy Boston I an who
had a summer house there — thought, "That property is going to be
logged off. I'd better buy it before it's logged to preserve my
scenic view."

My report was instrumental in his buying the property in one block.
The owner was a woman from New Jersey who inherited it and had no
particular use for it as far as I could see. It was all volunteer
growth, second growth pine and hardwoods.

My other area I think was cut somewhat according to my plan, but
if I was correctly informed by the source, the owners were talked
into cutting it more heavily than was recommended, probably talked
into it by a logger. Too often a land owner thinks the logger
knows more about values than the forester, and he falls for the
logger's pitch. We've had a lot of that in California in the last
fifteen or twenty years. When the owner discovers that he was
over! nf I uenced by the logger, he gets pretty mad. Then he calls
on foresters to help bail him out.

Maunder: After your summer's experience in New Hampshire, where did you go?

Fritz: I had to go back for my senior year at Yale. The senior year ended
in June, 1914, but in March, the class went to Mississippi for
three months of field work. I had no desire or intention of going
back to New Haven to get my Master's diploma handed to me from the
platform, so several of us took passage on a boat from New Orleans
to New York, a five-day trip, and while we were at sea they were
holding the commencement exercises in New Haven.

I had thought I might get a job with the U. S. Forest Service. I
had my Forest Service examination behind me in which I didn't think
I did too well. I had a good passing grade, and I should have done
much better but, during the two seven-hour exam days, I had a very
severe and painful attack of lumbago which made it impossible for
me to move in the seat, not even to go out to the toi let.*

So one part of the examination (Forest Management) I never reached,
but I got a passing grade; and I understand I would have been given
an appointment but Congress was slow in passing the appropriation
bill and I figured that any Congress that is so slow in passing an
appropriation pay bill wouldn't have much interest in its employees,
so I thought, "To hell with it," and took the first job that came
my way and returned to New Hampshire.

*The lumbago is a souvenir of two weeks on the Yale Forest at Keene,
New Hampshire, during the 1913 Christmas vacation, where I was
employed with two classmates to cut gray birch to release the white
pine seedlings it was choking. The souvenir is still with me.

43

Fritz: The State Forester of New Hampshire had asked me to come up there

to make a number of what he called "panoramic lookout maps" for use
on lookout stations for aiding the lookout man in identifying the
location of fires. The map was twenty-six inches in diameter; there
was a three-inch wide ring on the outside and twenty inches inside
the ring. To the twenty- Inch area was fastened a planometric map
and in the three-inch annular area, I drew in the panorama, the en
tire view from the lookout station.

It was done with a very clever special type of alidade. It was very
crude. It started as a two-foot carpenter's folding rule at first,
with the six-inch ends turned up with a piece of stiff paper on one
end which could be moved up and down with the line of sight. It was
developed by Professor F. B. Knapp, of the Eric Forest School at
Duxbury, Massachusetts, and the New Hampshire State Forester took
it up. A man by the name of Falconer, who was then employed by the
State Forester, made a better instrument of brass, and I used the
one he developed. Before I quit I had a still better one developed.
I changed the rack and pinion to a screw thread to give it a finer
adjustment.*

I made fifteen of those maps, from Pawtackaway Mountain in southern
New Hampshire all the way up to Deer Mountain in northernmost New
Hampshire, including several mountains in the White Mountain area.
I had to climb so many mountains — not only the lookout mountains
but other mountains to get the terrain — that it never occurred to
me that it would be of any interest to climb Mount Washington. I
saw this fine mountain from all sides and I didn't see anything
could be gained by getting on top of it.

That was an interesting experience too. It taught me an awful lot
about at least one state and one state's forest fire organization
and the growing pains of state forestry. This is a good time to
give Ed Hirst credit for being one of the top men among state for
esters of his day. He was a good organizer; he was a fine man to
work with and for, and he gave his assistants a lot of authority,
a lot of responsibility and a lot of time to do a good job. New
Hampshire, I think, was the first to use a circular lookout map
board.

Maunder: You hear a great deal about the contributions which the U. S. For
est Service made, especially in such areas as the fighting of for
est fires in the early days. What about the state forestry agencies?
Were they also in the front rank of this movement?

*The New Hampshire circular fire locating map and the alidade are
described in the Timberman, 1915 (Portland, Oregon). Also in the
Sib ley Journal of Engineering of December, 1917, and The Geographical
Re v i ew 6 : 6 : 50 1 -503 . The lead paragraph of the Timberman artlc'le was
prepared by the Forest Service District Office, and Fritz ' by-line
was replaced with the District Forester's name to make it an "offi
cial" contribution.

Fritz:

44

I think they were about on a par. Of course, the Forest Service
wasn't set up until 1905 while some states were in the fire pro
tection business before the federal government. The state of Cali
fornia, for example, set up a Board of Forestry way back in the

Most of
the need

It didn't
days amounted
the effort was directed to the public to

I880's and fire protection was one of its objectives,
amount to much, but no fire protection effort in those
to a great dea I .
educate it as to

for protection.

Maunder: But did they pioneer the field?

Fritz: Both state and federal foresters did. They cooperate now more
than ever. New York and Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Hampshire
and California I would say led the parade. I was quite surprised
to learn when I came to California that California was so early in
setting up a Board of Forestry.

The U.S.F.S. was set up in 1905. In 1910, it had the great
2,000,000-acre fire in the Inland Empire. This fire I think came
at a good time. It brought more attention by Congress and more
money. Looking back, all fire protection efforts seem pitifully
feeble. But improvements came rapidly. Not only was it necessary
to learn how to fight fires, study causes and invent equipment, but
the biggest obstacle was public apathy — really worse than that be
cause many locals believed fires a good thing! From these small
beginnings, we now have forest fire organization and equipment
similar to a military campaign.

Maunder: Do you recall anything more about your experience in New Hampshire
that would be of value in regard to the history of fire fighting
or any other aspect of forestry?

Fritz: Well, it was cut and try. We tried this and tried that. It was
felt that when you have a fire, in order to put it out, you can't
go to the city fire department and get a hook and ladder truck or
a steamer to go out there and put it out. It had to be fought by
hand, and that called for hand tools: shovel, mattock, pick, and
so on, and a little later, hand pumps for spraying water on little
f i res.

The State Forester in New Hampshire had one of his men design a
tool box in which he would keep fire fighting tools, and these
boxes of tools were distributed here and there in critical areas.
I recall one day one of the men — I think it was Falconer — set up
the box outside the State House and brought along all the tools to
see how they would fit in the box. Being interested in photography
at the time, I asked him to arrange all the tools in such a way that
the box would show open and the tools would be displayed to show
what goes in. I took the photograph which the State Forester later
used in his annual report, one of the first photographs taken of a
box of fire fighting tools.

45

Fritz: Fire fighting was hard work, of course, especially with hand tools,
and more often than not the fire got the upper hand, that is, dur
ing periods of real fire weather.

Well, the experiences In New Hampshire were especially valuable, I
think, in teaching me a little more of woodsmanship. I was alone
most of the time on the mapping Job. I didn't know the country
although the maps were easy to follow.

Maunder: What was your base of operations?

Fritz: Concord was the headquarters, but I was there very little until the
winter.

Maunder: You were in the field most of the time?

Fritz: Yes. I would come in to Concord once in a while to make a fresh

start. Travel was by railroad, horse and wagon, and afoot. I would
go by railroad to the nearest station to my next mapping mountain,
and would then get the local fire warden, who was a part-time man,
to drive me to the foot of the trail, or I would hire a horse and
buggy and have somebody drive me over. Once in a while there was
an automobile available.

•I recall one time I was in a stagecoach, one of the last of the
old Concord coaches left. It was a coach that oscillated back and
forth between the railroad station and the famous Agasslz House at
Bethlehem, New Hampshire, the only stagecoach of that type I ever
rode in.

The job gave me a pretty good idea of mountain forms and of forests,
and being alone, I had a lot of opportunity to size things up. i
think that was the best education in forestry so soon after leav
ing school. Being out in the woods on my own made it possible to
really see what has happened after logging and try to figure out
why.

Of course, there was still some virgin timber in some areas in New
Hampshire — in the neighborhood of Waterville, for example, and In
Coos County, the northernmost county in New Hampshire, and on
McGalloway Mountain — that was all virgin — and on some of the others.
And the lookout men told me a great deal. They were mostly woods
men, trappers and hunters and so on. They were a great source of
woods lore and woods knowledge, which has been very valuable.

It's regrettable that we can't have in our forestry profession
today men of that type. They were really good. They knew the
woods and how to get around. They didn't bitch about the weather
and worked long hours. They enjoyed every minute of it. They
knew how to swing an axe; they knew how to find a corner; they
knew how to follow through the woods on a straight line; and they
were men to watch because you could learn from them. Sometimes

Fritz:

46

they played some pretty mean tricks on city boys like myself but
we had to take them in good humor. It was all part of the training,

Maunder: Do you recall any of those trices?

Fritz: I remember one old ranger — that was in the Forest Service after I
came West. He made me believe he had no more saddles. Of course,
he's going to have a saddle for himself, and the supervisor must
have a saddle, and the timber salesman must have a saddle, but
this new guy over here, Fritz, he's going to have to ride this old
flea-bitten mare bareback. Well, I'd never ridden a horse before
but this horse had such a broad back that I couldn't fall off of
it, so I made it all right.

They also played tricks on one another. They were a good lot and
I enjoyed those fellows. They even played tricks on the supervi
sors. The supervisors, as woodsmen, were as green as some of the
assistants.

Maunder:

Fritz:

They used the experiment of the observation tower for the first
time in New Hampshire, didn't they?

I don't know where the forest fire lookout stations started. At
first, there were no towers. Observation was from a cleared moun
tain top. New Hampshire had plenty of mountain tops; it also had
some crude towers. Some of the towers were merely poles set up
like a frustum of a pyramid with a platform on top. I have an
article, "Recollections of Forest Fire Detection of Fifty Years
Ago," that appeared in Volume 22 (1962) of the Log ge rs ' Ha nd boo k .

I had some interesting experiences on those towers; some were not
safe to climb. I recall the one on Deer Mountain in New Hampshire.
That was only a platform of peeled poles slung between the tops of
two spruce trees, right on top of the mountain. When the wind blew,
those trees swayed and the platform, of course, aggravated the swing.
When I arrived on that mountain to make my panoramic map, I was told
that there was my tower, and that if I had to make a map from it,
I'd better get up there and start before the wind blows.

I couldn't work except in the early and late hours of daylight,
when the sun was coming up and going down and would silhouette
the ridges. I couldn't do very much at midday. I guess I was about
a week making that map. Generally, it took anywhere from five days
to two weeks. I lost a lot of time on account of fog and clouds.

When I got to the end of my panorama mapping, I yelled down to the
about half an hour, I'll be finished drawing, and
come up and give me the names of some of these valleys

lookout man, "In

I want you to

and ridges." And his answer was, "Young feller,

that platform, either alone or with you up there with me

I'm not

never been
safe."

going up

I've
up there and I'm never going to go up there. It isn't

on

47

In Montana and Idaho With the U. S. Forest Service

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

Emanuel, you told us about your first experience as a practicing
forester up In New Hampshire. You went on from that point to
what other work?

The New Hampshire job was a temporary one. It involved the prepa
ration of about fifteen of these panoramic maps, and after I had
completed the office work during the winter in Concord, I was
through. About a month prior to that I was offered a position in
the U. S. Forest Service by David T. Mason. I had already turned
down two offers from the U.S.F.S., and the third was to be the
last; and since my New Hampshire job was to come to an end, I took
the Forest Service job which would assign me to Missoula, Montana,
under D. T. Mason. I had met Mason a few months earlier when he
lectured at the Yale Forest School.

Incidentally, I had never had any expectation of moving west be
cause New Hampshire looked good to me, and even though the job in
the state Forest Service was not permanent, I thought New Hampshire
would offer an excellent opportunity to invest savings in abandoned
farms and bring them back into timber production. Land was cheap.
One could buy an abandoned farm for two or three dollars an acre,
which would be a good investment for tree planting.

The job in the west turned out to be part of a study of the lumber

industry. It was to be nation-wide, and, as I recall it, William

B. Greeley was to head it in Washington, and Mason had charge of

the Inland Empire division, and I was merely an assistant to ob
tain data in the field.

What was the year that you moved to Montana?

That was January, 1915. My work on that project was to visit lum
ber company offices in northern Idaho, and also in eastern Oregon
and Washington, to obtain data on price fluctuations, production,
shipments, and so on. I was in the offices of the Humbird Lumber
Company, the Pot latch Lumber Company, the Palmer Lumber Company in
eastern Washington, the Spirit Lake Lumber Company, and several
others, taking data from their old invoices. The lumber industry
received the field men very cordially and was very friendly.

Apparently, the study was undertaken by the Forest Service because
it wanted to ease off some of the criticism the Bureau of Corpora
tions had provoked by its very unfriendly report of several years
earlier. It seems that the Bureau of Corporations, without any
understanding of the lumber industry's situation, made some state
ments which the industry resented and which the Forest Service men
felt were not justified or correct.

The new study was undertaken to get facts from the standpoint of

48

Fritz: men who knew something about the Industry. It was a very pleasant
assignment. The treatment I received In the lumber company offices
was, as I said, friendly, and I met many new people and found out
what the lumber industry is in various parts of the west and had
an opportunity to visit some forests and some forestry offices,
all of which added up to some additional experience.

Maunder: Specifically what data were you collecting?

Fritz: Data on prices, shipments, production ....

Maunder: Over a period of years starting with the origin of the company?

Fritz: As far back as the records would permit.

Maunder: What did you encounter in the way of record resources?

Fritz: Some companies had preserved their records very carefully in

specially made boxes for their storage. Apparently after storage,
they were not again touched because I noticed the dust on the tops
was undisturbed.

Maunder: Which of the companies that you visited had the most complete
records?

Fritz: Potlatch at Potlatch, Idaho. They had perfect records. The man
ager at Potlatch was A. W. Laird. Mr. Laird was a wonderful type
of man, a real gentleman, and apparently a good manager. He was
very friendly. One day he passed my desk, and he put his hand on
my shoulder and said, "Young man, how are you getting along?"

I said, "Very well, sir, and I want to thank you for the courtesies
shown me and the cooperation of your staff," which got him to con
versing, and he said, "We like you men from the regional forestry
offices but we are never sure what will happen to the data when

it reaches Washington where it might be twisted around to serve
somebody's own purpose." That comment has never escaped me and
many things that have happened since have convinced me that Mr.
Laird was correct in his suspicions.

Maunder: Can you point out any Instances in which data that you collected
and which subsequently was forwarded to Washington was treated in
that way?

Fritz: Not in the lumber industry study. I think that was a very honest
job, possibly because Greeley was a man of a very high standard of
professional ethics. But in the 1930's, I think, a report was pre
pared in Washington, a rather extensive one, known as the Cope I and
Report. Some of the chapters were signed by members of the Forest
Service, but several told me that their statements were revised in
such a way as to slant them in favor of the Forest Service's con
tention that the lumber industry must be controlled.

49

Maunder: And was this a violation of the original report that they had

written, a violation of the spirit and the facts of what thoy had
orlql nal ly c>1;ilod?

Fritz: The spirit was completely different In the Thirties than what it

was before World War I, the short time I was in the Forest Service,

Maunder: No. I mean these field reports were twisted, you say, in the I930's
in Washington so that they said something different than what the
field man had intended them to say. Is that your interpretation of
this?

Fritz: No, these were not field men; they were office men. One in particu
lar was on the Washington staff. Most of that report was prepared
right in Washington — at least, assembled — and one of the authors
was very unhappy over the fact that what he wrote was changed con-
si derab ly .

Maunder: Do you remember the name of that author, the man who was unhappy
about the change?

Fritz: I don't want to mention his name right now. He's no longer in the
Forest Service and he's still living. I don't want to involve him.

Maunder: Well, you went from Montana to Idaho and Arizona. Can you tell
us something about that experience?

Fritz: The field work on this lumber industry study was completed in a

few months and then I was transferred to the Coeur d'Alene National
Forest at Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. The supervisor of that forest was
Meyer H. Wolff, a Yale forestry graduate, 1909, and a native of
Russia, but educated in New York City and Connecticut. In the
office also was R. C. Eggelston, a Yale 1910 forestry graduate.
Later on there arrived Charles K. McHarg, also a Yale forester,
1913, and since I was 1914, we had a nice age distribution and four
Yale men on the same forest. This didn't sit very well with some
of the young foresters from other schools, but I don't think there
was any real resentment. We got along very well.

The supervisor, M. H. Wolff, was Jewish, and some men didn't take
very kindly to him, especially some of the rangers, but he and I
got along famously. When I was transferred a year later from his
forest to Arizona, we parted as very good friends and kept up a
correspondence for all the years until his death. He was typical
of the early foresters. He was very zealous; he saw to it that the
Forest Service got all the breaks in his dealings with others; and
he was very close in spending money on the ranger districts but he
gave all of us considerable leeway to carry on our work without
I nterruption.

Some men were constantly at loggerheads with him, but I never had
any difficulty with him. In fact, I enjoyed working with him. For

50

Fritz: example, it was the first year that the Forest Service was to have
a man on each forest detailed to specialize in fire protection, so
I was to be the fire chief of the forest, in effect. I was hope
lessly incompetent for that job. coming from the East as a city
boy and only recently graduated in forestry, whereas the local
rangers, all of them old-timer woodsmen, very competent and very
experienced, knew more about fire fighting and fire protection than
I would learn in ten years. They knew how to get around, they knew
the timber, and they were very clever in their personal relations.

Maunder: These were all men recruited right from the neighborhood?

Fritz: That's right, yes. Most of them started in the Lake States pine

forests. The Inland Empire, being a pine region, attracted a large
number of loggers and lumber people and others, woodsmen, from the
Lake States. Incidentally, when it was said that the pine forests
of the Lake States would soon give out, some people moved to Idaho
to take up a forest "homestead."

Maunder: What would you have to say about the early efforts to fight and con
trol fire in the Idaho area, the Inland Empire ?

Fritz: It was a tough job, and even though the rangers knew their way

around, they were not able to cope with some of the fires because
the only equipment we had were hand tools — shovels, mattocks and
rakes. Trailing a fire was all hand work and we never had enough
manpower. So even though the rangers were good woodsmen, they
didn't find fire fighting in that forest type too easy.

But fortunately for me as a newcomer, the year 1915 was a very
easy fire year. We had just one fire of any consequence and that
was on Big Creek. It was rather important because Big Creek con
tained some green white pine timber of considerable value. Most
of the Coeur d'Alene Forest was burned over in the great 1910
fires. You know as much about the 1910 fires as I do. They have
been written up a number of times. The Coeur d'Alene Forest took
an awful beating.

Maunder: Well, what about this fire you dealt with in 1915? What was the
extent of the fire and what was your role in the fighting of it?

Fritz: What do you want — a sort of blow-by-blow account?
Maunder: That's right.

Fritz: Well, it happens that I was on Downey Peak lookout station, on a
lookout inspection trip to see how the lookout was operating and
what his equipment was like, what was needed, and so on. While on
that mountain, I saw a thunder storm come up, what we called a dry
storm. We could see it coming; those storms always carried con
siderable lightning. The lookout tower was a wooden structure only
about fifteen feet high, and I thought that here was a good oppor
tunity to see how the lookout man works when there was a lightning

51

Fritz: storm brewing. I saw plenty! As soon as the storm approached

the lookout point and lightning began to strike close by, he lit
out for his cabin down near a spring on the slope of the mountain.
Knowing altogether too little about the playfulness of lightning,
I stayed on the tower and recorded iwenty-two or twenty-three
strikes, several of which smoked up but then died down. One, how
ever, remained large and was actually growing.

While each one was reported, no one could do anything about them
because there wasn't enough manpower. The ranger would merely
say, "Well, keep your eye on it," which I did. But the one fire
at the head of Big Creek was booming up, and I called Meyer Wolff,
the supervisor, on the field telephone. He was elsewhere in the
woods, and I told him that the fire seemed to be mostly outside
of our forest but on the Cabinet National Forest side, which was
the Montana side.

He instructed me to go to the fire myself and represent the Coeur
d'Alene Forest interests. This was the next morning, and I started
off about five o'clock in the morning. I couldn't walk in a straight
line to the fire because of the terrain, and I figured I could make
better time by staying on the trails, which meant going back down
off Downey Peak in the opposite direction to the North Fork of the
Coeur d'Alene River and then down to the mouth of Big Creek and then
up Big Creek. It was about ten o'clock or later that night that I
arrived at the fire.

Maunder: How many miles had you walked?

Fritz: Oh, possibly twenty. There was a trail but not too good. When I ar
rived at the fire, which was near the top of the divide, I found a
Montana ranger in charge doing a good job and I felt that things
were going all right. When I had a chance, I made whatever report
could be made over the temporary telephone system we established
with wires stretched out over the brush.

That same evening the ranger asked if I would go down to Big Creek
and head off and direct a pack train which was expected to come in
from the Coeur d'Alene side and give it directions. When I left,
some of the men who had been on day duty for a number of hours were
ordered to sleep, and as they always did and still do, they pitched
their beds right on the ground.

I trailed off the mountain in the dark down to the creek and awaited
the arrival of the pack train. I waited a long time and I was very
tired from the long hike, so I decided to lie down and rest and I
fell asleep. Very soon the pounding of the hoofs of many horses
woke me up and a fire guard came in with his pack train — the one
I'd been waiting for. I had a warming fire going so he was attracted
by it.

He was pretty angry. He had had bad luck on the trai I. One of his

52

Fritz: animals stepped off the trail and rolled off the slope into the
creek and broke a leg and he had to shoot it. He also fired his
pistol for help (we had pistol shot signals) but I didn't hear
them — the creek was making too much noise. The animal that went
off the trail, incidentally, was loaded with prunes and beans, so
some men probably were happy over that, and others probably would
have preferred to have the beans to what they actually got.

I prepared something hot for the packer, and while he was eating,
there was a commotion in the woods and flickering lights, very
small lights, so I rushed out into the woods and followed the trail
for some distance when I met a number of fire fighters coming out
of the woods with matches and candles and with quite a scare on
their faces. They yelled out, "Run for your life, young fellow.
The fire's following us."

I couldn't see how that could be possible so I found a tree with
some low branches and climbed up as high as I could to get a better
view of the slope. It was all black as night, so I decided that
they were panicked by some very local disturbance, which proved to
be the case, as I found out when I went to the top of the mountain
with the packer a few minutes later. The fire apparently crept
along on the ground and set fire to some low-hanging branches of a
spruce tree. The spruce flamed up very quickly and as quickly went
out. But the sleeping fire fighters were awakened, and when the
sky was lighted up by several of these torches, they didn't stop
to make any inquiries. Some ran down off the Montana slope, and
some came down on the Idaho side.

One of them later sued, or threatened to sue, the Forest Service
for a rupture which he claimed to have obtained on the fire. I
remember the man real well. He was a first-class loafer and was
one of the men we picked up along the railroad to fight fires.
While he was found to have a rupture, it was an old one which he
just figured he could use to get some money from the government.

After the fire a day or so later, when I went back to the railroad
near Wallace, I met dear old ranger Ed Pulaski. He had come up on
a speeder, or "hand car." By that time, some of the men were about
to hold me up because I refused to pay them for the time they were
asleep. Ranger Pulaski was an old-timer, a man who knew the char
acteristics of local people and loggers and drifters, and he sug
gested I add a few hours to the hours of actual work to give them
some compensation for going and coming, but I still declined to
pay them for the time they had been in bed. Anyway, Pulaski in his
quiet knowledgeable way probably prevented me from taking quite a
beating from these ex-fire fighters. Pulaski really deserves some
comment at this point.

Maunder: He was a hero of the 1910 fires?

Fritz: Yes, he was a real hero of the 1910 fires and a modest man. He is

53

Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

credited with having saved the lives of a
fighters who, when they were overtaken by
ordered into a prospect tunnel — mine tunnel — with
guard at the entrance.

dozen or more fire

a rush of flames, were

Pulaski standing

That's all very well documented.

There's no
told him I

Yes, that's all well documented.

I asked Pulaski about it once and

to know some of the story, and he says, "Well

many times, every time I hear it,

I'd better let you pick it up

use going into that,
was new and would like
it's been told so

it has gotten bigger, so maybe
from somewhere else."

I learned a great deal from Ed Pulaski. He was said to have been
a descendant of the famous Revolutionary War Pulaski. I had a num
ber of experiences with Ed Pulaski which added to my respect for
these old-timers who spent so much of their lives in the woods and
knew more about the woods and the behavior of forest growth than
we young fellows fresh from school. Although they perhaps didn't
know some of the basic principles, they did know some of the more
Important things when it came to managing a forest. These old-timers
were a very honest, hard-working lot.

Among these old-timers were fellows like Gus Yager, and then there
was Jack Winnington. He was more of a miner than a woodsman, how
ever. And Phil Neff. They were very interesting men. They were
very clever in handling the young technical personnel from the
eastern forestry schools.

Maunder: Are these stories part of the written literature?

Fritz: Some. Here's one, for example. Ranger Neff was in charge of the
Nelson Ranger Station. It was the finest house in the forest, a
two-or three-story building, and when I arrived there, I inquired
how come he has such a fine home when the other rangers do not.
Then I found out that he had been a contractor and builder, and
being a type of woodsman who knew how to "work the angles," and
knowing that he was allowed only $650 for putting up the ranger
station, he found ways to cut corners or to juggle labor so that
he was able to build himself a very fine home. It was a home which
this year would cost him $20,000 to build. At that time possibly
$3,500 could have built it, but on the books it was only $650. He
did it by taking some of the fire guards when they were not needed
on fire fighting, and he would go out and collect stones or saw
lumber and fit it and erect it and so on.

Another time was my first trip to Nelson Ranger Station with a
party which included Supervisor Wolff, the timber sale man, Calvin
A. Dahlgren, an entomologist, Jim Evenden, Gus Yager and several
others. We all rode out on a gas speeder from the end of the main
line of the railroad, and apparently without too much warning to
Phil Neff's wife for lunch. Of course, we couldn't carry lunches

54

Fritz: and there were no lunch rooms. It was the custom In those days to

have the ranger or his wife prepare the meals and bed us down. Neff
had four or five children, and his wife was a very courageous and
competent woman. She had very 'Ittle time to prepare lunch and
other meals for this big party. She had expected a smaller group.
Fortunately, one of the station men shot a good brace of grouse the
day before. It was my first taste of the deliciously meaty blue
grouse.

We were allowed to pay fifty cents, or was it thirty-five, per meal
to a ranger's wife when she prepared our meals. It was precious
little for the hard work, and I developed a wholesome respect for
the wife of the ranger because of the work they were expected to do
to help out their husbands without any additional compensation ex
cept for meals. They would have to handle the telephone calls while
the ranger was away and even rustle labor and get equipment ready
to ship out to them by pack train in emergencies. For none of this
did they receive any compensation at that time. I mention this
because 1 want to record the sizable contribution of ranger wives.

Another incident at the same ranger station: On one visit there was
some delay in getting me off by horse to the top of Grizzly Peak
from which I was to make a panoramic map, the first one to have
been made in the West. To use the time, I took pictures of trees
and of the ranger station in general. In the background of one
picture was a partially completed structure which was part of the
general scene.

Some weeks later when I returned to Coeur d'Alene and the supervisor,
knowing I had photographs, asked to see them, he came rushing to my
desk and said, "What's this building in the background in this pic
ture of the Nelson Ranger Station?" I answered that I was told
that it was to be a new barn. The new barn had been completed only
up as far as the eaves, so Wolff, the supervisor, called in Gus
Yager, another ranger who was headquartered in Coeur d'Alene but
who had been helping Neff in building some of the structures.

Wolff asked Yager, "What is this building in the background?" Yager,
straight-faced, told him that was the new barn. Wolff said, "Well,
I thought I allowed only enough money to put up the foundation."
Yager said, "That's right. All we've got there is the foundation."

Wolff caught on right away and saw that the rangers had stretched
it a point, so he asked Yager, "How high is the foundation of a barn?"
And Yager said, "Well, sometimes a foundation goes up to the eaves,
just enough to hold up the roof." So Neff and Yager, by finagling
equipment and labor and time and putting in unquestionably a lot of
overtime, were able to put up the sldewalls on top of the completed
foundation and got by by calling it the "foundation." The next year
they were to get a little more money to put on the roof.

I mention that incident because it shows how difficult it was to
get quarters and money for buildings and how little the rangers had

55

Fritz: to work on. From my own observation, the rangers got the small

end of the stick when It came to providing the means for carrying
on their work. Yet they were the ones who did the field work.

Fry: The U.S.F.S. had much trouble with fraudulent homesteading on the
Coeur d'Alene. Did you see any of this?

Fritz: Yes, just one really small thing, but to me it was very big at the
moment: to face a gun is not a pleasant experience. I met a man
on horseback armed with a shotgun. I was afoot and had just exited
from a side trail when he sighted me. It suddenly dawned on me that
he was one of the last homesteaders to defy the government and he
threatened to shoot any trespasser. It ties in with the application
of the Homestead Act to lands that are not truly of agricultural
character and should have been kept In a timber classification.

The northern Idaho country was well covered with valuable western
white pines. A number of people moved out from the white pine
region of the Lake States to the West to take up some of this land.
A man might take up 160 acres and his girl friend would pick up
another 160 acres. They would get married and have 320. The cost
was small — $2.50 an acre— which would make 320 acres of prime tim
ber land cost only $800. Most of the land was mountainous and not
suited for farming. Lumber companies were willing to pay anywhere
from ten to twenty thousand dollars for It, so If one could get
patent he would sell Immediately to a lumber operator.

When the Forest Service was organized, it examined a lot of these
claims which were still in the hands of the settlers. For itself,
it claimed that they were fraudulent, that the land was impossible
to farm. It was fraudulent in the sense that it could not be farmed,
but it was quite legal for homesteaders to take it up.

Some of the farmers fought it. To use the term, they were embattled
farmers. They were never organized, though. They gave the Forest
Service and all the men in it a bad time. I did not think It was
quite fair to these farmers. They were practically invited out there
to take up the 160-acre claim, and then they were kicked off.

Well, I was walking along a trail with my little pack and I saw a
smaller trail turn off to the right. It was away from the Coeur
d'Alene River. I just wondered where the trail went because I was
trying to get thoroughly acquainted with the forest. I had every
map imaginable and available with me. 1 was making notes on these
maps to bring them up to date. I was adding trails that were not
marked on the map because I was being trained to be a fire chief of
that forest some day.

I got to the end of this trail, which went only about 150 feet. It

stopped at a spring and there was food in the spring to keep It cool.

I did not touch anything. I came right out again. I knew that there
was a homestead close by, and I thought, "Well, this settler is

56

Fritz: taking advantage of the spring," which was very much his right and
the smart thing to do.

When 1 came out to the main trpil, here was a man on horseback
with his gun across his lap pointed right at me. With very few
words he asked me, "What are you doing in there?" I told him
that I was wondering where this trail was headed and that I dis
covered the end at the spring, so I came out again.

Then he told me in no uncertain terms, "I don't want any Forest
Service men on my land." I had a badge, of course, so I was easily
identified. That badge could get you into a lot of trouble. It
carries a lot of authority with It, but ....

Fry: But at that point your authority was pretty far away.

Fritz: Yes. I had no gun, probably would not have used it if I did have
one. He told me that he did not want any Forest Service men on
his land, and he said, "This is my land!" Actually, the Forest
Service claimed it. I told him that I was on my way to some ranger
station, went on my way, and that was all there was to it. It was
a personal experience In how the thing worked. Every forester in
those days had something like that and some had much worse experi
ences.

Actually, it was not wholly fair. The Homestead Law practically
invited f raudulent ^"settl i ng." This law was not adapted to the
western mountain country because of its failure to regard terrain
and other factors. The man I met on the trail claimed his right
under the Homestead Law before the so-called "June llth" forest
homestead law was passed.

This little experience reminded me of my student days when I was in
a camp in Mississippi, where some of the backwoods farmers were very
suspicious of strangers. Shortly before we set up our camp, a far
mer shot and killed an agricultural agent who was dipping the
scrawny cattle to rid the animals of ticks. The farmers feared
dipping would "hex" the cattle. So they were not going to have
their cattle hexed, ticks or no ticks.

Maunder: Were you becoming disillusioned in forestry about this time?

Fritz: No, not on the Coeur d'Alene. On the Coeur d'Alene I enjoyed

every minute. Wolff was so friendly, and I got along so well with
the other men that I was very enthusiastic about the whole setup.
And of course, Coeur d'Alene was a beautiful place for living. I
thought it would make an excellent university town, and later on
when I saw the University of Idaho at Moscow, I felt it was regret
table that the University was not built at Coeur d'Alene.

There was a big lake and beautiful scenery. There was also a boat
club equipped with two four-oar shells, two pairs and two singles,
and having rowed at Cornell, I joined the boat club and was soon

57

Fritz: rowing in the fours and the pairs. But I never happened to be in
a boat for the two seasons I rowed that won anything but a heat,
but it was a lot of fun.

I also met my future wife there.

owned a canoe, and after

practice rowing in the morning before breakfast, and practice row-

ing between five o'clock and dinner, I would
would go canoeing for the rest of the night.
a youngster.

call on her and we
Quite a workout for

Maunder: Were you married there?

Fritz: No. I had no intention of getting married, but you never can tell
what an infatuation develops into. That came later.

The work on the Coeur d'Alene was extremely interesting. At first
I was quite disappointed at having been transferred or assigned to
fire work. Several times I thought about having spent two years
at Yale to become a forester, with silviculture as my main interest
at the time, and then to be made into a fire fighter on a national
forest. It didn't look good. But I soon learned that the protec
tion branch of the Forest Service was the only real job that the
Forest Service had. The rest of it was pretty much going around
in circles and marking time. There was some timber sale work, of
course, but not very much.

While I was on the Coeur d'Alene — I think it was in the fall of
the year — a request came in from the Regional Office to make the
annual report on some plantations that were set out on the land
burned in the 1910 fires. Wolff said, "This is your job. As soon
as you can get out there, you go out and make an examination and
make the report. I don't think it amounts to a great deal because
in the past the plantations couldn't be found, and I believe that
most of them are dead."

So I looked up the old reports, and sure enough, I found that my
predecessors had not found some of the plantations and reported
them as lost. But I had to go out anyway to go through the motions
of preparing the report. Reports, of course, are very important in
any government office.

But I was not prepared for what I found. I actually located the ex
perimental plantations of various hardwoods — hickory, oak, walnut,
basswood and others. The seedlings were only a foot high or slightly
more, and although they had no leaves on them, I readily identified
them; and when I looked up the old reports again, I noticed that all
of my predecessors had been trained in western forestry schools
where they didn't have an opportunity to become acquainted with
the bud characteristics or winter characteristics in general of
the eastern hardwoods, which were planted experimentally on the
Coeur d'Alene burns. So it was no particular credit to me, but
with the training I had acquired at Yale from Jim Tourney and Sam

58

Fritz: Record on tree identification in the winter condition, I should

not have missed them anyway. But there were some conifer planta
tions that were still intact, especially Englemann spruce. They
were doing pretty well. But In general the plantations weren't
doing too well. Here and there there were some natural seedlings
coming up, and they seemed to thrive somewhat better, which gave
me my first experience in plantations from nursery-grown plants as
against naturally seeded.

Well, an interesting thing happened as a result of that report. I
had a lot of fun writing it and brought in a lot of details that I
had noticed and observed and felt they were important for someone
else who might follow me. But somebody in the Washington Office
apparently thought that here was a si I viculturist that was being
wasted on fire, so I was properly approached later the following
spring about a transfer to a forest experiment station in Arizona.

I thought it was a good opportunity to get into si I vicultural work
and also to see the forests in an entirely new Region, and so I
talked it over with Wolff. He kidded me quite a bit for being
asked to go to desert country, which I thought the country was my
self. Although I had studied something about the pine forests it
didn't make much Impression. But anyway he agreed to the transfer
and wished me we I I .

Before I left the Coeur d'Alene, I prepared a number of memoranda,
each one on a different item of forest protection. For example,
one was on lookouts and the design of lookouts and the necessity
for the type of glass to be used, the obstructions from corners and
how they could be avoided, and water development, the height of the
towers to get over the trees, and also the numbering of mile posts
along trails and numbering these mile posts also on the maps so that
a lookout man could report a fire apparently on so-and-so canyon
along so-and-so trail near so-and-so mile post. I don't know if
this was ever effective on the Coeur d'Alene Forest but I learned
later it was adopted on the Nezperce.

Maunder: Was this an innovation in the Forest Service at the time?

Fritz: It was new, at least to me. Whether anybody else had thought of it
and was responsible for its being adopted on one of the map systems,
I don't know.

Maunder: You've never seen it written up anywhere?

Fritz: Only in my own memorandum. I also left, I think, a twenty-page or
more memorandum on the preparation of panoramic lookout maps. A
copy of that was sent to Bush Osborne, who apparently got the fire-
finder map idea from the New Hampshire people, and as a result of
my own memorandum he tried to work a panorama on his own fire-find
ing map, which was about the same diameter as mine.

These panoramic maps apparently didn't work out too well. Later

59

Fritz: on they used cameras for the same thing, but it developed that the
lookout men were so experienced in the terrain that they didn't use
the panorama anyway. By developing a system of trlangu I atlon and
better pinpointing of lookout rtatlons, the panorama wasn't actually
necessary.

That panoramic map method was written up in the TJmberman, and also
in the American Geographic Magazine, of which IsaVah Bowman was the
director. Bowman had given a course to the Yale Forestry students.
(He later became president of Johns Hopkins University. A very
fine man, very able man.)

Fort Val ley Experiment Station, Arizona

Maunder: When did you go to Arizona?

Fritz: I arrived in Arizona in August, 1916.

Maunder: What was your new assignment?

Fritz: My new assignment was as assistant In the experiment station. The
director was Gus Pearson, G. A. Pearson. I learned to love the
old fellow. In fact, he wasn't much older than I was. He was of
the class of 1907 or '08 of Nebraska, when Nebraska had a forestry
school. Incidentally, Pearson was left at that one station until
his retirement, and as far as I know, his is the only case where a
researcher was left at one place long enough to really learn the
local situation, and Pearson became an authority on ponderosa pine.
He and I became very good friends and we kept in touch with one
another until his retirement, and in fact, until his death. If
his widow is still living, I expect to visit her this coming Feb
ruary in Tucson.

The Fort Valley Experiment Station was about nine miles north of
Flagstaff at an elevation of about 7,250 feet, and Flagstaff I be
lieve was about 6,900. Above us loomed the San Francisco peaks,
one peak of which was 12,611 feet. It was really a beautiful coun
try and I loved it at once. It was like being stationed in a huge
park, but the fact that it looked like a park made it appear to me
that it was no place for forestry.

However, I had to change my mind on that because it was a very
good place to learn silviculture, primarily because the site fac
tors were not too good. The only good feature was that they had
some rains in the summertime, a total of about twenty-two or twenty-
three inches of precipitation for the entire year. But It was more
of a park-like stand of ponderosa pine up to about 7,500 or 8,000
feet. There the type changed to Douglas fir mixture, and then
higher up to spruce and white fir. The spruce forest was a very
dense dark one and I always enjoyed going up to it. We found that

60

Fritz: at about ten thousand feet. The timber line was about eleven
thousand feet.

It was a very interesting place for one to be stationed, especially
one who, like myself, wanted to eke out some more training or know
ledge of how vegetation develops. I recall going into the botany
of the region and there was one little plant known by the generic
name of Th I asp i a. The specific name was taken from the name of a
botanist and begins with "f." I can't think of it at the moment.
It sounds like "ferend." Anyway, I observed the plant at the sta
tion, and then decided that as long as I had to climb the mountain
once a week anyway, I would keep a record of the blooming of this
plant at different elevations over this altitudinal range. But
that was the following spring, so I 'm a little ahead of my story.

When I arrived in Flagstaff, I found Pearson very happy to have
some help. Apparently my predecessor had been away several months
before I was assigned. My predecessor was Clarence Korstian who
later became a research station director himself, and still later,
Dean of Forestry at Duke University.

The work at the station was largely working up data for the few
years past of measurements of sample plots. Of course, we had a
few sample plots to measure ourselves, but they were behind in
working up the data, solely because of inadequate help, and ! could
see that my entire winter would be spent in the office working up
this data.

Pearson was a very helpful man; he recognized the fact that his
assistants were dropping into something brand new and needed help.
Whenever we were out on trips by auto or afoot or on horseback,
he never missed a chance to point out something which had some sig
nificance in learning the silviculture or the si Ivies or the botany
of the region.

We lived in very nice little cottages. They were pretty thin-walled
and not too windtlght but they were heated by hot water from the
greenhouse. Having had some experience in pipe-fitting, I was able
to change the piping in my own house so that the radiators were in
better corners for heat distribution. I also had a chance to do some
pipe-fitting for water lines and insulation and electric light systems
and so on, and was very happy to be able to put into use some of my
early training in engineering.

I had to share the cottage with another assistant, Lenthall Wyman,
who later became a professor of forestry at North Carolina State
University. We were together most of the winter. Unfortunately,
in about February or March, he was transferred and thereafter, I
had to make the field trips alone, although we were ordered never
to go out alone on the snow.

Incidentally — I'm a little ahead there — when the winter approached,

61

Fritz: Pearson had received authority to make a study of climatic condi
tions at various elevations. We started at an elevation of about
five thousand feet, somewhere on the desert or in the area of juni
per and pinion pine, and gradually worked up to about 10,500 feet.
I had to build the stations at 8,500 and 10,500. The others had
already been built. And it was my job then for the time during the
winter and my entire stay at the station to visit these weather
stations once every week to change the sheets on the recording
machines, to take note of the maximum temperatures and so on, to
refill the evaporation pans and whatnot.

It was a very interesting assignment and very illuminating. When
Pearson wrote his final report on that study, I felt quite happy
over the fact that he mentioned me as well as the other assistants
for the help we gave him. It was a pretty good demonstration of
personnel management: Pearson gave everybody credit whenever he
received help, no matter how slight it was. It was quite in con
trast to an article I had written for the Timberman magazine on
the round panoramic lookout map idea which I brought to Idaho from
New Hampshire. When the article actually appeared in the Timberman
magazine — being a good soldier, I submitted it through the Regional
Office — my name was cut off and the name of the Regional Forester
was put on, by some subordinate, no doubt.

Maunder: Who was the Regional Forester there?

Fritz: That was F. A. Si Icox, a very fine man. Also a Yale forester. He
was a very fine man indeed. He later quit the Forest Service for
some years. He had a sort of a sociological streak and he worked
for the typographers' union in New York City, and then later, being
a friend of Rex Tugwel I during the New Deal days, he was returned
to the Forest Service as Chief Forester. If I think of it, I'll
make some comments about him a little later, which I think will
cast some light on the New Deal days.

Work at Flagstaff, as I said, was interesting and also enjoyable.
During Christmas week, the snows came. Of course, it was quite
cold. At six o'clock in the morning sometimes in the winter, the
temperature dropped below zero, and the crust on the snow was so
thick that we could walk on it without snowshoes until about ten
o'clock. The temperature rise from six o'clock to about ten o'clock
was really phenomenal. I don't remember the exact figures but while
at six o'clock in the morning, water would freeze very quickly in
pans, by about ten o'clock we could sit out on the snow in our
shirt sleeves.

It was an ideal climate. During the day in the winter, it was not
only bearable but pleasant, while in the summertime, the temperature
rarely rose above eighty-five degrees, and it was never humid. It
was an ideal climate. And having been reported to have had a touch
of tuberculosis as a young man, I felt that if the TB should ever
return, I would make the Flagstaff area my permanent home, but that
contingency never developed.

62

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

We spent the winter in the office working up the data. Ordinarily
I would have gotten pretty tired and fed up working up somebody
else's data, but the summation of every column gave enough informa
tion which for comparative purposes was illuminating; and Pearson
was on hand a big part of the time, until some time In January any
way, to help me interpret the data.

Of course, we had other duties around the Station. Somebody had to
go out about five o'clock and turn off all the water from the ele
vated water tanks so they didn't freeze overnight, and we had to
build a fire in the tankhouse so the tank itself didn't freeze up.
We had other duties like that and of course, Pearson had a cow, a
personal cow, which he had to milk.

That leads me to say something about the management of experiment
stations in those days. Altogether too much time of the technical
personnel had to be devoted to typing letters and ordinary main
tenance work. I recall doing a lot of mechanical work myself
around the grounds, pipe-fitting, carpentry work, and so on. Even
tually, Pearson got a clerk who wasn't very good but nevertheless,
he was a clerk and he kept the accounts. In fact, Pearson always
had a clerk, I believe, to take care of the accounts. But we young
fellows still had a little to do.

Was this just merely a matter of lack of budget?
That's right. In other words, inadequate personnel.

In other words, they were trying to get the technical personnel to
double in brass and so cut down the overhead?

Yes. We didn't even watch the clock. We worked as long as we could
keep our eyes open sometimes to get the job done. On that Station,
we had a pump pumping water from a well to the tankhouse, and that
had to be operated. Pearson looked after that himself until some
time later when he was able for the first time to get a range helper
who was a sort of maintenance and operations man around the Station.

We also had a greenhouse, and the heating of the greenhouse was .
always a problem. And starting fires in the tankhouse, and various
jobs of that kind, took a lot of time. But they were probably a
good thing too because it took the curse off of sitting at the desk
for too many hours at a run just poring over figures.

When this ranger helper arrived, he turned out to be a man by the
name of Porcher. I think his first name was Frank. He was a native
of South Carolina, apparently from an old, old family, and he was a
very bad TB case. His wife had been a nurse and married him to look
after him. They were very much attached to one another.

He was transferred to the Experiment Station from somewhere in
California. We did not know that he was tubercular until he tried

63

Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:
Maunder:
Fritz:

to do some of the work. He tried valiantly but he couldn't make
It. From my office window, I would sometimes see him walk up a
slope from the pump house to the upper level gasping for air, and
when Pearson and I found out th»t he was tubercular, we were pretty
sore at the smart cookie In California who transferred this man,
knowing what kind of work he was to do.

Didn't they have physical examinations for personnel?

Well, this man was already in the Forest Service, and possibly if he
had tuberculosis when he was employed, it wasn't detected.

Didn't they have periodic re-examinations?

Not that I remember.

What provisions were made for hospitalizing men in the Forest Service?

None whatever. Later on, I had to do Porcher's work and my own.

Pearson had been ordered to a detail in Washington, D.C., and was
to be away about three months — It turned out to be nearly four
months — and he left me in charge. There wasn't much responsibility
attached to It, except to continue the work we had started, the com
putations, and looking after the Station.

I had one of those experiences I i ke a lot of young men must have
had in the early days in the Forest Service when we had to double
in brass. The cow, of course, introduced some problems. Being a
city-bred boy, 1 didn't know which end of the cow gave the milk,
and I had assiduously stayed away from the milking job when we
moved to the country. Porcher, the ranger, had to do the milking
at the Station, and for doing It he got some of the milk. (I don't
remember whether Mrs. Pearson remained at the Station at this time
or moved to Flagstaff with their two children. She was the daugh
ter of a local Judge and a very fine lady.)

When I arrived at the Station, the clerk, who was not too bright
"anyway, came rushTng~ouT~ancf s a fdTrT broken English, "My God, Fritz,
the cow has just had a calf. What' I I I do?" And I said, "Where is
the cow?" He said, "I got her in the stable." "Where is the calf?"
"The calf is in the stall next to the cow."

"Where did the cow have the calf?" He said, "Way down in the meadow.
She didn't come in at the regular time, so I looked around and when
I got down to the field, I found she had a calf. So I drove her and
the calf In."

Of course, when Pearson left for Washington, he had told me that the
cow was to have a calf on a certain day in April, but he expected to
be back. Actually, his detail in Washington was extended and he
didn't get back until late in April. So there was I with a sick
cow and a young calf on my hands, and I'd never had that kind of

64

Fritz: an experience before. But I knew that the cow was a mammal and

that a calf would therefore suckle from Its own bag. I found out
the clerk knew less about it than I did — he had separated the calf
from the cow and put the calf in another stall with a bale of hay.
I asked him what the hay was for, aiid he said, "Well, the calf has
to eat, doesn't it?"

CLaughterU

I thought, "Hell's bells, I didn't eat meat when J_ was born, and
I had to be fed on a bottle, so the calf must be in the same boat."
So 1 put the calf with the mother, and although the cow was a big
animal and had very large teats, she kicked that calf clear out of
the stable because her teats had been very badly chapped. This
was in the cold winter and April was still cold. (April 15th, we
had thirty inches of snow, and on Decoration Day, I planted trees
in a light snowstorm.)

I brought the cow out of the barn where I could get at her and
started to work to find out how I could get some milk out of her.
Her udder was tight as a drum, and I thought, "That can't be right."
The cow was as hot as a firecracker all over and breathing heavily,
so I thought she might be sick. She wouldn't let the calf anywhere
near, so I started to try to milk her. Knowing nothing about it,
she promptly heaved me out of the stable too with a quick push.

I thought, "Well, she's probably in pain. The teats are pretty
badly chapped," so I got some lard and rubbed it over her teats,
and after a little while they were quite soft and then she didn't
kick up so much when I touched her. But to get some milk out was
a different story.

Finally, I figured out there must be valves inside just like there
would be in any pump system, so I figured out where the valves ought
to be and pretty soon I had a stream of milk going and pretty well
filled a pail. Then I let the calf go in with the cow and the mother
accepted the ca I f .

There's a little part of humor to that. When Pearson got back, he
had quite a laugh over this city boy who had this midwifery thrust
upon him, but I asked him, "How is the cow? Do you think she'll
pull through?" And he said, "You did everything right except that
I wanted the calf weaned early."

I said, "How in the devil do you do that?" He showed me how one
puts his finger in the pail and crooks the finger and lets part of
it stick out so that the calf grabs the finger and thinks it's a
teat and gradually he gets in the habit of drinking out of a pail.
Well, that's something else I learned. Anyway, that was just one
of the examples of some of the details that one had to work out
for himself in those days, especially at the Stations.

65

Maunder: Was this tubercular case allowed to go on milking the cow? He
surely knew what his trouble was, didn't he?

fritz: He certainly did. He told us himself,

Maunder: Wasn't that running a great risk, exposing the rest of the people
on the Station?

Fritz: Yes, it was, but we didn't pay so much attention to those things
in those days. In fact, we didn't know so much about them as we
do now. But it was very unfair on the part of whoever it was in
the Forest Service to transfer the man to anything but very light
duty. It was very we I I known what the work would be.

It gave me my first indication of what I still think of as hypoc
risy on the part of people who claim to be interested in the country
and also in other people. It's true of the churches; it's true of
the universities; it's true of business; it's true of public ser
vice. But it hit me rather hard because by going to the Forestry
School at New Haven, I at least for a while had taken up a little
different viewpoint on work.

Maunder: You were imbued with a high degree of Idealism?

Fritz: Yes, and I got to feeling that maybe only industry is selfish, a
thing apart from other people, and that the business people have
no Interest in the country at all. I acquired that after I started
studying forestry; certainly, I didn't have it as an engineer. It
was some few years after that that I learned my mistake.

There were several instances that came to my attention at Fort
Valley that made me feel that the Forest Service is not the altru
istic organization which I had thought it was.

Maunder: What were some of these other experiences?

Fritz: it was like anywhere else, dog-eat-dog and each one for himself. When
the summer came, we had a succession of visitors from Washington who
came out on so-called inspection trips, and I can't figure out to
this day what good they accomplished, but they carried something
away for themselves and left very little. Raphael Zon was one of
the visitors. Sam Dana was another. Sam Dana, however, was a
serious man, and we really got quite a bit out of the discussions
we had with him.

Maunder: He made some real contribution to the life and experience of the
Station by his visit?

Fritz: Yes, he did. Zon made no contribution. He was critical all the
time.

Then, of course, there was H. H. Chapman. He was at that time on
leave from the Yale Forest School and was the assistant district

66

Fritz: forester In charge of silviculture. He was out visiting the Sta
tion, and having only recently graduated from the school myself,
we had some long conversations. Chapman revealed some facets of
himself which I had only suspec+ed before. During the entire time
he was at the Station, I would say ne contributed nothing whatso
ever to the progress of the work, but he kept up a running comment
about how things were going wrong in the Regional Office and how he
was going to correct them.

We took him up to the weather station on the San Francisco Mountains,
and while we were there he wanted to go clear to the top, so I es
corted him clear to the peak. We sat up there under the lee of the
peak overlooking the Painted Desert, and he continued his criticism
of how the Forest Service is run and how he is trying to cure it,
and possibly by his frankness he led me into saying some things
that I possibly shouldn't have said about the way a ranger had
been transferred who was useless to us.

I also discussed another instance which I haven't mentioned before.
It was thought when I was transferred to Fort Valley that I would
be promoted to a forest examiner from the rating of forest assis
tant and given, I believe, a two-or three-hundred dollar raise. The
amount of money I got in those days didn't make much difference to
me because I had enough to live on and was not married and figured
that everything that I was doing for the first four or five years
would be for experience anyway, so I wasn't put out by it.

But when Chapman came, he showed me a letter which had been received
from the Washington Office In which the statement appeared, "If
Fritz does not make too much complaint about not being promoted
to forest examiner, don't let him have it," or words to that ef
fect. That was an improper thing for Chapman to do, and it made me
pretty sore that the Forest Service should have such an attitude
toward its own employees when publicly it was preaching such high
ideals in public service.

Maunder: Who had signed this letter, your superior there at Flagstaff?

Fritz: No. Without my knowing it, Pearson was trying to get me the pro
motion and so was someone at the Regional Office in Albuquerque,
but in Washington, it was vetoed.

Maunder: Was Chapman breaching discipline by showing you this letter?

Fritz: I didn't think it was proper. Although I was glad to see it, I
thought It was an Improper thing for a man in Chapman's position
to do.

Maunder: Why do you suppose he showed you this, to Induce you to make
statements?

Fritz: No, I don't think so. Chapman has always been — even more so In

67

Fritz: later years — one who loved to have something to criticize somebody
else on. He would criticize his own grandmother if she were alive.
And he certainly enjoyed criticizing people in his own office, on
his own staff at the Yale Forest School. He was very unfair In
his criticism, and I think oftentlcos criticized without knowing
a 1 1 the facts.

Maunder: How do you account for the fact that he rose to positions of im
portance which depended in part on persona! popularity in elections
and things of that sort?

Fritz: He had a lot of drive, a lot of energy, and he forced himself into
a lot of situations. He could easily work up any problem into an
issue in no time, and I think a lot of men, in the Forest Service
at least, were afraid of him while the others thought that he was
just a character to be enjoyed. I had a very unfortunate experience
with him later on, several in fact, in the I930's and thereafter,
which made me break with him — that is, on a friendly basis.

Maunder: What were these?

Fritz: If you want them at all, I'll come to them later.

Maunder: All right, although they might hold together better at this stage
of the Interview than In a purely chronological account.

Fritz: Chronologically they would come later, but I don't want to mention
that unless you think it would be of interest.

68

IV WORLD WAR I AIR SERVICE

Fritz: While I was at Fort Valley, the Unhed States entered the First
World War. I think It was April 6, 1917. It was when Pearson
was away In Washington and had left me in charge.

The day after war was declared, or two days later, it was my un
pleasant duty to take the ranger and his wife to Flagstaff and put
them on the train; his illness had become so that he couldn't work.
His wife was quite incensed over the treatment he had gotten by
being transferred to a Station where he had heavy work to perform
whereas he should have had light duty, and she took it out on the
Station personnel. On the way to the station at Flagstaff, nine
miles, I had to submit to a running comment as to what a bad deal
her husband got, but I had to keep my mouth shut more or less be
cause it was none of my business and I wasn't responsible for any
thing there anyway. In fact, I had tried to make his job lighter
by doing some of the work for him.

While in Flagstaff on that trip, I called on John D. Guthrle who
was supervisor of the Coconlno National Forest, having heard that
he was making up a company of foresters to go into service to get
out lumber and wood for the armed forces In France. So I told
Guthrle that I would be glad to join his outfit If and when it was
official ly set upi

Another man on that forest who was on Guthrie's staff was E. T. F.
Wohlenberg, who later became quite a figure. He was to be given a
lieutenancy, I believe, and all the officer assignments had al
ready been doled out, so I was made a sergeant.

When I got back to the Station, I was thinking about it, and I
thought how foolish to get into a unit which is going to fight the
war with an axe and a saw, when my idea of fighting a war was with
something that had a little more kick to it. So I telephoned Guth-
rie and told him I was going to withdraw my agreement with him to
go into his outfit — it wasn't an enlistment anyway — and that I was
going to try to get into the artillery.

Maunder: What did you finally do In regard to World War I?

Fritz: I put in an application right away for military training camp. The
Arizona and New Mexico boys were to have been sent to the Presidio
in San Francisco. According to the newspapers, something happened
that left the boys from Arizona and New Mexico completely out of
the first camp through some error, I believe; but we all received
word that we would be given the first chance at the second officers'
training camp which was to be held at Fort Leon Springs in Texas,
and I made that all right.

When I arrived, I found In the artillery with me was Stanley Wilson,

69

Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

one of my Yale classmates. We were in the same battery or adjoin
ing batteries throughout the training camp, and I came out of that
with a first lieutenancy with the artillery. I was given two weeks'
leave with the rest of the graduates and went to Baltimore. I tele
graphed my flance'eln Coeur d'Alene to meet me In Baltimore, and we
were married there.

What was your fiancee's name?

She was Esther Phillips. She was one of the clerks in the office
in the Forest Service in Coeur d'Alene. Her brother, by the way,
is Roy Phillips, one of the heroes in the 1910 fires. He had an

experience similar to Pulaski's, and
several different forests. He's now
Ari zona.

later he became supervisor of
retired and living in Phoenix,

Maunder: Was your unit sent overseas after you got married?

Fritz: While I was in Baltimore on leave, as I said, I got married and
promptly went back to San Antonio to take up duties as a newly
commissioned officer, but on arrival, I found that my name was
posted with about five hundred others who were transferred to the
newly organized air service — the Air Arm of the Signal Corps, as
It was called in those days. I didn't like it at all, but we were
told that it meant an early shipment to France, and that took off
some of the curse because we learned that the others would be in
the States possibly for six months more, trai n ing troops.

The artillerymen were all given commands of squadrons because the
artillery outranked the infantry. So when I reported at Kelly
Field, I found my squadron — which was then called the 118th, and
later became known as the 639th — and I found myself with ten lieu
tenants and one captain medical officer and 150 recently recruited
soldiers, all of them volunteers.

After a few days, we had been prepared for overseas shipment and
went by train from Kelly Field to Garden City, New York. This was
in late December. I think it was around New Year's week. It was
frightful ly cold, and even on the streets of New Orleans, there
was ice. When we left Kelly Field, we were in a violent sandstorm
and I think I took some of the Texas sand all the way to France
with me In my overcoat.

To give the men exercise, I took them off the train at New Orleans
and marched them through some of the downtown streets and dis
covered there was ice on the streets from the cold. All the way
up to Garden City, we were bothered by cold and our pul Iman cars
were frozen up solid. Toilet facilities were inoperative. Some
of the men came down with mumps, and some had worse illnesses and
were taken off the train here and there, and at Garden City I lost
possibly a total of twenty-five. They were replaced with men who
had been drafted.

70

Maunder: Did your forestry training ever find any use during the war?

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

While I was in France, I did very little to keep abreast of for
estry and very rarely even called on French foresters. I think
that was 'an evidence that I felt I was through with forestry. I
was getting more and more interested In airplanes, an interest
which dated to the day I saw the Wright brothers attempt to make
their flight, at Fort Myer in Virginia, to impress the Army suf-
ficently to purchase one of their planes.

After the war, I felt that, being rather bad off as to nerves, I
should take the university job and hold it for a few years, think
ing that I could recover more rapidly on that kind of a job than in
the more rigorous work of an engineer, so I accepted the university
bid in the School of Forestry.

Emanuel, you say you had a bad case of nerves,
of your war experience?

Was that a result

"training" flight,
French or

Yes, entirely so. I was never in combat, although the neighboring
airfields had been bombed several times, and our own field was
under observation regularly, but I believe I had too many different
duties. The Colonel, C. C. Benedict, a West Pointer, was a very
fine man. Our station was the field from which pilots and observers
were sent direct to the front.

I had command of one of seven squadrons, all airplane mechanics, a
total of 1000 or 1200 men. The Colonel asked me to serve also as
assistant Post Adjutant, Maintenance Officer and Commander of the
Headquarters Detachment of 120, plus or minus, pilots and observers.
This latter job was a tough one. The fliers were all young and full
of beans and vinegar and eager to see action. They commandeered
cars and motorcycles and occasionally took off on a
only to make a "forced landing" at a friendly field of
English squadrons. I inquired why I was selected. The answer was:
"I need somebody to say NO when a car or cycle was requested." It
was hard to say NO to young fellows who couldn't guess how many days
of life were left to them.

At the same time, I put in an application to have my own squadron
changed from a Post engineering squadron for the maintenance of air
planes to a combat squadron. Although the request was aporoved all
the way along the line, through General Pershing's office and to
Washington, when it got into the hands of the Secretary of War after
many weeks, the end of the war was apparently so close that the ap
plication was denied. I thought it was rather unfortunate because
the squadron developed into an excellent crew of airplane mechanics.
It was probably that experience with the planes that made me more
firmly convinced I should go back to engineering.

Maunder: What were you doing? Were you servicing planes coming back off
front I ine service?

71

Fritz: Well, the first field was near Tou I , in the Department of Meuse.
At that field there was nothing but a farm, and my squadron had
to start with picks and shovels to prepare a field. From that
field, when It was completed, wore made the first American flights
over the lines — photographic mlssloi.3 and artillery reg I age . (We
used a lot of French terms in our work at that time.)

We were moved to a bombing field for a very short time, and it was
from that field that the famous 96th Squadron took off and never
came back, every plane landing in Germany with its bombs in the
racks. They ran out of gas against a head wind. The very next
day, a German pilot flew low over our field. Whenever a German
did that, we knew that he had a message to deliver. When the boys
picked up the message, tied to a very small parachute, it read some
thing like this: We thank you for the very fine brand new Breguets
(daylight French bombers) and we anticipate great pleasure in as
sociating with your fine young flyers and observers, but what in
hell will we do with the Major? In those days there was a lot of
chivalry between the pilots of opposing forces, and many times when
a pilot ran out of ammunition, he'd signal to the German, or vice
versa, that he couldn't fight any more, and the enemy 'd wave his
hand and they'd both go back to their fields.

I was never a flyer but I flew many times with the engineer officer,
which I felt was a necessity since my men were helping to service
the planes and keep them flying. One of the saddest duties of my
job of being in charge of the headquarters detachment was to bury
the pilots and observers when they were killed — not In combat, but
in a training accident.

This was the third field of which I'm speaking now, which was a
Second Corps Aeronautical School. We finally built up to about
1200 men and 125 planes. At this field, the observers got their
final training in photography missions and some gunnery and aerial
combat, and also in artillery control. We had no two-way radio
then; all the signaling was done from the air to the ground with
some kind of crude radio, but from the ground back to the air,
there was nothing. The pilots had to fly by signals from the
ground — usually strips of muslin laid on the ground.

Maunder:

Were you
American

associated
f I fers?

in this experience with any of the great

Fritz: Indirectly. The 94th and 95th Squadrons, which were pursuit squad
rons, were at an adjoining field. In these squadrons were such
pilots as Major Raoul Lufberry, the famous ace, and Eddie Ricken-
backer, and a young man by the name of Donald Campbell, who, I learned
later, when I came to the University of California, was the son of
the man who, in 1923, became President of the University of Califor
nia. There was also Leonard Hammond, who was an ace. He was the son
of A. B. Hammond, the principal owner and president of the Hammond
Lumber Company. I became closely associated with Leonard Hammond

72

Fritz: in California on forestry matters until his untimely death from
leukemia In the early I940's.

Maunder: You were on sick leave, were you, from your squadron when you came
back to this country?

Fritz: No, I was never on sick leave. I was ordered on sick leave, and to
some kind of a rehabilitation outfit at Nice in southern France.
But I didn't want to leave my squadron because it might have been
ordered back to the States almost any time. • Because I was with them
from the start and we were a close-knit unit, I wanted to be sure
their records were in good shape, so I declined that.

But the nerves got worse, and when I finally got back to the States
in May or early June and had my men discharged and it was then the
turn of the officers to be discharged, I was ordered then to the
post hospital for observation and eventual transfer to Cooperstown,
where the Air Force had a recuperation hospital. I learned that
many of the patients there were what we called "gold brickers,"
who wanted to be on the government payroll a little longer. I
decided it wouldn't be any good for me, and I could recover more
quickly on a job as a teacher. So I asked for release from that
and was promptly given my discharge and permitted to leave.

Although during the war, I had become more firmly convinced that
for my own good I should return to engineering, nevertheless, I had
a very soft spot for forestry. It happened that while I was on a
hospital bed in January, 1919, I received a letter from the Univer
sity of California and in the same mail one from Mr. G. A. Pearson,
for whom I worked in Arizona and who was the Director of the Fort
Valley Forest Experiment Station. Both letters offered me jobs pay
ing exactly the same amount, but I had determined that if I did go
back into forestry, I would not return to federal service. As a
result, I accepted the bid from the University of California. (In
fact, the University had asked me to come there to teach sawmill ing
and wood technology back In 1916, but because of the imminence of
war, I had decided to hold off and asked them to forget about my
teaching. )

Well, the army story doesn't have much to do with all this. I might
say that before I went into the Army, I had sent In my Forest Ser
vice resignation to the Regional Office In Albuquerque. I think it
was even before war was declared. And they asked me to reconsider,
but I had gotten fed up — not with the work, but with the personnel
practices of the Forest Service.

In those days everybody in the Regional Offices and also in the
Washington Office was not much older than the men in the field, and

in my opinion, ninety percent of them were jumped to responsible
jobs before they were really ready. They took a very bureaucratic
attitude too early in life.

73

Fritz: Some of these men were In top offices until their retirement and
never got out of that bureaucratic attitude. In fact, they got
worse.

After war was declared, I submitted my resignation again, and this
time I had the much better excuse that I wanted into the military
service, and 1 received a very cordial letter of congratulations
and so on from the Regional Forester, who was F. C. W. Pooler.

74

PINCHOT AND FEDERAL REGULATION

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

Now, Emanuel, I'd like to ask you a question regarding World War I
and the period Immediately thereafter. Did the war have any in
fluences on the character of forestry employment — on Industry's
attitude toward employing foresters?

If it had any effect, I think It was very small except for one view
point, and that is the fact that so many lumbermen and foresters
were thrown together in that huge regiment known as the 20th Engi
neers (Forest). That regiment had, I believe, 25,000 men. It was
the largest regiment the country ever set up.

The men were scattered all over France, and their job was to cut
down trees and manufacture them into crossties and trench timbers,
lumber for cantonments and so on. Some of those men who were for
esters joined private companies after their discharge, and some of
the loggers and lumbermen went back to their companies with some
understanding of what forestry is all about. So from that point
of view it had some effect.

Beyond that, I should say that foresters had to make their own way,
they had to create jobs. Some forestry graduates, of course, had
a bent for private employ even while they were In school and took
employment at anything that was available — sometimes engineering
work, sometimes logging.

However, I'm glad to say that many of them retained their forestry
ideas and principles as to what could be done in the woods at very
little, If any, expense, and they very gradually worked themselves
Into very prominent positions where they could actually do some
thing. Outstanding among those was Swift Berry. He was in the
Forest Service for many years but resigned in the mid-Twenties to
go with the Michigan-California Lumber Company. He gradually worked
up to the managership of that company and, I believe, a vice-presi
dent. When he was retired, he shortly thereafter became a California
state senator.

Then there was Richard Colgan. He joined the Diamond Match Company.
When a man in those days quit forestry, whether it was with the fed
eral service, the state or a university, to go with a private company,
he was looked upon as having left the fold and to have gone over to
the enemy. That was even said of Colonel Greeley when he quit the
chief forestership to become secretary-manager of the West Coast
Lumbermen's Association in 1928.

Were more jobs in private industry made available to professional
foresters after the war?

Fritz: There were always jobs in the lumber industry for foresters — not to

75

Fritz: practice forestry, but to do some of the work that was necessary
In the lumber Industry. It was unfortunate that more foresters
didn't make the changeover like Dick Colgan and Swift Berry, be
cause they sold their Ideas to +helr principals, and, in turn,
they gradually got the logging personnel sold on a different method
of logging.

In California, for example, I remember that Swift Berry and Dick
Colgan were looked down on for a while because they quit what the
others called "the profession of forestry," and yet these men did
so much in their companies that they became top men and were able
to change their companies' attitude completely from liquidation to
operation designed to achieve permanence.

Maunder: Going back to this World War I period and the period right after
it, this was a time In which PInchot was no longer affiliated
directly with the Forest Service. Yet, as you say, he was having
quite a considerable Influence. How was he doing this and what
channels was he using to exert this influence?

Fritz: Pinchot was influential until the time of his death. Pinchot, as
I believe I stated earlier, had a magnetic personality and a great
deal of energy. He had wealth, and he could indulge In activities
which were denied a man without that kind of money. It brought
him, as you may remember, the governorship of Pennsylvania for two
terms, and he spearheaded several studies and was a frequent speaker.
I recall distinctly one talk he made in 1940. If you're interested
in that, I'll make some comments on it.

He gave that talk before the Society of American Foresters at their
annual banquet in Washington in 1940. Pinchot had a great many
friends and close adherents in the Forest Service — men like Earle
Clapp, Raphael Zon, Ray Marsh, Chris Granger, and Dana Parkinson.
They were all fine men, up to a point; as to their philosophies,
they believed in force, and they couldn't see that anyone else
could have any knowledge of the subject but themselves, and they
were going to force themselves and their philosophies on others.

As you know now, that didn't work out. In the case of Earle Clapp,
he even tried to force his philosophy on the schools. He tried to
get the schools to adopt the Forest Service approach and practically
be under the control of the federal Forest Service. He was badly
defeated on that by the school men themselves because school men
want and should have absolute Independence of any outside influence,
whether it's public or private, as long as they are constructive.

Maunder: How did Clapp go about this? How were his efforts rebuffed?

Fritz: When Earle Clapp was acting Chief Forester, he wrote a letter to all
regional foresters and heads of experiment stations, requesting them
to influence the forestry schools to slant their forestry teaching
in favor of federal regulation (the U.S.F.S. policy). The

76

Fritz: ever-watchful H. H. Chapman got hold of a copy through his private
underground. Copies were mailed broadcast among foresters. It
created a furor. It was socialism reduced to a dictatorship and
gradually died out.

Maunder: What was Pinchot's vehicle for exerting this influence? Was it
purely this little group of his loyal supporters still remaining
in the Forest Service, or was it the Society of American Foresters
or any other conservation group he was a member of?

Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:
Maunder:
Fritz:

Pinchot was chairman of the first committee, as I recall it, in
1919 to start the ball rolling toward a regulatory law.

Chairman of a committee of what group?

I don't recall the name. The Journal of Forestry contains the
story in one of its early 1920 numbers" Pinchot's name was magic
among foresters and anathema among lumbermen. We must say that
Pinchot's motives and those of his cohorts were good. Their method
of approach, I think, was entirely wrong.

I used to look at It something like this: If you were a salesman
trying to sell a new product to a new prospect, you certainly would
not go into his office and call the man a name right away and antago
nize him. You would be friendly and you would try to tell him that
the product you were selling would be helpful to him, that the cost
would be recovered plus some extra return, that he could do his job
better, more cheaply, and he would survive better in the competitive
field.

But foresters didn't do that. They put on the gloves and they went
right at It, and that, of course, developed great opposition among
the timberland owners and the operators, from which the profession
of forestry is still suffering.

This committee which you spoke of which Pinchot headed up right
after World War I — that was a committee of what group?

Principally foresters. I believe it was all foresters, from my
recollection. I was interested In it only in an incidental way.

Was it a self-appointed group, or was it a group duly appointed by
an established agency or association?

It was a Society of American Foresters committee. In fact, I believe
it was wholly a committee of the Society of American Foresters, and
In turn they got Congress to have a study made. It was one of the
earliest studies of that kind and was followed later by the Copeland
Report.*

*U.S. Department of Agriculture:
Forestry ("Copeland Report"), 2 vols.,
1st Session, 1933.

— National Plan For Amer i can
S. Doc. 12, 73rd Congress, "~

77

Fritz: The last one was The Timber Resources Review, which purported to
be merely a statistical study of the present situation as to lum
bering, timber and forestry. But the data was generally Inter
preted by the Forest Service to suit its own desires, and I'm very
sorry to say that I believe this is the case today with the so-called
Timber Resources Review Report.

Maunder: Is this a condition, in your estimation, that has always been pres
ent in the resources reviews and reports?

Fritz: In general, yes, at least up to the present (1958). There are new
men in the Forest Service, considerably younger men than my age
class, some of whom have adopted the tactics of the old-timers.
I've got to say something about those old-timers. They were men
of excellent character, excellent ideas, and they were sacrificing
something. They could have done better in other fields but thev
elected to crusade in behalf of the better management of tinber-
lands.

However, they were almost wholly ignorant of history and economics.
If they had only sat down to ask themselves why the situations were
such as they were, they would have been better able to make recom
mendations.

Now, I feel that Pinchot and his people did a great job while he
was Chief in contacting several timber owners and making manage
ment plans. They are all pre-1910, as I recall, and are now museum
pieces. Not one ever amounted to anything or was adopted, but never
theless they were good for their time. The times were just not ripe
for the application of such plans.

However, I believe the lumber industry could have done a great deal
at no cost whatsoever if it had not been antagonized. There were
a few, of course, like the Hardtners in Louisiana who absorbed
some of it and went off on their own- — at first without any support or
sympathy from the foresters. When a lumberman in those days said
that he was going to do something in his woods, he was promptly
laughed at and held suspect. If he kept quiet and after five or
ten years, showed that he was actually doing something in the woods,
he was acclaimed.

Maunder: Did the war years carry with them certain regulatory provisions for
cutting practices to provide raw materials needed in the war?

Fritz: There was no regulatory law passed before or after World War I, but
there were many efforts. The first one was started by 61 f ford Pin
chot and his followers, before the war was hardly cold. I recall
that many foresters lined up with him.

A report was prepared — I've forgotten the name of it but I'll fill
It in later when I go over the text — which castigated the lumber
industry and made some wild statements about an Impending timber

78

Fritz: famine.* It scared a lot of lumber people, of course, and made
some others feel that maybe they were missing a bet by net
buying more standing timber to ward off for themselves a famine
of logs for their sawmills. Those men got badly burned. Even
before the war, you'll remember, Pi^chot spoke frequently about
an impending timber famine. This stimulated some lumber people
to go out and invest in standing timber with the expectation
that timber was going to be very scarce. Some of them had to
hold that timber for thirty or forty years and pay taxes on it
all that time with no return on their money. Some of them had
to sell for what they paid for it. A few others did very well
by holding on.

Unfortunately, it created a very bad impression of foresters
among lumbermen. I think the forestry profession is still
suffering from that, and I'm very much afraid that the publicity
and the propaganda that has gone out as an interpretation of the
Forest Service Timber Resources Review released this year (1958)
might return some of that antipathy on the part of lumberman
towards foresters as being unreliable forecasters.

U.S. Department of Agriculture: Timber Resources for America's
Future. Forest Resource Report No. 14 (Washington, D.C. : U.S. Government
Printing Office, January 1958.)

79

VI TEACHING AT UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA IN THE TWENTIES

Courses

Fry: When you decided to come to the University of California, there

were two men on the faculty that you knew before, Donald Bruce and
David T. Mason. Did they influence you to come?

Fritz: Yes, I knew both while I was in the Forest Service in Missoula,

Montana. In fact, Mason was my boss there and earlier was the one
who encouraged me to come West to help him on a study of the lum
ber industry. (I had declined two jobs offered me by the U.S.F.S.
when Mason wrote me stating that one is permitted only three offers.
My New Hampshire job was near its end, so I accepted.) The report
on that study was not published until after World War I. It was a
valuable experience for one who later was to teach lumber manufac
turing.

To gather information for the Mason report, I had to travel to the
sawmills of the Inland Empire, spending a week or more at each. I
visited the offices of a lot of pine companies in Idaho and eastern
Oregon, and two in eastern Washington. After all the condemnation
of lumber people I had read and heard while a student, it came as a
pleasant surprise to find the Inland Empire managers and assistants
such cordial and cooperative men.

One day the manager of a large company, A. W. Laird, passed my desk
and asked how I was getting along and if I was getting the coopera
tion I needed from his staff. After I told him it could not be
better, he put his hand on my shoulder and said, "We like to help
the Forest Service field men from Missoula and give them all the
data we have for use in their studies, but we are never sure of the
fairness of the officials in Washington."

Bruce, Joseph Kittredge, Steve Malvern, and I were in the same of
fice, all of us assistants to Mason in that study. All came to
California. But I have wandered from your question.

Yes, Mason recommended me to Walter Mulford to teach wood technology
and lumber manufacturing. After my assignment with Mason in Mis
soula ended, June 30, 1915, I was transferred to the Coeur d'Alene
National Forest in northern Idaho. Shortly thereafter, Mason and
Bruce resigned from the U.S.F.S. and came to Berkeley to help Mul
ford organize the Division of Forestry of the College of Agricul
ture, as it was then known. Thirteen months later I was transferred
to Arizona.

In the summer of 1917, I was invited by Mulford to call on him for
an interview. I went to Berkeley from Arizona and while there, Mason

80

Fritz:

Fry:

Fritz:
Fry:

Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

invited me to his home for dinner where I met Ansel Hall and
Knowles Ryerson, both of them seniors in forestry. I was inter
ested but told Mulford I was planning soon to enter Officers'
Training Camp and would not be 'jvailable until after the war.
Mulford renewed his offer in January, 1919, and I accepted.

The
you

lumber
think?

industry was pretty much behind the Mason report,

Yes indeed. They would appear and participate in
In support of it?

discussions.

Yes. They thought it a good thing and they offered help in any
way we asked.

And then you went to California?

Yes. Returning from France and after a short visit with my relatives
in Baltimore, 1 went back West by train to take up my duties at the
University of California. My wife had spent the war period in Wash
ington as a secretary to one of the Ordnance Department Colonels.
After the Armistice she went to Florida to stay with her folks.
When I returned to the States from France, in May, 1919, she came
to Garden City, Long Island, New York (Mitchel Field) to meet me.
I had to remain to muster out my squadron and then in June, I was
discharged.

My wife accompanied me to Baltimore and then to California. En
route we stopped at Flagstaff, Arizona, where I spent a day with
my pre-war boss, the great G. A. Pearson, director of the Fort Val
Forest Experiment Station.

ley

Incidentally, while I was hospitalized in France for an appendec
tomy, I received letters from both Mulford and Pearson, each offer
ing a job and at identical salaries, $2,000. My choice was easy.
I did not like federal employ and was really not suited for it by
temperament, being an ingrained private enterpriser. But I looked
upon the California job as temporary, perhaps three or four years,
or until I could get my nerve system under control again. Although
I loved forestry, my training was mostly (and better for) engineer
ing, and I had a yen to return to it. But I am glad I stayed at
the University and in forestry.

Emanuel, when you made the transition from work in the federal ser
vice to work in the field of teaching at the University of Cali
fornia after World War I, how did your friends in the Forest Service
feel about your decision? Was there any comment about it?

I don't think there was any feeling against it.
most foresters felt it was a good idea for field
into teaching. I had resigned from the U.S.F.S.

Rather I think that
foresters to go
before I was

81

Fritz: offered the University of California professorship. It was the

policy of the Forest Service at that Hmo to rafher welcome n man
leaving Ms own service to go even Into private employ because
they felt It "spread the gospel" of forestry.

In my own case, I was early disillusioned as to the necessity for
crusading, and I felt the indirect methods were entirely wrong. I
made a very definite break in 1924 with that particular group of
foresters who tried to advance forestry by threats of socialistic
legislation and by name-calling.

Maunder: And that was in 1919?

Fritz: Yes, 1919. My duty at the University of California was to begin
on July I. Since it was the vacation period and no students were
in prospect until August, I didn't arrive until the middle of the
month. Almost immediately I made a field trip at the suggestion
of Professor Walter Mulford, who was head of the School at the time,
to acquaint myself with the pine and redwood regions of the state.
(The teaching began in mid-August at that time.)

Maunder: Were the courses that you taught that first year, courses that were
already well established in the curriculum of the Forest School or
were they new courses?

Fritz: They were standard courses for foresters. One was on lumber manu

facturing (officially titled "Forest Utilization"). The other course
was "Wood Technology." They had already been set up, but the School
was new. It was organized in 1914 and had less than a dozen stu
dents at that time. The professor who had started the courses,
Merritt Pratt, was more of a field forester than a sawmill man or
a wood technologist, so I practically had to start from scratch.
Pratt resigned to become State Forester of California.

Incidentally, I gave those two courses continuously for the entire
thirty-five years I was on the faculty, constantly changing and im
proving them. Both gave me a chance to employ my mechanical engi
neering training in Baltimore and at Cornell. My title was assis
tant professor of forestry. However, I never taught forestry as a
course except to pinch-hit for others occasionally. So although
I had quit engineering for forestry, I was tossed right back into
it.

Both were technical courses. Wood technology included wood anatomy,
i.e., how wood is made up of cells, how the cells are arranged, how
the cell pattern can help one to identify the wood and get an in
dication of some of its characteristics. The course included also
the properties of wood, physical, mechanical and chemical, all re
lated to the cell structure. It was a very interesting course and
I enjoyed very much giving it. (For almost ten years it was re
quired of criminology majors because wood is often involved in a
crime. This made me a member of the criminology faculty also.)

82

Fritz: As a matter of fact, I first got interested in forestry through
my "do-it-yourself" work as a kid working with wood. I had an
excellent training in shop work for a period of four or five years.
Also, I had collected about one hundred specimens of wood.

Fry: In Baltimore?

Fritz: Yes. The Baltimore Polytechnic Institute; very highly regarded

by eastern engineering colleges. Dr. J. B. Conant, formerly presi
dent of Harvard and a postwar ambassador, who made a study of high
schools for, I believe, a foundation or the federal government,
stated to me while he was visiting in Berkeley that the B. P. I.
was one of the best high schools in the country.

The title of my other course was a misnomer because when I took
it over, I discovered that the description in the University's
catalog of courses was: "the manufacture of lumber, the utiliza
tion of wood, grazing." Being a city-bred boy, I knew nothing
about grazing except that cattle and sheep ate grass. Some wes
tern forests are, of course, utilized by grazing men on a very
large scale. The Forest Service, after 1905, had a tough time
with the grazing people over the use of Forest Service land.
That's pretty well resolved now. John Muir was one of the first
to condemn the practice of heavy grazing in the woods. He re
ferred to the sheep as locusts.

Fry: I suspect a number of you on the faculty had to more or less put
your textbooks together as you went. Did you find this true?

Fritz: Yes, Professors Record, Hawley, Chapman and Bryant did that. Bryant
did such a good job on his sawmill ing book that there was not a
man in the country, including myself, who could have done it any
better. I had considered at one time, in the 1940's, preparing
a book on sawmill ing and seasoning and "remanufacturing," as it
is called. I made a fairly good start at it, but I was not in
terested in writing books just to impress the University adminis
tration.

I still have, I think, the best collection of material on the
manufacturing processes in the files at the University of Cali
fornia up to 1954 when I retired. This material is now in Ban
croft Library. Bryant's book served my purpose very well, but
I kept my lectures up to date as improvements in lumber manufac
turing were made. In fact, after World War II, I gave serious
thought to a book to update Bryant's. Glad I didn't — further
changes came so fast, no book would have been up-to-date at pub-
I i cat ion time.

Very few of our forestry students were interested in sawmill ing.
Those that were so minded have done very well. Many foresters
still regard sawmill ing as a thing foreign to them.

Fry: Forestry students of the first few decades were more interested in

83

Fry: the out-of-doors? They were primarily there for silviculture?

Fritz: Not entirely, but it was a strong motivation. I was as keen for
the outdoors as the others, but after one has entered a forestry
school he learns about the several branches of forestry. Some
become wood technologists, some loggers, but most stay in some
branch of forest management. I think if you should look into the
backgrounds of the foresters of the first thirty years, you would
find a high percentage of city-bred boys who had the good fortune
to visit a forest or big park and became outdoor men as a result.

In my own case, reared in a large city, I think that the 600-acre
Druid Hill Park in Baltimore and the woody environs of the Cornell
campus had an influence on my decision later to quit engineering
for some outdoor pursuit. Perhaps the clincher was the removal of
the Fritz family to the country in 1907. (Father hated the city.)
But the engineering had its influence too. It makes one practi
cal ize his ideals. My courses at the University of California
were more engineering than forestry.

If there is no logging in the forest, there is no need for for
estry and no need for a sawmill. The owner of a sawmill that buys
its logs from others has no need for a forestei — but he may hire a
forestry school graduate who has become interested in wood tech
nology or the engineering aspects of lumbering.

Fry: Was the technology of lumbering largely overlooked then, in the
total curriculum?

Fritz: Not at all. In some schools, more importance might be attached

to silviculture and, nowadays, economics. In others, logging and
milling were given considerable prominence. Our forestry schools
are patterned after the European system where utilization is the
principal objective and plays a big part.

In the West, the University of Washington and Oregon State College
emphasized especially the logging phase. That was proper because
even though logging is an engineering activity, it does affect the
forest. But once a log is made and brought to the sawmill, its con
version is mechanical engineering. The logger is the key man, in
my opinion. He can make or break the forester's plan for continu
ous production. Therefore, he should be not only an engineer but
have a good understanding of forestry and be sympathetic toward its
objectives and methods.

Sawmill ing is not alone in requiring engineering applications.
Wood technology requires it too for mechanical properties and
seasoning. The latter calls for a good course in heating and ven
tilating, but at the same time, the anatomy of wood and the behavior
of its cells must be thoroughly understood to make seasoning suc
cessful. The anatomy of wood can be regarded as applied botany.

84

Fry: Did you have any textbooks on such things?

Fritz: There was one by Professor S. J. Record of Yale University on wood
technology. It was a very simple book. It was based in larqe part
on work done in Europe. I had raken his course at Yale. No one
knew much more about wood than one found In botany books. But
Record and Professor Harry Brown at Syracuse added a lot of new in
formation.

He told me once that I was his best student. If I was the best stu
dent, it was only because I enjoyed working with wood and because
of my previous experiences with it. I had no biology courses in
high school or at college, so had to go to summer school to study
botany so that I could enter Yale. Until then, I did not know that
wood was an aggregation of cells!

I had a collection of wood samples before I went to Forestry School,
somewhere near a hundred, and when I learned more about wood from
Sam Record, I discovered that I had mislabeled a lot of mine. I
had misinterpreted descriptions of the woods in the books available
to me at the time. One was Romeyn Hough's fine book on trees, and
another was old Bulletin 10, by F. Roth, titled Wood. Other books
were pretty sketchy. They must have been written by carpenters.
CLaughterU

Fry: It appears that your Forest Utilization course was a field which
was not yet well defined.

Fritz: It was well defined but very little text material was available
until Professor Ralph C. Bryant, of Yale University's School of
Forestry, wrote two books. One was on logging, the other was on
sawmill ing. He was not an engineer. He was the first forestry
graduate in the U.S. (Cornell University), and therefore the first
in the U.S. to receive a degree in forestry.

I was four years older than most of the students in my class, and
being a Cornell graduate myself, Bryant and I became very good
friends. In fact, Bryant and Record were friends until their deaths.

I owe much to them for their help. Later Nelson C. Brown of Syracuse
wrote a book on I umbering, and Harry P. Brown, also of Syracuse, wrote
one on wood technology, a classic. Harry was quite a scholar. In
cidentally, Harry Brown was one of my three professors in botany at
Cornell summer school in 1911. All three were excellent teachers.

I found botany very exciting.

Fry: Were your engineering studies at Cornell of any help to you at Yale?

Fritz: Yes. It was of great help both In wood technology when we studied
products, and in Professor Bryant's courses, especially when our
class went to Mississippi for the spring semester of 1914, where we
studied logging, then sawmill ing at the company's great mill some
thirty or forty miles south at Bogalusa, Louisiana. The Great

85

Fritz: Southern Lumber Company had the biggest sawmill in the world at
that time, 1,000,000 board feet per day. We were there for two
weeks, at the close of which we had to write a full report on the
sawmill, kilns and appurtenant departments. To me, it was very
simple because sawmill Ing Is a very simple engineering process.
But some of my classmates had an awful time. Several could not
figure out what made that carriage go back and forth. Could it be
the man riding it?

I think I wrote something like 110 pages longhand for my report. It
was illustrated with diagrams, flow charts, and equipment outlines,
as I recall it. It was probably the biggest report that Bryant
had gotten up to that time, and I was quite proud of it. Later on
when I came to the University of California to teach, I used the
report as a guide. Then Bryant asked me to donate it to the Forest
School Library at Yale. I did so, and recently learned it is still
there. (Incidentally, Professor Record wrote a book on the mechani
cal properties of wood while I was his student. He credited me in
the preface for helping him — just another instance of my Cornell
engineering being of help.)

Fry: I was wondering if you delved any into timber economics in your
University course.

Fritz: Somewhat. Mason had organized a course which was called "The Lum
ber Industry." It was not so much technical as economic. It
started with the history of the industry and continued through
the full story. He was not at the University very long and I
took over that course when he left. It drew students from the
College of Commerce, some of whom were sons of lumbermen.

Then in 1927, while I was away on sabbatical and leave, and with
out any consultation with me, it was cancelled because somebody in
the University administration felt that we had two courses that
were more or less alike. Well, they were so only in small part; the
course attracted an entirely different type of student. There was
also a campuswide demand for cutting down the number of courses, ap
parently fearful of unnecessary proliferation. I was sorry to learn
it had been dropped. I enjoyed giving it. It was my largest class, with
most of the students interested in business administration. It was
also a course which would have made an excellent book, separate
from my proposed sawmill ing book.

I was pleased that many of the students went into the lumber busi
ness and rose to managerships or part owners. This course was also
an opportunity to sow some seeds in behalf of forestry and manage
ment for permanence.

1

Fry: Do you feel that the University of California had enough emphasis
on forest economics at that time?

Fritz: Very little emphasis. In fact, who was competent to teach it?

86

Fritz: Mason had more experience in it than anyone else because of the
study he had made in Idaho for the Forest Service. Some of it
rubbed off on me.

Fry: You mean it was difficult to ger soi.:?one to teach this because
the field was not well enough developed then?

Fritz: Of course, you could hire a professor of economics, but economics
is such an intangible thing that anyone could do it. An economist
is pretty much like a philosopher — no one can contest with him.
Each has his own ideas. It is not like an exact science where
two and two always make four.

Fry: I was wondering if the difficulty was that forest economists were
not available at that time, or if the field itself was not really
built up as a field of study.

Fritz: At Cornell, I used some advance credit time on economics courses,
including corporation finance. At Yale we had a course in forest
economics. We used the book written by the German forester B. E.
Fernow, and titled Forest Economics. The Germans practiced for
estry not because they were emotionally concerned about the forest,
but because it was a business and an economic necessity.

My mother, when I became interested in forestry, began to tell me
about forestry in Germany. Her father was in the forestry service
of the then Kingdom of Wurttemburg. Forestry, as she explained it,
was not only the growing of trees but also their utilization. In
cidentally, ancestry had no influence on my getting into forestry.

Fry: Fernow's Forest Economics was not really applicable to American
forestry, was it?

Fritz: No. Our conditions were entirely different. But the principles
of economics are the same the world around, i.e., you can't get
blood out of a turnip. If there is no market for wood, there is
no lumbering; then you can't practice commercial forestry and
there's no need for it.

Even in the parks, the Germans and Americans use foresters for what
ever they have learned about tree characteristics and forest manage
ment. Even park forests need some management. The theory of letting
nature take her course in a large park is all wrong. People generate
problems. The more people, the greater the number and complexity of
the problems.

The market place sparks lumbering. Lumbering requires forestry for
its permanence. The better the market, the more intensive forest
management can be.

Fry: So you were primarily engaged in teaching the wood technology courses
and some economics?

87

Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

During the Second World War, I was asked to give the forest pro
tection course, which was really fire protection, and I taught
that until the end of the war and thereafter continued with the
sawmill ing and the wood technology.

What can you tell us about the early days of your teaching experience?

It wasn't my first experience at teaching. I had four years of it
in the Engineering Department of the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute,
and at the same time I taught mechanical drawing for two or three
years at night in the Maryland Institute. I came to the University
of California with experience in teaching, and 1 really did like it,
although when I left the Polytechnic Institute in Baltimore I felt
that teachers are very much inclined to get into a rut. It was for
that reason that I thought I would stay at the University of Cali
fornia only a few years and then go back into practical work, most
I i ke ly engi neeri ng.

As time went on, however, I

liked it so well, always had such a fine

group of students, developed a great admiration for the University
of California, and delighted in being with foresters in an engineer
ing capacity. There was the closest relationship with young men Cl
was young myself at the time, only about thirty-three when I started)
The first students, being ex-soldiers, were in their early or mid-
twenties, so we got along famously. I also liked the state and
liked the possibilities that the state offered, so instead of quit
ting after a few years, I stayed on and on.

One time in 1937, my wife said, "I don't think you're ever going
back to engineering so I'm going out and look for a better home."
We had a nice enough home at the time, but we felt we should have
something better for the two girls. Fortunately, she found what
we both felt was a very nice home with a large garden and we bought
it.

When was that?

November, 1937. It's the house we live in today.

That's when prices on houses were a good deal lower than they are
today.

That's right, and it was a good thing because professors didn't have
much chance to save much. We've put in a considerable sum of money
to make improvements and more than doubled the cost, to say nothing
of furniture, drapes, rugs, and so on.

In teaching your subjects, to what extent did you take your students
out into the field to show them the actual conditions of sawmill ing?

The University of California, situated in Berkeley, is obviously at
some distance from the forests; so at its very start, before I came,

88

Fritz: the school set up a three-months' summer field course, attendance
to which was required and, incidentally, without credit. It was
one of the requirements for graduation and obtaining the degree
of Bachelor of Science in forestry. At that time, three of the
professors would take turns. Each cne had one month. My month
was generally the third, and 1 taught the field work, principally
timber cruising, logging, and milling. I took the students out on
visits to nearby sawmills and logging operations.

Summer camp teaching was very satisfying and it was a wonderful way
to learn to know the students, what they were capable of, their
drawbacks, their oddities, and their capacities. As a result, the
faculty members were able to place the graduates when an opportunity
presented itself in categories to which they were best fitted.

One particularly interesting summer project was the "mill-scale
study." Each student had a post In the mill, actually in pairs.
At a signal one of each pair would move to another post. In this
way the students got a very good idea of what happens to a log in
the mill.

I'm very glad to say that those early men got into very good jobs,
that is, those who stayed with forestry. A few of them went into
other lines of work. During a few summers, 1 had also a few days
of the silviculture, about one week, but other than this, I did
not teach any forestry courses.

Maunder: Who among your students stand out most vividly as being outstand
ing men?

Fritz: Well, one of the earliest was Tom Oliver. He was the son of a

lumberman and shortly after his graduation became assistant manager
of the Hobart Mills, and later full manager. When that company
came to an end, he became manager of the very large Fruit Growers
Supply Company sawmill at Susanvi I le, California. Until his re
tirement, he was the manager of a large sawmill at Medford, Oregon.

Then there was Lawrence C. Merrlam, the present Regional Director
of the National Park Service in San Francisco. There was Herm
Miller, who became a very well-known logging engineer, first with
the Pacific Lumber Company in California, and then with Crown Zel-
lerbach in Oregon and Washington. In the same class was John C.
Sammi , who is presently a professor of forestry at New York State
College of Forestry in Syracuse.

The contact with university students was most pleasant, and after
my retirement in 1954 it was this close association with young men
that I missed most, and still miss. Naturally, in any group of
students there are some students who stand out and are easily picked
as "winners" in the future; there are others who will merely be
good workers, and others who never should have gone to a university.

89

Fritz:

Fry :
Fritz;

Fry:
Fritz:

Fry:

Fritz;

I was early impressed with the way Nature takes care of the dis
tribution of men as to their capabilities, much like the distribu
tion of trees In a forest. For example, there can bo only one
president of any one company, only one president of the United
States, only one governor of a stats, and although they change at
intervals, the number who can rise to such distinguished positions
is quite small. But there's a much larger field for the directive
work, the technical work, the management work, and so on. Then
there's a third group that will always be doing work at a desk or
doing field work as an employee who has very little chance to rise.
Their jobs are no less essential than that of the higher officials.

It reminds me of an editorial I read as a young man in one of the
Baltimore papers in which the author stated that a man must learn
what his capabilities and limitations are, and that he would be
very unhappy if he felt he should have gone higher in competition
with his colleagues. He should recognize his limitations and be
the best and happiest in the category to which he was fitted.

Did you do any work through forest extension on lumbering?

it

No, not through the Extension Division. I might have suggested
several times but it didn't work out. Almost all of my private
redwood forest management work was of the nature of extension, but
not official ly.

I think I noticed a few letters in your files, letters routed your way
asking for specific bits of information that someone in a lumber company
would want regarding either wood product uses or lumbering technology.

Oh yes, I had a lot of letters like that, maybe some hundreds, not
only from lumber companies but also individuals who had a wood prob
lem.

You seem to have had a lot of
giving advice like this.

letters to answer all the time in

They were very interesting letters and I answered every one of them.
Some led to friendships that opened the doors to much help and informa
tion of use in my classes. A teacher sitting at a desk doesn't have
any lumber to handle, he doesn't sell any, he doesn't buy much. So
he knows that when a man writes a letter, he has a problem and you
begin to think it over. It's a problem that you have probably never
thought of before. Of course, when I was new and green here, I had
a lot to learn, even though I had been in sawmills a great deal before
I came here to teach. I started to say, that looking back over my
consulting work, if I had been interested in making a lot of money,
I should have employed my consulting work in the sawmill because
in my opinion, the lumber industry at that time needed mechanical
engineers far more than it needed foresters.

Maunder: At that particular time.

90

Fritz:

Mtiunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Yes. That isn't true now.

The mechanical people have more than caught up now.
managers that you need now.

It's the land

It is land managers we need now, but we still need general engineers
because of electrification and extensive automation. It won't be
very long before we have the helicopter doing the log transportation.
It would be a great aid for better forestry. That's just my opinion.
I've been in communication with the Miller people for some time, but
this company was sold to Fairchild. Hi I ler had on the drawing boards
a helicopter capable of lifting a twenty-ton load. I don't know
what Fairchild's interest in a large helicopter is.

Harry D. Tiemann has certainly made a contribution to the tech
nology of forestry. He must be ninety years old now.

Let me tell you something about Tiemann. Tiemann could do things
in wood technology that very few foresters could do, because very
few foresters have had complete courses in physics and mathematics
and certainly practically nothing in theoretical mechanics. Tiemann
came into the Yale Forestry School as an M.E., a mechanical engineer,
and with a knowledge of steam, heating and ventilating, good physics
and good mechanics and so on, a natural for those days. He was at
Madison Laboratory, you know.

Before 1910, Tiemann had the same trouble at that time in talking
to people manufacturing lumber or using lumber that those of my age
class had in trying to promote the introduction of forestry. And
Tiemann deserves a great deal of credit for breaking the ice be
cause he convinced lumbermen that they could do their seasoning
more perfectly, faster, more cheaply by studying the physical laws
that affect the seasoning of lumber.

Tiemann did the basic work, and I do hope you'll get him on your
records because I think he never got full credit for his work. The
great Forest Products Laboratory at Madison, Wisconsin, has carried
forward Tiemann's work in lumbering seasoning as well as many other
developments in which wood is involved — design of wood structure,
the chemistry of wood, its physical and mechanical properties, wood
preservation, and so on. It was easier to interest wood industries
in its work than it was for foresters to interest them in forest
management. It was of more immediate and practical value to them.

Faculty

Fry: What did you think of the University faculty outside the School of
Forestry when you came here?

Fritz: I made many friends in other departments. There was a large coterie
of distinguished professors. It was stimulating to converse with

Fritz: those with whom I came in contact. There were very few "stuffed
shirts," but there were a few Communists. One in the English de
partment used to visit lumber towns and stir up trouble, right
after World War II. He was probably the one who called the redwood
area the "green hell of the redwoods." If he ever had a mea! at a
western logging camp, he never ate so well at home.

There also were some cliques. One would meet at lunch around a
large circular table in the Faculty Club to discuss campus politics,
a subject that never interested me.

Shortly after my arrival, I called on the Dean of the College of
Engineering, thinking that since we were both Cornel I ians and en
gineers, I could enlist his help to attract some 'engineer students
to my classes. I was taken aback when he started giving me a lec
ture on conservation. (In those days, forestry was regarded as a
synonym for conservation.) Pointing to his waste basket, he in
effect said, "If you foresters are really interested in conservation,
you could start saving trees by reducing the waste paper load."

I learned from him that there must have been a hassle over setting
up a forestry school. Apparently some felt that the engineering
department could give all the courses needed. I got the idea that
our little forestry school started off under a cloud.

Walter Mulford, then head of the Division of Forestry, told me
about the Academic Senate and that I was automatically a member.
He volunteered to take me to several of its meetings and acquaint
me with some of the issues. Well, I went and listened to the de
bates. Apparently, there was a schism in the Senate on the matter
of a president to succeed the retired great Benjamin Ide Wheeler,
and other matters that I have forgotten. The debates seemed child
ish to me, small stuff and not in accord with what one might expect
from a body of mature professors. The proceedings at the first and
subsequent meetings left me with a bad taste.

After that, I attended very few Senate meetings. I was not inter
ested in internal politics. But perhaps one should expect some
violent disagreements in such a large body of professors, especially
among those who had no contact with the outside world.

Maunder: But the academic senate in any institution involves strong debate
just as any deliberative body does. Sometimes this debate can get
rather acrimonious and seem perhaps even petty in some cases. But
that's part and parcel of democratic organization, isn't it?

Fritz: That might be, but some of the men spoke like children instead of
grown-ups.

Maunder: Has this always been true of all of the Senate meetings you've been
to on this campus?

Fritz: Some of them are just ordinary meetings about routine matters.

92

Maunder: But surely you wouldn't judge the Academic Senate on one visit,
would you?

Fritz: It's pretty well known over the campus and it was also published in
the newspapers, and Senate proceedings.

Fry: This was what year, Professor Fritz?
Fritz: 1919.

Fry: Oh yes, this was the year that began what some refer to as the
"Faculty Revolution." Yes. This was a very tumultuous year.

Maunder: Over what?

Fry: Over the presidency, and also over the relationship of the faculty
to the Regents. That was a pretty brutal initiation for you, proba
bly, Professor Fritz.

Maunder: So you were never very active in the Academic Senate from that
point on?

Fritz: No.

Maunder: Were your colleagues in forestry of a like mind, would you say?

Fritz: I don't think they went to the Senate meetings very much until much
later when some additions were made to the forestry faculty.

Fry: Yes, you sure can't ignore the faculty Senate, because it has at

least two very powerful committees that could make or break anybody.

Fritz: I would rather wait for my promotions than to get them in that way.

Fry: Is there any other way you can characterize the forestry faculty,
rather than its lack of relationship to the Senate?

Fritz: Well, the other part of that was that in those days, there was a
hassle over public regulations. Federal regulations of lumbering
were being pushed by a group headed by Pinchot. And this school,
1 think to a man, didn't agree wholly with Pinchot about regulation:
if you want regulation, Pinchot's was a heck of a way to go about
it. And there were quite a number of foresters in the Forest Ser
vice also who did not agree with Pinchot. We felt things like this
should be done on a cooperative basis and that was Bill Greeley's
big point. That's what made Greeley great but lost him the friend
ship of Pinchot.

Maunder: Emanuel, when did you become full professor?

Fritz: I was made an associate professor in 1922, after I was here three

years, and then I was made full professor in 1950. So I was on the

93

Fritz: faculty for twenty-eight or twenty-nine years as an associate pro
fessor, and for twenty-two of those I got no increase In rank or
salary. Now you shouldn't wonder why I was doing consulting work
on the outside: I got $325 a month (minus ten percent during the
Depression days. The Univershy employees were the only state
officials or employees that took a Depression cut In pay.)

One day, casually, I asked President Sproul, "Why don't I get a pro
motion?" And he said, "You were never recommended by the head of
your division."

I heard, when I was in Washington in 1938 as a consultant in the
Interior Department for three months, that a good friend of mine
in California, without my permission (unless it was a facetious
one), undertook to have some recognition conferred on me here at
the University. I don't recall what it was. Word of that must
have gotten to Mulford because I got a letter from him telling me
that if he didn't hear from me to the contrary, he would assume
that I am not coming back and that I would take a job in the In
terior Department. (I actually was offered the number two spot.)

Well, that sort of floored me. That was assuming I wouldn't tell
him that I'm going to resign If I intend to. I'd like to find a
letter that I wrote to him about that. It must be in my files in
Bancroft. That was not very nice of him.

I had many other opportunities. I had three different deanships
offered to me. I turned them down without talking with Mulford
about it.

Fry: Why didn't you let anybody know? I thought that half of the beauty
of getting offers is letting your present superiors know that you
are held in high esteem on other campuses.

Fritz: I'll tell you. You mentioned Lovejoy yesterday. I was offered
the deanship at Michigan State, and as a matter of fact, they
worked awful hard on me. They were angry that I did not accept.
While in East Lansing, I called on P. J. Lovejoy. I knew him
well and just wanted to say Hello to him. He asked, "What are you
doing here?" And I said, "To talk to the president of the Univer
sity and to the dean of the College of Agriculture, and to look
over the school at their invitation. They want me to come here as
dean."

And he said, "Are you going to accept?" I said, "I'm not going to
accept until I can talk it over with my family."

He laughed and said, "Oh, you're going to do some academic high
jacking when you get back." I answered, "Not at all. I have never
licked anybody's boots for favors in my life, and I'm not going to

94

Fritz: In fact, on the train going back to Berkeley, I thought it over,

decided against it, and telegraphed my refusal. While in Michigan,
I also called on Sam Dana, dean of the Forestry School at Ann Arbor.
We conversed about the M.S.U. offer and at one point he said, "I
hope you don't accept. Michigan forestry is not big enough to have
two aggressive and competing deans." I had much respect for Sam.
Perhaps his remark had a bearing on my negative decision.

Maunder: What were the other schools that gave you offers? You say there
were three.

Fritz: Idaho and Syracuse. At Syracuse, it was at the time Nelson Brown
thought he was going to get the deanship (I was his speaker at the
big annual dinner they have). He was the acting dean and thought
sure he was going to get it. I had some other information but I
couldn't tell him. He drove me down to the train. It was a mid
night train to Albany where I was to interview Graves, the head of
the State Department of Education.

Brown didn't know exactly why I was going there, but on the way
down to the train he tapped me on the knee and said, "Fritz, I'm
going to be dean of this school, and when I'm dean I want you to
come here as the head of the Department of Utilization." I had been
offered that position once before, back in 1922 after I was at the
University of California only two or three years, and I turned it
down then without telling anybody about it, although Mu I f ord knew
'about it. (He told me about it.)

So I felt awfully bad about it because Nelson Brown was a good
friend and a nice friendly chap. It was rather embarrassing to be
his principal speaker there that night.

Maunder: Who was the man appointed then?

Fritz: Sam Spring. I was at Cornell at the time as an exchange professor,
and I knew a little about what was going on and that I was one of
those who was being considered. But I let Dr. Graves know at the
start of our interview that I was not interested and I gave him my
reasons. He had given me a long spiel about the new building named
for Trustee Marshall, Bob Marshall's father, and that it was only
the beginning of New York State's largess to Syracuse. The Onon-
daga County delegation was very powerful and ambitious for Syracuse.
It was this delegation that murdered the second forestry school at
Cornell in about 1932, after a fresh start in 1911.

Maunder: The Mulford papers are at Bancroft Library, aren't they?
Fry: They are probably there in the University Archives section.

Fritz: Well, you'll find an awful thick file on Fritz in there. I'm sure
he kept a lot of notes on me. He would never come out clean and
straightforward and discuss things with me, so I practically Ignored
him. Naturally, I wanted to know where I stood but things would

95

Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

leak out once in a while, and
lot of evidence against me.

Mu I ford was?

I gathered that he was piling up a

Fry:
Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

He was certainly wishing that I would resign. He made that clear.
Now, let me see. Once I had talked with him about the fact that
the school has no forest and we should have one because the forest
is the forester's laboratory, and none of us will know as much as
we ought to know to be effective teachers of forestry unless we
have a forest where we can cut our eyeteeth in management.

His reply was, first of all, that it would be too heavy a drain on
our finances, without his even having gone into it. He could have
gotten the finances at that time. And second, if we wanted to
manage a piece of land like that we might make a mistake which would
be a black spot on the forestry profession. That was the clincher.
From that time on, I thought the man was either nuts or he had no
guts. I think the latter was more true. The President of the Uni
versity of California told me once — I shouldn't repeat this — told
me that, I don't remember the exact words —

That was Sproul ?

Sproul, yes — that, well, "Mulford doesn't have a whole lot of
courage, does he?" Something like that.

Emanuel, what was the tenure situation here at Cal when you came
to the school?

I came here as an assistant professor, and I had the usual three-
year probationary period.

And when did you establish tenure?

At the end of three years. Tenure comes automatically when one is
made an associate professor.

So you were protected to a considerable extent by that tenure, were
you not, in the disagreements you had within the department? You
were actual ly beyond the —

Reach? They could reach me all right. They tried to. The best way
to reach a man is to deny him any promotions.

In other words, you feel that there was a systematic effort made to
discourage you.

I'm sure of It. I once asked Mulford, "Is there any future for me
here at the School of Forestry?" And he said, "No." Now, you
couldn't be any more definite than that.

96

Maunder:
Fritz:

Fry:

Fritz:

Fry:
Fritz:

Fry:
Maunder:

Fry:
Fritz:

Fry:
Fritz:

Had you no support from your col leagues?

We were a very friendly group. They knew nothing about it, and I
wouldn't take it up with them. That would be putting them In a
bind and wouldn't be fair to them.

And yet you did stay, and you did have offers of better positions
elsewhere, and you apparently were considering staying in Washington,
D.C., in the Thirties when you went back, according to a letter in
your f i les.

I had hardly arrived back in California in 1933 from Washington
when — let me see, it comes clear now — Lee Muck wanted me to stay in
Washington as assistant director of forestry.

In the Department of Interior?

Yes. And I declined. If I had advised Mulford about it, he proba
bly would have encouraged me to accept; I don't remember all about
that. There is some correspondence in my files on it. About two
years later, the offer was repeated, but this time to be director
of forestry, when Muck was moved up to be assistant to the secre
tary, Harold I ekes.

And you sti II said No.

What was the overriding consideration for your refusing these other
job offers?

Fritz: First of all, even though I liked Washington (I still think it's a
wonderful place to rear an American family) — I had the wonderful
opportunity as a boy to spend my summers in Washington with an aunt-
I liked Berkeley and the University much better.

And you had a lot of relatives right around there too.

Yes, I was born In Baltimore, only forty miles away. Once I walked
to Washington on a bet as to the time it would take — ten and a half
hours.

Wouldn't it have been good for your family then?
your reasons?

Or what were

Because of both children. I liked the University of California, I
fell in love with teaching, I liked the kind of students we got,
and I was getting so much interest and support from the sawmill
people for my lumbering course and wood technology, that I thought,
"I can't afford to lose all that."

About that time also I was getting deeper and deeper into redwood
forestry, a field that I thought I was completely divorced from
when I came to the University of California in 1919. And as for

97

Fritz: the returns, the salary, we were living on it. We had some addi
tional income plus the bits I could pick up in consulting work.
That didn't pay very much, it never did. But it was profitable
in two ways: It gave me a little extra money and also it gave me
a more complete and clearer Insight Into what makes the lumber In
dustry click and why they were so hesitant In adopting better for
estry practices.

Fry: You had this continuous feed-in and feed-back with industry.

German vs. American Forestry

Maunder:

Fritz:
Maunder:

Fritz:

You've mentioned several men in the course of this interview who
have been in a sense pioneers in their field and have led industry
and forestry into taking steps that needed to be taken. Mason was
one, Tiemann is another, and you've commented a little bit on the
character and the personality of these men. I'm sure you've seen
others similar to them over the course of your career who have made
similar contributions in other areas of leadership in forestry,
the early foresters.

I don't want to take your time to go over that now.

No, but what characteristics do a I
in common?

of these men seem to have had

They had an intense love of the outdoors. They were incensed over
the way the Public Domain was being administered. The Forest Ser
vice was set up in 1905. It was the time of Theodore Roosevelt and
Gifford Pinchot, Ida Tarbell and others who were giving big industry
a bad time.

I was an engineering student at the time. Having considerable spare
time, I read many, perhaps all, of their speeches and articles in
the magazines. For the public speaking class, I prepared a speech

on T. R. 's and G. P.
I was on G. P. 's side

s writings ( I sti I I have
but at the same time

on conservation, based
the pencilled copy),
could not see how every ill could be corrected as quickly as these
energetic people seemed to think was necessary. I noted early the
antagonism they aroused among forest land owners and operators.
Hindsight tells me some of these fine people were motivated not
only by bearing down on the need for better forest practices but
also by creating for themselves the images of saviours.

Among the more selfless_in the days before 1900 were Dr. J.~T. Roth-
>ock of Pennsylvania/ "Dr. Samuel B. Green of Minnesota, and Dr. C.
E. Bessey of Nebraska. These three were botanists, interestingly
enough.

Pinchot was the principal publicist. He had wealth, charisma and

98

Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

energy, and he revelled in publicity.
Germans.

Then there were the three

Fry:
Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Who were they?

C. A. Schenck, B. E. Fernow, and F. Roth. Schenck and Fernow were
forestry trained. I don't recall if Roth had formal forestry train
ing but, like many Germans reared in or near a forest, he had in
grained knowledge of the forester's art. These three Germans had
a profound influence on American forestry. (That was true also of
French farmers who had a little woodlot. They knew the species of
trees in terms of value and how to manage them. 1 noted that while
soldiering in France in 1917-1919.)

Pinchot, of course, studied forestry in France in the |890's. But
this, it seems to me, served him the better to handle the political
end of forestry promotion than to manage forests.

After we began to train foresters in the U.S. (1898 et seq.), the
three German foresters' influence increased. Except for these three,
none of the forestry teachers knew much about forest management other
than what they read in European books, much of which did not fit
American forest or economic conditions. They were all German.

To the three one should add Carl Schurz for his management of the
Interior Department. (And incidently, Elwood, you have done some
writing on Schenck.) If Pinchot and his young foresters had given
Schenck, Fernow and Roth more support, American forestry on private
lands could be much further along than it is right now. Just think
that over, and if you want to ask a question —

Yes. Why?

I am reminded of something my mother told me when she learned I
would go back to college to study forestry. Her father was a
"Jaeger" in the Black Forest, a sort of guard with hunting privi
leges and in charge of a small forest unit. She described his nur
sery, the planting and harvesting. The forest was handled like a
crop to be reared and harvested. Sentiment was secondary.

I think that what you're getting at is that Fernow, Roth, and
Schenck were more realistic than the American first echelon of
trained foresters. There was a difference. The first Europeans
in America were more pragmatic in their approach to forestry,
whereas the American group, led by Pinchot and his early cohorts,
were more crusaders, weren't they?

Crusaders and idealists and full of missionary zeal. I do not use
these terms in a derogatory sense. They were fine men and did a
great job .

Maunder: There was a difference between the pragmatic approach and the

99

Maunder: idealistic approach. Is that what you have in mind?

Fritz: Yes. In Germany, forestry developed from immediate needs after
centuries of warfare and exploitation. Forestry in Europe was a
long time growing up. In America wo still had an abundance of
primeval forests.

Pinchot and others of that time had an idea to sell but no cus
tomers. They had difficulty even getting their foot in the door
to talk about their "product," if you want to call it that. The
product would be the practice of forestry. And regrettably they
followed methods that I don't think were particularly kosher.
They antagonized people. It's exactly the same situation you have
in California right now with the Sierra Club antagonizing not only
the owners but a growing portion of the public, the local people.

The objective was worthy but the approach to its realization was
unwise, heavy-handed and close to socialism. The latter, socialism,
grew stronger into the I930's and up to about 1950. Public owner
ship was not in accord with our spirit of American private enter
prise, mistaken as it sometimes was and is.

Maunder: But it seems to me that we're talking about not only two very dif
ferent peoples, but we're talking about two very different cultural
situations in which these two very different groups of people had to
operate. The European forester came out of a situation in which
the land, for the most part, had been owned by the aristocracy,
the landed gentry, for hundreds of years.

Fritz: Yes.

Maunder: Barons, so to speak, had employed "Forstmeisters" to manage their
lands for what could be cut from them in the way of timber, what
would be gathered in the way of fuel, what would be done with them
in the way of using them as hunting preserves, fishing grounds,
and so on. And they had Forstmeisters to do this; they were em
ployed people. And these Torstmeisters were like lots of other
people in the European situation: they handed their craft on from
son to son.

That was a totally different situation from the one here in this
country. We didn't have the same condition at all, and our for
esters moved into a situation that was totally different from what
their forebears had come from in Europe, our German mentors being
"Daddy Roth" at Michigan and Fernow at Cornell, later at McGi I I
(at Toronto) and Schenck down in Bi Itmore. So you've got to take
Into consideration the cultural differences.

Fritz: That's the reason I said that the German foresters who came over
here had several centuries of forestry background, while our for
esters had to start from scratch.

100

Maunder:

Fritz;

Fry:

Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

They started from scratch
have to sell anybody, did
In and assigned work and
over the years to malntat
whereas In this country a
cloth and It had to sel I
at all sympathetic probab
And Pinchot and his group

to sel I an idea. The other breed didn't

they? They had themselves been brought
they were perpetuated 1 1 ke a bureaucracy
n and rarry out their professional duties,

profession had to be created out of whole
Its basic Ideas to a country that was not
ly to any of these ideas In the beginning.

therefore had a different job.

The Germans and other Europeans had already established forestry
and had developed management methods that are in vogue today, such
as clear cutting and selective cutting. We didn't start them. We
only applied them to an entirely different forest, different as to
species and types. Our job was to convert virgin forests to man
ageable forests. We had to learn from trial and error.

I have been described several times, when being introduced as a
speaker, as the inventor of the selective cutting system in the
redwoods. That isn't correct. It was already established. In my
early days in California, I called it selective logging, later I
felt selective cutting was more correct. Selective logging could
be understood to mean selective picking up (yarding) of logs al
ready made. I merely determined that the virgin redwood forest lends
Itself to selective cutting. That was In early 1923 when I made a
study of second growth and found several trees on the plot that had
survived earlier logging fires and responded with remarkable ac
celeration In growth rate.

In other words, the American foresters didn't have the economic
background for American forestry that the Germans had for European
forestry?

Nor the experience of actual practice. And, as for the philosophy
of forestry, I think that basically they were more recreation-minded
than pragmatic in the sense that forestry should go with lumbering.
Yet the cry for forestry was to prevent a "timber famine." We had
no idea which system of management was best for our virgin forests.
We had to learn, and our economic situation did not permit close
utl I Ization.

That wasn't true in the early days, was it, Emanuel?

Pinchot did a great deal to have articles written on waste utiliza
tion — what you can do with the waste or how to make less; how to
arrive at closer utilization, which was in Its infancy. There was
one drawback. The American foresters had had no chance whatever
in those days of managing a forest.

You take, for example, Walter Mulford. He was about the second or
third man to get a degree in forestry in this country. Now of course
he had Fernow as a teacher. He also had Philip Roth as a teacher.
He was lucky in that respect. He got his forestry from men who had
had practical experience.

101

Fritz: But when Mu I f ord was out of school, what could he, what could
Pinchot, what could the others do without a piece of land to
manage? Pinchot, through his family connections, was hired to
advise George Vanderbilt on handling his Biltmore forest. In a
few years, he handed the job over to Schenck. Just why, was never
clear to me.

Cornell, the first forestry school, had Fernow as the head and Fer-
now reasoned: "The laboratory in that building over there is the
chemical laboratory, and that's the physical laboratory. My labo
ratory is out in the woods so I've got to build me a laboratory.
And to build a laboratory, all you do is buy a piece of land with
some trees on it."

So he was going to manage that forest land. He made a good start,,
but he antagonized the wealthy people in that area owning great
acreages. They were less interested in practicing forestry than
in the preservation of their hunting and game reserves. They pro
tested this German forester coming over and logging a slope clear.
(Well, I think the local people were unnecessarily infuriated over
it, because it would grow up again and be better than it was before
in a sense. Of course, the scrubby forest is the best for hunting
anyhow.) So the local people turned against him and, being very
powerful in Albany, they cut off Cornell's forestry appropriation.
That killed the Cornell forestry school.

Fry: You are saying that the lack of experience in forest management
was something that the American foresters had to deal with right
from the first, that this was one big thing that they had to con
tend with which Europeans didn't?

Fritz: Don't let me play down the American men, the early Americans in

forestry, because they were an unusual lot. In those days, trying
to sell forestry was like trying to sell birth control today or
some new re I i g i on .

But we couldn't follow European foresters totally because they were
already working on managed forests, and we had no managed forests
on this side. Our first job was not to manage the forest so much
as to convert or transform a virgin miscellaneous lot of species
and sizes and qualities of trees (on the same acres sometimes and
certainly on the same forty acres) into manageable forest.

You can't manage a forest unless you have a lot of money and want
to do it for the pleasure, like a man who has a horse farm just
for the fun of It, with the losses tax deductible. Management
implies, of course, the building of protection roads, the cutting
of trees that are inferior, and utilizing the mature crop. Nowa
days it calls for also recreation and watershed control. In other
words, to develop a crop with not as many trees per acre, but with
fewer and far better trees.

102

Fritz: When I look back on it, especially when I think of that party for
my eightieth birthday, I sat there wondering what In the devil
have I ever accomplished that deserves all this, because so many
times what I tried to do was a complete failure. And many of the
things I suggested be tried out never were. They will some day,
but maybe it was put up in the wrong way or the market wasn't
ready for it or I wasn't ready for it. Maybe 1 wasn't a good
enough salesman, I wasn't smooth enough.

Fry: What do you think were the major mistakes made by forestry in

general in the early days in America, now that we have the advan
tage of hindsight?

Fritz: Well, I'm talking from personal experience over the last fifty

years. I think I would have, if I could have afforded it myself
or gotten somebody else to apply it, a large tract of timber which
was to be harvested, and I would have made that an example or a
trial, a pilot plant of what the problems are in managing it.

I think I can say something that will epitomize this in just a
few words. When I came here In 1919, of course, my mind was all
set on wood technology and sawmill Ing and not on forestry. But
then when I got out in the woods and roamed around and found some
of this magnificent second growth, already sixty-five years old
or more, I thought, "This is what the school should own."

So we went back to Mulford and suggested that we ought to have a
school forest, and I don't recall what he said to that particular
statement, but later on after we told him of a second-growth tract
and what it would cost, what we could learn from it, his answer
was very definite: No, we should not own a piece of forest land
and try to manage it because we might make a mistake, and that
would give forestry a black eye.

If we had such a tract now, we of the forestry faculty could have
acquired in the forty years some second-growth management facts
that are badly needed right now when such young stands are being
cut on a large scale. Also we would have served timber owners
much earlier as competent advisors. More important, we would have
learned early how dependent the forester Is on markets. We for
esters represented ourselves as knowing how a forest should be
managed! Yet we still do research work and hold seminars to find
out what can be done and how much it will cost.

Maunder: But you take the Harvard forest for example. Here was a school of
forestry which did have a tract of land, and they had the vision
of the future of how to manage that land. Now you go back there
and talk to Hugh Routh who has been with it from the very begin
ning, and he'll point out to you: Well, we had the wrong vision.
Our whole plan was based on false notions. What we do, we do in
terms_pf what we understand about the market and the needs of our
"own times. We cannot foretell what the conditions are go'mg'to be

103

Maunder: forty, fifty, sixty years from now when the crop we're managing
comes to maturity.

Fritz: He is right. But Harvard learned that poor soil does not

permit what one can do on better soil. Harvard certainly knows
that every cultural activity costs money and that this cost can
not be returned for some years. For example: I have been asked
often why I don't recommend thinning some of our dense redwood
young growth. My answer always was: Yes, the forest should be

thinned but if
(cut) out, you
the future.

you can't get the cost back from what is thinned
are setting up an intolerable financial burden for

Of course, we should have had experimental thinnings here and there
to learn what good the thinnings would accomplish, how much it would
cost, and what can be done with resulting debris. Some of our young
redwood stands are up to 110 years old. They came up without help.
Had intensive management been possible, these stands should have
been thinned several times and at unknown intervals.

Thinning is an economic problem. There are good signs that it
will be solved when the number of new pulp mills require more chips
than mill and woods leftovers can supply. Or the small logs derived
from thinnings may some day suit the needs of small mill men for
lumber if they are suitably equipped.

A_ School of_ Forestry a_t Stanford?

Maunder: Were you ever accused of trying to start a competitive school of
forestry at Stanford?

Fritz: I don't know that I was ever so accused. No one in his right mind
would go out and try to get a school started somewhere else in com
petition with his own school. The suspicion would come into his
mind right away that Fritz wants to be dean of it. The deanship
of any school is the last thing I would ever want. In my opinion,
a deanship is pretty much of a very well paid clerkship, and I hate
to see some men take a deanship because of the prestige that goes
with it. I feel their usefulness in their own specialty fias been
lost. You already know that I turned down several deanship offers
from other schools.

Now as to your question: There was indeed an effort made to start
a forestry school at Stanford.

Fry: There was?

Fritz: Yes. John Hemphill, who was the general manager of the large Sugar
Pine Lumber Company at Fresno, came to me once and asked — he either
came to me or he spoke to me when we met somewhere. I used to visit

104

Fritz: his mill a great deal. It was a great mill but cost too much. He
might have written me about it, in which case my letter file should
contain copies of the correspondence. That was way back In about
1925 or '26 that he was sounding me out as to the need for another
forestry school in California. Now as you know, in the early I920's
there was a Pinchot battle for public regulation of lumbering. The
Capper report resulted from it.

Perhaps Hemphill thought that his idea would be a counter against
the Capper findings and a counter offensive against other forestry
schools, siding with Pinchot. Actually the schools were cool toward
Pinchot on federal regulation.

Fry: Do you think then that he thought that U.C. was too oriented toward
Capper-type forestry?

Fritz: No. This school was not in favor of the Capper thing at all.
Fry: But you felt that he_ thought this way?

Fritz: That he might have thought this way, yes. Hemphill was a graduate

of Stanford University and had been secretary to President David
Starr Jordan. Apparently the two of them were still on very good

terms (I'm sure Jordan was still there). And if he had ever taken

that to Jordan, that would have killed it right away because Jordan

must have known about that gentleman's agreement between U.C. and
Stanford.

Now, 1 personally felt this way about it: At that time there was
no need for another school in California. Second, that if there
were a need for another school, Stanford would be an idea! place
because the students would be able to practically walk to a forest
for their field work, whereas U.C. students have to go a couple of
hundred miles before they can even see a good forest. We are at a
great disadvantage in that respect but more than make up for it by
having a ten-week summer camp.

Nothing ever came of the Hemphill idea. First of all, it was none
of my business, and I would have had to go to Professor Mulford
and tell him that this thing was brewing. Maybe I did — I don't
remember.

Fry: Did you talk to anybody in the College of Agriculture here?
Fritz: I don't think so. I had no personal interest in it.

Fry: Oh I see. But did you encourage Hemphill to check with the presi
dent of Stanford on this?

Fritz: I don't know. That's too far back and I wasn't interested in get
ting involved in it anyway. I now frequently have dinner with a
Stanford group at Bohemian Club. They are all very good friends

105

Fritz: and we talk about the University of California Forestry School

(you know there's a lot of kidding between the two universities),
all very friendly. They will make some comment, like, the forestry
school should have been at Star'ord, or something like that. "You
fellows haven't any forests over there and we have," and I would
have to agree.

I personally think it would have been a far better thing if the
school had been placed at Stanford rather than In Berkeley, because
of the proximity of a forest over there. And incidentally, Stan
ford University owned a lot of timber, second growth, the kind of
timber that American foresters of our time should have been working
in long ago to have everything all ready with data by the time the
second growth was really merchantable and needed when the old growth
was nearly gone. That time is now here and we haven't got that
information.

Herbert Hoover's brother — what was his name, Theodore? — owned a lot
of forest land on the peninsula not very far from Palo Alto. One
day Professor Mulford told us in a faculty meeting that they had
been given the chance of accepting that property. It was to be a
gift to the University of California Forestry School. None of us
knew anything about it. At least, I didn't, and I'm sure none of
the others did. Later, Mulford told us that he had been offered
this property and that he had declined It.

Fry: v Do you know why?

Fritz: Because it would be too much of a drain on our finances.

Fry: To keep it up, you mean?

Fritz: To carry on the research work and to maintain and administer it.

Maunder: Wouldn't it have provided some income that would have taken care
of that?

Fritz: Eventually, yes. That was a heartbreaker. That must have been

around in the late 1920 's or early 1930's when that offer was made.
I wish you could find Mulford's papers, the official papers, about
that. I have never seen them. Incidentally, during the depression
when the federal government set up work camps — C.C.C. and W.P.A. —
Mulford apparently finally succumbed to approving a school forest.
He approached the lumber industry for a gift of cutover land. That's
the forest the school got and what is now called Blodgett Forest.

Now that you brought up the Stanford subject, I should add that about
ten years ago, during a conversation with a lumber Industry man, a
Stanford engineering graduate, he asked If it would be a good idea
If he should promote a lumber manufacturing professorship at Palo
Alto. I encouraged him. With so much lumbering In the West, at least
one university engineering school should give more than the usual

106

Fritz: three-unit course given by forestry schools to sawmill ing opera
tions. Most forestry schools pay adequate attention to logging,
but sawmill ing is really a purely engineering undertaking.

107

VII THE REDWOODS

Second Growth I nvestlgatlon

Maunder: Can you give us a little background on your first Interest In the
redwoods?

Fritz: Everyone is interested in the redwoods. If he has never seen them,
he want? some day to see them; once he has seen them, he wants to
see them again. Because of my sawmill course, I had to go through
the redwood country to visit the mills; that was my job. I wasn't
there to study the woods, or even to work out the forestry. That
started after 1923. I would visit a sawmill and if there was any
time left, I'd go out to the woods just to look around to see where
the logs came from.

It was a time when preservationists were becoming active in saving
the best groves. The Save-the-Redwoods League had already been or
ganized and had preserved several fine groves. There was so much
old-growth redwood then that there appeared no difficulty in getting
owners to sell. But it was a very hard job prying money loose from
people and agencies that had it.

I was very fortunate early in 1920 when Mr. Edward James, represent
ing Sage (.and and Improvement Company of Albany, New York, and his
son and a surveyor were going up to the redwoods by automobile on
timber business and invited me to go along. I had been to the red
woods once before by railroad in 1915, but never before by automobile,

Mr. James later became a member of the State Board of Forestry. He
was a very interesting and helpful man. He lived in Santa Rosa,
looked after the Sage properties, buying and selling timber. En
route, he told me much about the redwoods and what goes on, and in
troduced me to a number of people so that I got a running start
there. The road was dusty, narrow and crooked, but very scenic.
Mr. James had data on most of the fine groves along the highway.
We stopped at many of them, visited split-products operations, and
a shingle mi I I .

In 1921, during the regionwlde reforestation efforts, the companies
had decided to reforest their cutover lands. The University, under
Professor Woodbridge Metcalf, helped out with methods of planting,
collecting seed, and rearing seedlings. I had nothing to do with it.
It was out of my line at the time. However, it was important to
know what kind of lumber the young growth would produce. The only
way to find out was to cut some of the second growth and run it
through the mill. This second growth was already sixty or sixty-
five years old. In 1922, Woody Metcalf and I had come across some
fine second growth on Big River, owned by the Union Lumber Company.

108

Fritz: In 1923, David T. Mason, at the time the advisor of the redwood

owners, arranqed for the cutting ,of a small area on Union's land.
It turned out to be only seven-tenths of an acre. I was In charge
of the study so I saw the produc' from the stump to and through
the mill. The company furnished the falters, and I brought a for
estry assistant. As the trees were all felled and bucked, we would
scramble over their trunks and stumps to get a Jot of data for what
we call "stem analysis." It was the first one made by the School,
and the data has been very useful ever since.

The logs were milled in the Mendocino Lumber Company mill at Men-
doclno (subsidiary of Union Lumber Company). The biggest log was
only twenty-four inches at the small end, the smallest, about eight
inches. The sawmill carriage had very low head blocks for handling
large logs. Some of my logs were so small that they had to be held
against the knees with a cant hook. It took two or three days to
mill the logs. The lumber was piled in the yard for seasoning. One
truck load was taken to the Union Lumber Company plant at Fort Bragg
for kiln dry i ng.

It was an extremely Interesting and revealing experience. I wrote a
report but it was published only In local newspapers. In the Univer
sity forestry files, It is designated Project 688. The quality of
the lumber was disappointing. That from top logs was better than
that from butt logs because the knots were sound. As to figure and
color, it resembled the coarsest grain in old growth. Far more im
portant (at least in my opinion) was the discovery that three of the
130 trees cut on the 0.7 acre plot were relics of the original for
est cut in 1858. These three trees were then under twenty-four inches
in diameter on the stump. These three escaped death in the slash
fires. Without the competition of the trees that were cut, these
three experienced an accelerated growth rate. I think the largest
of the three was about forty inches or more in diameter. Their IUJP-
ber was coarse-grained but mostly free of knots. The report draws
special attention to these three trees because they indicated that
redwood forests should be cut on a selective basis. The machinery
then used in logging made such cutting impractical at the time.

The owner of the lumber company was C. R. Johnson, the grandfather
of the present president, C. Russell Johnson. He was a very fine
man and to him I owe a great deal for his sympathetic help. He
was a real leader and a gentleman.

Maunder: What year was this?

Fritz: 1923. His logging bosses, all old-timers, thought the study was all

a lot of foolishness. They declared that it was impossible to grow

redwoods from seed, that they always came from sprouts, though the

evidence was right there in front of them that redwood does come

from seeds as well as sprouts. Also they said the lumber would be

no good, that it would fall apart when it was dry, all of which was

proved fallacious. We were too far ahead of our time, I think, and

109

Fritz: I was asked not to publish the report because it might interfere
with the planting program. That was a big mistake on my part.

Anyway, as a result of that experiment, I returned a few weeks later
to relocate a stand across the river which was of the same age and
which Woody Metcalf and I saw and measured In 1922. In 1923 I made
a permanent study plot of it. It has become known as the Wonder
Plot. In 1958, its trees were one hundred years old.

Maunder: Did Dave Mason sell certain redwood companies on supporting re
search that he was generally overseeing, and then bring you and
Metcalf into it as "subcontractors" to do certain things?

Fritz: Metcalf and I were the first of our faculty to see this fine young

growth in 1922 and told Mason about it. It was my idea that Mason's
planting program should be preceded by learning what kind of lumber
young trees would make. But Mason got the company to make a cutting
possible. He was not on the plot while I worked on it. It was my
project.

At the University, we were allowed one semester for teaching and one
semester for research, and in addition, since 1934, I had the sum
mer off also. (I was on academic status.) But at that particular
time, 1923, I was on an eleven-month basis.

It was clearly the honest opinion of the redwood owners and opera
tors, and especially the local people, that young growth redwood
would not produce good lumber. In order to get good lumber, it was
felt, you have to raise a tree to be a thousand years old. It was
a common expression: "It takes a thousand years to mature a red
wood." That, of course, was altogether fallacious.

The labor of felling, bucking and yarding was all done under the
direction of the Union Lumber Company's logging boss, Ed Boyle, one
of the great logging characters of the redwood industry. But when
it came to how high the stump should be, how long the log should
be, that was my job.

Maunder: When did you do this work?

Fritz: In the spring semester of 1923. I started the job in early March,
collecting the data on the logs. Yarding the logs to the railroad
track and thence to the mi I I took another week. Then the sawmi II
work began I think in early April. This is my recollection. It's
all in a report in the University forestry library files.

Fry: And I believe you said a copy is over in the School of Agriculture?
Fritz: Yes, and I have one copy. The Union Lumber Company has a copy.

Maunder: Did the Union Lumber Company pay you or the University anything
for this work?

I 10

Fritz: No. There was no question of payment. None was expected and they

offered none. The Union Lumber Company provided the land, the trees
and the labor. Some of their own foresters would come out and help
us sometimes. It was a fine example of cooperation between the
company and the University.

Maunder: Did you do all of the data collecting?

Fritz: All of the data was collected by myself and my assistant.

Maunder: Who was your assistant?

Fritz: That was Leonard Kellogg. He's now a recently retired professor

of forestry at Iowa State College, very able and very conscientious
and a meticulously accurate worker.

The report incidentally showed that the redwood lumber produced
by a sixty-five year old tree, grown under natural conditions with
out any help of man and with no form of forestry management, was
very knotty, very coarse grained. This was to be expected from
the size of the trees and their age, and the high percentage of
sap wood. Sap wood ranged up to three inches wide, which is no
wider than it is in an old growth tree at the maximum, but on
small logs like ours, a three-inch ring of sap wood is a big per
centage.

Maunder: Well, would you say that the results that came from your research
supported or refuted your contentions about the value of second
growth redwood as a good commercial species?

Fritz: Without any intention to brag about, before we put an axe into the
trees, I deduced that the lumber would be coarse and very knotty.
It was very obvious. The branches or stubs of these 65-year-old
trees were sticking out all the way down to the ground. Dea3
branch stubs make for rotten knots, but in other U.S. regions, such
common grade lumber was accepted when the old growth gave out. So
why should not the same hold true for second growth redwood when
the old growth has given out, as it must some day. However, by
leaving undersize trees standing after logging, they would produce
clear grades in considerable volume. The wider growth rings of
the accelerated growth portion of each log would serve many of
the uses that are now met by the finer grained of the old growth.

When the lumber people looked at the boards we sawed, they were
disappointed over its grade. It was difficult to sell them the
idea of not making comparisons between old growth and young growth
lumber but to project an image fifty years hence '•when their old
growth was used up and lumber would be still I n_ demand. I never
expected to see that situation myself buf~here It Is, and we are
already dipping Into the young forests for logs in significant
volume and having no difficulty getting a very good price for it.

The selective cutting program, if it had been started earlier and

Emanuel Fritz in second-growth redwood on Smith Place,
Mitchell Heights, above Ryan Slough, near Eureka.
Photograph by Harold Olson, August 24, 1950.

Fritz: followed by a firm policy in the front office, each operator In
terested in permanence would now have not only young trees on each
cutover acre but a handsome volume of upper qnade lumber yield
from the residual trees scattered throughout the property. One
operator Is already In such good sha(<e after thirty years of
selective cutting as to be able to continue lumbering In per
petuity and at his present rate. This is the Union Lumber Company.
The other large operators are in position to cut continuously but
at a reduced rate unti I the young growth has caught up.

I am reminded of what one of the engineering professors used to
tell us: "Never sell an idea short." In other words, it may be
untimely, it may be way ahead of its time, but all it needs is
some additional work, some change of the economic situation or,
as in the case of the gas turbine, until a metal is perfected to
withstand the terrific corrosive effect of the jet stream and the
high heat.

Maunder: In other words, the redwood market of the future, just as in the
case of the gas turbine engine, is going to be determined to a
great extent by technological change and new inventions and a more
favorable economic situation.

Fritz: Technological and economic. I have no feeling whatever that wood
will ever go off the market, and I can give you the reasons why in
a very few words. Redwood, as an example, is no different than
any other wood. Some of your finest black walnut nowadays comes
from farm-raised trees, coarse grained — but the market buys it.
It pays several times more for it right now than it paid for the
beautiful stuff of the old days, the virgin stuff.

The market doesn't need upper grades for every item or for every
product. It can get along with the lower grades. So we are now
actually flooding the market with upper grades and getting a lower
price than their quality should command.

Fry: So what you discovered was that it's true that the grade of lumber
was much lower in the younger trees, but that it could still be
utilized by industry. Did you distribute these results to industry
or did Dave Mason?

Fritz: Yes. It was distributed in a typewritten sheet, and it was pub
lished in the local newspapers.

Fry: Did you get any feedback on this?

Fritz: Some. Each man who got a copy, especially those who got a copy
of the full typed report, stated that it was "very interesting."
But the reaction was uniform, and I should say unanimous, that it
will be a long time before we can market that kind of lumber. That
left me with the only real argument: that it takes a long time to
mature a merchantable tree and in order to have even this knotty

I 12

Fritz: second growth, forty or fifty years hence, you had better start
growing It now. Well, that, I think, sank In. I used to use
forty years as the time some mills could see the end of what they
then owned. It wasn't very long after that that they began to
leave a lot of seed trees and taue ar> entirely different atti
tude toward fires. That was in the late I930's when selective
cutting was undertaken. Thanks also to tractors which made it
possible.

It's forty years ago that I guessed forty years, so there was just
a difference of ten years in there.

Fry: Forty years for the old growth to last?

Fritz: Yes, providing they were logging it at the same rate. I missed

the boat by a wide margin because first of al I the war came on,

and the poorest grade of lumber was plenty satisfactory for many
customers.

And small mills are a part of the picture. A lot of that second
growth was owned by local families or nonresidents, generally by
inheritance, who had no interest whatever In lumber. But they were
pleased to get something back from their land. A number of these
smal I -owner second growth properties were logged clean. When the
war ended, the market collapsed but revived a few years later when
the housing and industrial markets boomed.

And the other part was that I didn't give enough credit to the in
genuity of engineers and to the possible changes in economic condi
tions in those factors which would permit the lumber manufacturer
to utilize his old trees much more cfosely. It was called close
utl I Ization.

In the early days of forestry, when I was still a student and even
before, there were many articles written about the waste in the
woods and at the mills. Lumbermen were excoriated as wasteful tim
ber barons. And we heard such terms as "reduce waste," and "utl-
"llze more closely." It was absolutely impossible In those clays be
cause you and I and everybody else would have spurned some of the
lumber that comes out of an old growth, thousand-year-old tree. It
Is not all peaches and cream. Some of It is as bad as a soft
tomato, and for the same reasons.

Fry: What were they referring to when they wanted you to "utilize it
more closely" then?

Fritz: Not long ago in one of the evening park lectures with tourists

gathered around the fire, the nature guide had given them a talk,
and somebody In the audience asked, "Why doesn't somebody pass a
law agpinst all these waste burners up there?" (This was in the
redwood country, by the way.) And the naturalist said, "Well,
they're very wasteful people. They waste a lot of lumber."

Fritz: Another question was raised, "Well, why don't they make something
out of it?" He said, "They're not interested." Just like that.
That man knew nothing about the situation.

The whole fact Is that lumbermen arc business men, and if they
could have made a nickel from every dollar they would have to in
vest In utilizing that waste, they would have done so because that
nickel was not really a nickel made but was really about twenty
cents made because It cost them money to dispose of that refuse.
Also the fire insurance was affected by what kind of a fire they
had for burning up this refuse.

You and I wouldn't buy the small stuff anyway. Some of the stuff
that they threw into the burner was short and narrow. Builders,
when they ordered a load of lumber, wanted boards sixteen feet long
because it divided evenly into the common sizes used in building.
But now the mills will save a piece only one foot long and two
inches wide. Those pieces are then rebuilt into wide boards that
can be made a mile long If there is room to handle them. From the
standpoint of wood technology, I would say that those boards are
superior in utility to a one-piece board: they are less likely to
warp and they are less likely to split. The glue joint is stronger
than the wood Itself.

The reasons for the change were the Improved economic situation,
the development of better adhesives, and better machines. Lumber
prices were better too. The user gave up some of his objection to
knots, coarse grain or other factors that ones caused sales resis
tance. Even a large portion of the bark Is used. (Ironically,
conservationists who once labelled lumbermen as wastrels now call
them so greedy that even scraps are sold!)

Fry: What kind of utilization was in the minds of the people back in
the Twenties when they called for "closer utilization"?

Fritz:" They had no idea. But it was politics to play up waste. Very

few consumers know what the manufacturer's problems are. Nobody
knew much about it. Foresters talked about it a lot, but didn't
thlnk it through. In the days when the spread between the price
of a perfect board and a knotty one was small, the buyer often
selected the better board even though one of lower grade and price
would have served the purpose.

Of course, the saws could be made thinner, but no steel had been
developed to carry the great strains. A large part of our lumber
is made by small sawmills, operated on small capital and unable
to afford the price of band head saws. Their I nserted-tooth cir
cular head rigs make about fifteen percent more sawdust than a
band ml I I .

Maunder: Even today would you say that this is a factor?

Fritz: Why, sure. Might be a good thing to penalize an operator buying

14

Fritz:
Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Fry:
Fritz:

Fry:
Fritz:

Fry:
Fritz:

federal timber and sawing into boards on circular head rigs.

In other words, by saving on the kerf, there would be a tremendous
saving on forests?

Not only the kerf, but in a lot of these small circular sawmills, the
man who is operating the saw is like a truck driver who owns his own
truck. He doesn't even spend Saturdays and Sundays to repair his
truck if he can get a load to haul on these days. . He cuts corners
and takes chances. So the small sawmill man can't stop unless his
equipment breaks down.

The situation was especially bad during World War (I. I drove my
car very slowly behind many a truck of lumber. The boards were
often badly manufactured — one edge thinner 1han the other, some
overly thick, some offset because the top saw was not well aligned
with the lower saw.

Well, what about the standards?
that time, is that right?

They were just not applicable at

The standards were good, but let's look at
man's lumber does not go directly out into
of it does now that is

it this way. That small
the trade. (A large part

in the form of two-by-fours and two-by-eights.
That's practically the only part that's a production line product.)
They got by because their lumber went to dealers who had a planing
mill and kilns even, for surfacing and seasoning. Many boards sawn
for one inch rough would not dry or plane out to the market thick
ness standard.

What did Professor Krueger think about the results of your work on
second growth? Did he help write this up?

No. He wasn't on the staff at that time. He was actually in the
logging business at the time. Later at the University of California
he taught logging.

Oh yes, this was when he was working for Pacific, I guess.

Pacific Lumber Company and later, Korbel. He was the only one on
the staff who had any practical experience in forestry and logging.

Did he pick up these results and try to work with them and influence
his own company?

He was a logging engineer. When the reforestation was undertaken,
he was put in charge of it. His own company, The Pacific Lumber
Company, had him plant up some of their cutover lands with the
seedlings raised in the nurseries that Mason had set up. Later
he went back into logging but this time at Northern Redwood Company
at Korbel .

Fry:

Did this lead to anything else in your further research?

I 15

Fritz:

Fry:
Fritz:

Fry:
Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder;

Fritz:

Maunder:

I never did very much research. You can call that research if you
wish, but ! wouldn't call It that. It's just going out and getting
some data. It Isn't research In the sense as used on the campus.
I never regarded myself as a scientist or as a researcher. I think
I was more of an experimenter.

Did your investigation on the Union Lumber Company's lands have any
significance in getting you interested In redwoods?

Yes. In fact, I had no business out in the woods then. I was not
expected to go into the woods unless I wanted to see where the logs
came from. My teaching job made visits to sawmills, and the yards,
and the factories desirable. I knew nearly every sawmill in the
state and the principals, pine and redwood. But at that time, I
had no desire, no intention, no thought of ever making redwood any
kind of a specialty.

It is true that I spent more time on redwood, but I spent a great
deal of time on the other woods also, because as a wood technologist,
I had to know them all. It was very useful information and good
experience for a teacher expected to be knowledgable about wood,
Its manufacture and uses.

Your real work
that right?

in redwoods didn't begin until the Thirties, Is

I didn't begin seriously until about 1934. But I had gotten inter
ested in the redwood forest. There were very few foresters there
at the time, most of them hired through Mason by the companies pri
marily to conduct the nurseries and to set up the plantations. You
can probably get a record of that rather large and extensive pro
gram of reforestation from Mason or from Metcalf.

Do you credit Dave with starting the redwood people to thinking
seriously about forestry?

The redwood people were behind the eight ball. In the discussions
between industry and others, particularly Mason, they probably
thought they had to do something about It to meet the save-the-
redwoods campaign. Dave also helped In making the campaign for
parks. I think the League retained him for a study.

Was this before or after Dave
practice for himself in about

left the faculty?
1921.

He went into

Yes. He had been a professor here from 1915 to 1917, then he was
In military service, after which he was with the federal govern
ment in Washington with the Bureau of Internal Revenue. He or
ganized the timber end of the Bureau.

He came back to Cal briefly In '20 and left in the spring of '21.
I could be a year off in my dates.

I 16

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

He decided to quit teaching. I think he had pretty much the same
experience here that I had in those early years. He could, as well
as I, maybe even better, see that lumbering is the tall of the doq
In forestry; nnd he was a sort of a practical fellow and had spent
a lot of time studying the lumber Industry on an original project
In the Inland Empire In northern Idaho and the adjoining parts of
Montana and Oregon and Washington. I was one of his assistants at
the time, as I told you.

What I was getting at was,
credited with arousing the
land management problems?

to what extent do you think he can be
industry to doing something about its

The campaign to save the redwoods served as a good pry to gain in
terest. He did a great deal to promote reforestation. There wasn't
much else that could have been done. The machinery that was in
vogue at the time was very powerful and very fast, and the way had
to be cleared from the stump to the landing, leaving the land bare.

This was the day of highly destructive logging.

It was called destructive, but It was actually about the best you
could do under the circumstances. The old ox teams couldn't supply
the logs es fast as the market needed the lumber. One man developed
a donkey engine suited to logging, another man tried out wire rope,
another man tried out this and that, so that it was a natural evolu
tion.

And Mason came in at a time when the donkey engines were made even
larger and more powerful, and he tried to get them to save some
strips along ridges to serve as seed trees. It was a logical thing
for a forester to think of, but (and this isn't generally under
stood by the public) in those days when even a forester would make
a suggestion, he had to realize and be aware that he was talking to
people to whom forestry was merely a cuss word, and to whom a for
ester was a persona non grata, a trouble maker. So a man had to
put up his arguments to the industry with considerable cleverness,
and I would say also a tentatl veness. It took a smooth talker to
put it over.

It is not generally known that the redwood operators were early
conscious of the need for reforestation. In the early 1900 's, they
planted eucalyptus. That tree was getting a great deal of public
notice because of land promoters. Some of those plantations still
stand. One company — Caspar — planted California laurel and California
(false) nutmeg. The Union Company thought the hardwoods should be
encouraged and made quite a study of possible products. Famed
botanist, Willis L. Jepson, also did some of the early missionary
work. -

17

Projects With the U.S. Forest Service

Maunder: Emanuel, I was reviewing a file of your correspondence this morning
which deals primarily with your rek-Mons with T. D. Woodbury and
others in San Francisco in the Regional Office of the U.S. Forest
Service there; and this file shows to what extent in principally
1937 and '38 research was going forward in the Forest Service in
the redwood region. The file shows your part in all this and your
close association and contact with Woodbury and others.

The papers show that a lot of goodwill existed between you and
Woodbury, but they also show that there was a good deal of feel
ing of hostility between you and Director Ed Kotok, here on the
campus in the California Forest and Range Experiment Station.
Indeed, it appears that you preferred at this time to do your work
in cooperation with the forest people in San Francisco rather than
with the people in the Experiment Station here in the building.

Fritz: Does that concern setting up a project?

Maunder: In the redwoods — a selective logging experiment.

Fritz: Selective cutting. Yes, I remember that.

Maunder: And slash burning, that sort of thing.

Fritz: Yes. That got me Into a lot of trouble with the lumber people.

Maunder: Well, in your note attached to this file, which is evidently a

later appraisal of it that you have made in recent years, you say
this: "This file records a good cross section of (I) the diffi
culties in getting industry to become aware of its responsibilities,
(2) genuine Interest on the part of the principals of the larger
companies in forestry practices, (3) the ill will on the part of
the socialistic fringe of the U.S. Forest Service and those who are
hell-bent for federal regulation, and (4) constant harassment of
the industry and of its forestry consultant to handicap progress
of forestry, to keep the industry looking bad before the public."

Fritz: What date is that?

Maunder: Your note is not dated.

Fritz: This must have been in the Forties.

Maunder: That's your handwriting in the Forties period, is that right?

Fritz: Yes.

Maunder: Well, it's quite obvious here in this exchange of correspondence
that you had a number of projects going in close cooperation with

Maunder:

Fritz:
Maunder:

Fritz:

men in top management in the industry, in particular Leonard Ham
mond of the Hammond Lumber Company and Mr. C. R. Johnson of the
Union Lumber Company.

Now at one point in the correspondei ce here, Woodbury writes a
letter to you on May 24, 1937, In which he states that the Re
gional Office Is ". . . eager to give some helpful service in the
redwood region," that he is w.i I I i ng to insert this project, the
private forestry project on Hammond lands, into the program of
the Regional Office. They would be compiling logging and milling
data, and he says in his reply to you here, that previous studies
have been made in this same general area of subject matter for the
Amador Timber Company and the California Door Company, and that a
logging engineer by the name of John Berry had been involved in
this.

That was the brother of Swift Berry.

And that Berry, in attending a logging conference, had met you and
had asked you to get Interested parties at the logging conference
together, so that they could talk about this project. Do you re
member that particular matter?

That particular detail I don't remember, but I remember the thing
in its broad scale. What is it you wanted to know?

Maunder: Well, I just wanted to know a little bit abo-jt your relationship

with Woodbury and your appraisal of the man and the job that he did.
I want to ask you one or two questions in regard to it. You were
urging that the job be handled through. the Regional Office of the
Forest Service rather than the California Forest and Range Station,
which had already done surveys of a similar nature and had all of
the data that had to do with this. Now was this a deliberate ef
fort on your part to avoid doing the work through Ed Kotok because
of your feelings of antagonism?

Fritz: No. Kotok wouldn't be doing it anyway.

Maunder: Well, it would be somebody under Kotok. I realize it wouldn't be
Kotok.

Fritz: It was an economic study , wasn't it, rather than a mechanical study?
It was a study that Mr. Burnett of Hammond Lumber Company~asked me
'aTJouT one d ay 7~and~ Woodbury was the one man I could deal with in the
Forest Service Office. He was the Assistant Regional Forester In
charge of silviculture or management. He had a very able man over
there, Charles Tebbe, who had made such a study In Slskiyou County.
It was a county study, and I was trying to get them to make one In
the Humboldt redwoods and to assign Tebbe to It.

One way to get the Forest Service to undertake a project which you
would think would help speed up interest in forestry was to let it

19

Fritz: be known that you were going to make such a study under the aegis

of the University. They'd be over right away. Woodbury once wrote
to me: I suggest you don't go into this because we have it on our
program.

I had almost forgotten about this project. Mr. Burnett, vice presi
dent of Hammond Lumber Company, asked me i f we could undertake a
countrywide economic study of the forest resource situation. I
doubt that Burnett knew of the Siskiyou study by Tebbe. I believe
it was original with him. He was interested in such matters.

I could not handle the study and the school did not have the funds
to support !t. But I either wrote or talked to Woodbury that we
have been requested to consider making such e study. It was then
that Woodbury asked me to lay off, because he had the same thing
in mind. Naturally, I encouraged him to undertake it. Although
I kept after him, nothing ever came of it.

You said earlier the project concerned selective cutting. You con
fused me by bringing in the Hammond Company project. There was
Indeed another project on the lands of the Do I beer and Carson Lum
ber Company, on Elk River. It came about this way: After the pas
sage of the National Recovery Act under which, in Article X, the
lumber industry agreed to leave Its cutover lands in a productive
condition, the Industry was to be its own policeman. I was asked
to be advisor to the redwood people in effectuating practices which
would implement the purpose of Article X.

Maunder: Here'a a letter from you to Woodbury, dated May 15, 1937. "Dear
Woodbury, Inasmuch as the Hammond Redwood Company plans to begin
logging its Eel River tract sometime early this fall" — (That would
be fall, 1937) — "and inasmuch as also the president, Mr. L. C.
Hammond, is very much interested in making this a sort of proving
ground for selective logging, I think it offers an unusual oppor
tunity for some cooperative work between your office of Public and
Private Cooperation and the Company. In fact, I think it is such
a good opportunity that you cannot afford to pass it up.

"At any rate if you are interested please let me know so that I can
take It up with the Company. Captain El am is at present making a
topographic map on which the final logging plan will be based.
Please let me know about this as soon as possible because logging
plans will have to be prepared before very long. I think this is
a job for your office rather than the Experiment Station."

Fritz: Now that you read that letter, It all comes back to me. As soon as
you mentioned that tract — it was a five thousand acre tract, wasn't
it? This was not connected with the county study I just described
to you .

Maunder: I don't know. It doesn't say.

120

Fry: On Eel River, near Camp Grant.

Fritz: That was a different project. I had worked on a tract adjoining
the Hammond tract and belonging to the Pacific Lumber Company.
Knowing that general area, I though* it to be an ideal area to get
selective cutting data. Incidentally, that tract was the one I
thought the Forest Service should have bought In the days when it
wanted a redwood national forest. It was only five thousand acres,
and it would have been under operation in 1937. They would have
gotten necessary data right away, data we badly needed, then and
since.

Maunder: Why didn't they?

Fritz: That's a good question. When the Save-the-Redwoods League learned
that the U.S.F.S. was examining a tax delinquent tract in Del Norte
County, Newton Drury called a meeting. We were talking about it
over here in Berkeley: Newton Drury, S. B. Show, T. D. Woodbury,
E. I. Kotok, and maybe several others. The Forest Service had ig
nored the Save-the-Redwoods League. We felt the U.S.F.S. should
have learned what the League had in mind to acquire for parks.
The acquisition program of the League could have been seriously
affected by the Forest Service's purchase pians.

The meeting was held on the ground floor of tne Bank of America
Building in Berkeley, and I remember recommending to Show and Wood-
bury, "Why don't you try to buy that five thousand acre piece of
Hammond's and make that a part of your national forest; because
if you really want to do what you say you want to do, which is to
get the data to help the lumber industry to do a better job In log
ging, there's your opportunity."

Fry: Was this in a meeting with Newton Drury of the Save-the-Redwoods
League?

Fritz: Yes. They said, "We can do better if we go to Del Norte County.
We can get far more acres for less money." So I said, "How is
that going to help you in getting information to help forestry in
the industry? By the time that Del Norte (Ward Estate) property
can be opened for logging, the end of the old growth will be so
close that the figures won't have any meaning."

That's what actually happened. It was twenty years before they
actually started to log that land and then in a very small way.
Nothing has come from the studies of actual use to the redwood in
dustry in logging old growth that it did not already know.

Fry: I don't understand why it takes longer to log it in Del Norte than
in Humboldt County.

Fritz: There was no economical transport up there then. It was considered
more or less inaccessible. It was eighty miles from the railroad.

121

Fritz: To that you had to add the trucking of the logs over a road not
designed for heavy truck traffic.

Fry: What did Drury think about this suggestion, If he wanted this

for a park? Weren't you on the Council of the Save-the- Redwoods
League at that time?

Fritz: Yes, I have been a Council member since 1934. It wasn't a

question of a national forest versus a state park at the time.
Drury had to know what the Forest Service wanted to buy or what
it was examining for a future national forest, because then the
League would know whether it should stay away or whether it would
protest it as a possible purchase by the League for a state park.

The U.S.F.S. finally bought that land at about twenty-five cents
per thousand board feet, dirt cheap. It was an excellent "buy"
for the U.S.F.S. It has been selling it for fifteen dollars or
more. The sales had nothing to do with research. That same
timber, at present, if it were near Scotia, would bring about
fifty dollars. That's where distance makes the big value.

It was a classic Instance of the Forest Service talking through
both sides of its mouth. It was not so much, as I said, an interest
in getting data to help companies to do a better job. It was really
to satisfy an old desire to have a redwood national forest. To
satisfy this ambition, the U.S.F.S. missed a great opportunity to
institute a prospect! ve I y very useful research project. That
project, when finally set up, came too late.

By establishing its redwood national forest in Del Norte County, its
research results would be applicable only in that county and north
ern Humboldt County. The redwoods are quite different as to site
factors in middle Humboldt and southward. A forest stretched in a
thin strip for five hundred miles of latitude in California is
certain to vary greatly. Furthermore, most of the lumbering is
southward. It was only during the World War II years that
lumbering became important in Del Norte.

Maunder: Let's get back to the study projects.

Fritz: Yes, let's do that, because we are confusing several projects.
More and more comes back to me as we talk.

There was another one for which E.T.F. Wohlenberg deserves credit
for involving the U.S.F.S. My part was only that of a catalyst.
Wohlenberg had been for many years the timber man of the Internal
Revenue Service and was now, about 1940, returning to the Forest
Service. Just previously, Roy Wagner of the U.S.F.S. San Francisco
Office had completed several great studies in the pine region on a
thorough analysis of timber stands, their make-up, the effect of
tree size on costs, and so forth. I felt we badly needed such a
study In. the redwood country. Wohlenberg was highly respected among
foresters and lumbermen. He undertook to discuss the Wagner studies

122

Fritz: with redwood operators and found the Pacific Lumber Company res
ponsive. I had recommended to this company that It should have the
study made. Roy Wagner was detailed to take it on. Wohlenberg, at
the same time, Interested the I.R.S. In the taxation aspects. The
end sought was an encouragement of selective cutting.

Fry: Who in that company did you deal with and find most helpful there?

Fritz: The president and the manager. The president was A. S. Murphy, and
£. E. Yoder was the manager and, of course, far more important be
cause he was the logging boss — Gordon Manary. Wohlenberg discussed
It with me before the Company was approached. Wohly was an old
friend from our Arizona days.

Fry: Do you remember whether the Pacific study was initiated primarily
by the company, or by the Forest Service, or by you?

Fritz: It was suggested to the Forest Service by Wohlenberg and myself.

Most likely, Wohlenberg knew of the Wagner reports and thought the
redwood industry should have one too. The study made by Wagner on
the Pacific Lumber Company lands was a wonderful Job, very thor
oughly and nicely organized. He got a lot of valuable daTFTor
Organizing selective cutting Based on woods data.

But then, In I94J, we got Into the war [Second World War], and we
needed a whole lot more lumber than Industry was manufacturing for
France and Britain. Unfortunately for forestry and for the selec
tive cutting system, the Company's cutting program had to be tuned
to the war effort. The area on which the selective cutting system
was to be Installed had to be logged by the company's slack line
system of clear cutting to get out logs more quickly, rather than
doing it with tractors.

Maunder: But it raises hob with the land.

Fritz: Yes. The land was later seeded, but I don't think It caught very
well. We had a period of very dry years.

Fry: Where was this?

Fritz: It was on Jordan Creek, a tributary of the South Fork of the Eel
River. After the war, the Company gave up the slack line
for good and went wholly to tractors and selective cutting. The
Wagner data came into use. It was not lost because of the war.

Maunder: Was there an inclination on the part of the Forest Service to be
more interested in pine area research than in redwood research at
this time?

Fritz: The Forest Service had 150 million plus acres of timber to admin
ister, only a pittance of it In redwood. So naturally their re
search was concentrated on their own lands. Whatever they learned

123

Fritz: there could then be extrapolated to private lands. Now they
didn't get into redwood forestry for some years. I think I |-
was in 1ho Thirties when fhoy got started In the redwoods 1o
do some work. Show had written a bulletin In the I920's but
that was taken largely from the work of others. They didn't
do much field work on It. Some blanKs were filled in by
Duncan Dunning of the Experiment Station.

Fry: This was a bulletin concerning what?

Fritz: "Minimum requirements for logging in the redwood region," I
think, that was the title.

Maunder: Well, the reason I brought this up was that in your correspond
ence in I937 with Woodbury, you mentioned the fact that you'd
been talking with him about the matter of the industry taking
up practices of good forestry in the redwoods. And you say
that he was coming to you, but that his work facilities were
rather limited, and that the pine region demands took up a
major part of the Forest Service's time, and you understood
that. But at the same time, you thought It was hardly good
policy or even good salesmanship for putting over the forestry
Idea, to be overly critical of the redwood region until you can
find the time to get the necessary data for an effective sales
talk.

You go on: "I think you can afford to leave it alone until you
can present something really convincing, otherwise nothing but
antagonism is aroused. If and when your organization or any
other group has developed sound proof that what we want is good
business, and if the industry should then show a deaf ear just to
be contrary, I'll help you to be critical . I don't think it will
be necessary though. I haven't found one operator yet who will
turn down a good business proposition."

In other words, you're pointing out the opportunities that exist
for leading the redwood Industry, and you're suggesting to the
Forest Service in this letter that perhaps they do need to do more
studies that will have meaning to the redwood people.

Fritz: You've read a great deal there that refreshes my memory. This was in?
Maunder: March 5, I937.

Fritz: We are still confusing the projects. You mentioned one for Hammond,
one for Pacific Lumber Company and one for Dolbeer & Carson. I
think you had the latter In mind. As I said, it was understandable
that the U.S.F.S. would concentrate fts research in the pine region.
Their men were trained in that region, and they had responsibility
there to the taxpayers because they were managing the taxpayers'
pub I ic property.

Now, the fact that they were not doing any research in the redwoods

124

Fritz: was probably the result of a combination of things. First of all,
they didn't have the funds to go Into the redwoods for research
work; second, the redwood people didn't Invite It or there wasn't
a demand for It. There wasn't a demand In that sense, but there
was a real need for It.

Maunder: And you were pointing out the need.

Fritz: Yes. I don't recall how that happened to come up, but Woodbury and
I had corresponded on several occasions about research in the red
woods. It was brought about by Article X of the NRA Code. The
Forest Service men let it be known that they wanted to help.

practicing selective cutting because of
?

920 ?s, and many more there-

I was sold on the idea of

my experience with several trees in the

after, and by observing and boring a lot of trees that were left by

the early day loggers. I felt that we needed some more data to

help anybody, and especially myself, to back me up or back up my

argument that selective cutting should be given a fair trial.

I had one project in mind. Kotok came into this picture because
he was head of the Experiment Station. Now I don't know If this
particular project Is concerned In that letter that you read ex
tracts from, but In this project It was my Idea that the Forest
Service should find an area of modest size which would be logged
very promptly on which they could get all kinds of needed data:
the size of the trees, volume, quality, cost of logging, cost of
milling, and so on, and the grades that came out of it, tree by
tree, the "green chain cost" of the lumber. I had made studies
myself like that before and had even trained the students in mak
ing such studies at summer camp, but we had no facilities for an
extensive study like that.

So they set up a project with "Doc" Brundage in charge. He was a
very competent man, on Kotok's staff, and a very independent thinker,
He had made studies like this In the pine country, and I would like
to have had Brundage make such a study In the redwoods so that I,
or others, In talking to the lumber people about the feasibility
of the selective cutting system, would have some figures to back
me up. And of course, the Industry Itself would have been glad
to have that data.

Well, they made the study. I got Into some trouble over it.
Maunder: Why?

Fritz: The study was made on the Do I beer and Carson Lumber Company lands

on a seventy-acre piece. I had previously taken the Company's log
ging superintendent about it to get his approval. I would go up
there by night train and get there Saturday mornings. (In those
days, I930's, they all worked on Saturdays.) I wanted to see how
things were going.

125

Fritz: One day I was called to one side by the superintendent and was

asked In terms like this, "What In the world aid you get us into
here?" I said, "What's wrong?"

He said, "This Is supposed to be a study of selective cutting and
so on, but It turns out to be a program of Indoctrinating our crews
in socialism, public ownership."

"How is that possible? They're supposed to be out there getting
this data on trees and so on."

"I suppose they're getting that. But they had to stay at our camp
at night, and they would visit with the loggers and discuss socialism
versus private ownership of natural resources."

Maunder: Who was leading these discussions?

Fry: Were these forestry students who were working out there?

Fritz: No, they were all employees of the federal Forest Experiment Station
and the Regional Forestry Office In San Francisco. So I made some
Inquiries. I was astounded. The superintendent, Clarence La
Boyteaux, then told me there were more than twenty men on this job.
I couldn't figure out where they could use twenty.

It turned out that some of these men were "observers." The Forest
Service was eager to get into the redwoods. Here was an opportunity
to get a start for the proposed redwood national forest. Mr. La
Boyteaux was furious about the political work of these men after
working hours.

Fry: Well, what finally happened?

Fritz: Brundage did a very good job and prepared a report on his findings.
He was not involved in the politics. His mathematics were good but
the economics were missing. It meant that only six-foot trees were
profitable. The rest should be left standing. Now, six-foot trees
are in the minority. There wouldn't have been enough six-foot and
over to make the operation pay. It is dangerous business to apply
statistical methods to biological data. Economics had to be con
sidered too.

Maunder: What about H. L. Person, a si I viculturist? You must have had a
great deal to do with Person.

Fritz: Oh yes. I think he was responsible for the trouble In the Dolbeer
and Carson camp.

Maunder: Oh, you rrean he was the one who was preaching socialism?

Fritz: Yes.

Fry: He was the superintendent.

126

Fritz: He was the general In charge of the research, as I remember It,
but Brundage was In charge of the field work.

Maunder: Well, what can you tell us about H. L. Person besides that? He
did a lot of data gathering, did he not, on selective logging in
the redwood region? Wasn't he the man who was going to do the work
on the Hammond Eel River tract in 1937 or '38?

Fritz: I don't remember that. Person would not have made that one. That

was an economics study; Person was in silviculture. Person did make
a study on accelerated growth of redwood following selective cutting.
I think that was published as an article.

Maunder: Well, I can't help but come away from an examination of this cor-^
respondence file with an idea that there was a developing of good
feeling between you and members of the Forest Service over re
search projects in the redwood region in the late Thirties. It
wasn't all negative. You had rather good relations with this man,
Woodbury, in the U.S.F.S. administrative office In San Francisco.

Fritz: Well, that may be correct, but It had no relation with Woodbury,
as to his observers on the Do I beer and Carson study area. Of
course, ! took It up with Woodbury. I doubt that he knew what his
men were doing evenings. Anyway, the observers were recalled. That
left only the Experiment Station men out there to do the job.

Fry: Who brought them back?

Fritz: The Forest Service and the Experiment Station. They left only the
necessary men out there, not the sightseers and the "observers."
Woodbury and I were always good friends. I trusted him.

Maunder: You say, Emanuel, in this letter that I'm particularly bearing down
on in this interview, that you and Woodbury are essentially seeking
to get forestry practiced in the redwoods but that you see the prob
lem in different terms. And you go on in your letter specifically:
"And please get over the idea that I am not in favor of pushing
redwood forestry or that I try to gloss over the shortcomings of
the Industry. We are trying to get the same objective but my methods
are entirely different than yours. Time alone will tell which Is
right."

Fritz: As I said, Woodbury and I were always on friendly terms and we dis
cussed things back and forth. When I was hospitalized one time, he
was the only Forest Service man to call on me.

Maunder: When were you hospitalized?
Fritz: It was in '38. Broken leg.

Maunder: Did you maintain friendly relations with him for a long time after
he retired?

127

Fritz: Yes.

Maunder: Is he sti I I I Iving?

Fritz: He's still living. I heard recently he's not In the best of health,
I tried my best to get him to write something about his early days,
but I think when he retired he became a loner.

Fry: Bitter?

Fritz: Bitter, maybe. And shucks, I had more reason to be bitter than he.
Bitterness will ruin a man if it isn't controlled.

Maunder: Do you know where he lives in retirement?

Fritz: East Oakland. I think you'd have a hard time getting anything out
of him though.

Fry: What's he bitter about?

Fritz: Oh, perhaps his own experiences in the Forest Service.

Maunder: What were these that made him bitter, do you know?

Fritz: Well, one of them was that he and a lot of his friends thought he
should have been the Regional Forester instead of S. B. Show. It
would have been a far better choice considering the way things
turned out, although Woodbury himself was pretty hard on his own
men. This is all right. There's no reason why a man shouldn't
be hard on his own men If he Is also fair. Woodbury was always
on the level with me. I was told once that he defended my course
of action in endeavoring to get forestry into the redwoods.

Industry Cooperation and Forestry Attempts

The Union Lumber Company

Maunder:
Fritz:.

Maunder:
Fritz:

Which among the redwood companies would you say were more cooperative
in the first stages of forestry practice in that region?

Easily the Union Lumber Company. It helped me by opening its opera
tions to me as early as 1921 or 1922. In time, all the principal
operators gave me an ear and cooperation.

Why do you single them out first?

First of all, the president of the company, Charles R. Johnson, was
a man of much broader view than the presidents of the other companies
in the I920's. He felt that it wasn't right to log redwood the way

128

Fritz: he was logging, but that it was the only way he could log it and

come out ahead. Every timber company was in debt to the banks

and bondholders. It was a terrible sword of Damocles over their
heads.

When I needed help to carry on a sawmill study, C. R. Johnson gave
it. He was all for it. Long before that, C. R. Johnson spent
thirty-five or forty-five thousand dollars — a lot of money in
those days — to make a study of the hardwoods that they encounter
when they log redwood to see what can be done with them as a crop.
But economics were not favorable.

Fry: This was a study on utilization of hardwoods?

Fritz: Very much so. Hardwoods mixed with the redwood in many areas. He
also wanted to do something about his cutover lands. He wanted
to get them to grow up again.

Fry: This was after you came when he tried to do something about cut-
over lands?

Fritz: He had that idea long before I came. I merely helped it along, but
I didn'+ generate the idea in his mind. You see, in the early days
of redwood lumbering, the coastal area was cut off from the rest of
the state. You couldn't get up there except by boat or very poor
roads.

Union Lumber Company and Humboldt County mills were accessible only
by boat. It wasn't until 1914 and 1915 that they got a through
railroad, the Northwestern Pacific, owned jointly by the Santa
Fe and Southern Pacific railroads. Prior to the extension of
N.W.P.R.R. north from Will its, the Union Lumber Company had its
own railroad from Fort Bragg to Will its.

It was yery difficult to get meat in there, for example. So they
thought they ought to raise their own meat, but where to raise it?
It was logical to raise it on cutover land. As soon as the for
est was cut, they would burn all the trash and then seed the land
to grass, mostly orchard grass. It would yield good forage for
about three years. Each year the cutover land area was added to,
so there was always a fresh area to reseed and run stock on. The
grass was thinned out by invading brush and trees.

Later on, the economic situation was different. There were rail
roads, and the lumbermen gradually gave up running of cattle on
their own lands or leasing that use to others. The lumber people
were actually in the cattle business, as well as lumbering.

In the early 1910's, Mr. Johnson heard about the eucalyptus boom
and thought, "Well, let's try it out," and they planted quite an
area to eucalyptus. And some of the other redwood companies did
the same. Some of those stands of eucalyptus are still there.

129

Fritz: They're very valuable to the forester because they give him an
idea of what this particular species of eucalyptus could endure
as to cold and frost and winds and whatnot and what kind of wood
they make.

Fry: Were they planting this for commercial ....

Fritz: For lumber, hopefully. The West Is rich in conifers, but very
poor in good hardwoods.

Fry: Did he have a specific idea about utilization at the time?

Fritz: He must have. The world needs hardwoods as well as soft woods.

Redwoods are regarded as soft wood. The principal claim made for
eucalyptus was its rapid growth, as against what was believed to
be the slow growth of redwood.

Fry: But eucalyptus didn't work out, did it?

Fritz: It didn't work out because you couldn't grow it in competition with
the very fine hickory and oak and ash and others from the eastern
U.S. Worse, eucalyptus is very hard and heavy and difficult to
season and work. In 1923, the owners turned to reforestation with
redwood and Douglas fir. That program came to a sudden end when
the Depression started.

Fry: Why did this end with the Depression? Just a general lack of
funds you mean?

Fritz: The mills were shut down; business was dead.
Fry: There were no si I vicultural problems Involved?

Fritz: Some. We haven't got some important answers to a I I of them yet.
Also, local people were cool to reforestation. Some hired for
planting did very poor jobs. Fires destroyed some plantations.

Mr. Johnson was a broad-minded man. He took a chance on a lot of
things, both mechanical in the mill and also out in the woods, even
on equipment. He was one of the first men to try out a tractor in
the middle 1920's.

Fry: And I guess he had a swing at selective cutting in redwood?

Fritz: That came afterward. Mr. Mason, of course, was interested in se
lective logging, and his activity In It I think got a boost from
the report I wrote in 1923, about that cutting experiment on Big
River in which there were several trees left by the early loggers
which showed what they will do when they are left standing for seed
trees and further growth.

Fry: Who was in Mr. Johnson's Company who helped him with all these things?

130

Fry: Did he have some bright young forester? This was before there
were any foresters at all, wasn't It?

Fritz: No, there were no foresters at all. But several of his officials,

like Bob Swales, Walter Collins, anr1 Ross, were interested. I n 1921 or
1922, he began to hire some foresters to carry on the reforestation
program. They built up a very large nursery, probably one of the
largest in the state. They went into it very seriously and con
scientiously.

Fry: For your own part in this, were you a consultant for the Union
Lumber Company later on, from 1934 on?

Fritz: I had nothing to do with the planting program. I did no consult
ing work until about 1934, that is, private work for compensation.
Don't forget, I was teaching wood technology and lumbering, not
forestry.

The University gets calls every day from taxpayers for advice on
many things. When wood was Involved, the inquiries would filter
Into my mall tray. For example: "Can the University send a man
to see why I have dry rot In my house?" I would go and determine
If It Is rot or termites and advise the owner on what to do. I
crawled under dozens of houses, Into attics, over wooden bridges,
and so forth. I felt it was my Job to learn from actual contact
with problems.

The lumber people too, once they lost their fear of professors,
would ask for advice on their lumber drying problems, dry kilns,
wood properties, wood preservation, and so forth. I regarded it
as Extension work. It was very valuable to my teaching. From
1919 to 1934, I never requested or received compensation for such
advice. I profited, however, in that I was building up practical
experience to use in my courses.

Consulting in the Redwoods

Maunder: Emanuel, you say that for a long time, over twenty-five years, you
worked without a promotion here and at the same pay, and that you
were obliged in order to meet your expenses to go outside and do
consulting work. Where did this develop? Where did you find your
first clients? Who were they?

Fritz: Yes, I could not live the way I wanted to live on my salary. Being
placed on academic status in 1934, I felt free to charge for my
services when they were for people in business who sought help
for business purposes.

Well, somebody would telephone to the University and would ask for
some advice about a timber sale contract, a builder would want ad
vice regarding lumber, a lawyer would ask for advice and maybe court
appearances In cases concerning wood use. I had picked up a lot of
experience on the practical side, and I'd give a caller an answer
over the telephone. And he would say, "Well, can't you come out?"

131

Fritz: I'd say, "Well, I'll have to do that weekends." But it got to be
a burden. I spent more time under people's houses than I did in
the office, I would tell them, "From the way you describe it, it's
this and that and that. It can't be anything else, and this is
what I would recommend that you do." "No, I Insist that you come
out."

My first fee came when one day a man wanted to know if a piling
contractor was supplying tKS right species to go under a very large
and very heavy building. He wanted to know if Oregon pine is as
good as Douglas fir. Naturally, I said not only as good, but they
are one and the same thing.

Maunder:

"Well," he said, "I won't accept that over the telephone.
you to go out in the woods and examine the trees from which
pilings are made. Can you

do it?" I told him I'd have

want
these
to do it on

my own time. He said, "That's all right. We'll expect you to do
it on a professional basis."

That's the way it all started, and then of course, when Article
X came out, it was different altogether; then it began to grow
from there. From the consequent experience, I feel that every
professor should be permitted to do outside work to help sharpen
his teaching.

From that time
work?

on in the Thirties, you had a lot more consulting

Fritz:

Maunder:

Not at all "a lot." I want to have this on the record. Never did
my outside work interfere with my teaching. My redwood work never
paid any more than a modest retainer. I regarded most of it as
Extension work. Concurrently I made a number of independent Im
promptu studies on redwood tree and forest details to fill in the
gaps in the general knowledge for application in the selective
cutting program, as well as a better understanding of the struc
ture of the wood itself.

There is always the danger that outside work will cause suspicion
of overdoing it. I can say frankly that my private work was minimal.
My teaching never suffered. Rather, it was benefited. Most of what
others would call consulting work was actually what I should have
been doing anyway as a teacher to improve my experience.

I could have made consulting a major job and it would have been
profitable, but It would have meant resigning from U.C. And I
wouldn't resign for anything in the world. I liked the job, I
liked the people and they trusted me, I liked the state and I had
my roots too deeply in the effort to put forestry into the woods
where It belongs rather than in preachment.

I don't want to get into a long discussion. There are just a few
other things I want to clear up here. One is that you were doing

132

Maunder: consulting work in this period, in the middle Thirties. Was this
a time when you began to be involved In redwood consultancy, or
was your consultancy In another area?

Fritz: It started In cases where my wood ttohnology and acquaintance with
lumber was required. I wasn't really ever a consultant to the Red
wood Association. More correctly, I was their advisor but on their
records I was a consultant.

Maunder: I mean the redwood companies.

Fritz: For several redwood companies I prepared reports on what needs to
be done to put the operations on a perpetual basis. This was done
on a professional basis.

Maunder: What is the essential difference between an advisor and a consul
tant?

Fritz: Not a great deal. An advisor is not necessarily paid much. The

consultant does work on a professional basis. He makes field studies,
prepares a report, and takes some professional risks. When I came
to the University of California, we were expected to do a certain
amount of Extension work and each year we were asked how much work
we did In teaching, how much in research, how much In Extension
services.

Maunder: None of which was for pay — it was all part of your job?

Fritz: Yes. The job I did on Big River on the Union Lumber Company's

land in 1923, of which you asked me earlier, was all for the Uni
versity. The same was true of the Humboldt study. When I took on
the advisory work for the Redwood Association, I would have to go
into the woods, naturally, and talk to a lot of people, and I was
gaining a real knowledge of redwoods. I had to bootleg a lot of
experimental work which I should have done as a University man, and
did, but C.R.A. paid the expenses. It was all to get some data to
make selective cutting workable. The selective cutting program
should have been under the University in its entirety.

Maunder: Weren't you ever put to work on special assignment by David Mason
when he had an office in San Francisco and he was doing a lot of
work with the redwood companies?

Fritz: For pay? I should say not.
Maunder: He didn't?
Fritz: No.

Maunder: I wondered, because he was one of the early consultants who had
an income from the redwood industry.

133

Fritz: Mason was the type of man who wouldn't pay If he didn't have to.
He was more of an exploiter.

Mnunder: On some of the studies that wore made In the redwoods?

Fritz: That project on Big River — he explained It to Mulford as his. That's
one reason it was never published. It was discouraging that Mulford
should listen to an outsider rather than to one of his own faculty
members. Mason was not a member of the U.C. staff then.

And then another time in 1928, I carried on a study on old growth
redwood as to what becomes of the wood in a redwood tree after it's
cut on a lumbering operation. It involved about 1250 trees. That
was a job. That's the most — I'm not bragging — but that was the
most complete job that was ever done on getting information on any
redwood trees. It has been used by the U.S. Forest Experiment Sta
tion on several occasions since. They made use of my data on a
cull study but never gave credit to the University or to me.

You wonder sometimes why I have been critical of the Forest Service.
If anybody deserved criticism, It was that bureau. They are al
together different now.

Maunder: Well, you were commenting here a minute ago about Dave Mason's use
of people. Can you cite any instances where this imposed on you
personally in doing things for him that . . . ?

'

Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

I'd rather not go into this further. He wasn't fair with me, but
I will mention one matter that was revealing as to where I stood.
It soured me on formal research.

In some research study?

I was engaged on a large project in 1928 to learn what becomes of the
contents of a felled forest. It is important to have an answer be
cause, obviously, the conversion of a tree into lumber is^aTtended
by considerable waste; for a tree is tapered, contains sapwood and
bark, is often irregular in cross section, and, in the case of old-
growth stands, frequently very defective. Once the volume of this
unavoidable waste is known, one can determine how much money one
dare spend on studies aimed at its utilization.

Well, the project was well under way when Walter Mulford, the head
of our department, came to my office one day and suggested that I
restrict my project because D. T. Mason had taken on a similar
study on the same property as a consultant.

I refused, because my project was entirely different except that
the data could be used for such studies as selective cutting. My
assistants and I were not inconvenienced much but we did learn the
difference between selective logging and selective cutting. I worked
on the theory that once a tree is felled it should be used as closely
as market conditions justified.

134

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder;

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

Let me make a generalization here and see how you react to it.
It sometimes almost seems as if there's a lot of diplomatic ex
change between protagonists In this struggle — on the one hand the
lumbermen, on the other hand thfi Forest Service — In which they go
through a lot of artful dancing back and forth, loving each other
at close range, but whenever they get amongst themselves in their
own council they are savagely attacking one another. When the
foresters are in their own bailiwick, they are calling the lumber
men ravagers of the woods and devils incarnate. When the lumber
men are assembled in their council, they are damning the Forest
Service from hell to breakfast. Now this repeats itself over and
over again, it seems to me.

You are very discerning. It used to be that way, but times have
changed. There is more mutual understanding and better cooperation.

There's always a lot of nice friendly talk back and forth among you
guys on opposite sides of the fence, but frankly one comes away
from the whole examination thinking that for al! the friendly ex
change and talk, you really hate each other's guts. And you really
don't trust each other any farther than you can throw a bull ele
phant by the tai I .

Now that's my impression of It. And excuse me,
tor tans, for enclosing this personal view Into

interview,
get off my

but frankly this
chest.

is Just something I feel I've got to

you future his-

an oral history

t,

Fritz: Well, I would say that you have a very penetrating mind.

that I'm on

neither side.
a member of

I'm very
I'm not a member of

glad that I can say

the Forest Service, and I'm not a member of the lumber industry.
In my position I can be independent. But I will say that the For
est Service was trying to do on its own lands what 1 was trying to
get private owners to do on their land. So there couldn't be any
opposition there. But whenever the Forest Service would try to do
something which I would interpret as an attempt to spread its con
trol beyond its own forests, I felt I should make my feelings known,

And in the redwoods you really felt that there was lots and lots
of evidence that this was what the Forest Service was trying to do?

And they had a wonderful chance right after World War I I closed.

What was that?

i ntro-

I ion

When Helen Gahagan Douglas, at that time a congresswoman
duced a bill to purchase the entire redwood region for $500 mil
to set up a great Franklin Delano Roosevelt National Park and a
great Franklin Delano Roosevelt National Forest.

Was this all to be accomplished within one grand purchase for over
$500 mi I lion?

135

Fritz: They couldn't touch it for $500 million, but they didn't know that.

Maunder: Well, why do you say the Forest Service lost a grand opportunity
at that point after the war?

Fritz: To prove it was really sincere about its trying to help the in
dustry rather than to get control of it.

Maunder: I see. What was the Forest Service's position on the Douglas Bill?

Fritz: Well, wouldn't you be for it if you were among the top brass in the
Forest Service? Here's a chance to get a big chunk of forest land
and have a new national forest. And the Park Service would be
happy to get a new park. Each asked for too much to win.

Maunder: I don't know whether I would or not. Who was the Chief Forester
at that time?

Fritz: Lyle Watts, wasn't it?

In spite of the fact that I'm very much in favor of parks, and
would have favored a national park and a national forest if they
had gone about it in a statesmanlike manner rather than just go
out there and practically blackjack the owners and blackmail them
before the public, that isn't the way to do things.

Fry: What was done here in California when the Douglas bill came up?

Fritz: There was opposition.

Fry: And you were probably a part of it. CLaughter]]

Fritz: Well, in the sense that I injected myself into it; but I was never
asked to take a part by anybody, including the redwood people. The
redwood people are an interesting lot. They are highly individu
alistic, and even though I was their advisor on forestry matters,
they could have come to me because I was on a retainer basis. They
didn't regard me as a salaried employee; I was a "subcontractor,"
you might say. They never asked me to take an active part in the
controversy. I acted solely on my own.

My sole interest was to see that the redwood lands were so managed as
to put the industry and its dependents on a firm and perpetual basis.
The cut-out-and-get-out policy was ending. Why throw a monkey
wrench into the works?

Maunder: They never sent you to Washington, for example, to lobby against
this legislation?

Fritz: No. They never asked me to lobby in Washington or Sacramento.
Maunder: You did, I recall, come out with strong statements on it in the

136

Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

Maunder: American Forest Magazine, and I'm not sure but I think you wrote

Fritz:

something for the Journal of Forestry on it.

I don't remember, but I could have done It. I get very much con
cerned when I think of some of the ^hlngs that are being done in
this country even right now under the present administration. A
first-generation American of north European extraction is more
jealous of and more eager to preserve the American system of fair
play and of private enterprise than Mayflower descendents.

Maunder: Well, cite a few things j

\ a^e specifically to what we've been

'talking about. What things are not kosher in the current redwood
national park controversy?

you know
wouldn't

who
you,

Supposing you wanted to buy a piece of property and
the owner is. You would deal with the owner first,
even though you had to deal through an attorney?

Right.

You wouldn't go out and spread the gospel in the newspapers that
had a better way of handling that land than Its owner, call

you

him

greedy and too profit conscious, destructive, and so on, or say

,
that he's ruining the land and you should be supported In taking

it over

Maunder: If you're asking me what I would do, I've never contemplated buy

Fry:

Fritz:

ing anything except a house. I've never heard of anybody using
the tactic you're talking about to buy a house.

Haven't you been called in as consultant on
park question for the Save-the-Redwoods League?

this redwood

national

The Save-the-Redwoods League rarely comes to me for any advice
either on technical or otfier~"matters. On my own I would bring
some matters sometimes.

up

Fry:

Fritz:

Fry:

Fritz:

They used to come to you, according to your correspondence files.

Not on matters affecting decisions except in a most general way.
In my early days I would make suggestions about, for example, a
museum, or helping get selective cutting established or at least
recognized. It was desirable that the fine state parks be supple
mented by well-managed adjacent commercial operations. They could
have accomplished more I think if they had had a man on their
board who could have advised them on those matters.

Well, I was trying to establish what your connection is with the
proposed redwood national park, just for the record.

Merely as a very
question. I was

interested onlooker.
asked by the Redwood

You asked me a
Association if I

definite
would write

Emanuel Fritz, "Recommendations for Accelerating the Acquisition
of Redwood Lands for State Parks," presented to Save-the-Redwoods
Leaaue Council. 23 October 1952. See Appendix Af PP.

137

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz :

Fry:

magazine and press articles about the redwood parks, but I declined.
I was not Interested In manufacturl nq public Imaqes. One thlnq was
sure. I felt the manaqement of the T>lerr;i Club was less inforosted
In preserving redwoods than In creating a reputation of saviors.
The Club resorted to false statement and slanted propaganda. I
never qot the whole story from either side as to who Initiated all
this, or why the propaganda for a park had to be so offensive. I
tried to get it just yesterday at lunch and I failed miserably. My
belief is that the Sierra Club started it without consulting the
League or the owners, perhaps for the impact of surprise.

Tried to get the story from whom?

Sometimes I went to a park man and sometimes I would go to an in
dustry man. Being retired, I have no official source of information.

I think this
since 1919.

is a question that has been wandering around ever

Fritz: Well, you are given that impression, but it's like starting in a
business and selling out, and then going across the street and
starting another business some years later, the same kind of a
business. When the park issue was dropped out In the early 1920's,

Maunder:
Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

it dropped out cold,
the same tactics, the

And when It was up
park lost again.

again In the 1940's with

Who is "they"? The Sierra Club?

the Sierra Club, the National Park Service, and their supporters
my view, the League was ignored, yet the League was the wheel

Yes,

From

horse since 1918 and accumulated all the best

call that the Sierra Club had much to do with

I940's. If so, it was not an active part.

groves
it in the

I don't
1910's

re-
or

Conservation agencies, as you probably have learned, are no better,
no stronger, and no more honest than their executive heads. Some
conservationist executives have mainly a job interest in conserva
tion, or a determination to be another John Muir. Some have de
veloped to a fine art the agitation of the public with the "scare
hell out of them" tactic.

Do you think the executives in these organizations are becoming
more expert in accomplishing just that?

They generally have good stated objectives but the methods of some
are questionable. You have only to study the publicity on the
redwood park issue.

Before we close
tional park but

this, let me add that there
it will be in the wrong place.

will be a redwood na
It will not be as

good timber or as accessible as the existing redwood state parks.
The League, under Drury, has already acquired the best stands. The
Sierra C'ub, without checking with anyone, arrogantly included three

138

Fritz: of the best state parks In the area it demanded for a national

park. Without them, the national park Is without a flaq. I hope
the shite of California will not give up the two the latest bill
Includes. These parks belong to California; the taxpayers paid
one half of the cost, private donorr gave the other half. Our
state park people have done an excellent job administering them.
The National Park Service can do no better.

The Tree Farm Movement

Maunder:
Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

Maunder;

Fritz:
Maunder:

Emanuel, how did legislation in the early Forties affect the
lumber industry?

Near the end of World War I I , we had some legislation called the
Sustained Yield Forest Management Act.

Yes, in 1944.

It was to establish cooperative sustained yield management units
between the private timber owners and the Forest Service with its
own timber. Only one unit has been set up, that of Simpson Tim
ber Company, a ninety-nine year contract.

Why only one since then? Wasn't this a good idea?

I urn-

It was a grand idea, but just then the situation changed. The
ber industry was carrying the ball for the first time. In 1941,
it had set up a tree farm system. That program had two reasons
behind it. One is generally spoken of as growing new forests.
Second, companies wanted to practice forestry on their lands for
effectuating their hope of continuity of production. They couldn't
do it as long as the public was so careless with fire and didn't
give a damn as long as it was the other fellow's property that
they burned down. And they needed more old growth to carry them
over to the time their young forest was to be merchantable.

Wasn't industry threatened again by federal cutting regulation, and
this was a reaction to prevent that legislation?

And in some way to soften the controversy over regulation.

I've had the impression, in reading the background of this story,
that a very considerable amount of the impetus for the creation
of the tree farm program stemmed from what industry saw as a ris
ing tide of new effort to get regulatory legislation passed; and
they felt they had to do something to demonstrate dramatically
before public opinion that they were capable of managing their own
af fai rs.

Fritz: Well, that probably had something to do with it, but I don't think
it was the main reason. And I wouldn't blame them for it.

Canyon Acres Tree Farm Dedication, April 17, 1954. Tree farmer
E.O. Freeman, left, points out his acreage to Professor Emanuel
Fritz, Consulting Forester, California Redwood Association.

Professor Emanuel Fritz at Union Lumber Company
tree farm dedication. May, 1951.

139

Fritz: The tree farm system from the very start was jeered at by Forest
Service men. Several came into my office at different times and
said, "What do you know about this tree farm system?"

"I don't know; it just started. Whai do you think about it?"
"Oh, I think it's just window dressing."

Well, when you have a program like that, somebody's going to get
on the band wagon and use it for window dressing, but the majority
will take it seriously.

The tree farm system started on Weyerhaeuser land. That company
was unquestionably sincere toward perpetual operation. This policy
requires public support in preventing forest fires. The program
grew from that small start. It was a public relations effort, in
part to acquaint the public with forest management problems.

Maunder: There are good ones and there are bad ones.
Fritz: Just like there are good and bad farmers.

Maunder: All right. If somebody was just doing it for window dressing,

couldn't he be tossed out of the system? Tree farms, after all,
had to be certified as tree farms.

Fritz: Yes.

Maunder: And if they did not perform to certain standards, could they not be
"de-certified"? And if this were done, it would offset the criti
cism, would it not?

Fritz: Some tree farms were indeed de-certified. Well, you can't do much
in three years. The Sustained Yield Act was passed about 1944,
and the tree farm system was started in' 1941. The criticism was
that this was window dressing in an effort to throw the public off
its guard. I think It was very unfair. If a man promised you
that he's going to do a certain thing, you better wait and see
that he does it before you suspect his sincerity.

Maunder: Now let me ask you a question. To what extent did this attitude
towards tree farming represent the thinking of all people within
the Forest Service? Was It something that went right down through
the ranks from the top to the bottom?

Fritz: No Indeed. There were plenty of men in the Forest Service ranks
who felt the tree farm idea is good and should be encouraged.
Public men who talked conservation outside were the most careless
with Uncle Sam's and the taxpayers' money. Now making a dollar
go as far as possible is also conservation, and there's also the
conservation of time — you only have twenty-four hours a day. If
you waste some of it, you can't get it back.

140

Maunder: Charles Dunwoody, with whom I had an interview just the other day
in Pomona, told me that he was directly responsible for getting
Ed Kotok all kinds of money for special projects, both from the
state legislature and from the federal Congress. Can you tell
me anything, about that?

Fritz: Well, I wasn't close to that, but knowing both Kotok and Dunwoody,
I would say that if Dunwoody was capable of influence of that kind,
Kotok would certainly use Dunwoody very well. I remember one case
which was talked about a great deal here. I think he got some
thing like $25,000 for, I believe, watershed protection research
in southern California. The first thing he did was to buy an auto
mobile, which he used as a private car, since he had no car of his
own. He could not do that with a federal car. He would oscillate
back and forth between his office and his home for lunch when there
were lunch rooms close to his office. That isn't conservation.

Maunder: He was right here in the building, is that right?

Fritz: Yes. IT was a very bad influence on some of our students.

Maunder: In what way?

Fritz: Word would get around among students — mostly those he employed on
a part-time basis — the way he handled his affairs.

Maunder: Was his kind of behavior the kind that they emulated or found
attractive?

Fritz: Who?
Maunder: The students.

Fritz: No, the students at that time were brought up under a different
phi losophy.

Maunder: I know, but would they be attracted by the kind of behavior
they . . . . ?

Fritz: No. They didn't want to work for a man like that.

Maunder: Well, when did this clique begin to lose its influence and power
in the profession?

Fritz: Just about the time the United States got into the Second World War.

Maunder: Why did they lose their influence?

Fritz: They had the war to think about.

Maunder: What happened then after the war?

Fritz: They tried to resuscitate. But things changed very rapidly after

141

Fritz: the war. The tree farm program was taking hold, and we in Cali
fornia saw the effects of several other things very strongly. For
example, the tree farm program was apparently being discussed among
the people themselves — I mean the owners. And every once in a
while you'd hear, up in the Douglas fir country, that such-and-
such company was buying up cutover land. Why? Because they
wanted to keep it growing to use when their own old growth was
used up.

We saw the impact in California. A number of small operators,
small logging contractors, and small mill men, had moved to north
western California, having learned that there was good timber in
the Douglas fir belt, just east of the redwood belt, which there
tofore was considered inaccessible. They would buy a quarter sec
tion here and a quarter section there, and set up a mi I I and a
little logging operation, and go to it. And we suddenly found
ourselves with several hundred additional sawmills in the redwood
belt. They were really mostly Douglas fir mills. (The Douglas
fir eastward of the redwoods is a tributary to the redwood high
way.) Being regarded as inaccessible, the timber was chea~p^ The
'small tracts of young growfh~ln Oregon and Washington were no longer
available to them because of "f he tree farms being set up TFTere.

Maunder: Was it this trend that offset the potential for the sustained yield
unit arrangement with the Forest Service that Simpson Company em
barked upon?

Fritz: The Simpson people had some young stands but not enough to sustain
their plant capacity. They needed old growth in sufficient volume
to give the young stuff more time to become merchantable timber. In
my opinion, conservation of forests is best served by large mills.
They can have better machinery (that makes for less waste) and can
build by-products factories, for utilizing the odds and ends that
inevitably develop because of internal decay in the trees and the
fact that logs are round and tapered.

It is too bad there could not have been more of the Simpson-U.S.F.S.
type of sustained yield units. Our remaining old growth would
have lasted longer because of the lessened waste, and there would
be greater local stability.

C.R.A. Forester for the NIRA Lumber Code (Article X)

Maunder: What part did you have, if any, in the formulation of the NIRA
Lumber Code? Did you sit in on any of the meetings?

Fritz: Yes, but I had no great part in it except to present my views. As
you recall, the NIRA was an industry-operated scheme to install
practices voluntarily. Every trade association had to have a for
ester at that time, and I happened to be the one asked to serve

142

Fritz: for the California Redwood Association. At the same time, the

Forest Service ?asked Myron E. Krueger, my col leaque hero, to holp
them in organizing their part. What their part was to be was never
quite clear to me, but Krueger -,nd I were out several times to
gether. However, it was largely an independent job, and a rather
lonesome job too, at first.

We sat down, the Forest Service men, the University men, a few
lumbermen, and myself, and we worked out the wording of Article
Ten for the redwood region. It was based pretty largely on what
I had learned before, and what we put into that code was this
rock-bottom minimum.

Maunder: Where did all this take place?

Fritz: In the office of the Redwood Association. Rex Black was in on

that too; at that time he was Executive Director of the California
Forest Protective Association.

Article X was a part of the National Industrial Recovery Act of
1933, but it then had to be implemented In and by regions. The
Redwood Association was part and parcel of this region and, like
other regions, had to write Its own rules. After they'd written
the rules, they had to abide by them. That was the philosophy
of the NIRA.

Well, the code was written, and even before that, I had been asked
to serve as the C.R.A. advisor, or Code Forester; so I promptly
went out in the field equipped with these rules. Of course, the
operators all had copies of them too. I was very much encouraged
and pleased that every man I talked to said, in effect, "We have
agreed to do this voluntarily and we mean to carry it out, but we
need your help, not only yours but that of others also. We want
you to tell us what foresters think can be done or should be done,
and we will then see how it can be done, and we'll try our best."

In a very few months the whole NIRA was invalidated by the U.S.
Supreme Court. However, the industry decided to continue Article
X, which was not in controversy, and they asked me to continue
to do that same kind of work; and I can give you some examples of
how that worked out.

I would visit the logging operations but not without the boss man
knowing about it. Of course, later on I became better acquainted
with the logging superintendents, and I had practically carte
b I anche to go anywhere I wanted in the woods and talk to anybody.
They were very, very good that way. My respect for the people in
the lumber business began to rise, rise, and rise, and I finally
decided that the s.o.b.'s are not limited to this or that group,
but every business and every profession has its fair share of them.

There were some that were not enthusiastic but others were one

143

Fritz: hundred percent and leaned over backwards. I would go out with

the manager or the president, and with the logging boss, and we'd
watch the logging. At that time, it was all steam engine, donkey
engine, and high lead or slackline logging — very destructive.
We would discuss how we could leave some seed trees.

The logging boss would say something like, "It's going to be very
difficult, but we'll try it. It's going to be costly and I'm afraid
the boss is going to say we can't do it." They made a real try. If
you know about the slack line system, you know that when those lines
were moved across the territory being logged, everything was pulled
down. When they're through and the fire is run through to consume
the slash, there isn't a green leaf left.

I suggested that instead of tight-lining across the area, they pull
in the lines and rethread back on another radius, using straw lines,
back in and out every time they had to change a tai I tree. This would
result in pie-shaped pieces of residual trees. They actually tried it
out — it was very expensive — but it worked.

I photographed the area at the time. In ten years the new forest was
too tall to photograph. This was because they left some trees stand
ing, and that area was protected by parks on one side and uncut
timber on the other. It was also protected from the ocean winds by a
ridge, so the seeds blew in, germinated and started a very respect
able forest. In some places it's entirely too dense.

It was decided the slackline system would be changed, but you can't
change overnight. There's a lot of money involved. For example, one
slackline setting has from 11,000 to 13,000 feet of wire rope, and
that's expensive, and those donkey engines are expensive. They
couldn't scrap them overnight and buy other equipment.

The idea was to see if we could adapt the 'Old system to selective
cutting. At present the wire system is not used except in a few
cases in winter, and then for short pulls so they leave a lot of trees
standing. But the high lead system is simpler than the slackline.

It happened that the Union Lumber Company had experimented with
tractors — I think in 1 932 — and I had watched them. I was out there
merely as a University professor, but it seemed to me they had a very
definite application to the redwoods. Before that we a I I felt that
the tractors weren't strong enough. That was true, so they used two
tractors in tandem. It happened that the Union Lumber Company only
had that machine on loan, so they went back to their steam system.

The operation depended on the logging bosses. Some wanted to do a
bang-up job and others didn't care; some did a magnificent job of
leaving seed trees stand, and it was quite a thing for them to do
because it meant a lot of changes in their thinking and in the
training of their men and their supervision, and so on.

Fortunately, in that same autumn of I934, the Forest Service

144

Fritz: decided to work up a small party and go to Oregon and see how the
tractors were working in the big timber up there on the coast.
There was John Berry, M. M. Barnum from the Forest Service, Myron
Krueger from the University, myself, and Captain A. W. El am, who
was my field man. Cap was not forestry-trained but he was very
sympathetic to forestry ideas.

We watched the tractors in operation for several days, and the
Forest Service group and Captain El am and I were looking at it
from several angles. We liked what we saw. I asked all of them
when they came back not to express too much enthusiasm about the
tractors but merely to report that they appeared to us to have
possibilities and were worth trying out in the redwoods. I did
that because any forcible and too definite statement is generally
met with opposition, no matter who makes it.

A few weeks after that, as we suggested, some of the lumber com
panies sent their superintendents up to check on what we had seen
and reported on, and one in particular came back and said, "Let's
buy some and try them out ourselves." So they bought two — they
were Chalmers tractors — and used them on flat ground on the Van
Dusen River. That was the Hammond Lumber Company. Elmer Baker
was the logging superintendent at the time.

I watched those tractors many, many hours and days and we were all
satisfied that they do have a very definite place in the redwoods,
but that they must be made more powerful and more flexible. Of
course, they were trying them out on the worst kind of ground, on
flat ground where they had to drag against the full weight of the
log. The beautiful thing was that they could weave in around
among the trees that were still standing, just like they would
have to weave in among the stumps anyway, so they left standing
a lot of trees under four feet in diameter, breast high.

Maunder: Whose operations were you observing up there in Oregon in the use
of tractors and were they the pioneers in developing that method
of logging?

Fritz: They were among the pioneers. Several of them started about the
same time. We visited mostly the Crown Zel lerbach operations.

Maunder: Was it Crown's Ed Stamm who gave the tractor its first test in
the woods?

Fritz: Ed Stamm, Tom Jackson, Bert Torrey, and several others were very
helpful. It was so interesting to go up there as practical re
presentatives of the lumber industry. Even though we were for
esters, we were received differently than if we had gone out there
as University men representing the University or the Forest Service.
They were very helpful and told us about some of the problems, and
we reported on all that.

The outcome, as I've already said, was the purchase of two tractors

145

Fritz: by the Hammond Lumber Company, and their application to a piece of
flat, very heavy timber on the Van Dusen River. That was in Jan
uary, 1935, and from that point on, the number of tractors purchased
and put to use in the redwoods -"lultlplled very rapidly. In a very
short time, there was about $500, OOu Invested in tractors, and In
even less additional time, a million dollars' worth. And today I
don't know what it is, but you can't go anywhere in the woods now
without seeing a tractor used for logging work, not only road-
making but actual yarding. Nowadays, the bulldozers are used even
for making a layout for heavy trees and smoothing out the ground
so that the trees will fall on even ground to reduce the breakage.
That in itself almost pays for the tractor.

/

Those were the days, as you expect, of many frustrations, but also
of many, many satisfactions. Here and there was always a man to
say, "Yes, we ought to do it that way," or "We've got to do it
better than we are right now." Even though I worked solely with
the men in the woods, from superintendents down, and did not work
very closely with the men in the front office, they certainly heard
about it. When I would meet them at a meeting or in their offices
and would casually bring It up, they expressed satisfaction as to
how things were going.

Some of them thought that it didn't hurt them to do this or that
and that it was good public relations, so they would continue it;
but the more progressive ones took the attitude that they'd been
passing up a good bet and ought to get Into it wholeheartedly and
make a go of it.

That was the beginning of real selective cutting in the redwoods.
The 1923 experiment on Big River, referred to earlier, proved very
helpful. It supported the belief that the redwoods should be cut
selectively. It has been proved that it's not only desirable sil-
viculturally but also feasible and profitable commercially.

Some operations, of course, are better than others, but I should
say with very few exceptions (the smaller outfits) the results are
very, very satisfactory. They are 'way ahead of the state forest
practice rules as to the appearance of the cutover land. Some
times they incur a violation as to the number of shovels they have
handy for fire fighting and as to snag removal, but in the actual
si I vicultural part, they're 'way ahead of the state rules.

Logging Conferences

Maunder: What part were the Pacific Logging Congresses and the regional

congresses playing at this time in getting information about new
technological developments disseminated through the industry?

Fritz: I'm glad you mentioned that because it's a very appropriate time

146

Fritz: for it. Harry W. Cole was for a short time the head of the Cali
fornia Redwood Association. He had been a company manager but the
company was sold out to Hammond Lumber Company and left him stranded.
It was the delightful and polished Harry Cole who asked me to serve
as the Code Forester In the first place, and one day I told him
that we could speed things up If we could get the loggers together
in a conference.

Redwood loggers didn't know one another well. Each one on each
operation talked a different language. Most of them were good
fellows but they didn't know what it was all about. It was hard
to reach them all, so why didn't we have a convocation or a meet
ing to which we would bring all these loggers, perhaps on a week
end? He agreed, and as a result, we held our first logging con
ference in the redwoods in February, 1936; and with the exception
of three years during the war and because of a strike, we have had
a meeting every year since then. This year we held our twentieth
meeting in a period of twenty-three years.

That first meeting was merely a trial. I don't think we had more
than sixty or sixty-five people present, and of that group proba
bly no more than half were loggers. The rest were equipment men
who saw there was some honey around with a lot of bosses to see
at one time. There were also the Inevitable federal and state
men and a few professors. It was a very successful meeting.

The next year, the California Redwood Association approved hold
ing a second one. We actually called that the Second Redwood Log
ging Conference — R.L.C. That went on until 1947 when, because of
the heavy logging in the Douglas fir belt right alongside the red
wood belt, we decided to expand and we ca I led it the Redwood Region
Logging Conference. Instead of letting the Redwood Association
carry all the expense, we made it an entirely separate entity.
Having been the father of it, I was made secretary-manager. I wrote
the constitution and organized the thing, and I got wonderful sup
port from men like Waldron Hyatt, Earl Birmingham, John Gray, Gor
don Manary, and a lot of others.

Maunder: This sounds as if it was completely independent and separate from
the Pacific Logging Congress.

Fritz: That's right. The Pacific Logging Congress is much older and covers
the entire West. The P.L.C. started about 1907 or '09 to assemble
loggers annually to discuss mutual problems, new equipment and
methods.

It would seem the P.L.C. should handle our proposed meeting, but
we felt that we had specific problems down here peculiar to the
region, and that the Pacific Logging Congress was an overall con
gress for the entire West. Also, we felt we could do better run
ning our own show because we were closer to the job. I know that
the P.L.C. manager, Archie Whisnant, didn't like the idea and took

147

Fritz: me to task for setting up the redwood meeting, but later on he

agreed that it was the best thing possible and he saw to it that
more regional conferences were organized. As a result, we have
the Willamette Valley Logging Conference, Northern Rocky Mountain
Logging Conference, the Sierra-Cascade Logging Conference, the
Olympic Logging Conference, and so on.

Maunder: All of which directly tie in with the Pacific Logging Congress?

Fritz: Yes. They are all absolutely separate entities, but we all agree

and feel that the regional conferences (they were called conferences
deliberately) should be considered to be affiliated with the Pacific
Logging Congress, although there was no control by the P.L.C. and
no money changed hands or anything like that. They had nothing to
do with the program, but they were always very helpful with sug
gestions and helped when they were asked.

Maunder: Do you suppose then that the Redwood Region Logging Conference got
its stimulation and original structure from the pattern which had
already been set up north?

Fritz: By the Pacific Logging Congress? Yes. We thought that the Pacific
Logging Congress covered too wide a difference of logging conditions.
Now, with the regional conferences, the P.L.C. can concentrate on
the overall more important problems.

Maunder: Yes. Don MacKenzie explained that to me last year at the P.L.C.
when I made an interview with him. He said that the operators
over in western Montana and Idaho had a feeling that the Pacific
Logging Congress was dealing with basic problems but that the solu

Fritz:

Maunder:

tions weren't applicable in their own area; so they found

essary to set up
you probably had

an Intermountain Logging Conference,
the same general experience here.

and

it nec
I think

That's correct. I think the Intermountain Logging Conference was
the second one; ours was the first. Of course, we had the advice
and the pattern set by the P.L.C., but our problems were more
specific and limited to a region. If we had the same program as
the Pacific Logging Congress, it would take a month to hold a meet
ing. Now, each conference takes up local subjects and problems.

At the start, the R.L.C. had a very precarious hold on life because
some of these old loggers (many of them uneducated men but very
competent loggers) didn't take very kindly to meetings or talking
at meetings, and to this day, it's hard to get them to talk at a
meeting.

To what extent did the manufacturers of logging equipment enter
into this thing enthusiastically in the beginning to stimulate it?
Did they put their backs into it as far as manpower and money was
concerned?

148

Fritz: At first, you must remember, it was sponsored by the California

Redwood Association, which paid the expenses. It didn't cost very

much, and 1 got no compensation for it over my regular retainer.
I did it as a goodwill matter.

But the Redwood Association objected to giving a broadcast invita
tion to the equipment people. Because the redwood region was
small — we had probably fifty loggers — and they would be easily out
numbered by the equipment people, we wouldn't be able to hold our
meeting because the equipment people had a penchant for entertain
ing the loggers in their rooms and we had a hard time getting them
out.

Maunder:

Fritz:
Maunder:

Fritz:

So the Association decided not to keep them out, but not to invite
them either. However, we would go outside of that rule at times
when we wanted a certain man to talk about a specific subject, like
torque converters. That was a new thing to be added to a truck
and to a tractor. We also had fire equipment men come up.

The equipment people, of course, didn't like that because it was
duck soup for them to have so many loggers congregated together
in one place and they could make a killing. However, the equip
ment people were generally of the engineer type. They had a lot
of know-how and knowledge of their machines and their capacities
and uses. I felt it was a loss not to have them around, but we
had to abide by the Association's edict.

In 1947, when we became a separate entity, we decided to ask the
equipment people to come in, and they came in wonderfully well.
They volunteered many aids. For example, they volunteered to put
up the entertainment. They volunteered to stop room entertain
ment, to concentrate their entertainment in what we called "The
Sawdust Bowl." We copied that idea and term from the P.L.C. The
Bowl was to organize the socializing and arm-bending. It had a
beneficial effect on the banquet too; the banquets became more
quiet instead of being rowdy like a few of the earlier ones were.

This has always been a problem in meetings of lumbermen and loggers,
hasn't it? [Laughter]

And foresters too.

It's a problem of having a good time but at the same time, serv
ing the real purposes of the meeting.

It was a flashback to the old days when the logger would come to
town for weekends and get himself gloriously tight, but that is a
matter of history now. In the Redwood Conference, we always in
sisted on having quiet banquet nights where we could actually hear
a man talk and enjoy ourselves. Banquet entertainment was worked
up from local talent, but as the Conference grew larger, the equip
ment people took over the entertainment and obtained professionals

149

Fritz: from agencies.

It was a very excellent experience. It made one acquainted with
a lot of loggers, and they learned that foresters did not have
horns or tails and that they're all trying to do different parts
of the same job.

Maunder: Who were the men who were most instrumental, along with yourself,
in getting this thing started? You've mentioned Cole.

Fritz: We had to have the backing of industry principals. I went to them
and asked them how they felt about it, and they said, "Go to it.
It looks like a good thing." There are very few redwood companies,
but many more Douglas fir loggers. Altogether it made a lot. I
believe at one time over seven hundred individuals registered.

Some of the original individual wheel horses were Earl Birmingham,
Elmer Baker, Gordon Manary, Dana Gray, John Gray, Waldron Hyatt,
and others.

Maunder: What was involved in the way of cost in the initial stages of the
Redwood Logging Conference?

Fritz: Nothing. We got the meeting room for nothing, provided we had

our banquet there. The men had to buy their own banquet tickets,
but the Redwood Association paid the expense of mailing and mimeo
graphing and typing and so on. I got actual personal expenses.
Nobody got a dime in salary or fees. There were no dues.

The equipment people later put on the entertainment and sometimes
they spent as much as $6,000 or S7,000 for one meeting, and the
R.R.L.C., as it was later known, spent about an equal amount.

Beginning in 1947, the secretary-manager was put on a retainer.
At first, it was very small and finally, $300 a month. There was
some work to do for the R.R.L.C. all through the year. Then, at
my own request, I asked that it be cut in half, and that one-half
be turned over to another man who would be my understudy and who
in a short time would take over. That took place this past August
first. Fred Landenberger, the man who followed me, is a capable
young man and mightily interested.

Maunder: He got this as an additional income to his regular job.

Fritz: Yes, with the Redwood Association. Now, it looks bad to have the
Redwood Association man doing the job for the R.R.L.C., but on the
other hand, there's a gentlemen's agreement that they'll be kept
absolutely separate, and the Redwood Association will not interfere
with the R.R.L.C. Financially, of course, they're entirely separate,

Maunder: Now the Income of the group is derived on what basis?

Fritz: From membership fees. We didn't have any membership fee for ten

50

Fritz: years, but in 1947, we had a five dollar individual membership
and a twenty-five dollar membership for firms. There weren't
enough lumber firms, of course, to support it, but the equipment
people also came in on the twenty-f I ve dol lar fee and they were a
great help, not only financially but in many other ways. The equip
ment show that they put on was really something superior. It draws
laymen as well as loggers and is an education for youngsters.

Maunder: It cost them quite a good bit of money, I imagine.

Fritz: The individual distributors sometimes spent more than $10,000 just
on putting up their exhibits, quite aside from their contributions
for entertainment and so on. One year, Chrysler shipped its ex
perimental gas turbine, designed for trucks and heavy tractors,
by ai r express.

Maunder: Of course, these things have had a tremendous impact on the rapid
mechanization of the industry.

Fri-rz: Before this tape runs out, I'd (ike to tell you that all the

records, up to the time 1 retired from the R.R.L.C., are being as
sembled at the present time, and they will be bound at my expense
and turned over to the Bancroft Library.

Maunder: Conferences like this must be the most effective way of getting
across the idea of forestry.

Fritz: The logging conferences always have a lot of forestry in them.

They have a dual purpose: to improve logging and to improve the
woods practices. They go together. Sometimes our whole program
is what you might call forestry, and other times it's all logging,
but you can't divorce the two anyway.

If you read the description of the theme on our last program, it

reads: "The

tice because

to what it's going to

hundred years hence."

logger is the key man in
whatever he does on the

putting forestry into prac-
and earmarks that land as

look like, not next year, but fifty or a
And they understand that, I'm sure.

The companies that do have foresters, of course, let them meet
with their local chapter of the S.A.F., and they talk about tech
nical matters. Then, of course, they take it back to their com
panies and they're always in contact with their principanF7"so
all you need is an outfit like Western Forestry.

Emanuel Fritz, former Governor Earl Warren, and
Waldron Hyatt, president of the Redwood Region
Logging Conference. The occasion was Warren's
campaign tour for a fourth term as California's
governor. Eureka, California, May 27, 1950.
Photograph courtesy of The Lumberman.

151

VII! SOCIETY OF AMERICAN FORESTERS

Role of the Society

Maunder:
Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:
Maunder:

When did you join the Society of American Foresters?

I was made a ful I member in 1919. I joined it because I thought
every professional man should join his professional society, if
only to keep up with what's going on in his field.

How well do you think the Society of American Foresters has served
you over the years?

Very well. Its Journa I had to be supplemented, of course, by a
lot of additional reading. The profession was still very young.

Were you an active member from the start?

Only since 1919. I think I was a contributor to the Journal of
Forestry for the first time In 1924. I wrote an article with the
man who helped me get the data; he was a student, a very able
young man. I also wrote an article on nomenclature of trees about
the same time.

Who was that? Do you remember the name?

James L. Averell. It was on a discovery that redwood growth rings
often don't encircle the tree completely. We checked it in a num
ber of ways, including even under a microscope. We called them
"discontinuous rings." This article was an offshoot from my 1923
study of young growth.

And then you wrote a paper on this which was accepted and published
in 1924. In what other ways did you take part in the Society in
those early days? Did you go to meetings regularly?

Yes, when there was one here. We had a California section. In
1928, I believe, I was its secretary.

Yes. What part did you play in organizing that California section?

None. It was organized before I came to California. Being new, I
merely I istened.

How long had the Society's chapter been in existence here before
you came?

Possibly two years, perhaps more.

Who were the leaders of the section at the time that you came?

152

Fritz: There was Fritz Olmsted and Coeurt Dubois (he resigned shortly

after that to join the consular service) and of course, the faculty
members of the University of California. The members were very
active and we had very lively rrretlnqs, but they were often related
to legislation for regulation of lumoerlng.

At that time, Pinchot decided to go to bat for legislation provid
ing for regulation of lumbering. G. P. was drafting bills and hold
ing discussions in Washington. I think a bill had been Intro
duced in Congress. But 1 took no active part in such matters at
that time.

Maunder: Weren't there any discussions at the practical level at that time?

Fritz: Very little in the first few years; in the late Twenties, yes.

There were several men like Swift Berry, Richard Colgan, and later
on, Rex Black, Dwight Birch, myself, and several others who were
interested in private forestry and the utilization phase of for
estry. Just as a cannery man is interested in the utilization
phase of farm crops, so the sawmill is the converter of tree crops.
I got very well acquainted with these foresters. I should add,
there were more in the northwest and southeast.

Maunder: All these men were members of the Society of American Foresters?

Fritz: Yes, all were forestry trained. Of course, through them and also

through my visits to the mills, I became acquainted with the opera
ting and management personnel at the sawmills, particularly in the
pine regions. I didn't then go to the redwoods very much. I had
more familiarity with the pine regions — southern pine, Inland Empire
pine, and California pines.

Maunder: So you were more in contact with this group than with the foresters
whose interests were more in the direction of what you might call
forest pol icy.

Fritz: Forest policy, yes. That was the big subject and I took an early
interest in it.

Maunder: Did the Journal in those years reflect that major interest?

Fritz: Yes. Policy matters got much space. Of course, there was also the
great U.S. Forest Products Laboratory at Madison, Wisconsin. I
visited there a number of times. Its staff had interests similar
to mine — interest in developing wood technology and its application.
The Madison Laboratory did more to make friends for foresters than
the administrators of the national forests.

Maunder: Your interest in the S.A.F. in those first few years of your mem
bership was a mixed one. You had rather great reservations, I take
it, about the bent of most of the discussion in the group.

Fritz: Yes. I still think the polemics some of us engaged in were not what

153

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

forestry needed most. It needed friends among forest owners. We
spent too much time alienating the people we needed most. We were a
sophomoric lot. I have always taken an active interest in the Society;
though retired since 1954, I'm still interested in what the Society
does and particularly what it does rot do.

I think the Society at the present time is in a depression, a men
tal depression. It has been (particularly its Washington office)
inclined toward preserving a status quo. Of course, if it should
strike out as it did in the past, crusading without a sound basis,
I would certainly become more articulate again. The Society is
actually undergoing a change quietly. The Western Forestry and
Conservation Association, the American Forestry Association, and
the Forest Products Research Society are carrying much of the load
and doing fine jobs.

The forestry profession itself is changing. There is a stronger
professional attitude; it is getting to be more realistic. This
will ultimately be reflected in the Journal of Forestry. So a
quiet period may be a good thing. The large number of members in
private employ are showing strength.

What are these other organizations doing which in your estimation
the Society should perhaps be doing? What show of leadership are
they demonstrating?

Take Western Forestry, for example. That's a short name for Western
Forestry and Conservation Association, headquartered in Portland,
Oregon. It has the same objectives as the Society of American For
esters but its membership is professional only in part. It is a
working membership and it operates on the friendly and realistic
approach, and by that approach, it has been able to get into its
membership many companies and company representatives from the
principals on down.

It actually was started by private owners and was one of the first
to really attack the fire problem realistically in the West and
be successful; and if it hadn't been organized, I think it would
have been many more years before we would have gotten laws like the
McSweeney-McNary and the Clarke-McNary laws.

In that organization are men like E. T. Allen, Clyde Martin, Ed
Stamm, George Drake, Truma'n Collins, Ed Heacox, G. F. Jewitt —
foresters and timber company managers. Timberland owners pay on
an acre basis. Nonowners, like myself, pay a small membership
fee. Most of the private company representatives have very res
ponsible jobs and are men of real ability who combined courage
with their convictions and dealt directly with their own principals.
The men that I have mentioned have been extremely successful in
their particular companies, and actually put forestry into the
woods where it belonged rather than at the desks in Washington or
those of forestry school teachers.

154

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

What has characterized the Society's activity as opposed to this
other approach that you say has been made by other forestry or
ganizations?

I felt that the Society was following Pinchot too blindly. There
was not sufficient understanding of the forestry and lumbering
problems and of economics. Many members of the S.A.F. felt that
a man in private industry, if he was in logging or milling, was not
a forester. That was quite the opposite of what is true of engi
neering where, if a man goes into mining, or blast furnace work,
or rolling mill work, or structural design, or structural fabri
cation, he is still an engineer; and even if he goes into selling,
he's still an engineer.

I have met some of my old engineering classmates who are salesmen.
Their engineering training has been not only valuable but indis
pensable. Too many of the early-day foresters let their love for
the forest overcome their practical understanding of forestry prac
tices. That is rather strange because the earliest foresters like
Henry Graves and Gifford Pinchot were trained in Europe, in France
and in Germany, and they should have learned over there that the
German foresters grow trees only to be cut to make useful and
needed products. It was a crop with them, while with us it was a
beautiful object that only God can make.

The aesthetic has always been strong among foresters, but the re
alities cannot be overlooked. I must confess I was influenced by
the appeal of the forest in selecting forestry for my profession,
but my engineering background probably brought about a balance.

In spite of this feeling that you say characterized the thought
and direction of the Society, still you, as a man representative
of forest utilization, were a candidate on at least one occasion
for the presidency of the organization; and for some period of
time you were also editor of the Society's Journal of American
Forestry. This would seem to indicate to me that there was some
recognition of your special field and interest. It wasn't a com
plete concentration on the other. How would you reconcile those
two?

Fritz: You probably didn't know it, but at the University of California

every member of the forestry faculty is a "professor of forestry" —
not a professor of lumbering, or of logging, or of silviculture or
wood technology. I think that was a mistake, but to this day I'm
regarded by the lumber people as a forester and preservationist
and not as one who taught the engineering aspects of sawmill ing,
forest products, and the properties and uses of wood.

Perhaps I should have emphasized my own interest in the engineei —
ing aspects of lumbering and forestry in the early days, but I liked
to feel that I was a forester plus an engineer. However, it didn't
work out that way. Even at the University of California when I

155

Fritz: wanted to expand lumbering or wood technology, I was voted down.
One time I suggested we should have a tes M ng machine so we could
test our own native woods, but we never got it. I was told, "We
should not duplicate equipment a'ready In the engineering department."

In 1925, I was working on plans for a forest products laboratory
for the University, but one day was told to quit further planning
because "it is not the function of the University to make money for
the lumber industry!" That struck me as strange because we were in
the College of Agriculture, and the College of Agriculture had a
fruit products laboratory where it was trying to find out how
better to can and prepare fruits, how to refrigerate them and so
on. That certainly was to the benefit of the canners and refrig-
eraters, not necessarily to make more money for them but to ad
vance the technique of the preparation of fruit products. And
certainly the forest products laboratory was a parallel except
that it dealt with trees that produce wood rather than apples
and other fruits.

Maunder: In other words, I believe you are saying that the profession of
forestry has differed from other professions In the agricultural
sciences. Has it been oriented through a long period of its
development to the idea of preservation rather than to utilization?

Fritz: It would be unfair to say foresters Ignored utilization. From
the earliest days some of them found more appeal in utilization.
The Forest Products Laboratory had foresters on its staff, and
there were others who studied and wrote reports on that subject.
One of the big criticisms of lumbering was its apparent and, to
some extent, real wastefulness. Some of the early reports con
cerned "closer utilization," as a conservation measure. There
was waste indeed. But much of the tree cannot be used.

If lumber prices had been higher there would be a wider spread
between the prices of various grades. The buyer would be more in
fluenced by price to buy the lower grades. At present much material
must be burned to get rid of it. The reduction of waste is largely
a matter of economics. Some day there will be no refuse burners at
sawmills because the lower grades at lower prices serve the purpose
as well as better grades. Furthermore, as more pulp and paper mills
are needed and built, what is now waste will be the raw material
for paper pulp.

It can be said of the forestry profession that it was largely for
est preservation and management minded. The foresters who went
into lumbering were badly outnumbered.

In the Redwood Region Logging Conference, which I started in 1935
or 1936, I constantly bore down on this fact: that the logger and
forester must work together because, while the forester may make
plans for the ultimate permanence of lumbering, the logger can make
or break any forestry plans the foresters may have made and gotten

156

Fritz: approved by the owners.

Maunder:

Fritz:

Was there then within the ranks of professional foresters a clear
line between the two philosophies with two groups standing In op
position to one another?

Well, as I said earlier, I think that was manifested by the atti
tude of public foresters towSrds the foresters who quit to go into
private service as loggers or as mill men. Let me add that in 1928
when Colonel Greeley joined the West Coast Lumberman Ts Association,

very well-known Forest Service man asked
that Association very recently. Does it
has gone over to the enemy?"

me, "You've worked for
mean that Colonel Greeley

Well, I bristled, because Colonel Greeley just wasn't that kind of
a man, and the Colonel would never have gone with the West Coast
Association merely to be an Association secretary, but he saw an
opportunity to spread the foresters' philosophy as to timber man
agement, and I think we must agree the Colonel was very successful.

Perhaps the fact that the Forest Service is a federal bureau and,
like most bureaus, thinks in terms of its own permanence and growth,
Its members thought of forestry in terms of federal control.

Maunder: Emanuel, what I'm driving for here at this particular juncture is
simply this: somewhere In the history of the American forestry
profession there came a recognition of the fact that there was
more to forestry than just the idea of growing and preserving the
trees. There came into recognition by a few individuals the idea
that forestry should serve the function of utilization.

I wish you could help us pinpoint the origins of this trend, single
out the people who gave it first expression, and let us know any
thing you can recall about how this discussion made its way into
the Journal of Forestry and other publications so that it became a
subject "of deFate within the forestry profession.

Fritz: Well, El wood, I have already given you some names, but I think you
should credit Colonel Greeley as the Number One man who started
foresters to thinking in more pragmatic terms while at the same
time converting timber owners to forest management for permanence.
It never became a real debate, but here and there were some indi-
dual foresters — forestry trained men not necessarily practicing
forestry, although it included both categories — who, whenever an
opportunity presented itself, spoke in behalf of lumbering as a
legitimate business.

For example, I think Nelson C. Brown had a considerable impact be
cause in his contact with foresters he tried to promote the idea
that logging and milling were a necessity. Then there was Kenneth
J. Pearce of the University of Washington. He did his part. Then
there was Oregon State College, particularly Dean George Peavy, and

[57

Fritz: there were a couple of men like Matthews at Michigan, Grondal at

Washington, Bryant at Yale, and several others; and there were men
in private employ who, when they had an opportunity, presented the
case. I did it at the University of California. It was a sure
way of becoming unpopular with the Hublic foresters.

Since I have mentioned some names, I must add that none of these
men gave up his original professional forestry principles and acted
as an apologist for the lumber industry. Someone must some day
write out the impact these men had toward instituting private for
estry. It wasn't easy. I have been, myself, labeled an apologist
for the lumberman, perhaps because what little 1 have written
sounds like I was covering up for what the industry was not doing.

Actually, one had to learn salesmanship, to credit a prospect for
what he ^s_ doing rather than shouting from the roof tops what is
not being done. I think I, for one, knew more about why forestry
was slow in taking hold on private lands. When you know and honestly
recognize the difficulties, you are in better shape to know what ap
proach to take.

Maunder: Would you say then that this had its beginnings on the campuses

of our colleges where there were either schools of forestry estab
lished or departments of forestry?

Fritz: I think much of the impact really came from the schools because

the school men had independence and some of them elected to speak
up. I think I was regarded as one of the articulate ones, which
wasn't to my advantage. It made all of us suspect as being chattels
of the lumber industry, which was entirely wrong.

In the many years I was a forestry advisor to the lumber industry,
I was never asked to make a slanted statement in its behalf. I
don't believe any of my colleagues in teaching had a different ex
perience. The foresters in private industry had to be more cir
cumspect because their own principals were against antagonizing
public foresters, but gradually here and there, one of them would
speak up.

Journal o_f_ Forestry Work

Fry: I'd like to move on to your accepting an associate editorship of
the Journal of Forestry, in 1922. I think this was when Zon was
editor-in-chief, is that right? And then later on Dana came, in
October of 1928.

Fritz: Fernow was editor-in-chief when I became one of the associate
editors. I'm quite sure it was Fernow. [Editor from 1917 to
February, I923U

58

Fry: You had the experience of working under all three of them. Ac
cording to the record, you vjere an assoc.iate editor from 1922 to
1930, then editor from October, 1930 to December, 1932.

Fritz: Right.

Maunder: What did associate editor mean? What did you do?

Fritz: Each associate editor represented a special field like silvicul
ture, protection and utilization, and was expected to look for
articles in his specific field and to help edit them. Actually,
Zon did very little in the way of submitting articles to his as
sociate editors. He did it in the field of utilization with me,
but he apparently had very bad luck with the others, or he did not
use them. Their papers were slow coming back, and he didn't have
too much to publish at that time anyway, so as soon as he got a
manuscript, he ran it, with the result that some of them were not
edited at all.

Maunder: This was in the Twenties?

Fritz: Yes. Zon followed Fernow in 1923. I wrote a few editorials for
Zon and would try to get foresters to prepare articles. Zon and
I did correspond on matters affecting the Journal . Serving the
magazine was purely a labor of love; there was no compensation
and no expense account. But I enjoyed It. I must add, in fair
ness to Zon's associate editors and mine, that since many of them
were in public employ and were in the field a good deal of the
time, they did not have much spare time to devote to the Journal .

Maunder: Did you work then for a spell under Fernow when he was an editor?

Fritz: Well, "worked under him," you can't say that; and you can't say
I worked with him. The editor in those days, you must remember,
was a volunteer editor.

Maunder: That was true for some time thereafter too, wasn't it?

Fritz: That was true through my editorship and partly through the next
one, I think.

Fry: Were you always in wood technology, in your capacity as associate
editor?

Fritz: Yes. Wood technology and lumbering.

Maunder: What was the system in those days? Would the acting editor refer
to each one of you, as specialists in certain fields, articles
which had been submitted in those fields?

Fritz: That was the theory. It didn't work out well.
Maunder: How did it work out?

159

Fritz: Fernow was the type of man who I think wouldn't want to take the

time to send an article all over the country and then wait for the
man at the other end to edit It. He'd go ahead and do It himself.
Sometimes articles went In ther- , especially under Zon, without
very much editing at all.

Fry: What was Zon like as an editor?

Fritz: Zon was associate editor, then editor. He was kind of an oddity.
A very able man, and a man I thought I had to watch very closely,
he wasn't above arrogating credit to himself when he didn't de
serve it. However, the load wasn't heavy. Very few articles in
my field were submitted so I didn't have very much editing to do
or commenting on whether an article should be published or not.

In the first years of your association with the editorial staff
of the Journal , what were your specific tasks?

I tried to get articles in my own field.

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Fry:

How did you go about doing that?

People I knew.

Writing to them?

Writing to them or speaking to them.

Suggesting articles that they might write?

Yes.

What results did you get from this effort?

Very little.

I saw a letter from Fernow, dated April 4, 1922, to you. This was
a month after you were appointed and Fernow said, "It will hardly
be necessary for you to look out for articles, which so far we
have secured without solicitation."

Fritz: Yes. Well, he didn't say, articles on what subject. You could

get any number of articles on the philosophy of forestry. That's
what most writers in those days wrote about, as much as to say,
"Forestry is a fine thing; you ought to practice It on your land."

Fry:

Fritz:

I was wondering if you could comment on the ways that these three
editors handled the Journal of Forestry.

Well, sometimes I would feel sorry for men like Zon and Fernow

be

cause, as I mentioned, sometimes the basket was awfully low in good
articles. There would be articles like: Pinchot or other S.A.F.

160

Fritz:

Fry:

Fritz:

Maunder:

members would give a talk somewhere to some conservation agency
and that would be an article. Or someone would write something
on one of his efforts to develop Interest In forestry. Somebody
else would write an article on federal policy: should the govern
ment own all timber or should it be .:!! private? It was a natural
thing in the formative years.

In those years,
that determined

get?

it wasn't so much a particular editorial policy
what went in. It was just what the editor could

Yes — what was sent to him. During my own editorship, I used to
write a lot of letters for articles and I think I interviewed
more people than I wrote to, begging for articles. I presume that
Dana did the same thing because Dana was a very good editor. And
Smith, my successor, was a very hard worker. Zon and Dana had

less time to devote to the Journal
were beautiful essays.

than I had. Smith's editorials

What did you look for in articles that you were trying to get for
the Journal ?

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Well, I was satisfied to publish an article even though the thing
that was proposed, or explained, was still experimental --though the
authors weren't sure whether it was going to work or not. I wanted
an article on what was being done right then.

My editorship was so long ago that I don't recall very much about
the articles published in the first twenty years. Some of my own
contributions as articles were in the same class— polemics — although
I was generally on the unpopular side.

Well, you were seeking for a more scientific type of article,
that right?

is

I wasn't so much interested in the scientific aspects alone (I
wouldn't be against it), but when you go into real scientific work,
you are taking up a subject which might require ten years to get
an answer. I felt that we had problems right now today in trying
to sell forestry. Why not concentrate on the immediate problems
at once and let the glamour projects wait until all of us learned
more about the nature of the problems and how they should be ap
proached.

The problems I thought should have high priority were in the field
of forest management. Fortunately, a few management projects were
set up very early, but as I said earlier, they take years to yield
results. An outstanding project was the ponderosa pine project at
Fort Valley Forest Experiment Station, under G. A. Pearson, in
northern Arizona, started in 1909.

We got many policy articles. Most of them were published, perhaps
all.

161

Fry:

Maunder :
Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:
Maunder:

Fritz:

And this opened up the whole question of forest policy in the
Journal — as I understand it, about the first time It had really
become a subject of wide dialogue between members of S.A.F.

Did you get many scientific article; during your chief editorship?

There were very few forestry scientists in the first two decades
of American forestry. The Forest Products Laboratory did much
scientific work on wood. The Lab had to feel its way, just as did
the foresters, but it had a real advantage. It could work on pro
jects that would yield at least preliminary results in a few years,
whereas si I vicultural research would require many years. The basic
work at the Lab in those early years was also a training ground.
To study wood was somewhat new in the U.S. That the Lab built a
strong foundation is evidenced by the reports and research articles
that now appear in the Forest Products Journal, twenty-five years
or more younger than the Journal of Forestry. The Lab had its own
outlet— a long series of technical bulletins, notes and articles.
The Journal printed some.

Did your role change in any way in the period from 1922 to '30?
No, there wasn't any change.

Did you have a feeling you were being groomed to become the editor,
or were you ever told by ari^ of your predecessors that this might be
the case?

No. In fact, I wasn't even in California when the invitation came
to me. I was at Cornell at the time as an exchange professor, and
I didn't have the slightest idea I was being considered for the
chief editorship. It hadn't even occurred to me that I would want
to be the editor. I had been on the board of editors of the annual
year book of the graduating class at Polytechnic Institute in Bal
timore, but I wouldn't consider that editing. It's something a kid
just likes to do. (Incidentally, it was never published.)

Wei I , what was
the Journal?

the first hint that you were going to be editor of

I think it was a letter or telegram I got from Paul G. Redington,
then president of the S.A.F.

Redington was in San Francisco then, head of that Forest Service
Region?

He was president of the S.A.F.

And was he also head of the Forest Service's California Region at
that time?

Yes. Now maybe I am wrong. Perhaps Redington had already left the
U.S.F.S. to take the directorship of U.S. Biological Survey.

162

Maunder:
Fritz:

Maunder:

Did he make a persona I appeal to you to take on the job?

I don't remember. It came to me as such a surprise, I thought,
"Well, maybe he's trying out several. He just wants to see how
I feel about it."

You were succeeding Sam Dana, weren't you?
until 1930?

Was Sam editor up

Fritz: That's right, 1928 to 1930. Dana was Zon's successor. Dana was,

a very able man. At that time
carried the Journal through
1930,

of course, we I I -known as a writer and

we published only nine numbers. Sam

June. I picked it up with the October, 1930, number. Dana had too

many duties as dean at the University of Michigan, so he asked to

be relieved. Paul G. Redington told me later when I asked him why

I was appointed, "Well, Dana said that you were the only associate

editor who ever gave him any help." So I was appointed.

Maunder: In other words, there was no controversy that caused Sam Dana to
leave?

Fritz: Oh no, none whatever. Dana was one of forestry profession's best.
He had his hands in a lot of things, and the Journal was dropping
back as to the date of publication. That editorship to me was a
very expensive thing, expensive In view of the value of a dollar
in those days.

Maunder: How do you mean? You were sacrificing the time you could have been
using to make additional income for yourself?

Fritz: I had the pleasure of doing it, but it came at a time when I was

to write a report on a study I made in 1928-1929 on Pacific Lumber
Company land. Its purpose was to find out what becomes of the wood
in redwood trees: how much of it is lumber, how much is shingle
bolts, how much of it is something else, and how much is left in
the woods.

I wanted very much to write that report because of its immediate
interest to foresters and the lumber people. That was something
that touched their pocketbooks. I felt such a project would help
sell an experiment in selective cutting. Its data was very help
ful for some years. I am going to turn the raw data over to the
Bancroft Library for safekeeping.

Fry: You became editor-in-chief when you were teaching one semester at
Cornell, is that right?

Fritz: I have to think hard. It has been a long time ago. 1 feel sure
it was early 1930 when Redington wrote to me. Yes, because I had
the teaching semester. I was in Florida with relatives in January.
The spring semester began sometime late In that month, and I taught
at Cornell until June. Then my family came up from Florida and met

163

Fritz: me in Ithaca. We drove back to California, and on the way back,
I stopped at a number of places where there were foresters and
talked to them about what they thought of the Journal of Forestry,
what I could do to make It more useful to field men, and its policy
and whatnot. I had some ideas what the policy- might be, from my
associate editorship, but I needed to know what others thought.

Maunder: I take it that the editor determined this.

Fritz: He did, within reasonable limits of course.

Maunder: He was not governed by the S.A.F. Council or . . . . ?

Fritz: It would have been a fine thing if the Council had taken some active
interest. I went to one Council meeting in December, 1932. The
Councilors talked about everything but the Journal , which was the
principal output of the S.A.F., until I brought it up when our time
was running out. I thought it showed ingratitude to a volunteer
editor. So I thought, "To hell with it," and resigned.

Maunder: When you went to the editorship, you did it of course as a strictly

unpaid volunteer within an organization which had two paid employees,

and these were in Washington, D.C. — an executive secretary and a
business manager.

Fritz: They had a business manager, Miss Warren. Her name was Hicks at

that time; then she was married and divorced, and she retained her
married name, Warren. There was also a paid secretary at that time.

Maunder: And what sort of a person was Miss Warren as you remember her then?

Fritz: I would say a dynamo. She took a sort of a mother-hen attitude

over the foresters that she had to deal with. We always got along
well except for one occasion which was very embarrassing to me. I
was a new editor and I was three thousand miles away in California
when it happened.

I went to Baltimore, where the Journal
Press (I think they still print it).
remained a couple of weeks, visiting

I

On my drive West from Ithaca,

was printed by the Monumental

And I had relatives there and

back and forth between Washington and Baltimore, and of course,

called on Miss Warren and the printer. I told her I wanted the

book to be exactly like Dana left it, no change in paper, format,

or type.

Well, the first issue came out that way, but the November and De
cember issues came out on "pulp." It stank. When I opened my copy,
I thought, "What the devil have I done wrong!" It would give ev
erybody the impression that the Journal of Forestry was just another
cheap pulp magazine.

So I wrote to Miss Warren and protested the change in my instruc
tions as to paper.

164

Maunder: Had she taken it upon herself to order it?

Fritz: Yes, to save some money for the Journal by changing to a cheap

grade of paper. She was a keer business manager. When the Decem
ber issue came out, it was really bulky. Dana told me he had about
thirty articles in his file, and he said, "None of them are good
but that's all you've got to start with." So I thought I'd clear
the decks right away and print them all, good or bad, just because
I didn't want any author to feel hurt. Paper was already bought
for two issues. The December number looked bad because of the
paper and the book's bulk.

Maunder: What reaction did you get from the members?

Fritz: Very, very little. They probably thought it was a matter of
economy. But it was one of those cases where it is better to
forget it.

Maunder: What responsibilities did the people in the office in Washington
have to assist you in the job of editing and publishing the
Journal?

Fritz: Well, I don't know what they were asked to do, but obviously Miss

Warren was the business manager and therefore had to watch the cost.
She meant well. She had to look after all dealings with the printer
and keeping books on costs.

I tried to start a program of getting advertising to help meet
costs but I was voted down by the Council. They said the Journa I
of Forestry is a professional magazine of a high quality, and they
dTdn't want advertisements of equipment, and so forth, in our maga
zine. Well, now the Journal gets a handsome help from advertise
ments.

Fry: It must have been a tremendous strain on you to handle the editor
ship and your faculty duties as well. How did you work it out?

Fritz: It didn't work out too we I I for me; it proved to be a very expen
sive experience. I lost out at the University because I gave the
Journal too much time. I put in many a week of thirty hours,
mostly at night. It advanced the need for eye glasses. I was a
fast reader then and I could edit very rapidly. In addition to my
other reading and teaching, It was rather bad for eyes.

Maunder: Was there any stipend involved in doing this work?

Fritz: Not a penny. I figured it cost me all the fees I could have re
ceived from consulting work. I hadn't been doing very much in the
consulting field at that time, but it was enough to make it pos
sible for me to stay at the University of California. All Univer
sity personnel took a ten percent salary cut during the depression.

Maunder: How long were you chief editor of the Journal ?

165

Fritz: Nearly three years, and that's a story in itself. I discovered
at the University of California that even though I was told that
my editorship was considered a legitimate University faculty mem
ber's work and would be accepte^ in I leu of research, I suddenly
found out that It was not the case. The dean himself told me that.

Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

Fry :

At the same time, I was a little fed up by the lack of interest in
the Journal on the part of the S.A.F. Council. I attended Council
of course, and when it came my turn to talk about the

meetings,
Journal and

what it required, I got very little response, so I

felt I was wasting my time.

Maunder: This was, of course, during three of the hardest years of the De
pression, and part of the trouble lay at that point, didn't it?

Fritz: Not exactly. They were not years of stress for the Society of

American Foresters. In fact, we were pretty well off during the
Depression. Our membership increased very rapidly because so many
men went to forestry schools merely to get jobs with a CCC camp as
a foreman, or a WPA camp. For example, at the University of Cali
fornia we had, as I recall it, 375 students in the year 1937, and
many of them became members of the Society. In fact, the secre
tary of the Society wrote me once that the University of California
had the best record of alumni joining the S.A.F. It was one of the
voluntary duties I took on to get the alumni interested in the S.A.F.
and in joining.

Maunder: When you resigned from the editorship, this really put the issue
rather squarely before the Council, did it not, to face the fact

that it needed to hire a full-time editor?

Well, 1 think they were stunned. Stunned, not because I was leav
ing, but because they suddenly realized some other provisions must
be made.

To find somebody to take it?

To find somebody to take my
the prob I em of publishing a
to the interest of the editor"

place and do it quickly, and to solve
Journal of quality. Quality is related

and the time he can give it. I really
was sorry to quit the editing. I enjoy that kind of work. Even in
my retired days, I help writers of articles and books. Just recently
I went over a manuscript on redwood for a botany teacher.

Franklin Reed followed as editor the next month, January of 1933.

That's right,
issues, and I

we I I and I iked him.
He needed help.

Of course, I had a lot of articles ready for future
helped on the editing that spring. I knew Reed very

He wasn't a self-starter but he had good ideas.

When you were editor of the Journal , do you remember the incident
of the Charles Lathrop Pack Foundation offering to subsidize

166

Fry: publication of the Journal , and the Society apparently turning
this down even though you wanted it? I was wondering what the
story was on that and why it was turned down.

Fritz: That is very hazy in my recollection. I don't remember that well,
but I'm not surprised that it was turned down.

Fry: Reed wrote a letter to Pack and said that they couldn't accept
the offer.

Maunder: Why are you not surprised that it was turned down?

Fritz: Let me ask a question. What was the date of that episode?

Maunder: It was in the period of your editorship.

Fry: Yes. You were editor but I don't have the exact date of the letter.

Fritz: There was a celebrated controversy between H. H. Chapman and Pack.
You can't go into these controversies without bringing in Chapman.
But wasn't it the American Forests Magazine, rather than the Journal
of Forestry? It would have been a good thing for the S.A.F. at that
time to have more non-foresters among its membership. There was a
goodly number of men in the lumber and related business who had a
serious interest in forestry but who couldn't understand why for
esters had to be so pugnacious about Its introduction on privately
owned lands. They might have been a leavening and Informative in-
f luence.

Pack was a multimillionaire and a very fine man. He had a real
desire to do something for the public. He was also a practical
man, the kind that looks for action rather than words. At the same
time, he felt that he ought to have a chance to convey his views to
the public, and his outlet would have been the American Forestry
Association magazine.

Now there again, my memory is hazy, but I think he was president
for several terms of the A.F.A. Then Chapman got into the picture
and the fight got so hot that Pack just threw the whole thing in
the scrap basket as far as he was concerned, withdrew from the
American Forestry Association and started an association and maga
zine of his own. He called it the American Nature Association.
The magazine was called Nature.

Maunder: American Tree Association.
Fritz: American Tree Association, yes.

Maunder: And Emanuel, let me interject something here. There was a con
troversy, but it wasn't only H. H. Chapman. There were on the Board
of Directors of the American Forestry Association a number of men,
and among them the forester of the American Forestry Association,
Ovid M. Butler, who were quite unhappy with the way Mr. Pack was

167

Maunder:

Fritz:

Fry:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Fry:
Fritz:

Fry :

Fritz:

trying to run the show and direct the editorial policy of the
magazine. And finally it came to a showdown and Pack's influence
was removed and his financial support was lost and ....

It was in the early Twenties.

That would have preceded Pack's offer to back the S.A.F.

Right. And I think the reasons for S.A.F. being rather standoff
ish of Pack's offer was the memory of the experience earlier with
the American Forestry Association.

Let's go back a little. I started to tell you that when I came
back West by automobile, I called on the Journal 's office and on
the printers, also I called on the Forest Service. One man (I
won't mention his name) asked, "What's going to be your policy on
the Journal?" I said, "I'm going to continue the editorials and
di rect them to the fact that forestry is based on the cutting of
trees for products and that as long as people are cutting down
trees, that's where foresters are needed. There must be a more
realistic relationship between foresters and timber owners. I
shall try to bring the two together."

My argument was that closer utilization, for example, was to the
interest of the forester. He should be interested in the future
of doors, wooden window frames and sash, and the future of lath
and the future of shingles, because all make for closer utilization.
The closer the utilization, the better the realization in dollars
and therefore the better the possibilities for forestry.

So you wanted this to be the primary aim of the Journa I ?

No. My main interest in forestry originally was silviculture. I
had been in the Experiment Station in Flagstaff, Arizona, the first
forest experiment station in the U.S. Silviculture, economics, and
so forth, must be given proper coverage.

Well, what I meant was, when you first became editor of the Journal ,

Maunder:
Fritz:

did you see as the primary policy publishing articles which could
be of practical use in the field of utilization and timber manage
ment?

Absolutely. Like the article I asked A. E. Wackerman to write on
the Crosset Lumber Company's forestry program. His company declined
Wackerman the permission because they wanted more time to be sure
their forestry policy was effective. Such an article would have
been stimulating in the promotion of forestry. Then the Urania
Lumber Company in Urania, Louisiana.

Henry Hardtner.

Henry Hardtner was a pioneer forestry convert in the southeastern

168

Fritz: United States. Then there was the Great Southern Lumber Company.
They had actually started after World War I to plant on cutover
land, which was quite an undertaking. So I wanted articles on
that.

Fry: And instead, what did you get?

Fritz: I started to tell you of the U.S.F.S. man who asked what would be
my policy on the Journa I . He reacted with "If that is the case,
I'll see that you do not get past three issues."

Maunder: Did you ever try to get an article out of Goodman up in Wisconsin?

Fritz: I think I got something from him. C. B. Goodman, wasn't it?

Maunder: Yes.

Fritz: Did you ever meet him?

Maunder: No, I wish I had. He must have been one of the most interesting
men in the industry. His personal papers or those of his company
would have historical value.

Fritz: He was a short man but vigorous and a delightful gentleman. At

meetings of lumbermen, he would listen to their arguments and dis
putes with the government and quietly get up and say his little
piece, and point out the obligations each lumberman has. Goodman
was one of about twenty I saw in action at one time or another who
were well-balanced and farsighted. and had the guts to make their
ideas known to their fellow lumbermen.

Fry: And these were the ones that you had hopes of getting papers from?

Fritz: Yes, not necessarily from them personally, but from their employees-
the company foresters or woods managers.

Fry: The man who was really doing it.

Fritz: I got an article on the McGifford loader. You know that is the

loader that hoists itself off the rails. I didn't want it because
it was a McGifford loader but because the Science and Industry
Museum in Chicago had put up quite an exhibit depicting lumbering
from way back to the present. Every machine was built in minia
ture. The young man who organized the exhibit was a forester who
eventually became one of Rand McNally's top cartographers. I hoped
to get other articles of a similar nature which would show the mar
riage of lumbering and forestry instead of just a long drawn out
cold war.

Maunder: In a sense, you were representing the interest and the inclination
of what was just becoming a merging industrial forestry. And as
such, you were still running against the currents of the older

169

Maunder: PInchotvian group whose inclination was more along other lines.

Isn't this where the war really developed between the two groups,
and weren't you in the eye of the hurricane there in the editing
?

Fritz:

Fry:
Fritz:
Fry:
Fritz

Fry:
Fritz:

Fry:

Fritz:

The way you put it, it looks like I was at the end of one and at
the beginning of another. There was too much of polemics and of
public excoriation of the lumber industry. I'm not defending the

lumber industry.
dustry reacted as

I knew better than men like Chapman why the
it did toward foresters.

n

When they discovered that I taught lumbering and wood technology,
I could sit at their meetings and join in their discussion. In
time, I had broken the ice. I didn't break the ice on forestry
but my part in lumbering served as a catalyst to get a .favorable
ear for forestry.

Did you usually write the editorials?
Whi le I was editor?
As editor-in-chief.

I think I wrote every one. You have probably seen one there that
was called "Lath, Sash and Shingles."

Yes, but I didn't read it.

Another was on shop grades. Now the average forester knew nothing
about those things, and yet trees were not cut to make lath solely
unless it was by a small mill in very small timber. Lath was all
made of stuff that ordinarily would have gone to the fire.

There was a time when you couldn't even afford to bring in some
kinds of logs, and they would have to be left In the woods. Times
have changed. The better lumber prices make it possible to bring
in the stuff that, in former years, had to be burned. The irony
of it is that conservationists who once condemned lumbermen for
their wastefulness now characterize them as being so greedy, they
even use the bark.

What you were trying to do in your editorials and in the Journal
was to disseminate this knowledge so that the people who had the
power to do something about it in industry might conduct their
forestry practices better for utilization?

No, those editorials are written primarily for foresters, to let
them know who butters their bread. Who butters any forester's
bread? It's the man who owns the timber and has to convert it
into a useful product. Now, If he hires a forester to supervise
the marking of trees to be cut or to grow another crop, the money
the forester gets as wages, or as a fee, sti I I comes out of that
lumberman's pocket. That's what a lot of early-day foresters

170

Fritz:
Fry:

Fritz:
Fry:

Fritz:

Fry:
Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

Fry:

Fritz:
Fry:

didn't understand, or didn't want to understand. So those edito
rials were directed largely toward the forestry profession itself.

Your very first editorial — I think It was your first one--you
really qot Into trouble. Do you remember that?

The Interior Department.

You're right. It was the Interior Department. You said the Interior
Department had an infamous reputation, and who was it— somebody
wanted you to withdraw this, and you did reprint it.

I don't think 1 used the term infamous. The Department has had
some very good secretaries. Paul Redington, the S.A.F. president,
called me long distance from Washington. He reported that many
Washington foresters objected to my description of the Department
of Interior. I liked Redington but he scared easily. We were
good friends in Arizona and New Mexico, and continued to be when
he was transferred to California as Regional Forester. He was very
friendly to me. Incidentally, Redington at that time was no longer
in the U.S.F.S. but was director of the Biological Survey; at least,
that's my recollection.

He had asked you to be the editor too, hadn't he?

Yes. I thought,
out. Who am I?
forestry. "

"This fellow is in a jam. I've
Just an editor trying to make a

got to help him
place for American

So did you change your editorial?

I gave him permission to reprint a revised version from which the
offending adjective was omitted. On Redington's initiative, the
revised version was mailed to every Journal subscriber with the
request that he substitute it for the original. The new editorial
also carried a tag stating that the editor sincerely regrets having
cast aspersions on a good department like Interior. It was a damn
lie because, In the sense that there was any aspersion, it was a
deserved criticism, and furthermore, I thought it was double-cross
ing me by the Forest Service people when they themselves had been
condemning the Interior Department ever since the days of Pinchot.

It was the rankest kind of hypocrisy. But there was something in
the wind, possibly political, of which I was not aware. It must
have concerned the Hoover administration plan for reorganization,
and the foresters were afraid of the Interior Department.

And you wrote Chapman that you would be happy to resign if asked
to by Redington.

Did 1 say that? Chapman made that episode a criticism of Redington.
Yes, and you'd just been in the editorship for a month.

171

Fritz: What's the date of that letter?

Fry: It occurred In November, 1930, and we have it numbered in file
S3:2. It's a letter to Chapman, but the letter regarding this
November editorial might have been \<~\ December.

Fritz: I'd just love to see that again. As I say, I've made an awful

lot of mistakes and that was one of the worst. I regret to this
day that I permitted the change. It was hypocritical of the Wash
ington foresters to take such umbrage. I still believe some boot
licking was involved. It was foolish also of Redington to send
out a revised editorial and to ask that it be substituted. It ac
complished only one thing — it called attention to the situation.

Fry: Well, I guess what doesn't show up in the letters, you might want
to clarify on the tape. Somehow you did send out these reprinted
copies leaving out this phrase.

Fritz: I did not send it out. This was done from Washington. I received
only the copy to be substituted in my copy of the Journa I .

Fry: And then you heard again from them that what they wanted from Red
ington was this replaced In" every Journal that was mailed out and
you refused to do this. Thl s was" what you felt was too much. You had
already permitted your regrets to have been printed.

Fritz: I don't recall this, but If [ did refuse \ must have had second
thoughts on having acquiesced to the change, ht was silly. You
take, for example, a lawyer would ask a question in court knowing
that the judge would disallow It. But he gets the question before
the jury. It's the same thing. So you've got your Journa I , you've
got my editorial in it, then you get the correction paper. What
would you do with it? You'd stick It on or paste It on. That's
what I did with mine.

Fry: So your "unsavory" quotation probably stood.

Fritz: You know, I think the term 1 used against the Interior Department
was "unsavory. "

Fry: It was "unsavory," yes. I just found it here in my notes.

Maunder: Was there a spirited exchange of letters in the period in which

you were editor? Did you get a strong rise out of some of the mem
bership in reaction to your editorials?

Fritz: There were not very many but those I got were very rough, from men
like Ward Shepard and Ed Munns and a few others. Earle Clapp and
Raymond Marsh, while they didn't write, would tell me about it or
would tell others, and I got the word that my editorials were too
strong. They felt that I should have sought more articles of the
type that indulged in policy discussions, and the relationship of
forestry to the general economy and stable communities, whereas

172

Fritz: I tried to get articles which showed forestry as to actual prac
tice. I was unsuccessful In doing this because the field forest
ers were not writers. They were busy on their jobs and didn't
Indulge very much In writing. I did get one article on the plant
ing program in the redwoods and several others, but they were not
very well accepted by the membership in general. When I say "in
general," 1 mean the old-timers who still ruled the roost.

I resigned voluntarily and possibly in a huff because of the state
ment the dean of the college made to me about doing that kind of
outside work, and also because of the lack of interest of the
Counci I .

Maunder: What was the dean's attitude? Was his feeling that you should be
doing research rather than this work?

Well, I don't like to say it, but when you're editor of a magazine
like that, your name is on the front page. You're singled out as
being with the University of California, and I don't think that
sat well with the head of the school. I don't think the dean of
the College of Agriculture cared very much, but he was the man who
had the final say as to a professor's future.

Fritz:

Maunder;
Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Are you suggesting there may have been a
personal ego involved in the matter?

little bit of perhaps

I'm afraid so. Also, it interfered with what I was trying to do
locally in getting forestry moved into the woods. I wasn't doing
any teaching and consulting work in forestry. My consulting work
then was almost solely in the general field of wood technology,
the decay of wood and attack by termites, wood preservation, the
grading and seasoning of lumber, and the like.

I think the format of the magazine today is better than it was
when I had it but, except for the fact that there's a better class
of writers now and it's easier to get articles, I think the-- Journa I
has slipped in the sense that it has lost leadership. If one~"wants
to read something on practical forestry today, he has to read maga-
z i nes I i ke The Timberman, The Southern Lumberman, and the exce I I ent
Northeastern Logger. I think there's a lot of dirt forestry in
those magazines, good stuff. That's the kind of stuff I was try-
Ing to get for the Journal of Forestry, but if I had gotten it and
printed it, I think I wouldr^t have lasted more than six months.

Do you think that these periodicals you've mentioned maintain high
professional standards of editorial writing?

They are excellently done editorially for their particular field.
They are not professional magazines; they are trade magazines, but
trade magazines often run technical articles. You will find that

many foresters, when they can't get their stuff
where or if they want to be sure that it's read

pub I i shed el se-
by the people to

173

Fritz: whom it is addressed, will not give it to the Journal of Forestry
but to a magazine like The Tlmberman. In my own case, I have' f re-
quently given short articles to a trade magazine because I wanted
them to reach the people who coi'ld use them. They would not have
come across them otherwise.

CSince this interview was made, the trade magazines have changed
ownership but "dirt" forestry still appears in them. The Journal
of Forestry too has changed and has been greatly Improved in con-
tents and format under Hard in Glascock.H

The "Unholy Twe I ve Apostles"

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:
Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Emanuel, now we want to talk specifically about some matters that
had to do with your time as an editor and immediately following
your editorship of the Journal of Forestry in the Thirties.

You will recall that on June 13th, 1934, twelve members of the
Society signed a petition which they presented to the president
and Council, criticizing the present policies and methods of man
agement of the Journal . And at this particular moment, Franklin
Reed was editor-in-chief of the Journal , having succeeded you in
that position only a few months before.

A year and a half before.

I have some notes here which show that your editorship ran from
October, 1930 to December, 1932.

Right. The petition was introduced a year and a half later and
another six months later, the matter was discussed at the annual
convention, January, 1935, two years after my resignation.

And Franklin Reed had begun then, in January of 1933, and was still
editor at the particular moment when this petition was presented.
Now, I think it is also true that Reed continued in a sense the
policies that you had Initiated as editor, had he not, generally
speaking?

To a great extent, yes. You should know that the controversy was
not so much who was editor but the attempted use of the Journal by
a clique of socialistic convictions.

And was it also true
editor-in-chief, you
Reed a great deal of

that even after you resigned your position as
continued for a long time thereafter to give
help in getting out the Journal ?

Well, naturally every editor keeps his editing way ahead of his
needs. I made my decision to resign very suddenly in the month of
December. I had two or three issues edited ahead so they would
require very little more work, and maybe some new stuff would come

174

Fritz: in to me direct, and I would edit it for Reed, but that had nothing
to do with policy. The January, 1933, number was either on the
press or ready for It. I have forgotten. I must have completed
the editing for two more numberc, so Reed had a running start.

Maunder: But you were not an "associate editor" in 1934?

Fritz: No. I was completely out and at my own free will without any pres
sure. There had been some criticism, but no more than any editor
receives. There was some "nit-picking" by a few in the lower eche
lons in the U.S.F.S. offices that an editor has to laugh off, and by
a few others, e.g., Ward Shepard, who was quite critical, but he was
not a we 1 1 man .

Maunder: In this article that we carried in our journal Forest History back
in the fall of 1962, on "The Evolution of the Society of American
Foresters as Seen in the Memoirs of H. H. Chapman," there is quite
a long section that has to do with the editorship of the Jpurnaj_
of Forestry. And your resignation from the editorship of the
Journal is noted here in December of 1932.

Chapman describes the event as follows: "On June 13, 1934, twelve
members of the Society petitioned the Council to give consideration
to needed changes In the editorial policy of the Journal of Forestry.
The twelve members who signed this petition were George P. Ahern,
Carlos G. Bates, Earle H. Clapp, L. F. Kneipp, W. C. Lowdermilk,
Robert Marshall, E. N. Munns, Gifford Pinchot, Edward C. M. Richards,
F. A. Silcox, William M. Sparhawk, and Raphael Zon. With the ex
ception of Ahern, Marshall, and Richards, all were members of the
Forest Service or affiliated with it. Gifford Pinchot and Major
Ahern had for some time been conducting a vigorous campaign to
secure national legislation which would give the Forest Service
authority to 'put an end to forest devastation* by regulating the
methods of cutting by all private owners including owners of farm
wood lots. The Editor of the Journal , Emanuel Fritz, CsicH did not
sympathize with this policy and the men who signed the petition
were determined to force the issue."

'"The petition raised three points: I) the separation of the offices
of the Editor-in-Chief and Executive Secretary, 2) the selection for
Editor-in-Chief of a man of high literary and technical attainment
and with strong social convictions, and 3) a certain degree of in
dependence for the Editor-in-Chief within the limitations of policy
formulated by the Council."

Now, a little farther on here, he describes how all of this came to
a head, following your resignation in December of 1932. But then
in January of 1935, at the annual meeting of the Society in Wash
ington, D.C., William Sparhawk had prepared for the petitioners a
long statement covering the charges against the editor. Now the
editor at that time was Franklin Reed and In our footnote we note
this fact, but we also note the fact that their charges were proba
bly directed as much against you as the former editor, as they were

175

Maunder: against Reed as the present editor. And that you were present at
this annual meeting, according to Chapman, "prepared to defend
yourself," and that he, Chapman, asked you a favor, namely that
you say nothing In rejoinder tc these Twelve Apostles in their
statement.

Then he goes on to say that you, however, made rejoinder to the
Sparhawk statement, and that in so doing, you spilled the beans.
By launching your defense, you deliberately attacked one of the
signers of the petition in a personal manner, accusing him of
Communist sympathies. Now what do you have to say about that?
What did you actually say in response to Sparhawk?

Fritz: It sounds like Chapman asked me to make no response at all to Spar-
hawk. (Are you sure it was Sparhawk?) Actually, if my memory
doesn't play me false, I was on the program and was invited up to
the podium where I was to — and did — speak at length about Journal
problems. While I was up there, Chapman had left the room to go
to the White House.

Maunder: Yes, to present a Sen Men Medal to Franklin Roosevelt.

Fritz: We went through part of the lunch hour. It must have been the
vice-president who had the chair and who decided to recess for
lunch. The topic was to have been resumed after lunch. Don't
forget that: the Journal matter was to have been resumed after
lunch. I was speaking more or less "off the cuff" and in general
terms from notes I made while the spokesman of the Twelve Apostles
was speaking. My only preparation, as I recall, was notes on a
card file concerning each of the petition signers.

I had not reached a discussion of this particular group of men
when the meeting was recessed for lunch. I was going to let the
audience know just what each petitioner had done to the Journal .
Not one of the Twelve gave the Journal any help. One was an as
sociate editor whose own article had to be heavily edited to make
it readable. Another was the one 1 mentioned earlier as having
threatened to end my editorship before it got started.

Fry: You never did read your notes on them?

pritr: I will come to that. Sparhawk had a long statement and my rejoin
der was equally long. I was not defending myself, 1 was defending
the policies of the Journa I at the time Reed was editor. 1 want
to make that clear.

Maunder: Did you make those policies or did the Council?

Fritz: No one had suggested anything to me as editor as to policy. As far
as I know, the editor, until the latter years of Clepper, had full
sway. But there might have been some suggestions on the part of the
Council or president that the Journal ought to do this or ought to
do that. Well, that's all right. They certainly had that privilege

176

Fritz: and they were supposed to have and show an interest In the Journal .
But I was not given any orders as to what the policy shou I d be\
All of the Twelve and the many others knew what my views wero lonq
before Redlngton tendered me the editorship.

Maunder: Did you have to submit any editorials you wrote for publication to
anyone before they were published?

Fritz: I wasn't asked to, and why should an editor have to do that?

Maunder: I don't say that you should. I just asked if you were ever asked
to do that.

Fritz: No. No one knew what the subject was going to be until it appeared
in the Journal . I wrote several editorials during Zon's editorship
which he published without revealing the authorship. These were on
practical subjects such as concentrating on the great expanse of
conifers in the West and ignoring the hardwoods of the eastern U.S.
Another one concerned the term "selective logging": just what does
it mean, the selection of logs after clear-cutting and abandoning
the rest, or does it mean the felling of trees on a selective basis
and leaving the others stand? I had seen some of
logs from clear-cutting. It was very wasteful.

Maunder:
Fry:

Fritz:

Fry:
Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

the selection of
Once a tree is

felled,
mitted.

it should be utilized as far as market requirements per

We're wandering away from the subject again.

Do you mean that you and Zon really didn't come to a splitting of
the roads until later?

I wouldn't say that we ever split, but in my opinion, Zon did some
things that are not regarded as good scientific spirit.

This was after you became editor?

After I quit the editorship. Zon loved his editorship and could not
adjust to someone else sitting in the editor's chair. Zon was the
mouthpiece of the Pinchot group.

Who was the member of the Twelve Apostles you implied was or ac
cused of being a Communist in the course of this discussion in
January's annual meeting of 1935?

First of all, I did not accuse him.
What did you say?

I said that one of the Apostles (a signer of the petition) had that
very morning been reported in the newspapers as having been accused
of being a Communist the day before in Congress. A big difference,
isn't it?

77

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Well, who was this man?

Robert Marshal I .

Who called him that In the Congress?

I don't recall. I think It was In the House of Representatives.

How did you happen to know that he had been called this in the
Congress that very morning?

It was in the newspapers. (It was
the accusation must have been made

cuse him of being a Communist,
me go on from there.

in the morning newspapers so

the day before.) I didn't ac-
. i

That's what Chapman said. Now let

At the close
tion was to
down to a ta
that night,
he was boi I i
never walked
hanging down
said, using
my orders."

of the recess for lunch, the discussion on the peti-
have been resumed. I remember skipping lunch to go
i lor shop to have my dress suit altered for the banquet

When I got back, the first man I met was Chapman and
ng mad. Chapman, you know, was of chunky build and

erect but leaned forward with those long arms of his

in front of him. He came at me like a gorilla and
the mild profanity he used to use, "You didn't follow

I probably told him that I wasn't under his orders and that I cer
tainly felt that way about It. I told him what happened. He told
me L. F. Kneipp came to him and said that I accused Marshall of
being a Communist. Kneipp and Marshall were very close friends.

Fry: Did you tell him you'd only Implied it?

Fritz: I must have told him it was in the newspapers in the morning, but
that didn't make any difference to Chapman. When Chapman had his
mind made up that that desk there was white instead of dark gray,
that settled it.

Maunder: Well, do you suppose that he felt that by making this implication, you
may have alienated a lot of the members present? There are a lot
of people who don't like this kind of Impl ication.They don't like
this assigning labels to people. And Chapman may have felt that by
this tactic or statement on your part, you gave the enemy in this
case some ammunition.

Fritz: Well, you make me recall the comments made personally at the end of
that talk. I have never before or since been approached by so many
people who shook my hand and said, "That was a wonderful thing you
did this morning. You put those fellows in their places." And one
of those men was Walter Mulford. I was pleasantly stunned by Mul-
ford's favorable comment. I knew that he did not approve of the
petition. He was a very meek and reserved man.

178

Fry: What else did you say In that speech? We've just been talking

about one remark here, but you said you had notes on all of these
men.

Fritz: Yes. It was my intention to point out to the Society members that
this group had designs on the Journal , to make it a sort of propa
ganda organ to promote public ownership and/or federal control of
all private forest land. They even had designs on the national
parks.

I think most of the audience wanted to hear what I had to say about
the signers, but when we reconvened after lunch, Kneipp moved that
we drop the subject and go on to the next item on the program. Chap
man was in the chair. So I lost an opportunity to show how unfair
the petitioners were to Editor Reed and how they were endangering
the independence of the Journal . On that day, Chapman showed his
color. He was not in favor of the petition, he felt the editor
should have independence, and he had been all for my beingfon the
program to protest the petition. My reference to Marshall would
have pleased him, had not Kneipp worked him over. Chapman made
life miserable for Reed and soon had him separated from his job
as secretary and editor. Reed died soon thereafter. He was a very
sensitive person.

Maunder: Were there proceedings to this meeting?
Fritz: There should have been.

Maunder: Was there a transcript made so that there would be a verbatim
record of everything that was said?

Fritz: It would be a wonderful thing to have.

Maunder: Would you know if there was such?

Fritz: I don't remember that anything was published.

Fry: Wouldn't Reed have seen that this would have been made? There are
proceedings of the annual meetings during these years in here.

Fritz: All this took place more than thirty years ago before we had tape

recorders and before the S.A.F. could afford to hire a court reporter.

Please don't think I was proud of the stand I felt I had to take.
When I adopted forestry as a profession I had one single purpose —
to put forestry in the woods. I had heard or seen too much of
condemnation of lumbermen destroying the forest, too much mission
ary zeal, too much worship of Pinchot. At the same time, there was
a growing number of young foresters going into private employ who
had the same idea I had. These young fellows had to submit to the
ridicule and sometimes the suspicions of their counterparts in pub
lic employ. They had to overcome opposition from the woods workers

179

Fritz: and had to win the confidence of their bosses. If there have been
any heroes In American forestry, It was this bunch of foresters on
Industrial payrolls. It took courage to go into private employ in
those days.

Fry: About that petition — I wonder about the first point. It says that

the Twelve Apostles suggest that the editor (this future editor that
they want) not be subject to dictation by the Executive Council in
editorial policy, and yet you said that you hadn't been subject to
dictation by Executive Council. Why did they put that In their
petition?

Fritz: They were probably thinking of the future. It was already plain
that the Pinchot group was losing control of the S.A.F.

Fry: Well, do you think that they were really serious in wanting to
start a new magazine?

Fritz: There were rumors. If there was any such thought they could con
trol the magazine, I am sure that it would have become a propaganda
organ.

Fry: In other words, they were criticizing you for not having enough of
the New Deal spirit In yours.

Fritz: Well, that's about right.

Fry: They said it was lacking in the "spirit of social leadership,"
while the problems "were not discussed in the spirit of the New
Deal" over the last few years.

Fritz: That is certainly true. The S.A.F. is not a welfare association.
It is a society of professional foresters. The social welfare
game should not be the main business of foresters.

Fry: And so you think their new magazine would probably have been spe
cifically a magazine to back up their efforts to get federal con
trol of forest management?

Fritz: You have no idea how close this country was to a dictatorship and
a socialistic form of government, the forerunner of a strong bur
eaucracy topped by a dictator. In 1940 or '39, Earle Clapp wrote
to all the regional foresters and all the experiment station heads,
to do their utmost to influence the forestry schools to adopt pro
grams that the Forest Service was promoting. Now that was really
something! You will find a copy in my files.

Fry: This letter went to whom?

Fritz: It went to all the regional foresters and to all the heads of the
experiment stations to exercise their influence on the schools to
make their policies those of the Forest Service. Now that was

180

Fritz:

Fry:
Fritz:

Fry:

Fritz:

Fry:

Fritz:

Fry:
Fritz:

Fry:
Fritz:

Fry:

Fritz:

Fry :
Fritz:

Maunder:

really trying to control education, wasn't it? And I know that
here in this school, when we were in Glarinlnl Hall, the head of
the experiment station did actually try to force his Influence on
us.

On what issues?

Influencing the faculty to follow the tenets of the U.S.F.S. and
the support of the U.S.F.S. efforts to get control of private for
est land management.

Regulations specifically?

Yes.

Did this actually trickle down into classrooms or do you know?

Well, it certainly would have if the head of the school should have
gotten the faculty to follow the leadership of the U.S.F.S. Mulford
would not have stood for it. Our school, to a man, opposed the
kind of federal regulation Pinchot and Clapp wanted.

Was Pinchot the figure behind this move to get forestry regulations?

He was more than a figurehead; Clapp, as acting Chief Forester, fol
lowed the Pinchot line.

From a letter in your files that Chapman passed along to you, I get
the idea that Pinchot was willing to put up money to get this new
magazine started. Do you remember anything about that?

No, I don't remember that. I wouldn't be surprised though, because
at one time — and I think it was in the Forties or early Fifties —
Mrs. Pinchot, after G. P. di.ed, actually started a counter organi
zation .

What was that?

What did they cal I
I ike that.

it — American Conservation Association, something

Oh yes. Well, they still have one called that.

Some of the Twelve Apostles and some of their sycophants were in
volved in that.

Emanuel, I have been studying Volume Thirty-three of the Journal
of Forestry for 1935, in which the "Proceedings" of the annual
meeting of that year are published. These "Proceedings" cover
January 28, 29, and 30, and they seem to be quite complete with a
rather notable exception of the morning session of January 29, which
is the session we've been talking about in which this storm blew up
between you and others — and that Is expunged from the record here.

18!

Fritz: I'm sorry to be reminded of that. I had completely forgotten
about it.

Maunder: That part was not published. N^w, every other session, morning,
afternoon, and evening, of every other day is represented in here
by some comment and reports of one kind or another and papers, but
the morning session, January 29, does not appear here.

Fritz: Who was editor then, Smith?

Maunder: I believe so because at the very beginning is a little editorial
by Henry S. Graves, announcing Herbert A. Smith's appointment as
editor of the Journal .

Fritz: Well, Smith was all that I described him as being, a real gentle
man and a scholar. He was also imbued with the spirit of Pinchot.
His editorials were more like essays. He was a very good writer.
One could not call his editorials propaganda.

Fry: So he was a New Deal type.

Maunder: Would you say that he withheld this part of the debate?

Fritz: I doubt it. It is very likely that he never got it. Smith was a
very honest man.

Maunder: Why? He's got everything else here.

Fritz: Who was the business manager or the managing editor?

Maunder: Franklin W. Reed.

Fritz: Well, Reed was an employee. If anyone took notes, it is likely
that he was ordered not to give them to the editor. But I doubt
the performance was recorded.

Maunder: Weren't you aware of this item being missing from the Journa I ?
Fritz: That I don't remember. In this case, I probably did.

Maunder: Didn't you ever challenge the editor with why he didn't cover this
i n the Journal ?

Fritz: No. No, I don't recall ever challenging him, and I don't recall
ever noticing that was missing. I heard it, and that was all I
was interested in.

Fry: Well, do you think Chapman would have asked him to take it out?
Fritz: I don't know.

Maunder: Did this discussion on the morning of the twenty-ninth become a
real shouting match?

182

Fritz: ! don't recall any interruptions,
outnumbered.

The Twelve Apostles were badly

Maunder: I'm trying to understand why it's not in the "Proceedings," and It

Fritz:

Fry:
Fritz:

Fry:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Fry:

Fritz:

seems to me that if it had descended to that level
been kept out for purely good professional reasons.

it might have

I recall no interruptions. The afternoon session might have been
different, if Kneipp had not moved to drop the subject.

But then Chapman took over after lunch.

On an occasion like that, I might have gotten wrought up, but not
on that one. Awaiting my turn while sitting in the audience, I got
myself in as calm a mood as possible. Usually I am very tense on
the platform. Sparhawk was very serious. I knew 1 had to be calm.
In fact, this whole business was a comedy and I tried to treat it
as such. I spoke with no rancor or vehemence. This part I remember
very well. I think it hurt the petitioners' cause.

Sparhawk 's statement is also stricken from the record here.
That's not in here either?

That's something that I'd like to look into — why It was cut out.
Or have I forgotten that I noted its absence. Perhaps there's some
thing in my file on that. If the S.A.F. file for that performance
has been saved, I hope I can see it just to read the whole story
again. I really enjoyed the scrap. The motivation and action of
the Twelve was silly and childish. A sense of humor would have
helped them. But they left Sparhawk holding the bag; his compan
ions did not rise to help him. Kneipp's motion to drop the sub
ject was fortunate.

Perhaps we should be glad a full report of the morning's proceed
ings were withheld from the Journal . It wasn't pretty. 1 never
could understand why some of the signers put their names on the
petition. The petition was probably the work of only four or five.
The others probably were talked into signing.

What were all the undercurrents that seemed to come to a head here
in 1934?

I think the January, 1935, convention of the S.A.F. in Washington
was a turning point in the battle for federal regulation. The
National Recovery Act had been passed and its Article X, applying
to logging, was put to work. The general economy was improving.
(Logging was almost at a complete standstill until about 1934.)
Proponents of federal regulation were being beaten down by those
who favored cooperation.

This whole matter as we talk about it here reminds me of the U.S.F.S.
man who said he would see me removed from the editorship before my

183

Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

I announced to him.
me on the Journal

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:
Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

third month if I followed the editorial policy

We have already discussed this when you queried

Job.

Who was this? Earle Clapp?

No, I won't mention his name. He was a good fellow but he was over-
enthusiastic, and sometimes overzealous. However, his name was on
that list of Twelve Apostles. So you see the hierarchy in Washing
ton wanted that Journal as its own particular mouthpiece.

Had it been that way under Raphael Zon's editorship?

To a large extent, yes. Zon was one of the petitioners in 1934.

Raphael Zon had been, to all intents and purposes, editor-in-chief
of that publication for roughly twenty-three years because even
while Fernow was the editor, Zon was really doing most of the work,
was he not? At least, that is the interpretation that is given by
Franklin Reed here in his "History of the Journal of Forestry."
On page 787, in this October, 1934, issue, he summarizes the issue
of the Journal by citing the various editors-in-chief. And he says:
"To all practical intents, Zon was editor-in-chief for the Society
for twenty-three years. He served on the editorial board of the
proceedings from its inception. ..." That was back in about 1903
or 1904, I be I ieve.

1902, probably. The Journal started as "Proceedings" in that year.

"During the same period, he was Fernow's right hand assistant on
the quarterly. During the five years that Fernow was editor-in-

Zon's resignation

Zon was managing editor,
initiative for a combination of reasons, one of

chief of the Journal
was at his own

them being that his official duties no longer left him this neces
sary spare time." And then Dana took over in 1928. Well, the point
I would like to raise here is this: having had such a long span as
the editor of the Journal and of its predecessor publications . . .

Not editor but influence you mean.

Right. But managing editor in many cases is the man who is really
cutting most of the editorial pattern. And I would imagine that
over this long period of time, Zon must have had quite a proprie
tary feeling about the Journal .

He did that. There's no question about it. But I would disagree
that the managing editor has more power over what goes in the book
than the editor in this particular case. It might be in a commer
cial magazine where you depend on advertising. But you take for
example, Dana. Dana was a very well-educated man, a man of superior
intellect and standard of ethics, a man of good common sense and
independence. And although he's never said this to me, I sensed,
when I took over the editorship, that the people in Washington

[84

Fritz:

Fry:

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Fry:

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

hoped to get control of the magazine. They couldn't get control
of it while Dana was In charge of It.

These were the federal forester.., you're talking about?
Yes. Most of them were federal foresters.

You three, Zon, Dana, and then you, took on the magazine's editor
ship, and then all of you had to give it up for essentially the
same reason, that it just required more time than you could reason
ably afford to give it?

It was a very thankless job for any volunteer editor and for me it
was very costly. I'll just give an example of the time involved.
I had a comparatively light teaching schedule, but I had consider
able other work to do also. Some of the administrative work at the
school was farmed out among the faculty members, and I was also
interested in this controversy over the control of lumbering by
the federal government.

My wife and I used to attend plays, concerts and lectures in Wheeler
Hall or somewhere else around the Bay Region. She wanted to arrive
before the crowd came when it would be hard to find a seat (when
they're not reserved), and she Insisted on being there at least a
half an hour early. So to occupy that half hour — sometimes it went
to an hour — I took along two or three articles and would edit one
or more before curtain time.

You mean you just used every available moment.
I had to but I enjoyed it.

When did that so-called clique within the profession go into eclipse
as far as its power was concerned?

You've got to put several things together there. I think Silcox
was the Chief Forester and he was followed by Lyle Watts. I knew
Silcox when he was regional forester in Missoula, Montana. He quit
the Forest Service for a number of years and was sort of a union
boss of the typographers in New York City. He had strong social
istic tendencies. Nevertheless, I asked him one day, "What is the
matter with the Forest Service back there in Washington? It isn't
like it was when you and I were in Missoula." And he said, "No, it
isn't. I'm terribly concerned over the self-righteousness of the
Forest Service." And in just those two words he expressed my own
sentiments.

Who first called the petitioners the Twelve Apostles?

I don't know where it arose.

Was it well bandied around? Was this common talk?

185

Fritz: Yes.

Maunder: Was It ever published in the Journal In this way? Were thoy called
this publicly In the Journal ?

Fritz: Could be. If I had been editor at the time, I certainly would have
used it.

Maunder: Well, how long did this group hold sway? When did its power reach
its apex and when did it start to go into decline?

Fritz: In my opinion, the January, 1935, confrontation was the beginning
of its eclipse. But its end came shortly after World War II.
There had been some deaths, the country's economy began to boom,
the Forest Service was on the verge of a boom itself in timber sales
and therefore had public relations problems of its own. A tire-con
suming effort toward a redwood national forest was made at the be
hest of Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas. The Tree Farm program
was expanding rapidly, and other events changed the entire forest
situation.

The forestry profession has grown out of its sophomoric period.
The men in responsible forest jobs, private and public, are more
objective, better trained, and have had more field experience. Most
important, the forestry schools are far better. Their professors
"have better backgrounds in science and economics, and this has in
creased their independence. What has gone before is now history.
I was glad to have been a pa.rt of the profession In its "teen"
years, even though my part was small.

Maunder: When you were editor, were you seeking to build a bridge of under
standing between the two groups?

Fritz: As the editor, yes. Let me make something clear at this point.

The difference between the two groups was really a clash of phi
losophies. The Pinchot-Forest Service group was determined to get
control of all private lumbering through Congressional legislation.
The other group felt the cooperative approach was more democratic.
In the U.S. there always have been some people who wanted all au
thority centered in Washington and some others who were for the
private enterprise system. Foresters in private employ resented
a federal bureau ordering their activities. Each side was still
learning the timber management job. Of the two, the private for
ester had the best opportunity to learn the job because he had to
prove himself in the accounting room as well as in the woods. The
editor of the Journa I was expected by the one to beat the drums of
doom if the government isn't given the authority to regulate all
forest practices, while the other side expected him to publish
stuff of practical use to the manager.

I was interested in applying forestry in the woods. A common ex
pression I've used a hundred times was, "Take forestry out of the
swivel chair and put it into the woods where it belongs." And that

186

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

is what I was trying to do in the Journal . When you look over
the list of men who formed those Twelve Apostles, you'll find
that some of them never had a forest to manage.

When you were editor, you not only solicited articles, but you
critically read them, made suggestions for improvement to the
authors, and carried them all the way through the editorial pro
cess, including copyreading and proofreading — all this by long
distance, I presume, with the authors and the publisher, by mail.

You're quite right. I also wrote the leaders, a brief summary at
the head of each article. I had a card index, which was my guide
as to the authors and the titles. The cards kept a record of wfterr
an article was received, what was done with it, and so on. In-
cidentally, that card index came in very handy to me one time.
Zon was a peculiar type of man. He had a lot of excellent quali
ties and he was a very able man, but he was very one-sided and
susp icious.

After he gave up the
the magazine was goi
I Ike Zon. He wrote
refusing to pub I Ish
He said that I dldn1
my card index and I
celved the article,
it, and when it was
I ish an article with

Journal of Forestry editorship, he felt that
ng to the dogs, that no one could do a job
me a very nasty letter once, accusing me of
an article written by one of his own staff,
t even acknowledge it. I immediately went to
found the whole record there — the day I re-
the day it was acknowledged, what was done with
to be published. It was not possible to pub-
in thirty days after its receipt.

Was there much plagiarism on the part of the Washington office?

There was some. I first learned about it while I was stationed in
Arizona at the Experiment Station near Flagstaff. There would be
long letters and long distance telephone calls from Washington.
Gus Pearson was the head man at the Station. He was a very honest
man, very consciencious and very sensitive. Sometimes when the
telephone conversation was ended, he would walk around the room,
evidently distraught or distressed. He then would unburden to me
(he and I had become very good friends), "What do you think so-and-
so said to me?" or "What do you think so-and-so is doing?" Gener
ally it concerned plagiarism or a dictatorial attitude at the other
end of the I ine.

Maunder: Nevertheless, you were elected a Fellow of the Society of American
Foresters.

Fritz: Yes, I was made a Fellow in 1951. I knew my name was up because

it was published along with the names of other candidates. I gave

it little thought because I felt I'd never make the grade.

Maunder: Weren't you denied election as a Fellow for quite a long time be
cause of this row?

87

Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

Fry:
Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

It's possible, but I don't recall having been a candidate earlier.
At least, I was not among earlier lists of candidates.

How many blackballs knock out a man as a Fellow?

Election needs only a majority among those Fellows who actually
vote. Those who vote on Fellow candidates are the existing Fellows
themselves and, I believe, the officers and Council members.

I was astonished when I was elected. I told an S.A.F. official of
my surprise and he volunteered this, "Not only that, but you were
near the top." There was satisfaction in that.

Have you found the letter about the Apostles?
Yes.

Thanks. By the way, Chapman was very wrong in that interview you
had when he said I was editor at this time. That controversy was
during Reed's editorship. Reed badly needed a job. It was in the
depression years. He was a nice friendly person, and he had the
same general ideas about the private enterprise system that I had,
that is, anti-socialism. Chapman made his life miserable.

Why?

In some respects, Chapman was right because Frank
take things easy. I tried to help him out. It's
that somebody in the audience recommended that we
ject and go to something else, because I
foolishly I fired my small ammunition in
with the big stuff still in its racks.

Reed liked to

a darn good thing

pass up

this sub

was loaded for bear, but
the morning and landed

Bob Marshall was one of the Twelve?

"Yes. He took no part in the January, 1935, S.A.F. meeting, as I
remember it, but at another meeting he was very much in evidence.
At the time he was forester for the Indian Forest Service but took
in a wider territory on his own. He was programmed to speak, I
believe, on the operation of the N.R.A. I was chairman of that
session, and I let him go full blast until he ran down.

In some way, I had learned that on his western tour of Indian for
ests, he visited also other areas in a search for violations of
Article X of the N.R.A. and for proof of the need for federal regu
lation. He included the redwood region. A California Forest Ex
periment Station man was guiding him, and this chap was not noted
for fairness. He took Marshall to a large logging operation and
pointed out the lack of seed trees required by Article X.

Marshall reported this presumed violation to his cohorts in Wash
ington. What actually happened was this: the U.S.F.S. guide did
not tell Marshall that the area he examined had been felled several

188

Fritz: years before Article X's birth. The Depression had idled the op
eration and the logs had to be left. So Marshall came to the meet
ing prepared to prove that Article X is not enough.

After Marshall finished his accusal'ons against the Industry, I
took the podium as a member, rather, than as chairman, and explained
that Marshall had been deceived by his Forest Service guide and that

in his eagerness to find a culprit he did not analyze the situation.

I mention this only to show how avid for muck some of the enemies
of private enterprise had become.

Fry: Chapman was president of the S.A.F. when this happened, and I think
he had just run for re-election. Hadn't you run too, at that same
time?

Fritz: Yes. I didn't want the job. Nobody could win against Chapman. The
Constitution required, I think, four, five, or six candidates, and
they couldn't get anybody to run against Chapman, which was like
going against Franklin Roosevelt in the first term. Several of us
had to volunteer the use of our names but we knew very well that we
didn't have a chance.

I was asked several times in later years to run for president, but I
declined. Such a job Is not for me. 1 think I would have won. I
had many followers in the federal bureaus as well as outside.

Fry: Did Chapman run by assuring everyone that he was not going to let
the government foresters gain control of the Society? I read some
reference to that in your papers.

Fritz: It could be. He felt that way about It. He was hot and cold on

things like that. But I am sure Chapman was opposed to the machina
tions of the Twelve Apostles.

Fry: Well, then after this petition was presented, you wrote a rebuttal
which, I guess, appeared in the Journal , but it was edited, 1 be
lieve, in the process by Granger.

Fritz: Edited by Granger?

Fry: Your rebuttal was. Granger was, I guess, in some position to go
over it at this point.

Fritz: I don't recall that Granger ever touched anything that 1 wrote.

Fry: He and Reed suggested that you shorten it.

Fritz: Well, maybe shorten it.

Maunder: There is no editorial Judgment more critical, Emanuel, than that!

Fritz: I have a tendency to be too wordy. So I've always welcomed someone
willing to read my stuff critically and let me know candidly what

189

Fritz: he thinks of it, so I could study It out more. But, frankly, I
don't remember preparing a rebuttal.

Maunder: When you quit, this thrust the responsibility Into their laps and

they called upon Franklin Reed to 1r.ke on the responsibility, right?

Fritz: It was the logical thing to do. He was the executive secretary.

Maunder: And they agreed that within six months, by May of 1934, they were
going to solve the problem and find an editor to take on the job?

Fritz: Yes, that's correct.

Maunder: Then when May, 1934, came around, they had not made the decision.
They had not yet found the permanent man.

Fritz: Do you mind if I go upstairs and get the volumes of the Journal?
Fry: No.

CTake off for a few minutes. 3

Fritz: I brought these down by volume. After Reed was editor a while,
Herbert Smith was made the editor.

Maunder: When was that?
Fritz: '34, I think.

Maunder: Now wasn't that a concession to the Twelve Apostles? Wasn't Her
bert Smith more a representative of their position than of the
other?

Fritz: Herbert Smith was one of the few scholars.

Maunder: He had his Ph.D.

Fritz: Did he? I didn't know that.

Maunder: Yes.

Fritz: He was a brilliant man, a beautiful writer, and his editorials were
really excellent but harmless essays. He declined an honorarium for
serving as editor but he must have worked diligently. He had better
success than I had in getting the associate editors to help in the
editing, and not only editing but returning the edited manuscripts
promptly.

Reed's Dismissal

Fry:

About Reed's dismissal as executive secretary, you just mentioned

190

Fry: (before I got the tape recorder turned on today) that this was a
very sensitive thing when it came up.

Fritz: This was a very distasteful thlrig to me, to have to side with

Chapman In finding a successor to Reed. I had a great liking for
Reed. He had a lot of ability. He was an excellent writer, and
he and I shared the same views as to private enterprise versus
federal regulation and domination.

He had some difficulties, and some of them were due to having an
tagonized Chapman because of his stand for cooperation as against
federal domination. Chapman himself was for private enterprise
generally. But Reed was not inclined to change his views because
of Chapman's views.

Fry: Just where did their views conflict then?

Fritz: On Important details, especially where the Forest Service policy
was concerned.

Fry: This doesn't come out in the records, because in the records Chap
man's reasons are given largely as Reed's operational inadequacies
In running S.A.F. He mentioned that Reed was incompetent, and he
mentions several things here that Reed should have done and failed
to do and that sort of thing. But you feel that there was some
thing underlying this?

Fritz: There was more to it In the background. Reed came to the West on
several occasions to weep on my shoulder. Apparently, Chapman,
who was hypercritical, rubbed him the wrong way, and Reed rubbed
Chapman the wrong way. We needed a man of somewhat different type
than Reed. And we found a man in Henry Clepper.

Fry: Well, are you saying that you first found Henry Clepper, and then
wondered how you could go about getting rid of Reed?

Fritz: Not at all .

Fry: When did this movement start to replace Reed?

Fritz: Chapman had a very clever way of presenting his side of a case con
vincingly. It was rare that Council members or anyone else crossed
swords with him. He was actually vindictive and could cause a man
a lot of professional trouble. (I knew personally because he gave
me a hard time too.) Chapman had to have a whipping boy, one over
his knee and one In reserve.

Fry: So this was in 1936 when this happened.
Fritz: Somewhere around there.

Fry: And I believe Chapman had been in two years at that point as presi
dent of S.A.F.

191

Fritz: I think Chapman had two terms as president.

Fry: So I was wondering, since Chapman was also in in 1934, if this

was in any way a throwback to that Zon petition that we were talk
ing about.

Fritz: The Zon petition had its aftermath. It left a lot of wounds.
Fry: How did that affect Reed's standing with the Society?
Fritz: Compounded his troubles.

Fry: In other words, Reed did carry some of the blame for the dissatis
faction there? Is that what you mean?

Fritz: Well, I wouldn't put it quite like that, but his gears did not
mesh with Chapman's. In thought and action, Reed, as its paid
secretary, was a concerned member of the S.A.F.

Fry: This Zon petition was largely Forest Service people. And they
were antagonistic toward Reed also, is that what you mean?

Fritz: Less antagonistic to Reed as a person than for his opposition to
public regulation. Chapman was consistently Inconsistent. He
would defend one today and breathe fire upon him the next day.

Fry: How did the Twelve Apostles feel toward Reed?

Fritz: They felt the same way toward him as they did toward me. We were
not on the same wave length.

Fry; Which was that they would rather have somebody else as executive
secretary.

Fritz: They wanted someone who would follow the Forest Service line, some
one they could influence or control.

Fry: This began officially in your records on January 28, 1936. You
were a member of the Council, and the Council voted to dismiss
Reed at their Atlanta meeting. I think you were contacted by mail
about this. You didn't go to their meeting apparently. And Chap
man's memo on that meeting says:

"This action is to be confidential with the Council
and not to be announced In any way. Mr. Reed's status
with the Society and the public is that no action has
been taken and that his services are continued."

So that in other words, Reed was to be retained for a year, although
he had been officially dismissed by the Council. Now why did the
Council decide to time it this way? The Information did leak out,
and it presented a lot of problems for everybody.

192

Fritz:

Fry:
Fritz:

Maunder:

Fry:

Fritz:

Fry:

Fritz:

Fry:

Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:
Maunder:
Fritz:

I have completely forgotten that Chapman had made that statement.
Is it In here?

Yes, if you want to read it — that second paragraph.

Well, as I read it, I would say that was characteristic of Chapman,
and looking back, and just reading It, I would say it was self-
protection. Chapman should have known It couldn't be kept secret.
Chapman himself couldn't keep a secret.

In other words, Reed learned of his dismissal before the Council
had even notified him.

He even learned of it the night before the Council voted, and then
when he returned to Washington, he said that news of it had leaked
to Washington, D.C. , and then he went up to Yale and found people
there who knew of it. So Reed actually knew of it from the first
but he was not notified of it until later and that comes out in
the correspondence here. And then finally the thing came up be
fore the entire S.A.F. for a vote.

These are the formal charges against Reed. "He has made unfavor
able appearances before sections, schools and public meetings."

This is statement number four on Franklin Reed.

This is quoting from the formal charges that were made against him.

This is different than the other.

That's right.

"He has made unfavorable appearances before sections
is true, unfortunately. Reed was inclined to ramble.

That

Here is number two: "The lack of initiative and good judgment in
undertaking investigations in handling situations which require
tact." Well, I don't know about that.

You can't think of any examples In which that was the case?

He had to be pushed.

Who was doing most of the pushing?

Chapman, who was president. Let me read further. Number three:
"Failure to properly systematize and supervise the business and
details of the office and he delegated duties without giving ade
quate supervision." There was some truth in that. I don't think
Reed was an administrator. He was miscast for the job. It was
very unfortunate for him because he would have been a good man
somewhere else, and it was very unfortunate for Reed that Chapman

193

Fritz: was so abrupt regarding his duties, not to try to develop him and
Instead Just give him hell all the time.

Fry: Yes, well, this probably made R^ad even worse.

Fritz: Yes indeed. It made him a physical wreck. He died shortly after
he was dl smi ssed.

Maunder: He did?

Fritz: I agree with others that his death was hastened by Chapman's
treatment.

Maunder: And his death was attributed to what?

Fritz: The immediate cause?

Maunder: Yes.

Fritz: I don't recall. I think it was a stroke.

Fry: And his wife was already in some kind of a sanitarium.

Fritz: Yes, and I have a hazy recollection that he lost some functions.

Maunder: Well, that would usually go with a stroke.
Go on with the charges.

Fritz: There were four. Number four: "Inability to harmonize his personal
opinions with his position as executive secretary in relation to
the Council." Well, that could have been worded a little differ
ently if it had been worded by someone else: "Inability to harmon
ize his personal opinions with his position as executive secretary
and with the president." Because the president was forcing his views
on the Council. And for a while I must admit that I took some awful
junk from Chapman and voted with him because you have to make some
allowances for a man when he's trying to do some good.

Number five: "Evident inability to exert sufficient sustained effort
to meet the greater growing requirements of an expanding organiza
tion." Well, I think my recollection Is clear on all of those ex
cept one of them. He was not a self-starter.

Fry: So that actually it appears that it was time for the Society to
have a new man In?

Fritz: Yes, I would say that that's correct. Under a different president,
Reed could have become a good S.A.F. secretary.

Fry: It Is interesting that also in your files is a letter from Butler,
which was dated even a month before the action of the Council.

194

Fritz: Now, I have just read that third paragraph that you have shown me.
Some of that comes back, and I am surprised that others besides
myself recognized that the business manager, Miss Warren, was a
domineering personality. And o* course, we all knew that Chapman
was very aggressive — and domineering.

Only this morning, I opened a file and came across several things
which I will turn over to you for the file marked Chapman. This
is to be turned over to the Bancroft Library. It shows how domi
neering and aggressive Chapman himself was, and how arrogant and
vindictive he could be if anyone crossed him. I hate to say that
of Chapman because Chapman did a great deal for forestry and for the
Society. Yet certainly he kept things stirred up continuously.

Fry: We might as well read into the record this list of Council members
who voted on the dismissal. Dana, Spring, Besley, Collingwood,
Rhoades, Winkenwerder, and Chapman were present. And then
Korstian and Granger, who were just past Council members. And
absent but voting: Rutledge, Kotok, yourself, and Shepard.

Fritz: Was that unanimous?

Fry: I don't know how the vote went.

Fritz: I believe — and I hope you can check It from my papers — that I
voted for Reed ' s dismissal.

Fry: Yes, you did.

Fritz: And whether I made any comment on it or not, I don't remember.

Fry: Yes, you did.

Fritz: It was in a letter.

Fry: You have several letters there that go back and forth as this be
came a Society issue, pointing out how Reed made it difficult for
you when you were editing the Journal , two or three years previous.

Fritz: Reed made it difficult for me?

Fry: For you when you were editing the Journal because of what would be
done in the Washington Office. You were sitting here in California
editing the Journa I .

Fritz: I don't recall that Reed made anything difficult for me. I might
have forgotten it.

Fry: But at any rate, I assume that you did vote with the Council on
dismissing Reed at this time. Now, later on when they got votes
from the entire membership on It, that was when you abstained.

Fritz: Well, it was very rough on Reed because he had some health difficulty,

195

Fritz: I'm reminded of that by reading paragraph three, that his wife
was quite ill. The man was really despondent. With Chapman as
president, Reed could not have been given the S.A.F. secretaryship
at a worse time. Previously, h~ had lost his Job because of the
Depression.

Fry: This was his job with the National Lumber Manufacturing Association?

Fritz: I don't remember what it was. I personally liked the man. We

used to have some private correspondence, and my letters are proba
bly in the files. But I don't recall that he made things difficult
for me as editor.

cry: Miss Warren was the business manager and Reed was the executive
secretary while you were editor.

Fritz: Miss Warren gave me a bad time in the first three months of my

editorship. I had it out with her early and then we got on very
well. She had a lot of drive and was very interested in her job
in a forestry organization. I have already told you about the
poor paper she bought for the November and December, 1930, numbers.

Fry: Well, on this Reed case, the information leaked out and apparently
Reed says, In a letter, that Besley showed him the dismissal state
ment on January 27, which was the day before the meeting in Atlanta
at which he was dismissed. And so I thought perhaps you knew some
thing about the relationship here on this list of Council members.
There might be some trying to help Reed who were privy to the
Council's actions, like Besley and maybe other friends. Do you
know anybody like that?

Fritz: Let me go down the list. Dana was, and still is, a very independ
ent person. He makes up his own mind and is not influenced by
gossip without checking. I don't know what Dana's reaction was to
Reed, but whatever he did I think was done conscientiously and very
fairly. Spring, the same way. Besley, the same way. Collingwood,
the same way. Rhoades, I don't know. Winkenwerder, yes or no. H.
H. Chapman certainly was against Reed. Korstian, I don't know.
Granger would always side with Chapman. Rut I edge, I don't know.
Kotok would side with Chapman's view and so would Shepard, and, as
you say, I also was with Chapman (probably with my fingers crossed).

We badly needed an executive secretary who first of all would not
inject his own views and himself too much because he was a hired
man. Direction was up to the president and Council members. Of
course, Reed was a member himself. He could act as a member but
he also would have to be circumspect knowing that he was also a
paid employee.

Fry: But It doesn't sound as if it was a question of paying him. It

appears that he was thought to be Incompetent by a number of people.
Chapman points out that Reed's administration was untidy regarding

196

Fry: stenographic services, he felt that Reed had not gone about filing
the Forest School report which had Just been put out by the S.A.F.,
and the revision of the Constitution had been handled badly, and
that Reed at one point was suppr^ed to have provided for an unsigned
ballot at the annual meeting and he didn't — he had a place there
for everybody to sign his name on the ballot. I was wondering if
you knew of any of these instances.

Fritz: You didn't know Chapman of course, and very few of the present

generation of foresters knew him. He was very much of a martinet.
Even though he didn't have any authority over a person, he didn't
ask him to do a thing, he told him. He expected obedience like
unto a military command. And a military command is in two parts,
as you know. One is the alert cat! and then the order for action.

I doubt very much if Chapman made inquiries at all as to what may
have delayed Reed in acting quickly on the report that you men
tioned (which I don't remember at all). Maybe it was delayed. It
must have been because Chapman expected quick work"! Hteed needed
the empathy of his superior, not his harassment. Under Chapman,
Reed hardly knew what to expect next.

Fry: This was apropos of the action of a countermove led by these men

here: Ayers, Baker, Boyce, Brown, R. S. Kellogg, Recknagie, Titus,
Ziegler and Damtoft. And these nine members had sent him a letter
on June 4, saying that Chapman was constantly usurping the duties
of the executive secretary. And in answer to this, Chapman points
out these specific complaints he had against Reed. And all this
time, Reed was staying in the chair of executive secretary.

Fritz: Unfortunately for Reed, Chapman had a way of magnifying any short
comings of a person. I know that because that's the way he was
w i th me .

Fry: You felt that Chapman magnified yours too. Well, apparently he had
no trouble getting a vote from the Council on this, and also he
apparently assumed that everybody would keep it quiet for a year
while Reed found another job. In fact, he had wanted Reed to
quietly resign.

Fritz: I wish I could see that correspondence on Reed.

Fry: Would you like for me to get it? I could just run upstairs and
get this from your files.

Fritz: Please do that.

CTape off a few minutes.H

Here is an editorial on the wilderness, written by Editor Herbert
Smith. He was a magnificent writer and a good thinker. He was not
a forester. He had a lovable personality and was quite a gen
tleman; he had been a teacher of English, specialized in English

197

Fritz: in college. His essays written as editorials are really wonder
fully well done and well thought out. And the one on the wlldei —
ness, he gave it the title, "A Cult for the Wilderness." That was
published in the December, 1935 Journal of Forestry . I must read
it again because it ties in with wha h we've gone through with the
wilderness extremists in the past few years.

Fry: Here is the letter that you wrote to H. H. Chapman on January 15,
1936, in which you give him in advance your vote to discharge Reed
in case the Council took any action on it later that month.

Fritz: This was what I was referring to In my discussion with you.

Fry: "Reed has no conception whatever of the duties of a secretary nor
of his limitations nor the implications of the job."

Fritz: Now this is something that I think is important. Miss Warren was
domineering and tried to run Reed as well as the Society, and also
tried to run the editor. "Too much procrastination," I see here in
this letter of January 15, 1936, from me to Chapman. Reed was in
deed a procrastinator. And then I say: "Yet, Reed is not fully
to blame. We must be fair to him. We have let the Reed-Warren
situation develop for five years.'

"I made a broad hint in my letters to Granger particularly in my
report on the future of the Journal of a situation but it was
missed. Yet, Reed is very ab le. Re writes very well and intel
ligently and I have no reason to believe him to be other than com
pletely honest. He is sensitive and this has made it hard for both
of you. It is a tough combination: an aggressive president, a
lead-footed executive secretary, and a domineering business man
ager."

I had forgotten that I had written that way, and I believe I was
right at the time. As I told you earlier, Reed had some personal
qualities which I admired and liked very much. I wish I could have
saved him.

Fry: Yes, apparently he was a very personable man, amiable.
Fritz: Yes, he was a good companion. This was in 1936.

Fry: Yes. Now here is Chapman's answer. This is the one I was reading
to you. And this certainly sounds to me as though there was unani
mous action on the part of the Council. This is the January 31
memo of the action which was taken January 28, 1936, to fire him.

Fritz: There must be something before January 31, because my letter to
Chapman is dated January 15.

Fry: Yes. But this is where the file begins so we don't have anything
earlier than that. That was why I was asking you how you got this
underway, I thought you might remember how it first started. In

•

198

Fry: your very first letter here, you refer to a letter from Chapman,

and you say, "I have read your complaints carefully and with a good
deal of interest. You have my sympathy. You have had a taste for
two years of what I had for thr^e. You have made a very strong
case and I feel the Council Is justified to take some action.'' So
I gather that this perhaps got underway with a letter from Chapman.

Fritz: There would have been something

Fry: Well, that's what I thought, that somewhere along the way this got
started with some other correspondence.

Fritz: Earlier than January 15?

Fry: Yes, but I don't know where that would be unless it's in some other-
Fritz: Yes. Well, I'm glad you have this much. As I said earlier, it was
painful and regrettable, and I regretted having to do this because
I liked Reed and he had a lot of good qualities, as you see I men
tioned in one letter of January 15, 1936.

I believe though that Chapman was trying to do something for the
Society to shake it loose. It was getting stodgy and also it
wasn't keeping up with the work. You see, this was In the Thirties
during the depression. The Society of American Foresters got more
members during the depression. There was a net gain.

Take right here in this school: We had more students in 1937 than
we have right now. We had about 375 students majoring in forestry.
Right now I doubt that we have two hundred. It was all due to the
CCC and the WPA programs because in them they were practically
guaranteed jobs as foremen. It was a good thing for them.

Fry: But I gather that the S.A.F. was not particularly long on funds
because when the question of a new editor came up in 1934 (this
editor that the Holy Twelve wanted), the whole idea was that every
body thought that you should have a paid editor, but nobody knew
from where the funds would come for a paid editor at that time.

Fritz: Well, of course, they were getting new members. They lost some
but they were getting more new members. But when you add it all
up, that wouldn't be a great deal of money. Five dollars a head
I think the dues were at that time. They were very moderate.

Fry: As a matter of fact, I think some of the men who came to Reed's
defense were men who had been on a committee that previously had
raised money to first start paying the executive secretary. And
I think that's some of these men here.

Fritz: That I don't remember. There are a good lot of men here, good
reasonab le men.

Fry: It must have been a little painful to have gone against them too,

199

Fry: then, along with Reed.

Fritz: Yes, It was Indeed, but I would say, looking over that list that

you have, I would say none of them were as well acquainted with the
situation as Chapman and I. Now I ,;as helping Chapman to make some
thing of the Society, and we needed a man of Imagination and a hard
worker. Chapman was a terrific worker but at the same time, he was
just like a steam roller. He didn't care who was hurt.

Fry: Well, what about these two theories that seem to be going around

the grapevine? One of the theories was that the firing was because
of the difficulty between two men who could not get along; I sup
pose that was Chapman and Reed. And a second theory that Chapman
had heard was that Reed's trouble was with men in the United States
Forest Service who had finally accomplished their foul purpose.
And Chapman comments: "They did not realize that the Council is
free from the influence of the Forest Service." Do you agree with
Chapman's comment?

Fritz: I should say not. There were always some U.S.F.S. men on the
Counci I .

Fry: You think that the Council at that time was not free from the For
est Service?

Fritz: They certainly tried to influence it.

Fry: Well, do you think this firing was a part of this larger problem
then, of too much Forest Service influence? Because that's what
this grapevine theory hinted.

Fritz: Of course, I don't think much of their thinking that way. As I
said earlier, the Forest Service wanted a pliant secretary, one
they could influence in their behalf.

Fry: So this might have had an element of truth in it then?

Fritz: Oh yes. Decidedly so. I had Forest Service men come to me and

sound me out on certain things to see where I stood, in other words,
to see if they could use me or not. Well, sometimes I would have
to side with the Forest Service. Sometimes I wouldn't, and I
wouldn't budge if I thought I was right. And that was probably
I ike Chapman too.

Fry: There were some other — I was wondering about the section of this
controversy that concerned the timing and if you remembered any
thing about this. There's a letter here from Kellogg that asked
you, "What do you know about the talk going around that the Coun
ci I has tied a can on Frank Reed?"

You say, "I have your note concerning Frank Reed. I'm not in a
position to comment on Reed's status, which is a matter purely be
tween himself and the Council." You're living up to the letter

200

Fry: of the law here as laid down by the entire Council.

fritz: It's too bad li got out, although I don't know why It was mado a

secret. Chapman ought to have been smart enough to know that even
he himself would let go of It In general conversation.

Fry: Then the question came up: Should they send a copy of the charges

to Reed because then Reed had begun to say that he had been dismissed
but that he had never seen a copy of the charges.

Fritz: Is that so?

Fry: And so here's your answer: Chapman circularized the Council and
asked if the Council felt that they could at that point release
the charges to Reed.

Fritz: Looking back, I'm surprised that Reed was not given a list of the
charges against him.

Fry: Well, Reed himself — I'm not sure. It's not clear to me that Reed
was supposed to be told at all.

Fritz: That's not very nice, and that's probably one reason Chapman wanted
It confidential .

Fry: Yes, and that's probably one reason — see, you were supposed to even
destroy this memo that Chapman sent you. He says at the end of
this letter telling about the action, to please destroy it.

Fritz: He asked me to destroy it? I think that's typical of Chapman.
Things like that, I didn't like because — it's a darn good thing
that a man like Chapman didn't become President of the United
States. We'd have had a helluva time with Congress.

Fry: Well, then in August the next step was that there was a petition

to review Reed's firing and it was signed by these men here. These
nine men with the exception of Damtoft.

Fritz: I'm sure they were not of the same school. Reed was a Biltmore
forester and I 'm sure Damtoft was a Yale forester.

Fry: You think that this might have had something to do with Damtoft's
not asking for a review. I think the idea of the review was that
Reed might be rehired or reinstated.

Fritz: Well, you can see from that that there were two .schools of thought.
There was a real schism in the Society. When it came to improving
the Society and the secretary's office, I was certainly with Chap
man. But when it came to policy matters, Chapman and I certainly
didn't see eye to eye at all, and certainly not in regard to the
Forest Service, because I was a private enterpriser. I learned
that in my early days, when I had to listen to a lot of screwball
socialism from an uncle, uncle by marriage and a ne'er-do-well.

201

Fry: Well, did you think that Reed's firing had something to do with
that schism or not?

Fritz: Well, it certainly kept It allvd. He didn't cause It. Chapman
made many enemies as a result of deals like this — keeping a man
In complete darkness. And frankly, I had forgotten that it was
kept in darkness. And I don't know why there isn't a letter in my
file In which I protest that a man should be furnished with a set of
the charges. That's true in law.

Fry: Later, when you abstained in the balloting of the total membership,
do you remember why you felt that you should abstain from voting
at that time? This file still has your unmarked ballot.

Fritz: I had an unmarked ballot?

Fry: Yes. Now, let's see, there is something written on it: "No vote
cast. Was member of the CouncI I at the time. I sti I I feel the
Council was right but feel also that Chapman's handling of case
was very tactless if not unethical." Well, that was probably a
protest vote against Chapman. Is that what you meant?

Fritz: I had given him my letter of O.K. — the letter of January 15, 1936.

Fry: Yes. That was for the Council vote. Later on, a petition was sent
out to every S.A.F. member, and you had to vote on it. So, in other
words, the entire S.A.F. sat In judgment on this whole thing.

Fritz: Chapman's handling of the case was very tactless, if not unethical.
It was a very typical dealing of Chapman. Certainly you can handle
a case like this more aptly and not create a stink through all the
Society of American Foresters, and Chapman had a knack for — he
could arouse more opposition and more support. And that just shows
all the way through that Chapman was one of the heaviest contributors
to the schism In the Society of American Foresters of those days on
not only policy matters, but matters of administration and of god
knows what else, and of individual members.

He ruined one man completely by an accusation which I thought might
have had an element of truth in It but mostly I would say No. And
It was very unfair; why bring a thing like that out in the open?
You notice how private business handles such matters. When a ^ar-
is not up to what the boss requires, the thing is handled quietly.
He doesn't shout his charges from the rooftops before talking to the
man himself.

Well, I'm glad that you called this to my attention. I'm very glad
that I didn't send this ballot in, although I thought that I had
voted. My recollection must have been influenced by my letter of
January 15. The whole thing was made a mess by a viciously vindic
tive president.

Maunder: Was that note that you wrote on the ballot one which you have

202

Maunder:
Frit/:

Maunder:
Fritz:

subsequently, in reviewing this file, put on the ballot?

Fry:
Fritz:

Fry :
Fritz:

Maunder:

No. I wouldn't
the same time.

do that on my own copy.
Once I filed something,

It must havo boon nt ;ibout
I rarely had to refer to it

When was that put on the ballot?

Well, you will notice that in my letters, I often write marginal
notes and comments as I read the letter. I still do it. Now, the
handwriting there is the handwriting of that time. Now, my hand
writing has gotten worse and worse. I can't read it myself. But
it was not quite as bad as Chapman's. Chapman's required a great
deal of study, very illegible.

Oh yes. That's going to be a problem for a future historian.
a letter here from Chapman.

Here's

You might find my — what did I call them? — translations, or decipher
ing.

Yes. Some of Chapman's letters are "translated" by you.

Frankly, I hate to have you inquire Into these things so much and
so deeply because they are very very distasteful to me. I think
we've gone far enough into this. It's distasteful because of Chap
man's attitude. It's distasteful because I had to go against a
man I personally liked, and it's distasteful because the organi
zation, the federal Forest Service, was so small-minded in so many
matters.

The U.S.F.S. badly needed, in those days, older heads free from
emotional spasms. It acted like sophomores. We were all too much
of the same age. All of us had to learn not only forestry bu^ how
to get along.

Well, I think you have spelled out all that we want to know or need
to know on the subject, don't you? I think we're ready to go on to
other subjects.

Protection of Members

The Cox Case

Fry: I thought we might start in on this other case and then before we
get into the Black case, it might be a good idea to look at those
letters and f i les.

Fritz: Do you want to go into the Black case now?
Fry: On Cox.

203

Fritz: Take the Cox case first; the Black case will be longer.

Fry: The Black case is probably something you will want to check your
files on too, before we start talking about it.

Fritz: We can go through the Cox case very quickly because I don't know
much about it. That was William T. Cox, wasn't it?

Maunder: Yes, state forester of Minnesota.

Fritz: I never knew him very well. At some time, I had chats with him.
I regarded him as a man of strong personality, great ability, and
one who was trying to do something for American forestry and for
est conservation in the way that he thought It should be done.

Fry: Here are a few notes on it. Here's a letter from Cox to Professor
Chapman on February 21, 1933.

Maunder: I think maybe as an introductory statement to this discussion, it
ought to be pointed out that these pieces we are going through now
signify the S.A.F. policy question, of whether to support members
who were threatened by political displacement, and whether to dis
cipline members whose behavior was considered unprofessional. It's
to go into these famous test cases that we want to inquire into
these files that you have on them.

Fry: In other words, the Cox case signifies the first time that the

S.A.F. did enter into one of these to try to protect an employee.

Fritz: I don't recall that I really got into this.

Maunder: Well, it was in 1933.

Fritz: Here's something.

Maunder: This is a letter from you to whom?

Fry: This is a letter from Fritz to Chapman after the hearing.

Fritz: I'm going to read over this letter here to acquaint myself with the
situation and also the initial letter that was responsible for the
controversy concerning W. T. Cox. I received the Cox file because
at that time, March, 1933, I must have been a member of the Council.

Fry: Yes.

Fritz: Otherwise I would not have been involved in it at all.

Fry: In fact, we are talking about all of these things because

Maunder: You were on the Council.

Fritz: Apparently, I got a sheaf of documents on the Cox case as a member

204

Fritz: of the Council at that time and that's why I got it. Here's some
thing of Interest: "The situation in Wisconsin and Minnesota will
be repeated in other states . . ." This Is In my letter of March
29, 1933, to Chapman. "We had 4he beginning of one in California ,
last fall."

Fry: That was the beginning of the Black case, I guess.

Fritz: "There would not be so likely a repetition if the state boards

would learn that behind the state forester is a professional society
ready to vigorously back him up when certain principles for which
the profession stands are violated, as is the case in Wisconsin and
Minnesota. But instead of our professional society being held in
respect, it is actually held in contempt by these officials, if they
know it exists at all."

Then here's a personal comment that I didn't recall making but I'm
pleased I made it because I feel the same way about it right now.
"I was attracted to forestry by the courage of such men as Fernow
and Pinchot, but I must confess that since I have been a member of
the profession, I have suffered disillusionment."

Fry: I think the question in this case was whether Cox really was in
competent or whether he was being fired as a political football.
The Immediate question before the Council was whether or not to
let the executive secretary go up and make an investigation.

Fritz: Well, in the third paragraph of my letter of March 29, 1933, I go
into just personal reactions. "Our lack of initiative in carry
ing out that part of our constitution which reads: 'to advance
the science, practice and standards of forestry in America.' This
seems to date from 1924, when at the annual meeting the president
especially enunciated a hands-off policy." (Oh my god, Mulford
was president!) "What's the good of that statement in the con
stitution if the Society is afraid to act on it? Every member
must pause to wonder what the Society really has to offer him and
why we have an executive secretary. If that statement of aims
means nothing, then I am for devoting ninety percent of the Society's
income to the Journal of Forestry for publishing monographs, giving
research grants, and so~~on. At least, they are harmless. Especial Iv
when the editor dares act for the profession only after he has
pleased the officer.

"I can just picture myself trying to editorialize the Wisconsin and
Minnesota situation and trying to point out the position the pro
fession should take without having it reported to the president and
(then) thrown out. I have long been convinced that we made a mis
take on having a Forest Service officer serve as president. Al
though Granger tried to act independently at the outset, he seems
to have fallen into the safe ways of a federal officer. This is
an election year. We have a chance to at least nominate men who
have the courage of their convictions. Too many of our past offi
cers have looked upon the election to office as an honor rather

205

Fritz:

Maunder

than the awarding of a
enough to write that.

job." Gee whiz, I didn't know I had sense

Fritz:

Fry:

Maunder :

Fritz:

Fry:

Fritz:

Fry :

Fritz:

Fry:

Let me ask you something. Zon and Granger were not especially
eager for 5.A.F. to take on such cases as this. Is It just
what you said In that letter, a reflection of that fact? Why
were they not anxious to take on th"t?

1933. That was a time when Franklin Roosevelt told the federal
foresters to lay off public expression on certain policy matters
that might react against the Administration. One of them, of
course, was reorganization of the federal bureaus.

Well, this was not so much Involved with federal
was more a state forestry problem.

bureaus. This

And Zon was at the Minnesota Experiment Station at this time.
What was his relationship to Cox in al I of this?

Yes. Zon was a federal employee. Zon was the type of man who
would shove it off on Chapman, and that was just what Chapman
loved, although I don't know that Zon actually did it. Chapman,
as I told you earlier, was the hatchet man for the U.S.F.S.
Federal officials serving on the S.A.F. Council have to be
circumspect In dealing with state officers.

Do you think that the attitude of people like Zon and Granger
and others in the Forest Service could be related to a point
made in this preliminary statement of February 15, which must
have come from the S.A.F. office? The statement was made that
the United States Forest Service first had the role of stabili
zing forestry employment and they more or less did this
effectively, apparently. But then by the Thirties, there were
a number of foresters who were not in federal employment, and it
was time to have some wider organization to take over this activity.

So perhaps this Cox case came just at a time when some of you
were feeling that the Forest Service was no longer adequate to
protect all their jobs and it was time the S.A.F. stepped in.
My theory was that Granger and these others in the Forest Service
were a little reluctant to relinquish this position.

Well, by what right does a federal bureau undertake to be a
monitor of the ethics, the thinking, the policies, of state
officials and others? It's not their business.

Were there cases before this where the federal Forest Service had
been able to assist state foresters who were beset by state politics?

You mean openly on their own letterheads? I doubt it, if it was
during the F.D.R. days. They were afraid of F.D.R.

There's a long summary in this file (and as I read through it, I
realized it had been written by Chapman although it's unsighed)
of a whole series of state foresters who were replaced in their
.jobs by others because of a chanqe in the state administration.

206

pry: And that was written by Chapman who apparently felt that this
shouldn't be undertaken by S.A.F.

Fritz: Now there again, If a certain Job Is held by appointment of the

governor, It certainly is his right to make a change when he takes
office, wise or unwise. This happe-.ed In our own state just when
our own new governor, Reagan, came in. He got a new head of the
Resources Agency. I must say he picked a man who has all the
qualifications for the job — experience, interest, and high personal
qua I i ties.

Maunder: You're talking about whom?

Fritz: Norman B. Livermore, Jr. It was a wonderful appointment. Now
sometimes those jobs go to political hacks. That's a risk you
have to take in a democracy. Now, Chapman would not recognize
such a risk. He figured that that governor would have to do what
Chapman wants. It doesn't work out that way. Sometimes you have
to take a I icki ng.

Fry: The main issue in this Cox thing is that when Reed did appear

before the Minnesota commission on behalf of Cox, he went further
than many In S.A.F. felt he should have gone. And In your file
here there are comments about Reed not doing adequate research
when he went to Minnesota, that he didn't question people on both
sides of the Issue. Although the Minnesota section of the S.A.F.
(and Mr. Shirley was the head of that section at that time)
approved his action, later, members complained that they had not
seen Reed's statement before the hearing, so they didn't really
know what statement Reed was going to read.

Fritz: Is it in here?

Fry: Yes, it is. This statement is in Society Affairs, in the Journal
of Forestry. It was one of the spring, 1933, issues.

Fritz: This is a galley proof. Apparently, Reed sent me this to do over.

Fry: "On February II, Commissioner Cox was suspended by the Conserva
tion Commission on charges of complete lack of executive ability,
and March 31 was set as the date for the hearing." The charges are
"Studied contempt for and Indifference to the Conservation Com
mission and its policies. This action was taken by the vote of
three members of the Commission: Mr. W.A. McQuen, Mr. John Foley
and Mr. Richard Bai ley, who are the same three that last July
attempted to oust Mr. Cox. On the other hand are Mr. Ernest Reed
of St. Paul and Mr. James T. Williams of Minneapolis, whose formal
refusal to agree to Mr. Cox's dismissal led up to his retention
until this time. They refused to vote for his dismissal or
approve the suspension. Mr. Reed stated he had lost confidence
in some of his colleagues."

This was from the preliminary statement which was sent out to
Counci I members on February 15.

Fritz: So far I don't see anything in Franklin Reed's statement in Minnesota

207

Fritz: that I would consider out of order.

Fry: The criticisms against Reed were, I think, that he did this on
his own; It was a unilateral action. The statement Itself was.
He was sent up there to Investigate but according to Granger's
letters here, he was not sent there to make a definite statement.

Fritz: I don't know anything about that, but it might have been an escape
hatch for Granger. A man in a secretaryship should know that he
should not make statements that would not be approved by his Counci
unless he makes it clear he is speaking only for himself.

Fry: Well, maybe you could just make some statements on the people who
seemed to be in favor of the S.A.F. adopting this policy at this
time and those who felt it shouldn't be done. Apparently, the Cox
case was a kind of debacle and left a number of people divided on
the advisability of doing this with an executive secretary, and
whether a secretary should be free to act on his own after he went
in and investigated, or whether he had to wait for advice from the
Counci I .

Fritz: Well, I think the executive secretary should first clear it with
the Council. Now, as I told you before, I don't remember much
about the Cox case except that there was such a case. My part in
it was very, very small and only as a member of the Council. And
my stand in the situation is not that Cox was right or wrong, or
that the governor was right or wrong, but that it is a matter of
Society business that if we state in the Constitution that the
purpose of the Society is to protect the interest of its members,
then it should do something about acting on those interests.

At the same time, not having read these letters through — my let
ters from March 29, 1933: one to Chapman, one to Ovid Butler and
one to Granger as president — I feel first of all that the Society
should find out what the situation is, what the actual truth of
the allegations and defenses are, instead of going off half-cocked.
Please remember also that I have not had occasion to refer to this
file since the case. I have forgotten too that Granger was presi
dent. He cooled toward me, perhaps because I could not follow him
one hundred percent.

Fry: Would you try to place this Cox case in an historical perspective
for us? Do you feel that it did set a precedent?

Fritz: It had a bearing because when you have a man like Chapman who loves
a fight and has a chance to get into one, it is certain to make
headlines. Also it brings out the weakness of the Society. You
write a Constitution and you don't abide by it. You don't act on
it.

Fry: But In this (Minnesota) case, it was apparently a fairly competent
state forester who was about to be let go, and the letters in your
file have statements both pro and con on his actions while he was

208

Fry: state forester. But there are also some statements in here about
the other state foresters who have been fired around the country.
I'd like to ask you 1f you agree with this: that while these state
foresters lost their jobs 1n a political turnover or in an issue
that was largely political, they were replaced by other graduate
foresters. As long as one graduate forester is replaced by another
graduate forester, should S.A.F. liave any grounds to complain?

Fritz: If the job of state forester is a political one in the sense that
the incumbent takes office by the will of the governor, he can't
complain if he is displaced. In California, the State Forester is
on civil service, but the Director of Natural Resources, and now
the Director of Conservation, is a political appointee; and
DeWitt Nelson, who was State Forester then, was made Director of
Resources by Governor Warren, kept in that office by Governor
Knight, both of them Republicans, and retained in that office by
the Democratic Governor Brown for two terms. This shows that it
wasn't political here in spite of the fact that the governor had
the authority to replace the man if he should want to.

It shows tnat if a man is circumspect in what he does, and does a
good job, and doesn't get the governor and his people in a jam,
more than likely a sensible governor will keep a professional man
like that on the job because he's not harming the governor, he's
doing the governor good, he's doing him a favor.

My whole part in this Cox case 1s set forth 1n the letters that
you have here. They're all dated March 29, 1933, all three of them.

The Black Case

Maunder: Emanuel , in your own life, the S. Rexford Black case began with
your being appointed to the State Board of Forestry in 1934 by
Governor Merriam. You went to Sacramento to be sworn in to the
State Board of Forestry and to attend your first meeting there
which the chairman, Rex Black, had called for December 13.

There is, of course, a great deal of material in your files here
regarding this particular matter: clippings from the Sacramento
Bee of the dates in question and for several days after,* other
correspondence, and much other material which covers the subject
in detail. But it seems to need a little clarification and it's
on that that we would like to talk today.

The first question that comes to mind upon reading this file is
simply this: You were, of course, a sensitive participant and

*See Appendices B-I, pp. 302-9, Sacramento Bee, 24 October
1932, 25 October 1932, 14 December 1934; San Francisco Chronicle
15 December 1934; Sacramento Bee, 17 December 1934; Sacramento
Union. 13 June 1936. See alsoTT Rexford Black, "Private and
State Forestry in California," typed transcript of tape-recorded
Interview by Amelia Roberts Fry, University of California Bancroft
Library Regional Oral History Office, Berkeley, 1968.

209

Maunder: observer of the forestry scene in the year 1934, a man considered
to have a good deal of know-how about the forestry problems of the
state, or you wouldn't have been considered for this appointment
to the State Board of Forestry. Yet when you got down there, you
resigned even before you were sworn in as a member. The declared
reason that you gave at that time is that you found to your horror
that you were being used in this instance as a cat's paw by the
chairman of the State Board of Forestry, Mr. Black, who was making
an endeavor to fire the State Forester, who .was at that time Mr.
M. B. Pratt.

Now the question is, were you totally unaware of any implications
of your appointment in this regard? We wonder about this and how
you could come to this meeting knowing that there was so much fat
in the fire over Pratt continuing. And knowing Black as well as
you did at that time, had you had no forewarning whatsoever of
what Black was trying to do here?

Fritz: First, you have an advantage over me in that you have read the
file very recently while I have not looked it over for thirty
years. I had been asked by telephone if I would serve on the
Forestry Board, and how I felt about Pratt, the State Forester,
as to making a change In the State Division of Forestry.

Fry: Was this Black who telephoned you?

Fritz: I don't recall. It must have been Black.

Maunder: That telephone call came to you where — here on the Berkeley campus?

Fritz: No. At my home.

Maunder: This was shortly before this meeting that was to be held in Sacra
mento?

Fritz: Yes, within a week.

Maunder: And you were asked by the caller, who probably would have been
Black, the chairman?

Fritz: Most likely Black.

Maunder: And he made inquiry of you as to whether you would be a member of
the Board and also how you felt about Pratt. Is that right?

Fritz: That's correct.

Maunder: Can you elaborate about that discussion on the telephone further?

Fritz: Well, it wasn't a very long call. As I recall it, he brought up

the matter of getting Pratt out of the state forester job and get
ting someone else in. Who it might have been, I don't recall; I

210

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

don't think the Board had anyone in mind,
mento to be sworn in.

I was to go to Sacra-

Maunder:

Maunder:

Fritz:
Maunder:

Then when you went to Sacrament j for the December 13 meeting, why
did you suddenly turn about and say that you would not serve on
the Board?

Well, I was up there practically all day, most of it just sitting
around in the hotel waiting to be called. I don't know the reason
for the delay. I think it was in Governor Merrlam's office. He
was busy with something and couldn't see me. I believe the gover
nor did the swearing-in.

So it gave me a chance also to talk to some of the other Board
members. And right now I recall that we also sat around in a room
in the State Forestry building in Sacramento where some of the
other members were talking to me about what they planned to do.
Black, of course, was very busy keeping in touch with the governor's
secretary to see when we could go down. But the more these other
Board members spoke, the more I thought that I was being dragged
into something that I didn't like or fully understand. First of
all, I was agreeable to asking Pratt to resign. 1 would oppose
his being fired. Give him a chance to resign his state forester-
ship and then give him another job in the Division, a job that
would have to be created or developed in some other way by a
shift in the personnel.

You felt, I take it from that statement, that Pratt was not really
doing the job as it should be done.

Fritz: Pratt was a very good man for the early days of the State Division

of Forestry. But the job grew out of his hands. That's understand

able. He was one of the real old-timers,
from the forestry school in 1905.

think he graduated

Pratt 's great strength lay in his dealing with people. He had a
great knack for dealing with women's clubs, lunch clubs, federa
tions of this and that; he was also a good writer and a good speaker,
But his administration was very weak and, as I say, the job was
growing. There were more and more responsibilities for the State,
especially for fire protection. And there was this battle concern
ing federal regulation of forest practices. Then also there were
the C.C.C. and W.P.A. programs Involving the employment of hun
dreds of people.

Was there some criticism of Pratt's emphasis on fire prevention in
the southern counties of the state as against working more ener
getically in the northern counties?

I don't know about that.

But the implication is that the Division of Forestry in those days

211

Maunder:

Fritz:
Maunder:

Fritz:
Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

was puttinq rather heavy emphasis on its protection in the southern
part of the state rather than in the northern.

It was sure of support down the:e.

And do I get the impression that there was a feeling of criticism
on the part of Rex Black and the northern California industry men
over this emphasis? Has that got anything to do with this?

If so, I don't recall it. I was not well acquainted with southern
California, except that watershed fires down there are extremely
destructive.

Now we're talking here about the state forestry people, not the
U.S. forestry people, and what about the work that was being done
by the state forester at this time? Was he putting his emphasis
on the southern counties too, or what's at the root of these
charges, this effort on the part of Black to get rid of him?

I might say that in those days I was Just beginning to get inter
ested. I just happened to be shoved into these early day con
troversies because I happened to have sentiments comparable to
those who were talking to me.

The man who could best tell you that, one who was a very, very
close friend of Merritt Pratt, was Woodbridge Metcalf. He spent
a lot of his time in southern California on fire matters. If
Pratt gave any preference to southern California, I think he was
justified because there, he was sure of support. What he wanted
to accomplish would be what the people down there not only wanted,
but what they badly needed. Up here, the further any forester
stayed away from the landowners — grazing landowners or timber
landowners — the better they liked it. In southern California,
there was very strong interest because of watershed protection
needs. In the north, the interest was spotty.

Dunwoody had, previous to this, organized a lot of local fire pro
tective groups through the Chamber of Commerce in southern counties
and towns and had set up volunteer fire groups, all of which were
closely related, according to Dunwoody, with the State Forester's
Office; so I would assume that there was a great deal of activity
on the part of Mr. Pratt and the people in the south. And just as
you've Indicated, there probably was not nearly as much activity

going on in the north. Now, was it Black's intention
change in this by getting a change In state forester?

to get a

Not that I recall. Because northern California was organized also;
we had private forest protective agencies. Some of them antedated
the California Forest Protective Association.

Can you recall what it was that triggered your sudden decision not
to be sworn in?

212

Fritz:

Yes. I recall that well. While in Sacramento,
people about the situation and found that I was

I talked to several
not fully informed.

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fry:

Fritz:

Fry:

Fritz:

Fry:

Fritz:

Maunder:

I wasn't in on all that went before. I wasn't too close fo Pratt;
we were friendly but not close

Hadn't you been associated with him before here at the School of
Forestry?

No. I took his job in 1919. He had resigned to go to the state
office. I didn't meet him until maybe a year or two after I ar
rived in 1919. The exact details may have escaped me, but this
is the way I recall it: From those I spoke to in Sacramento, I
learned more of the situation and felt I let myself into something
that I didn't know enough about. Now I don't hold that against
Rex Black. Maybe he was mislead when I talked to him over the
telephone. A telephone is a very unsatisfactory way to carry on
a business of that kind, and I probably didn't ask enough ques
tions about what was behind it.

Do you remember whether you got this feeling from people in the
Forestry Division there in Sacramento, some of Pratt's own people?

No. I knew some of them, of course, and I knew also that it was a
weak administration. No, I got that feeling from people outside
the administration. Ed Kotok came to my office one day and unbur
dened about Pratt, saying, "I'll get him out."

Pratt had a very strong point for which I admired him: He would
not knuckle under for anybody in the Forest Service who was trying
to get him to line up with it to strengthen their hands. He knew
that, in the end, he would be the loser. What year was that?

1934.

He was in office another nine or ten years after this episode.
He'd been in the federal Forest Service for about ten years.
What had Kotok told you?

To use his exact words (I remember them distinctly because they
made such an impression as coming from a federal man): "I'm
going to get him."

This was when Kotok was head of the Experiment Station?

Yes. His office was in our building.

And was this before you were up as a member of the Board?

Yes.

I notice here too that the California stockmen, the wool growers,

213

Maunder: and other associations were rather strongly opposed to ousting
Pratt.

Fritz: Opposed to ousting Pratt?

Maunder: That's right. And labeled Black as being the person who was trying
to get rid of him. For example, W. P. Wing, secretary of the wool
growers group, is quoted as stating here, "Black has been after
Pratt for four years. Black is secretary of the California Forest
Protective Association, an organization of the private timber in
terests who are opposed to Pratt."

Fritz: Well, now that you mention Wing, the chances are that I spoke to
him at some time earlier. I still know Wing and very favorably,
although at that time, he got me a little angry for capitalizing
on my action. I did speak to him after I declined being sworn in.

Maunder:

Fritz:

have a clipping here from the Sacramento Bee of December 14, 1934,
think this is such a classic lead for a news story that I'd like

to read it into the oral
George Dean. It begins:

history interview. It's written by

"Professor Emanuel Fritz, newly appointed member to
the State Board of Forestry, sat yesterday afternoon
in the lobby of the Hotel Senator calmly reading
Anthony Adverse and his literary bent blocked a move
to oust Merritt B. Pratt as State Forester. As a
climax to a tense situation, Fritz today telegraphed
his resignation to Governor Frank F. Merriam less
than forty-eight hours after his appointment and
stranger still, before he had taken the oath of
office."

So you resigned from something that you weren't a member of yet.

That's a reporter's statement. He wasn
It was a very uncomfortable period. It
rainy and gloomy. 1 don't think it was

't with
was in

too

me very long.
December and very
warm in the lobby of

the Senator Hotel, and I think I still had on my raincoat.

Well, anyway, Wing was bent on preserving Pratt and I couldn't
understand that because Pratt was against the burning being con
ducted by the grazing men. Pratt probably had the same feeling
I had at that time and still have, that it's the stockmen's land
and if they think they can get more grass by burning, it's cer
tainly their privilege to try it. I used to tell stockmen that if
they let their fire run across their land into land that is dedi
cated to the growing of timber, then that's where I get into the
picture. Three or four years later, I had a part in legislation
that set up the cooperative burning, or controlled burning system.
It solved many forestry problems.

Maunder: It's a rather interesting thing to note here that the other members

214

Maunder: of the Forestry Board were present in Sacramento that day — B. C,
McAllaster of Piedmont, H. S. Oilman of Los Angeles, and Ernest
0. Dudley of Exeter — and they were meetlnq in the Board's room
in the Division of Forestry, reudy to cast their votes for the
State Forester if the matter came up. You evidently were there
for a short time with them.

Fritz: Perhaps. I think it was to have been an official Board meeting,
The Rex Black group was sincerely trying to get more forestry
into the woods, particularly selective cutting. Pratt was for
that too, but he lacked the steam.

Maunder: In other words, what you're saying is that this is an issue in
which the industry and the Forest Service were at one with each
other and were fighting to get rid of Pratt?

Fritz: Yes, I think that's true. But it was limited mostly to top men
and mainly in the pine industry. I don't think the redwood peo
ple took much interest in it. Except for a few, they were very
provincial at that time and their problems were different.

Maunder: What about the membership of the California Forest Protective
Association?

Fritz: That was statewide. Anybody who owned forest land to be protected
could be a member, redwood or pine.

Maunder: But wasn't this the heart of the opposition to Pratt? Wasn't
Black the secretary of this Association?

Fritz: Yes.

Maunder: And wasn't the man that they had hand picked to take Pratt's place
Bill Schofield? Bill was actually sworn in as state forester here
briefly for one day, I believe, and then relieved. He was the man
that was to be recommended.

Fritz: I might have known that at the time but I don't recall it now. I
know that Schofield had been considered at other times. He would
have made an excellent State Forester.

Fry: I believe this issue came out later In the S.A.F. investigation.
There were some letters written on it.

Fritz: If it came out in the S.A.F. investigation, then I must have known
about it at the time because I was still a member of the Council
then, wasn't I?

Fry: Yes, you were. This is your file on the whole thing right here.

Maunder: Emanuel, as a member of the Council in 1934, you must have been
rather intensely aware of the attitude of the hierarchy of S.A.F.

215

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:
Maunder:
Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

with roqard to the ethics of the profession. This was a matter of
great discussion and interest at that time, was it not?

I think that was about the beginning of the many years spent in
writing a code of ethics for the Society of American Foresters.
But the Society was not involved in this case until its president,
Chapman, pushed it in.

What I'm trying to get at is this: Were you in any way influenced
in your decision to refuse to be a member of the Board by what you
felt might be professional considerations? Did you feel perhaps
that you were becoming party to something that wasn't ethically
sound? I gather that you did because you made rather strong
statements in saying that you would not serve.

As far as the code of ethics was concerned, I think it was all
right; but from the standpoint of fairness to Pratt, I don't think
it was right to kick a man out of his job. But to let him stay on

In another category would have been a
told that they were going to set up a
you're dealing with a public agency
state, you've got to be sure you've got
you be 1 1 eve It.

fair thing to do. I was
job like that, but when
whether it's federal or
it In your hand before

There was talk of setting up a special Job for Pratt, one that
would include public relations, making addresses, and the like.
Pratt would have done an excellent job. He had a real bent for
it. I believe he would have advanced forestry better than he was
doing as State Forester. Had there been a firm commitment by
someone in authority that such a job would be created for Pratt,
at no loss in salary, I would have gone to Pratt direct and told
him that I favored his resigning and taking the other job. He
would have been foolish to resign with the new job only an assump
tion. I think I could have convinced him he would be better off.

Well, was it Chapman who brought the charges against Black, or
was it someone else?

It was a committee.* No, it must have been the signers of a
petition. Wasn't Woodbury one of them?

The charges against Black were signed by seven people, the names
of whom were withheld.

Yes. Unless my memory is incorrect, Kotok and Show and Woodbury
were among those who signed.

All three were Forest Service men.

Yes. The reason that Kotok wanted Pratt out was that the Forest

*See Appendix J, pp. 3 1 0-1 3, notes from S.A.F. Affairs,
February, 1936.

216

Fritz: Service wanted a man in the job it could control, especially when
this matter of federal regulation of timber would come up.

Maunder: That seems a little inconsistent to me. If Kotok was eaqer to
get Pratt out, why would he then be one of those who attacked
Black for trying to get him out? That doesn't make sense at all.

Fritz: No, it doesn't. The Show-Kotok team (brothers-in-law) was an am
bitious pair. Don't forget too that anyone who was antf federal
regulations was beyond the pale, and Black was certainly against
federal regulations as strongly as I was. There was another pos
sible reason. Kotok wanted more state funds to study flood control
in southern California. He was in Sacramento a good deal trying
to get money from the legislature. Perhaps Pratt felt that Kotok
was intruding into state matters. Pratt had appropriations of his
own to fight for.

Fry: I got the impression that Mr. Kotok was brought into this because
he was an S.A.F. Council member at the time.

Fritz: I asked Woodbury, "Why did you sign that petition?" And he said,
"Well, here is a complaint being made and I think it ought to come
out in the open in the Society." I don't think he cared whether
Pratt stayed or got out. He was on the moderate side.

Maunder: Pratt had faced a possible ouster In 1932, two years before, when
the governor was James Rolph. Also again, on charges filed by
Rex Black.

Fritz: What were the charges?

Maunder: That he is incompetent to handle the forestry camp and unemployment
program.

Fry: I believe that Black was also in some executive capacity in that
program, wasn't he?

Fritz: I think he was, but I don't remember for sure. That was what they
called the S.E.R.A. camp before the W.P.A. and C.C.C. Now that
you mention it, I think Black was dissatisfied with Pratt's hand
ling of these programs.

Fry: Yes. Black apparently handled this, and he wrote a report.*

Fritz: I remember that very well because I wrote a review of the report

one man made. I think his name was Cutler. He protested to Black
that I made it appear that I was involved in S.E.R.A., taking some
glory away from this particular man who protested. Actually, I had
no part in S.E.R.A. I was just reviewing a report as a reviewer.

^California State Labor Camps Report, July, 1932. Sacramento,
California. For a copy of this report reprinted from the Journal
of Forestry, see Appendix K, pp. 314-15.

217

Fritz:

Fry:

Maunder:

Fritz:

crv:
Fritz:

Fry:
Fritz:
Fry:
Fritz:

Frv;

Maunder:

Fry:

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

There were a lot of undercurrents that are rusty in my memory.
This is what we're trying to put together.

It's those undercurrents that need to be brought out in this
interview if we can.

The California federals were rather boastful, as compared with
the northwest. And there was quite a clique in the making. It
became very powerful.

Do you include Woodbury in the clique? Or do you just mean S^ow
and Kotok primarily?

It was a Kotok and Show team; Woodbury didn't cotton to either one
of them. Now how did the Society get interested in this? Who got
the Society into this? That is the only part in this case that
matters.

Do you know?

Yes.

Who?

I was in Connecticut for some reason, and naturally I would call on
the Yale Forest School and my old professors; and the first crack
out of the box after he said Hello, Chapman said, "Tell me all about
that situation in California about the state forester and Black."

How did he know?
It had been in the press.
Oh, this was after it broke.
That was pipelined to him.

Well, that's what I meant. He would have been sent clippings by
some of his friends.

Probably. As I characterized Chapman earlier, he was a great one
to smell out a battle and get into it. I told him what the situa
tion looked like to me, and I emphasized that Black and the other
men who were trying to get the state forestership changed to another
man were on the right track. We needed a stronger man there, a man
who could cope with the growing importance of the job. But the way
they went about it was very tactless and, as it turned out, diffi-
cu It for them.

Maunder:

Do you think it was also unethical the way they went about it?
was on these grounds that Black was ousted from the Society.

It

218

Fritz: He was brought back again too. Don't forget that.
Fry: Black was?

Fritz: Black, yes. He was reinstated. I begged Chapman, knowing how

precipitate he was, to stay out of this matter, and that we could
handle it in the West. I warned him that he was being used by
Black's detractors. I was afraid that Chapman would mess it up,
just as he did other disputes, and have a lot of dirt spread out
and get the forestry profession again into bad repute. I said, in
effect, "For heaven sakes, Chapman, keep out of this. This is a
local matter and you have no business in it. We can handle that
oursel ves."

That didn't appeal to him. Later I learned that he was investiga
ting the matter through his own connections in the West, and of
course, Pratt would feed him everything that he could get together.
Chapman set up a committee to bring charges formally. I didn't
sign that petition.

Maunder: No, but you passed on the charges after they had been made official
and sent out. The Council found Black guilty on the 20th of
November, 1935.

Fritz: Do you know how they voted?

Maunder: I'm sure it's a matter of record.

Fry: Everybody but one voted to oust Black.

Fritz: Do you know who that one was?

Fry: I think it was Kotok.

Fritz No sir, it was Fritz. I was the only one who voted No. I voted
against ouster. Chapman never forgave me for opposing him.

Maunder: The Council found Black guilty on several counts of the charges
presented against him. They found that he was guilty of trying,
without sanction of the State Forestry Board, to get Governor Rolph
to dismiss Pratt for incompetency and political activities. In
this 1932 attempt, the governor was of the opinion that Black had
the full approval of the Board of Forestry when he actually did not,

Then on another charge Black was found guilty. It was that he had
discredited Pratt to his supervisors, to the public, and to his
subordinates. There was evidence that confirmed that he had done
this. He was also found guilty on the fourth charge which was that
he, Black, had usurped the authority of the State Forester.

And on the seventh charge, that when the initiative was won to put
the State Forester under the protection of civil service, Black
tried to get the Board of Forestry to dismiss him in the interim —
which Black could have done with the vote of the new Board member,
Fritz. But Fritz caught on and would not accept the appointment.

219

Maunder: Now, on all of these counts, Black was found guilty and as such,
was thrown out of the membership of the S.A.F. in November, 1935,
with you as the sole dissenter in that decision. Is that right?

Fritz: Yes. That was November, '35, and in December, '35, only a few weeks

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

Fry:

Fritz:

later, I was in Portland at
and asked if I would sign a
by an independent committee.
tion, but could not sign it
look back on it, I think it

a forestry meeting and was approached
petition for a rehearing of the case

I replied that I favored the new peti
because I was a Council member. As I
would have been quite proper for me to

sign it because I was a dissenter of the original.

Your position does look a little ambiguous from this distahce,
Emanuel, when it was your action that stopped Black in his attempted
action to displace Pratt, and then later when you cast the one vote
for him in the Society's Council.

The Black case and my declining membership on the Board of Forestry
are two different matters. Don't forget you've got seven stipula
tions here, and I felt that Chapman was extremely unfair in approach
ing the Council as he did.

Were you on the Counci I then?

Yes. It was about the time I was getting badly fed up with the
way Chapman was running the S.A.F. As I told you, in Portland I
was asked to sign a petition for Black's reinstatement and begged
out of it because I was a member of the Council. But I told them
I was sympathetic toward their purpose and I think the action
should be reviewed.

In a letter to Colonel Greeley, I submitted to him a copy of my
letter to Chapman in which I stated that I thought Black acted
wrongfully in some of the things but that Black was trying to ac
complish something good for California forestry in which Pratt was
not cooperative. I think he deserves a slap on the wrist for his
actions but that he should not be bilged from the Society. This
was a two-or three-page letter. It must be in my files.

It may be in your file on Greeley.

A committee was set up. Greeley was made chairman. Gree ley's was
the top name in the forestry profession. His committee voted on
the Black case exactly the way I had put it in my earlier letter
to Chapman regarding Black. I won't say that they were influenced
by it, but that was an obvious situation to me and the way it
should have been handled. They apparently saw it the same way.

Haven't we given the Black case sufficient time? Your line of
questioning indicates a study of my files. I have not referred
to them for thirty years, unless it was casual or to look up dates.
This episode occurred so long ago that I had forgotten many details,

220

Fritz: although your questioning brought some back to mind. The impor
tant matter, in my opinion, was the way Chapman forced the Society
into the case.

It was an interesting period. There was much opposition to fed
eral regulation. Not a few foresters In the U.S.F.S. were cool to
it, as shown in a Society-wide ballot several years later. Some of
us were doing our best to promote private forestry. To the men in
private employ should go much credit for stirring up among Important
private owners an acceptance of forestry. They had not only apathy
on the part of the industry to contend with, but also the ridicule
and disparagement from various federal foresters.

Maunder: So you feel that the real issue at stake in this Black case was

really federal regulation rather than ethics? Is that what you're
trying to say?

Fritz: At the root, it was the private enterprise system. Of course, Chap
man made it an issue of personal ethics. Chapman's own ethics were
not above reproach.

Maunder: Well, I don't see how you can make it a matter of regulation. That
Isn't really the point.

Well, call it private enterprise.

I know that, Emanuel. But what you're dealing with here is a
specific case in which a man, In this case a defendant, Black, is
accused of doing certain things against a State Forester, Pratt.
Now, either he did these things or he didn't do these things. And
a jury of his peers on which you sat as a member heard the evidence
in this case, and found Black guilty on a number of counts, judging,
"Is that right or wrong?"

Now this other matter may have been Involved. There is no doubt
that there was antagonism and rivalry between different groups at
this same time. But that doesn't get away from the fact that the
charges in this case had nothing to do with regulation at all.
They had to do with Black specifically against Pratt.

Yes. You are absolutely correct about that, but Chapman got into
it because of Black trying to take Pratt's job away from him. And
the Forest Service Itself was trying to get Pratt out because he
did not do its bidding. It was a helluva mess. The publicity
could have been avoided if Chapman had not Interfered. We have
spent entirely too much time on it in this interview. However, I
want to add something about Pratt.

Pratt was still state forester when, in 1943, I had a bill for a
state forest system introduced by Senator Biggar, and during the
time an interim legislative committee studied the California for
est situation, I was that committee's advisor and arranged Its
field trips. Why should 1, an outsider, undertake legislative

Fritz:
Maunder:

Fritz:

22!

Fritz: matters? It should have been done by Pratt as state forester. I
received practically no help from him. I could hardly get a civil
answer from my questions to him. Yet I had saved him his job when
I declined Board membership.

Pratt almost lost us that Interim committee by making it appear
that the bill was an underhanded scheme to separate him from his
job. Assemblyman Gardiner Johnson, in defeating the bill, admitted
to me the next day that he was influenced by Pratt1 s argument.
When it was explained to him that the bill did not have, and could
not have had, any connection with Pratt or his job, he manfully re
suscitated it and in a few hours, had it passed.

I can see that Pratt was probably miffed that someone else was
doing, and succeeding at, what he should have handled himself. We
had to go about it as though he did not exist. Rex Black had the
same experience with him. I had nothing to gain for myself; in
fact, it hurt my status at the University.

If Chapman had been smarter, he would have investigated the ad
ministration of state forestry. Because of his interference, we
were saddled with a weak State Forester for another eight or ten
years.

hL_ H^_ Chapman

Fry: Do you remember very much about the way S.A.F. V ice-President Dana
handled these charges against Chapman?

Maunder: Let me explain this second investigation. A petition was brought
to the Council from several members of the California section in
December, 1935 — December 12, 1935 — and the Council agreed to grant
a review of the Rex Black case. And the charges against Chapman in
this case were signed by Swift Berry, R. A. Colgan, Clyde S. Martin,
T. K. Oliver, and W. R. Schofield.

Fry: The importance of both of these cases, particularly in the Chapman
case, is that it was handled on two levels. One was the level of
the actual charges and whether or not the party was guilty or not
of unethical conduct, and then the other level was working out the
procedure with which the Society could deal with problems like this.
So you might have some comments on the way these procedures finally
were worked out.

Fritz: It certainly points out that the bylaws of the S.A.F. constitution
were not fully clear about how these steps should be taken and that
this probably had some influence on the amendment to the constitu
tion later on.

Fry: Yes. You notice that the petitioners were never identified in the

Black case, and in the Chapman case, they did identify the petitioners,

222

Fry:
Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Fry:

so apparently this is one change.

(Reading notes from his files.) This Isn't right. This says that
Chapman "defends countercharge that the U.S.F.S. men wanted Pratt
retained since lumbermen wanted him fired. " That is not true.
Forest Service man Kotok said he was "going to get him,'1 i.e., he
was going to get Pratt.

Now here is a day telegram from the Forest Service, dated December
17, 1934, addressed to Governor Frank Merriam from S. B. Show,
Regional Forester. "Statement at Saturday meeting of forestry
board as reported in Sunday San Francisco Examiner that Forest
Service believes Pratt unqualified is absolutely untrue. Federal
relations with Pratt involving Jarge C.C.C. program and coopera
tive protection work under CTarke-McNary law are entirely satisfac
tory." That would seem to refute ....

That's face-saving. I see another sentence here: "Chapman says
that Berry intimated the opposite point of view." Well, I think
Berry was right.

I guess the Forest Service men didn't have much love for Black
either.

Fritz: No. Now that's what I wanted to come back to — the reason I sym
pathized with Berry and Colgan and Black and that particular group.
My background is altogether different from that of most foresters.
Mine was in the physical field and the Forest Service men were
mostly in literary and biological fields. And the two were quite
different. That is, they did make a man think a little differently,
I think. That's the way it appears to me.

As for the investigation, I really don't remember that he was made
the "subject of an investigation. It's peculiar that I don't re
member.

Fry: I think perhaps you went off the Council right at that time, be
cause you and Chapman were having some correspondence about your
resignation from the Council then, and Chapman was saying that he
wished you wouldn't resign because it would look as if you were
resigning in a huff over the Black case. That was about April
of I936/

Fritz: No, my resignation had nothing whatever to do with the Black case,
although it just confirmed some of my fears over Chapman's manage
ment of the Society. There were two reasons for my resignation.
One was Chapman's lavish expenditure of the Society's funds and
his domination of the Society's Washington office. And the second
was the fact that I was put at a disadvantage at the University by
spending so much time on so-called outside activities, desirable
as they were in the interest of forestry.

Fry: Well, there are some papers and letters that indicate that your

223

Fry: participation would be all right as far as Dean Mulford was con
cerned, and that It would actually be counted and Included ....

Fritz: Perhaps.

Fry: And that later you found out that this wasn't the case somehow.

Fritz: The Dean of the College of Agriculture told me, "You take your
chances when you take on a job like that." Yet, V ice-President
Deutsch, of the University, one day gave a talk before a group of
foresters and singled me out as having done a great deal and men
tioned some of the things that I was doing. It struck me as
rather odd because he was practically congratulating me for it,
whi le in the School of Forestry, it wasn't accepted.

Fry: So you decided to resign?

Fritz: Membership on the S.A.F. Council, yes.

Fry: If I can ask you one more question about this year of 1936 before
we leave it — there was a "Division of Private Foresters" in the
process of forming in the S.A.F. You were the chairman of it, and
you have an excellent file on it. I'd I i ke to know more about
this Division. I think you were the one who was actually doing
all the work, the letter writing and so forth, to actually get
this started. But apparently it didn't last very long.

Fritz: I don't think I initiated the section, but I was in sympathy with
it and helped it along because I was interested in the development
of private forestry. I thought it was a good idea. It was in ac
cordance with the S.A.F. constitution.

Fry: Yes. They had another section called the education section.

Fritz: Yes. And they had a grazing section. In a way, I was responsible
for that grazing section. I think It was the first subject section.
It was, I believe, in the late I920's or early I930's that subject
sections were authorized. One day at an S.A.F. convention, C. L.
Forsling asked me what I thought of setting up a new society for
grazing managers. I said, "You shouldn't do that. Why not set up
a section?" We had not long before that authorized subject sec
tions.

That's how the grazing section came about. It got so big even
tually, and it was indeed such a specialty, that they did form a
separate society, the influential Society of American Range Manage
ment. They now have their own magazine.

Fry: So when this was first brought up, you thought that forming a

section on private forestry was just another logical step. Do you
remember how this first came about? This was in 1936, which appears
to have been an extremely tumultuous year for S.A.F.

224

Fritz: More and more men were going into private employ and they wanted
to be sure that their interests were actually preserved or pro
tected by the Society. Also they wanted to be known as private
foresters, a distinct kind of a job: first of all, a tremendous
selling job, a job of selling nut only to the board of directors
of the company but to the employees in the woods.

Well, many of the woods employees were against forestry because
it meant that they had to change some of their methods. Some of
the oid-timers didn't like change. They didn't like the idea of
foresters on their woods operations, all of them youngsters and
college graduates. In those days, there were mighty few college
graduates in private forestry work.

And also we had the job of working up the technique of practical

forest management. That was true all over the country, the
southern pine region, the western Douglas fir, western pine and

redwood regions. I was not an employee of a lumber company, but

I was interested in getting foresters into the woods and mills of

private companies. They now exceed in numbers, or nearly so, the

foresters in public forestry.

H. H. Chapman was a strong supporter of having more foresters get
into private employ. In the Thirties of course, there was not much
room for a forester because none of the companies had money. But
the larger companies did employ some. However, after the Second
World War, they just flooded in without much help from the outside.
The companies looked for woods foresters and for college-trained
men interested in the mills, especially the seasoning of lumber.

Fry: Well, you were the chairman of this Division, and it was officially
formed in January.

Fritz: Of what year?

Fry: 1936. The same year that everything else happened. You had the
Zon petition and a lot of other things.

Fritz: It's a good thing all of them happened during the Depression when
many things were much easier.

Fry: Why?

Fritz: For one thing, it was easier to travel around. The highways were
almost blank.

Fry: There were sixteen members enrolled when it was formed.

Fritz: And I was the chairman?

Fry: And you were chairman.

Fritz: I don't remember that.

225

Fry: I was wondering if the final fizzling out of this — I don't really
know what happened because it was after you resigned from the
Council. But I was wondering if you had trouble with the Holy
Twelve, who were around at the same time.

Fritz: I would say that they were related. I think they were related
because there was that agitation for public regulation; and the
private foresters of course thought in terms of private enterprise,
and they were going to defend that system. And they wanted people
to know that they were just as good foresters as those in public
employ, but that the job was different. I don't think that section
is alive now, but it served its purpose.

Fry: No, it didn't live very long. It ended quite soon after.

Fritz: The western private foresters have the Western Forestry and Conserva
tion Association, a marvelous organization. That is really dirt
forestry.

Fry: And that's completely outside the S.A.F.

Fritz: Yes, but many western foresters are members of both. Many of its
members are not trained foresters but they have strong and active
interest in it.

Fry: There was a lot of question at this time about whether the forma
tion of this section would increase the schism that seemed to be
developing within S.A.F. as a whole, and whether the proposed divi
sion would be primarily a group for study and discussion or for
economic and pol itical purposes.

Fritz: There was probably a suspicion on the part of the public foresters
that this would be used as a sort of political section to work in
favor of the private enterprise system and against public ownership.
Of course, that would always come up. But the idea was, as I re
member now, to let the other foresters know that the private for
ester has a place and has a different kind of a job, and that more
foresters should get into private work.

Fry: Well, I remember reading the minutes of your first meeting, and I
wish you could have read these because it probably would have re
called to you the whole attitude, as it was portrayed at that time,
of the private foresters. The first meeting seemed to be very
fruitful.

Fritz: 'Yes. I'm sorry I did not have a chance to read it.

Fry: 1 think you were anxious that it not go off on a tangent just to
harangue at public forestry but that it ....

Fritz: It's pretty hard to keep that down. Being a member of the faculty,
of course I would get calls from many groups and sometimes they
were alumni men in private work; or complete outsiders would come

226

Fritz: to the office and we'd chat, battle these things out. And some
times a member of the Forest Service would come in to seek some
information.

Fry: Regarding private forestry.

Fritz: Yes, and regarding something he might have heard. For example,

when the tree farm program was started, about a year after its es
tablishment in 1941, a Forest Service man came to my office and
said: What about this tree farm system? Is that really on the
up-and-up, or is it window dressing? He might not have used the
same terms but that's what he meant. There was always that sus
picion. If private industry wanted to do something, the Forest
Service itself, its own people, would downgrade it when it should
have helped.

Fry: "Well, did you find this suspicion existed about your private for
estry section?

Fritz: Not that I recall. We met only once a year, at the annual conven
tion of the S.A.F. It was a no-nonsense section.

Fry: The private section met only once a year?

Fritz: Yes. There was correspondence, of course. The private foresters
couldn't sustain that section. There were so many sections that
some of the private foresters preferred to attend other section
meetings, for example, on the new developments on fire control,
the new things on silviculture, new things in economics, and sta
tistics, and so on. And furthermore, private foresters had, in the
"West, the Western Forestry and" Conservation Association, which was
oriented toward private operations.

Fry: On-the-ground techniques.

Fritz: On the ground, yes. It's a very effective organization. And it's
effective not only for their own selfish interests but for inter
ests that affect the public. And to help them do their own jobs
better. In the southeast, they have the Pulpwood Conservation As
sociation.

Maunder: Yes. Henry Malsberger is head of it.

Fritz: That's right. And then another man at Bogalusa ....

Maunder: Bogalusa? Yes, he was the first head of it. You're thinking of
Frank Hey ward.

Fritz: Heyward, yes. I think he started it. So the southern pine private
foresters had that to attend. And I would say it is as good for
the east as Western Forestry is out here.

Fry:

Well, are you saying then that these organizations did exist for

227

Fry: private foresters outside the S.A.F.?

Irlt/: Not rtr> a substitute. Those organizations ;in<l thn 5. A. I . vjpplo-
rnenl one another. Many foresters belong to one of theso two and
the S.A.F.

Fry: So then, what would have been the purpose of this one inside S.A.F.?

Fritz: We thought the members of the S.A.F. should have a chance to get

acquainted with private industry. The Western Forestry and' Conserva
tion Association is more than sixty years old. The southern or
ganization is younger. Southern pine forestry boomed so rapidly.

Fry: Could I just put in one more question here to wrap up this S.A.F.
discussion, and then we can go into Chapman again. I have a note
here that some people feared the schism might be increased by the
formation of the Division of Private Foresters, and in particular,
E. T. Allen and Philip Coolidge were mentioned. Do you remember
them?

Fritz: Yes.

Fry: Well, what was their role there?

Fritz: Coolidge was a private consulting forester.

Fry: And he was helping you form this, I guess?

Fritz: He probably did. He lived in Maine and I lived at the other end
of the world. Who was the other?

Fry: E. T. Al len.

Fritz: E. T. Allen. He was not a forestry-trained man but he knew it as

well as any of us. He was the first State Forester of California.

He really made the Western Forestry and Conservation Association

what it was at that time. A very, very able man.

Fry: Do you remember if they were for the formation of this section?

Fritz: Oh, I'm sure they were. And if there's any suspicion about the

motives of that section, it was on the part of public people and

their cohorts. I think you've got enough on Chapman. Why not
let him rest in peace?

Fry: But just as this private forestry section was forming, you felt
that you had to resign from the Council because of the press of
University duties. However, Chapman says it was such an awkward
time for S.A.F. that he hated to see you resign then because the
private forestry division was not yet set up, and he said that many
would think you had quit in a huff over the way the Black case was
being handled. (This was just before Chapman was charged with mis
handling that case, and the report was not to be made to the Council

228

Fry: for two months.)

The state of S.A.F. at that time was that there was a discontented
group led by Zon and Kellogg, and Chapman says that In April the
private foresters had allowed tnelr ^eellngs to get the best of
them at the Atlanta meeting, so he felt he needed you there. He
was really trying to get you to postpone your resignation.

Fritz: I was not at the Atlanta meeting.
Maunder: Now about Chapman ....

Fritz: Well, way back in 1951, Herman Chapman wrote me the nastiest letter
I ever have received. It was a typically Chapmanesque, vindictive
letter, intemperate and I ibelous. He sent a copy of that letter
to the Forest Service with permission to distribute it. This it
did and thereby became a party to the libel.

I wrote a reply at once, but I was advised not to mail it and to
let the matter die. I was also told that Chapman is irked more by
being ignored than by being answered. Also, I felt that a new
Chief Forester was coming on, and I didn't want to embarrass him.
However, I did continue to toy with the idea of suing Chapman for
libel. He has libeled others but to keep peace in the family, they
never did anything about it.

Some time after the statutory time for filing a libel action had
expired, I decided that I should answer him just for the record
because he made statements which were absolutely untrue. Chap
man was the kind of man who accepted the word of the last one who
gives him some negative gossip on an individual. Whether it's
true or not the purveyor didn't care, but he knew that Chapman
loved it and would magnify it. That letter of 1951 was so widelv
distributed by the Forest Service that I got a number of comrients
about it from friends who wanted to know why I didn't fight it.

Maunder: Let me just follow this up a little bit. You did in 1951 address
a ditto letter to all the regional foresters and directors in the
Forest Service in which you said: "Gentlemen, Recently you re
ceived from Dana Parkinson reference I. Information Special Ar
ticles, I and E #676, copy of a letter written to me on August 20,
1951, by Professor H. H. Chapman severely criticizing me for state
ments I made in an article in Fortune a year earlier. Mr. Parkin
son also attached to his covering letter a copy of a letter Chapman
wrote to the editors of Fortune . I had originally intended to ig
nore Chapman's letter but because of its broadcast distribution I
feel I must answer it.

"Out of about ninety received, Chapman's was the only letter to con
demn the article or in any way criticize it.

""Therefore I want to know what there is in the article that is not
true or what is biased or what may be considered a deliberate effort

229

Maunder: or attempt to discredit the Forest Horvlco. General statements
are not helpful. I need pinpointed specific reference. Accord
ingly I am enclosing two copies of the article, on one of which I
should like to have your comment', and marginal notes, Interlinea
tion or other form. Merely underlining would give me no idea of
whether you agree or disagree. The other copy you may keep as a
record of your comments."

Now Emanuel, in response to that letter, which you distributed to
the regional foresters and administrators of the U.S. Forest Ser
vice, your notes here show that you received eleven replies out of
twenty and these all follow pretty much the same tone in their
content. And you note on the face of W. G. McGinness' answer
(McGinness being then the director of the Rocky Mountain Forest
and Range Experiment Station), dated November 30, 1951, "All too
much alike not to have been prompted as to tone and content by
Washington."

And indeed, all these eleven letters which are addressed to you
from McGinness, Philip A. Briegleb, George M. Jemison, J. Robert
Done, Edward P. Cliff, Charles A. Connaughton, C. J. Olson, W. F.
Swingler, Clare Hendee, and C. R. Lind and P. D. Hanson all make
essentially this comment: that they see no purpose in outlining
to you their comments on the Fortune article in detail but indi
cate that they feel that Chapman^ criticisms of the article are
valid and the inaccuracies that he claims to be in your article
are self-evident; that if you will come to visit the forest areas
to which you refer in your article (that is, the U.S. Forest Ser
vice lands), you will see first hand the conditions on the ground
which refute what you say in your article.

Now, what follow-up did you make? I would assume in the face of
this, you might have been deterred from following up a course of
action to sue for libel in 1951, would you not?

Fritz: No, I think my hand was strengthened. If you read all those let
ters carefully, you find that almost the same wording is used. I
had sent a copy to Dana Parkinson also because he was a party to
the libel and I wanted him to know what I was doing, which was a
mistake. Apparently, he contacted the men whose names you mentioned
as to the manner of reply.

Maunder: Did you ever seek legal advice in this matter?

Fritz: Yes.

Maunder: Who was your legal counsel?

Fritz: I talked it over with several friends in the legal profession.

Maunder: Well, who were they? What were their names?

230

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fry:
Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

If I remembered it right now, I wouldn't want to divulge it.

Why not?

There was nothing formal about it.

What did they advise you? Did they advise you not to ....

They warned me about the fact that when a man sues for libel, the
other side can make him look worse and worse and worse, so he isn't
ahead even if he wins the full judgment. It just shows how the
people who read the stuff originally are not the ones who are read
ing it now, so
deal i ng with a
not as my invention but he's been called that a number of times.

there are no corrections in their minds. When you're
man as vicious as Chapman — I'm using the term vicious

Well, in any case, you decided at this time not to pursue a course
of suing for libel. You did, however, seven years later on Decem
ber 14, 1958, go back to Chapman with another long letter of four-
plus, single-space, typewritten pages, criticizing him point by
point and answering his letter that he had sent to you in 1951
after the publication of your article.

This is the one that you told us about, that you had decided not
to mail and then, finally, you decided to.

I would like to have ignored it, and I did ignore it for a long
time; but at the same time, I thought I had an obligation there to
bring this out into the open as to how Chapman tried to assassinate
reputations. I wasn't the only one he tried that on. He tried it
on some far more important men than I could ever be.

Well, you throw some pretty hot shots at Chapman in this particular
letter. You will recall that Chapman, in writing to you ....

farther, I wish you would inquire or even search
See if there is a copy of that letter in Chap
man's file in the Yale Forest School library.

Before you go any
for it yourself.

I'll do that when I go back. But Chapman, in his letter to you of
August 20, 1951, criticizing your article, "Winning the Battle of
Timber," says in the second paragraph: "Ever since we sat on top
of San Francisco peak and you damned the Forest Service and Zon
for double-crossing you on' promotion, I feel that your attitude
has not been what one would exactly describe free from bias. I
have occasionally taken a crack at you for this but without much
hope of eradicating it. I have however seen distinct signs of im
provement with the passing years and which appears in some few
spots in this article, but the overlay is still biased in my
opinion."

Then seven years later in December, 1958, you make direct reply to

231

Maunder: that criticism by saying to him, under a paragraph labeled: I.

Arizona, "You asked why bring up this ancient history? Certainly
I was discouraged but it has no bearing on my action since, and
when I decided after World War 1 to return to forestry, my year
at Flagstaff could not have been better as to kind of work, the
locality, and the man who was my immediate boss. You have forgot
ten that it was you who first called my attention to a letter re
ceived by the District Office at Washington while you were assis
tant District Forester at Albuquerque, to the effect that if Fritz
does not complain too much he should not be given the promotion.

"As with me, you have stirred up the old feeling among others and
you were not innocent of stirring up discord in the entire South
west District. But now you claim credit for this or that after
it was worked out. Even Pearson was dead only a short time when
you claimed some credit that was his alone and none of yours."

This raises a lot of questions about the accusations that are
hurled back and forth between you two fellows, and perhaps you can
clarify a few of these things. Do you want to look at that para
graph in particular that you wrote to Chapman there?

Fritz: I have the whole file there; it's very complete — also an earlier

letter that Chapman wrote me which was also on the basis of gossip,
He accused me of trying to break down the S.A.F., which was farth
est from my thoughts because I was one of those who was helping to
build it up and strengthen it. He accused me of being the Insti
gator of the formation of a new forestry society in the Northwest,
where a considerable group in Seattle felt it was treated as a
stepchi Id.

I was at that time a member of the Council and Chapman was presi
dent. The truth of the matter is that I actually recommended to
them not to start a new society (I think they were going to call
it the Institute of Professional Foresters) in competition with
the S.A.F., but to set up a local section. We are authorized in
our constitution to do that, and this dissident group in Seattle
did not like to be tied in with the Columbia River Section. They
thought they were not given due notice.

So I recommended to them that they set up a section within the
Society. As you know, we have twenty or more such sections at
the present time. They're an element of strength. (I was one of
those who helped launch the idea of the present subject sections.
Geographic sections were already provided for.)

Maunder: Who made up this dissident group in Seattle?

Fritz: I'd rather not say. It's all on record; it's in my correspondence
and also in correspondence with Chapman. You can look it up there.

Maunder: Was it to be called a Seattle Section, or what?

232

Fritz: The society they wanted to set up was to be called the Institute
of Professional Foresters, as I recall it.

Maunder: The concept was that this was not to be Independent of the Society
of American Foresters?

Fritz: Oh yes, it was to be Independent of the S.A.F., and a competitor.

They felt that the Society was not giving due attention to practic
ing foresters in private employ. They were doing a great job of
promoting forestry right on the ground. I don't know that Colonel
Greeley had a hand in it, but I think he would have supported those
men — not in setting up a new society but certainly for setting up
a new section. And they did set up such a section.

Maunder: And Chapman accused you of being the instigator of this movement?

Fritz: I must say that Chapman, when he finally got the truth of it, sent
me a letter in which he said he was i ncor rect I y i nf ormed . Now
that's evidence that Chapman is easily influenced by gossip. It
was another instance of gossip that sparked his letter of August
20, 1951, which pertained to the Fortune article. Chapman accused
me of trying to break down the U.S. Forest Service when actually,
I had defended the Forest Service whenever private lumbermen at
tacked it. They had plenty of good grounds but they also had some
poor grounds for attacks.

Chapman was a peculiar person. He breathed fire and brimstone.
He loved a fight and was easily duped Into one. I had been criti
cal of the U.S.F.S. when it was so heavily charged with socialism.
The Forest Service, in those days, could not stomach anyone who
was critical of it. They were a law unto themselves and they were
hell-bent to assert their power some day and didn't want to be in
terfered with. My sentiments were probably influenced by the high
handed top brass in San Francisco and Washington.

Maunder: It's quite obvious that there's a good deal of politics within
professional forestry, as there is within all other professions
and their official groups.

Fritz: Yes, and I don't think you'll ever be free of it. It's just
human nature.

Maunder: Do you think this situation has improved any in recent years? Is
there greater harmony now than before in the ranks of foresters,
or does the dissent still go on?

Fritz: I think the dissent is much milder and on a more informed basis,
but it's still there. Private foresters are multiplying. The
younger foresters are not interested In the polemics of the Chap
man and Pinchot era.

The Society has set up a new magazine known as Forest Science.

233

Fritz: This has very definitely, I think, weakened the Journal of Forestry,
although it has strengthened the Society i tse I f .""The' new~magaz i he
offers an outlet for the writings of the new breed of investigators
and scientists. Then of course, the formation of the Forest Pro
ducts Research Society had an enlightening Influence on the Society
of American Foresters for having ignored a very important branch of
the American foresters' field.

Maunder: Has this Research Society in a sense provided the answer to the
feeling of the dissident group up in Seattle of which you spoke
earl ier?

Fritz: The problem you are referring to was resolved by setting up the
Seattle Section. There was no relation to the F.P.R.S. This
Society came later and has done amazingly well. It is concerned
only with wood and not the forests. 1 am a charter member but have
never taken an active part in it, even though it was right in my
teaching field — wood technology and products manufacturing. It is
still young and vigorous.

Its success I think is due to the fact that wood is something one
can touch and handle. One doesn't pontificate about it. The
prime mover in setting up the F.P.R.S. was Bror Grondal, of the
University of Washington, and one of the top men in wood technology.

I don't know why the average forester sticks to the trees and leaves
consideration of wood to wood technologists, lumbermen, and wood
products men. The great Forest Products Laboratory at Madison,
Wisconsin, pioneered wood research on a comprehensive scale. For
tunately, some of our students develop a preference for work on
wood while others prefer the forest. The work of the Madison
Lab has been so helpful to the wood industries that a demand for
trained men developed. One now finds a forest school graduate who
majored in wood technology in many wood products factories, from
lead pencils to pianos, furniture, and timber structures.

Coming back to your question: I think it was timely and very
necessary to set up the F.P.R.S. The Journal of Forestry couldn't
begin to handle the torrent of reports, and such, coming from the
wood men .

234

IX THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

Maunder: Emanuel, you had a lot of Interesting experiences 'In your life

with the Society of American Foresters and at lunch you were tell
ing me a few of these. I wish you'd just kind of review in parti
cular when you were working for the Department of the Interior.
When was this?

Fritz: That was in 1938, October I to December 31.

Maunder: Tel! us a little bit about how you came to that job and what were
some of the experiences you had in it.

Fritz: I knew nothing about it until I received the invitation. It came
at a time when I was incapacitated because of a broken leg. I was
in a cast and couldn't go out in the woods. At the time, I was
getting things in shape for installing the selective cutting sys
tem in the redwoods.

At the Department of Interior in Washington, D.C. , I was to assemble
what information I could find in the files or in the library, on the
early days of the Interior Department, facts that concerned for
estry, timber management, give-away programs and so on.

Maunder: And who in the Interior Department called upon you to do this?

Fritz: Lee S. Muck. He was the Washington Chief of the Indian forests and
the Oregon and California land grant properties that were repos
sessed by the government.

Maunder: I see, but you were going to do this history not just for the
Indian Service but for the whole Department of the Interior?

Fritz: Right.

Maunder: So it must have had the blessing of the Secretary of the Interior,
who was then Harold Ickes, right?

Fritz: It did.

wasn't just a

Ickes wanted it to be known that the Interior Department
lot of chair-warmers doing nothing, that they had a
conservation job also, and that while some of the history of the
past may have been bad, it wasn't all bad. He directed Lee Muck
to head up the study of what had happened in the past and what the

0 & C (Oregon and California controverted railroad lands) people,
the Indian Service, and the other branches of the Interior Depart
ment that deal with timber, vefe do i ng as to conservation.

Lee asked me i f I would come to Washington for three months to help
on that. He had already had John II lick of Syracuse do one chapter.

1 think the I I lick chapter was on the 0 & C administration. I worked

235

Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:
Maunder:

Fritz:
Maunder:

Fritz:

three months and then was ready to go home. During that time, I
was on the payroll as a consultant to the Secretary, Harold Ickes.
All the Hme I was there, I never met the man. I never even saw
him, but I heard a lot of tales that trickled down through the
Department of the day's events in h's office.

What for example do you recall of that?

Well, for instance, a lawn in front of his new Interior building was
freshly seeded and the grass was coming up nicely. One day he saw
a man walk diagonally across that newly seeded plot. He telephoned
the Interior police department downstairs in the basement and or
dered them to arrest the man. Small stuff.

Well, how was your appointment to a job in Interior looked upon by
some of your cohorts out here who were highly anti-Interior in
their orientation? After all, the Forest Service was having a
knockdown-dragout battle with the Interior Department over being
transferred from the Department of Agriculture to the Department
of Interior, weren't they?

The reorganization — F.D.R. carried it on, or tried to.
no transfer.

There was

And Secretaries Ickes and Wallace (of Agriculture) had quite a
battle on that.

Yes, 1 believe they did.

There were sti 1 1 rather some sore heads for years
I wonder how was your working for Interior looked
colleagues in forestry out here.

after that, and
upon by your

Well, I personally didn't like the Idea of working for Interior
because I knew it would classify me as having turned face, which
I didn't. I could talk freely because I f igured, he I I , they could
fire me and it wouldn't make any difference.

I had it from several good friends in the Forest Service who asked,
"How are you getting along with reorganization?" Questions like
that. They assumed we were working on a plan of reorganization, but

it had absolutely nothing to do with
only case.

my job. And that wasn't the

While I was there, some few papers were shown me by Lee Muck to
look over for comments. One was a manuscript of a proposed pam
phlet written by a professional writer. I can't think of his name
now, and I don't even remember the title of the publication when
it was finally printed. But it was a damnation of the Forest Ser
vice and a glorification of the Interior Department. I spent sev
eral days on it. I wrote comments which, in my longhand, covered
more than eight pages. The manuscript was full of errors and poor
generalizations. I remember on the first page there was a statement

236

Fritz: in which the word hate was used. I think it was "Inordinate hate"
between the U.S.F.S. and N.P.S. I didn't like it because there
was no hate among the foresters of the two departments down in the
ranks. They got along in a friendly way. If there was any, it
was at the top. However, there was plenty of disagreement and
distrust.

I don't know what Ickes' personal plan was, or Roosevelt's, but
I felt that there should be a brand new department, one to be called
the Department of Natural Resources, or some similar title, and that
the Forest Service would be the principal bureau, the Oregon and
California Land Grant Administration would be merged with the
U.S.F.S., and the Park Service would keep its name. There would
be a combination of those units that belonged together and needed
the same kind of management.

The bookkeeping, of course, would be more complicated because of
the different setups as to in-lieu payments to the counties. Any
one who did not support a one hundred percent retention of the For
est Service in the Agriculture Department was an enemy and natu
rally, I was treated as such. One has to expect that.

S.A.F. Revolt: Chapman vs. Interior Foresters

Fritz: It happened about that time that things got pretty warm, especially
in the S.A.F. offices and apparently also in the Forest Service of
fices. H. H. Chapman, who was generally looked upon as the hatchet
man for the Forest Service, started a new attack on the Interior
Department. This time, he ridiculed the Department's foresters and
accused them of disloyalty to the forestry profession, such accusa
tions, as I recall them, that they are "gutless," and "woTT^ stand
up for their personnel," and so on.

The letter (I think there's a copy in my Interior file ) in some way
got to the Interior Department. Lee Muck came into my office and
threw it on my desk. He was probably still quite angry when he
said, "Read that." As I read it, I was astounded at the vicious-
ness of Chapman's attack. So I thought to myself that it's just
about time that Chapman be brought to book.

I don't know whether you ever met Chapman, but he was suspicious of
everyone else. He loved to fight and it was very easy to plant a
rumor in his mind where it would grow. I think that whatever it
was that caused him to write such a letter, it was started off as
a rumor.

Anyway, I asked Lee Muck if he's going to take It lying down. And
he said something like, "Well, what can I do." I said, "I think
there's one thing you can do. Call Chapman's bluff. You can
threaten to resign from the S.A.F., not you alone, but everybody
in your local office and out in the field who is a member of the

237

Fritz: S.A.F."

He finally suggested that I write a petition. I wrote something
like this: that we foresters ' ~\ the Interior Department had the
same kind of training as the foresters in the Forest Service; some
of us came from the same schools, had the same curriculum, same
professors. We had the same principles, we had the same ideas of
what forestry should be in the field, and we were getting awfully
tired of being criticized at every turn because the top men hate
each other.

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

file on this in my file cases, you can read the
That petition was mailed out at Lee's expense and

If you found a

exact wording.

my expense to all the men in the field who had a forestry training

and who were members of the S.A.F. Out of the seventy-five or

eighty such men, about sixty-five or seventy returned their peti

tions signed with some additional comments.

Was this reported in the Journa I ?

I don't recall. It should have been if it wasn't.

Do you have a copy of that
upshot of this petition?

in your files? Well, what was the

Consult my Interior file. The men in the field were pretty angry
over the charges and signed the petition very promptly, whereupon
Lee Muck submitted it to the Society. Then things began to pop.
Chapman very suddenly got very, very quiet; he was quite disturbed.
The S.A.F. couldn't afford in the Thirties to lose sixty-five or
seventy members, even though at that time I think the fee was only
five dollars a head. And it would smell bad outside.

It was getting late and the Society was to have its convention in
Columbus, Ohio, Christmas week. My tour of duty in the Interior
Department would be over then. I discovered that I was due, I
think, a week's vacation for the three months I spent in Washing
ton, which I never had expected because I was there only for three
months. So then I asked Lee Muck if he thought it would do any
good if I should stop in Columbus on my way home. (I probablv
would have done it anyway because I always attended meetings of
S.A.F. when I possibly could.) He agreed and added he would try
to get an N.P.S. forester there to help. (I'm speaking to you
only from memory. Some of the details may not be quite right but
in general I think it is the correct history of the whole thing.)

I told Lee that I couldn't represent the Interior Department be
cause I was not a regular payroll member. He said, "All right.
We'll have somebody represent us." He got a National Park Service
man, a very good man, to represent the Interior Department for
esters. There were a couple of other Interior Department men at
the convention.

238

Fritz: In Columbus, Korstlan, the S.A.F. president, came to me and said,
"Fritz, the Council !s going to meet at a certain hour to discuss
this Chapman letter and the Interior foresters' petition. I'd like
to have you come up because you were there in the office, and you
must know something about It."

They were aware that I must know something about it by that time,
but not that I'd initiated it. I was going on the premise that when
you have a good case, you don't have to make a lot of excuses for
it and argue a lot.

At the Council meeting, they really took the matter seriously. The
president opened the discussion. He asked if I wouldn't say some
thing about it as far as I knew it. I tried to tell the Council
as briefly as 1 could that the Interior men are good men and they're
just as good men as there are in the Forest Service. They have the
same kind of training, the same kind of principles, and the same
kind of attitude toward forestry. They're not being treated ac
cordingly, and I know how they feel about it. They really mean to
resign from the Society if something isn't done to correct It.

Then the N.P.S. ma/i was asked to speak. I had never met him before
but I knew about him. The Council members then agreed something
had to be done. The president thereupon wrote a letter to Lee
Muck to pass the word out to those members who were threatening
to resign. I hope my recollection is correct on this. It has
been a long time ago.

Maunder: You were not then a member of the Council?
Fritz: No.

Pi nchot's Tour J_n_ the West Purl ng the Transfer Controversy

Fry: Speaking of the transfer controversy, in which Harold Ickes wanted
to create a federal department of conservation and transfer the
Forest Service to it, you mentioned to me — when the tape recorder
was turned off — that you managed to join a tour that Gifford Pin-
chot was making in the West, as a part of the transfer controversy.
How did you get wind of the fact that Pinchot was coming out here
and get in on the tour?

Fritz: Yes, I did join such a tour in Humboldt County. A Forest Service
party was escorting Gifford Pinchot through the redwoods. I knew
that G. P. was on a national tour, escorted by U.S.F.S. men, but
did not know his California schedule. I learned about it while I
was in Eureka as advisor to the redwood industry to find out how
redwood logging could be improved as to preserving a residual stand,
That must have been in the summer of 1934. I always suspected such
tours. They generally foretold a new blast of publicity favoring

239

Fritz: federal regulation, through the U.S.F.S., of private logging

methods, and opposing reorganization of federal land management
bureaus .

The personnel of the Forest Service and several Interior Depart
ment bureaus had been ordered to refrain from taking sides in pub
lic. But there are ways of circumventing such an order. President
Roosevelt was intent on joining in some way the national forest,
park, and some other bureaus in one new department. Secretary
Harold Ickes wanted the national forests transferred to his Interior
Department. The U.S.F.S. of course opposed it and needed outside
help, inasmuch as its voice was sealed by the presidential order.
At the same time, the U.S.F.S. was batting for legislation giving
it power to regulate private logging.

In some way, Gifford Pinchot was inveigled to carry the burden of
enlisting public support for regulation and in opposition to the
transfer of national forests to Interior.

I had interested myself in both matters. I favored the establish
ment of an entirely new department, to be known as the Department of
Natural Resources, and to be the management agency for the protec
tion and business aspects of public lands, grazing, logging, re
creation and wildlife. I wrote two articles for the Journal of
Forestry on reorganization.* Incidentally, the 1946 article won
me a prize of $100 for the best article of the year in the Journal
of Forestry. It also won me the accusation of trying to wreck the
ITS . F. S .

I believe reorganization must come some day. It is not logical
for two separate departments to be engaged in forest manager-ient
on adjoining lands. Furthermore, the sale of stumpage is a busi
ness undertaking and should be handled on a strictly business basis.
The new department, I felt, should be a business management agency
rather than a service agency as is the Department of Agriculture
in large part.

It is unfortunate that the two departments should be fighting one
another. I think the U.S.F.S. muffed a grand opportunity to be In
a new department. Its strong unity and high standards could have
led and made a model new federal department. As long as the same
activities are spread over two departments, there will continue to
be jealousies and strife. The Interior Department, after its for
est, grazing and wildlife bureaus were transferred to the new De
partment of Natural Resources, would continue in charge of the other
bureaus not concerned with replaceable natural resources.

*"A Plea For a Fair Appraisal of Federal Forestry Reorganiza
tion," Vol. 36, pp. 271-275, March, 1938; and later, "A Proposal
For Reorgani zlzing and Realigning Federal Forest, Park and Game
Lands," Vol. 44, pp. 278-281, April, 1946.

240

Fritz: Well, returning to your question: Having heard of the U.S.F.S.-
escorted PInchot tour, I decided to try to Join it, but no out
siders were wanted. However, It was a public party, complete with
its own press agent, and It is hard to keep out anyone with legiti
mate business in a locality. I met the party In or near Crescent
City on its way south from Portland.

In the past, there was a pattern to these U.S.F.S. -escorted tours.
This present tour followed the pattern. PInchot was given the usual
treatment — a schedule of stops wherever a logging job looked bad
so one might deduce the need for federal (U.S.F.S.) regulation of
private lumbering. No attention was paid to natural reforestation.

It happened that at one stop a slack line yarding job was viewed.
Being fairly fresh, it did indeed look bad, very bad. All logging
jobs look bad for a few years. At this spot, the manager had or
dered his logging boss to carry out some suggestions I had made
by which a number of seed trees would be left in spite of the slack-
line system. The foreman did a good job. But to Pinchot it was
explained that this was an example of the redwood industry having
no intention of improving its logging methods or abiding by Article
X. It was very unfair and my effort to interrupt with an explana
tion of the experiment (over one hundred acres) was cut short. The
ubiquitous public relations officers saw to it at the end of the
day that the local press got a good story on the Pinchot visit.

It was quite clear that public ownership, or public regulation, or
both, and opposition to reorganization were paramount, the former
being the ostensible purpose of the tour and the latter, the main
reason. The method of logging they viewed and the natural regen
eration that followed without aid was secondary to giving a bureau
more power.

Fry: Were those who opposed reorganization in the Forest Service?

Fritz: Most of them were. But there were many outside the Service, too.
Even some lumbermen opposed reorganization, believing it to be
good to have two federal agencies competing with one another.

The U.S.F.S. personnel was quieted by "presidential" order, but it
had followers who could be depended on to "carry a spear." One in
particular was H. H. Chapman, of Yale University. He was the
hatchet man for the U.S.F.S. He would go into action on the slight
est suggestion. Even a rumor would take root quickly and be prolif
erated into an issue.

Fry: Was Chapman close to Assistant Chief Earle Clapp, or Chief F. A.
Si I cox, or someone like that who headed up the fight for the For
est Service?

Fritz: Chapman was close to each one as long as he held the same views

as Chapman. He could support a man vigorously on an issue one day
and attack him viciously the next day on another issue.

241

Fritz: Clapp was not popular as Acting Chief of the U.S.F.S. after Sil-

cox' death. Clapp might not be a socialist in the pattern of Norman
Thomas, the perennial candidate for president, but he believed all
forest lands should be owned by the federal government, or else that
the U.S.F.S. should have power to c ! rtate matters of policy and
methods for private lands. He tried at one time (1940) to dictate
policy to the forestry school faculties. Chapman attacked him on
this.

Clapp was also suspected in rewriting parts of the Copeland Report,
to make it agree with his own views. Several of the chapter authors
were indignant over this, but could not publicly attack their chief.

Fry: I gather someone must have complained about this to you.

Fritz: I often learned about some things from others who felt that, being
a professor, I had more liberty and privilege than they had. But
sometimes someone tried to make me the goat. That was easily
detected.

242

THE CALIFORNIA FOREST PRACTICE ACT

Legislation Attempts For Acquisition of_ Cutover Lands ( 1943)

Fry: If you are ready to discuss the California Forest Practice Act,
you can start by telling how you first got interested in legis
lation for a forest practice act.

Fritz: Actually, it started with an idea about state forests. In Novem
ber of 1942, I attended a meeting of the State Board of Forestry
held on the campus in Gianni ni Hall. I was there only as an ob
server and because it was so handy, being right in the same build
ing in which I had my office. I attended more or less out of curi
osity. But I was thoroughly disgusted with the way the Board ran
Its meeting, or I should say, the way the State Board, the State
Division of Forestry Office and the Department of Natural Resources
operated.

The Deputy Director of Natural Resources was present, to talk to
the Forestry Board on what had been accomplished and what was be
ing planned. This man — I think It was Mr. Marsh — upon being ques
tioned on a certain topic, replied, "We're going to do this and
do that." I don't recall the subject or its nature or his exact
words.

One of the Board members, Rod MacArthur, a rancher from Modoc
County and a direct and very forthright sort of a man, asked the
Deputy Director a question something like this: "Suppose the Board
doesn't approve of what you're going to do, what will you do then?"

He said, "We'll do it anyway."

i

Rod MacArthur bristled at that and threatened to resign. It was
plain that the Board was being side-tracked.

So I decided that I would take an interest hereafter in the State
Board of Forestry and in the State Forester's office. Theretofore,
I had had only a casual interest in it because my university work
was not directly in forestry but in the engineering phase of the
manufacture of lumber and lumber products, plus wood technology.
Nevertheless, I had a deep interest In forestry and its profession.

At the same meeting, as I recall it, there was a discussion of the
cutover lands not being as productive as they should be, and I
conceived the idea that we ought to have a system of state forests
for the purpose of trying out reforestation methods and restoring
productivity on the several million acres of non-reproducing cut-
over lands.

Fry: After this discussion then of cutover lands, you got the idea of

243

Fry: the state buying up cutover lands for state forests?

Fritz: Yes. To bring it to a head, I decided that the thing to do was
to offer a bill providing for the acquisition of cutover lands
and the reforestation of these land^ by the state.

At that time, some of my friends, when they heard about It, thought
It was queer that I , as a supporter of the private enterprise sys
tem, would even initiate or support anything like state ownership
of land for the practice of forestry. It was indeed contrary to
my philosophy of government.

But my reason was this: The owners had little or no interest in
these lands for timber growing. They felt that when they were
cut over they were through with them, but that they would hold
onto them as long as they were in business. They felt, and I
think they were honest about it, that one couldn't keep the lum
ber industry alive perpetually by the practice of forestry.

In the case of redwood, they felt that — and they said it many
times — it takes one thousand years to mature a redwood. At that
time, there still were very few lumbermen who believed it possible
to handle forest trees as a crop. We foresters were not very smart
salesmen of our product — forestry. We antagonized forest land
owners with ill-advised public utterances.

Also, they were, nearly all of them, heavily in debt to mortgage
and bond holders. They had to liquidate their forests to raise
money to meet their debts. On the other hand, they could at least
have investigated more thoroughly the possibility of operating on
a sustained yield basis. As it was, they knew really very little
about forests except how many board feet of old growth each acre
wou Id yield.

In a very few years, however, there came complete reversal. The
World War II years pulled them out of debt and doubtless contri
buted to the change. As you know, today they are committed to the
practice of forestry, if it is only the planting and reseeding of
cutover lands and letting nature take her course, or leaving seed
trees. Some have, indeed, gone so far as to hire foresters. At
present, they have many forestry school graduates on their payrolls.

I wrote the bill soon after that Board meeting, and in December,
1942, I inquired among friends as to which one of the senators or
assemblymen I could interest to introduce the bill. The consensus
was that Senator George Biggar of Covelo would be the man. Biggar
had the reputation of being the "fall guy," you might say, for bills
that the others didn't want to introduce.

Fry: I wonder why that was?

Fritz: Purely political. Forestry was not as popular as it might have

244

Fritz: been. A legislator shuns bills that might bring him opposition.

Fry: So you went to see George Biggar. And we might point out that he
was from a forest county, wasn't he? Mendoclno?

Fritz: Mendocino County, yes. He was born in the redwoods, although his
home later was in Covelo out in Round Valley, where he had a con
siderable pear orchard.

Fry: What did he say?

Fritz: I talked it over with him and showed him my bill. He read it and
he said, "That's fine. I'll be very glad to introduce it and I'll
get some of the others to join me as co-sponsors."

He suggested that I show the bill to the legislative counsel. I
can't think of his name but I found him to be a very fine man. He
read the bill at once, was very complimentary about its purpose and
style, and said, "It can be introduced just as it is." That gave
me qu ite a I I ft.

Fry: Had you managed to get the legal terminology in there properly?
Fritz: I had read a lot of bills for style and form.
Fry: I see. [Laughter]

Fritz: Senator Biggar introduced the bill when the Legislature convened

in January, '43. He had gotten Senators Edward Fletcher and Oliver
Carter as co-sponsors. And then George Biggar got several assembly
men, among them Jacob M. Leonard of Hoi lister and Paul Denny of
Shasta County, to introduce a companion bill. So at least we had
the bill in the hopper and designated S.B. 509, and became Chap.
1086, Statutes of 1943.

Fry: Do you remember any of the men in the Assembly who handled it?

Fritz: I'm not sure of all, but there were Paul Denny and Jake Leonard

who showed much interest. It went before the usual committees and
was treated very nicely. They made some suggestions for changes,
and some changes I had suggested. It was wartime and my classes
were very small. I was permitted to go to Sacramento whenever they
requested me to be on hand.

While it was under discussion, I could see where there were some
failings in the bill, some omissions. When the lobbyists learned
who was behind the bil I, they would come to me and say, "How about
this? Why don't you put that in?" For example, the hunters, the
sportsmen, they wanted to be sure that the state forests would not
be closed to hunting. That was not mentioned in the bill, but it
was historical that state forests and federal forests were always
open to hunting and fishing. So it didn't hurt to put It in.

245

Fritz: Then someone else had suggested that we'd never get this past the
county supervisors because it would mean the withdrawal of tax-
pay I nq land. But I had been considering that and wondering how to
handle it, and then decided that this was a good time to introduce
a provision which I long felt snoulJ have been In all federal legis
lation when the U.S. or state took over land. The provision would
make the state forests acquired under this act pay taxes exactly
the same and at the same rates as private owners. The actual word
ing was ". . . . an amount equivalent to taxes levied by the county
on similar lands similarly situated.

So that at once wiped out a lot of opposition, as did the hunting
paragraph. The act set a precedent applicable to lands taken over
by the U.S. for forestry purposes.

Fry: I assume that this was the Association of County Supervisors
lobbyist who had talked to you about this.

Fritz: Yes. Maybe I got the phraseology from him.

Fry: They're a very strong lobby, one of the strongest in Sacramento.

Fritz: I think the organization acts as a good brake, at other times, as
a stimulus. The county supervisors are closest to the people.

There was one other source of possible opposition — that of the
lumber industry. But I felt personally that they weren't going
to oppose it.

Fry: Would this have been the California Forest Protective Association?

Fritz: It would have been through that Association. I had frequent con
versations with its manager, who served also as lobbyist.

Fry: And the California Redwoods Association? Was the C.F.P.A. lobby
ist William R. Schofield?

Fritz: No, Schofield came in later that year. It was Rex Black. The
C.R.A. people learned about it through the C.F.P.A. Of course,
having had a lot of contact with the lumber people because of my
sawmill teaching and my private consulting work, I felt I knew
exactly how they felt. So I decided there was no likelihood of
difficulty from them.

And furthermore, I had consulted each one as to what his company's
plans were as to the use or disposition of the cutovers. With a
few exceptions, they stated they would sel I to the State. (Later
I made this into a supplement to the report to the Legislature,
The Forest Situation in California, printed in 1945.)

Unquestionably, Rex Black would report to his own people in C.F.P.A.
which met regularly in San Francisco as to what's going on in

246

Fritz: Sacramento. I was never told and I never asked what their discus
sions were about, but I gathered that they would not oppose it.
That meant there would be no opposition.

When it came to the voting in the Legislature, there were many
questions as to the real need and the cost, and rightly so.
Frankly, I personally never expected them to pass the bill the
first year of its introduction. And if they had passed it, I
would have thought that they had acted too precipitately, that
they should study it because it would eventually amount to a very
sizable sum of money.

Fry: Did your bill carry an appropriation for the acquisition of the
land?

Fritz: Yes, for at least $1,000,000. The bill covered about three or four
pages and stated the purpose, how it would be executed and what
would be done with the lands once they were acquired. The pur
pose was to set up some research on reforestation and then restore
the lands to full production.

There was something in the back of my head which doesn't appear in
the bill, but which I often talked about. It was my thought that
once the State has these lands reforested and a new crop under
way, that they would then be resold to private ownership with suit
able safeguards, that they would be handled on the basis of con
tinuity of production.

Fry: But you didn't write this into the bill?

Fritz: No. The bill wouldn't have gotten to first base if I had done that.
I learned early that if you want to introduce a bill, first of all
decide where your opposition will be, that is, after you have de
cided what you want accomplished; and then face that opposition
at once and directly, face to face, rather than through the news
papers or through plastering the public with a lot of inflammatory
propaganda. That makes the opposition mad.

I talked with a number of people I just happened to be acquainted
with and who I thought might oppose the bill — representatives, as
semblymen, and senators — because they represented all the lumber
industry, both pine region and redwood region. (At that time, I
wasn't particularly interested in redwood alone as a specialty.)

Fry: Did you talk with the California Redwood Association on this?

Fritz: As a group, no. Only through Rex Black of C.F.P.A., who helped
as much as he possibly could.

I said earlier that I didn't expect them to pass this bill, but

I expected them to show an interest in it so that the next time it would

be introduced, it would have clear sailing. I did expect that one

247

Fritz: paragraph would be preserved, a paragraph which provided for set
ting up an interim legislative committee for the study of the for
est situation in California. That carried originally an appropria
tion of, I think, $50,000 for making this 2-year study. The Legis
lature met only every other year in those days. When finally
passed, the figure was reduced to $15,000.

I could see that they were wiping out one paragraph after another
until they got down to this one paragraph and that paragraph was
actually preserved. But I learned something else from that as to
how the Legislature operates. They had already stopped the clock —
they were running past their regular time — and on a Friday morn
ing I was up there and everything looked all right to me.

I think it was that same evening I saw Rex Black in San Francisco
at a meeting of private foresters, interested in cutting practices.
And I asked Rex, "What do you think of the chance of passage of
the paragraph that provides for a sum of money for the interim
study?" And he said, "It's sure, it's definite, it'll be passed."
He had come down from Sacramento feeling that everything that he
was doing up there was all hunky dory.

It was just like being out in the woods — you can never tell i f or
when a limb will fall on you, or the cliche about the slip between
the cup and the lip.

Early Saturday morning I returned to Sacramento by train, and my
first port of call was the Director of Natural Resources, Mr.
Bill Moore, who was an interim man at the time, merely acting. As
I entered his office, he laughed and said, "You're coming at a bad
time. Your bill was killed last night."

I was overcome by surprise because I was sure that they would pass
it. They had already whittled it down to $25,000 and there was also
a move to whittle it down still farther to $15,000. So I asked who
the Assemblyman was who killed it. (The Senate had already passed
it; it was killed in the Assembly.) And he said it was Gardiner
Johnson of my own district right here in Berkeley.

I never talked very much with him when I was up there talking with
legislators, but I thought he would be on my side. But he was the
one who started the drive to kill the whole thing. So I called on
him and he was very forthright and honest about it. He said, "Yes,
I did it. I was assured by the State Forester that this was
another scheme to get him out of his job."

Fry: This was M. B. Pratt?

Fritz: Pratt. Then I worked on Johnson. I said, "That's impossible.

Pratt and I are good friends, even though I don't think he's the
man for this job. He has not grown with it."

We talked it over quite a bit and he said, "You come back at two,

248

Fritz: and I'll see that you can talk to other Assemblymen who are in
terested in this bill."

One was Mike Burns of Eureka, and Mike was all for it anyway.
Mike was a rough old Irishman but he made a very good legislator.
So we talked and they decided that they didn't understand the
background. I had no thought of any action on my_ part to get
the State Forester out. I thought that he was a weak man for the
job as it grew larger. But he was the State Forester, and we had
to deal with him, although he gave me no support at all during
all this work that I was doing.

So at 2 PM, the Assembly reconvened, and the first man to get up
was Gardiner Johnson, who asked that the vote to kill this bill
of yesterday or the day before be expunged from the record and
that the bill be reconsidered. They did that, and the mechanics
of bringing a bill back began to rewind, but it was cumbersome.
If you've changed a single word, it has to go back to the printer,
then he prints it with a corrected word, then it has to go back
to the floor and through the whole routine again.

It was getting late in the day and everything was going smoothly —
it was always aye, aye, aye, in the voting. They were to adjourn
finally at 7 PM, and the last few hours, of course, things go very
fast. So, a few hours before final adjournment for 1943, they
passed that bill, S.B. 509.

Fry: Had it already gone back again to the printer?

Fritz: It had already gone back and forth several times, and then of course
it's cumbersome and it takes a little time, but they work fast in
the printer's office, so it wasn't more than an hour each time. The
bill had been so often amended That only the paragraph providing
for an interim study survived.

That meant that we would have an interim committee made up of
Senators and Assemblymen to go out and study the forest situation
directly and report back to the Legislature in 1945. There was no
body in the Legislature who knew anything at all about forestry or
had any idea that lumbering in California could be made a permanent
business. But some had real Interest. The Committee included
Senators George Biggar and Oliver Carter and Assemblymen Jacob M.
Leonard and Paul Denny. The chairman of the State Board of For
estry was made a member also, William S. Rosecrans.

Fry: And the Director of Natural Resources, General Warren T. Hannum?

Fritz: He was an ex officio member, because of his job, but was regarded
as a member. He made some wise suggestions.

Fry: I have a note here that Carter and Denny were both from forest
districts.

249

Fritz: Yes. They were both good men; Leonard was rather weak. He ap
peared to be under the thumb of political bosses in his county.

Fry: What county was he?

Fritz: He was from Hoi lister, San Benito County. The others were inde
pendent men; Senator Biggar had independent ideas but he could
easily be changed. I soon learned that I had to keep my eye on
him to see who was talking to him, because the last man to talk
with him was the one who got his ear and whose statements sank
in.

Fry: I have a note here that Jacob Leonard of Hoi lister wanted a cut-
over land acquisition program of one million dollars.

Fritz: Yes, that was during the early discussions.

Fry: That was during the discussions of this bill at this session you
were talking about. So at any rate, he was a supporter of your
bill.

Fritz: Yes. There was no reason why he should be against it. He saw a
chance of selling the state a property that he was interested in.

Fry: That he was interested in?

Fritz: Through a realtor in Santa Cruz. The Committee had to have a man
to head up the study, that is, a technical man. He would serve
as a secretary or as a consultant. I learned that Jake Leonard
had the realtor from Santa Cruz County in mind. There were some
lands down there that he, the realtor, wanted to peddle. They
were lands of the kind that foresters would consider last because
they were such poor lands.

Senator Biggar, the Committee chairman, had already asked me i f I
would serve as the consultant of the Committee and to direct it.
I said, "No, I can't do that. It will take too much time from the
University." Also, I felt I could do more by being on the outside.

But when I learned that Leonard wanted his own realtor friend in
there as secretary or consultant, I could see at once that the pur
pose of the bill would be badly wounded. So I promptly drove out
to Covelo and called on George Biggar and told him that I had changed
my mind about being consultant to this Committee. I could arrange
my time in such a way that neither the University would suffer nor
the Committee. I had already gotten approval from the dean to do
the job .

I told him that I not only would let the Committee reconsider me,
but I now actually wanted the job, so that the purpose of the bill
would always be kept uppermost through all the discussions. He
bought that, and he put it over with the Committee; and I was made
the forestry consultant of the Committee. From that point on, I

250

Fritz: arranged field trips for the Committee, wrote the chairman's speeches,
kept notes, wrote reports, handled the correspondence, and so forth.

Fry: This would have been in the spr'ng of '43, is that right?

Fritz: Yes. Let's back up a little. There was a delay. The bill was
not signed until June 8, 1943. Then it was some more months be
fore they appointed the Committee I mentioned earlier and organ
ized it. And it was during that organizational period that I said
that I wanted to be the consultant.

Consultant to_ the Legislative Forestry Study Committee ( The
Biqqar Committee)

c<-'tz: It was not until 1944 that we got underway. We had a number of
indoor meetings; and we had I think as many as nine field trios,
beginning in April until November, 1944, with a few sessions with
Biggar in February and March.

Fry: Yes, I believe there were nine or ten. That was a lot of field
trips. Why were there so many?

Fritz: The conditions vary a great deal, from pine to redwood and to

Douglas fir. There also was talk about watershed protection and
providing for recreation. They always sound good in the news
papers. As a matter of fact, I still maintain (and write about
it) that if you practice good forestry, you can't do more for
watershed protection and recreation than just that.

Fry: In other words, you felt that these two issues were covered by

the definition of good forestry.

\
Fritz: Yes. Good forestry takes into consideration recreation and soil

erosion and things of that kind, including provisions for camp

site faci I ities.

Fry: What did you do in the indoor meetings?

Fritz: We held hearings. We had a meeting with the pine industry; we had
another meeting for the redwood industry. These meetings were
held, not in Sacramento or San Francisco, but out in the resource
centers, like Eureka or Fresno or Oroville. We would have a field
trip and an evening indoor hearing for local chambers of commerce,
interested citizens and public officials.

Then there was the political aspect. So we felt we had to meet
also down in southern California. They have very few forests, but
they have a real watershed and fire problem. So we met in Santa
Barbara and also San Diego. Sometimes these field trips and the
inside meetings would be on consecutive days.

251

Fritz: Altogether we held seventeen public hearings and the Committee

Itself made four additional field trips. These trips were so or
ganized that the Committee would see good practices and bad prac
tices, and they would see especially the cutover lands that were
logged many years ago, which were not now productive. We had to
have a lot of meetings in Sacramento, of course, too, as we'd get
more and more data and were preparing the report for publication
in 1945. (There had been a big change in logging. In the pine
region, the change came in the early I920's. In the redwoods, it
came In the middle 1930's.)

The Committee enjoyed these field trips, not only because they
liked to get out in the open in different places, but because they
learned more about the state's problems. We had good support from
federal and state forestry offices and chambers of commerce. All
helped to make hotel and meal reservations. For a wartime period,
the trips went remarkably well, smoothly and pleasantly.

Fry: And trip logistics were part of your job?

Fritz: I had to make it my job. Our "secretary," stationed in Sacramento
and a political employee, was of very little help until the report
was ready for typing. The other typing was done by the Forestry
School girls. All the trip arrangements were made by me, except
the southern California tours which they felt were necessary for
pol itica I reasons.

Fry: In other words, you were free to decide on where they went and
what forests they saw.

Fritz: They could have checked me any time they wanted. But they were
satisfied that what I was doing would be proper to carry out the
purposes of the bill.

Fry: What was your criterion for setting these up and selecting various
sites for observation by the Committee?

Fritz: I had seen much of California away from the public roads, so knew

what was going on in the woods. The bill provided for the acquisi
tion of cutover lands and their reforestation. We saw lands that
were not -reforesting because of past fires or the method of log
ging that was practiced at that time.

I took them also to places like Big River in Mendocino County
where there was a magnificent stand of second growth. That second
growth was there because of good fire protection and the method of
logging practiced in the early days. We also visited the fine
second-growth pine areas in the Mother Lode country.

Fry: This was redwood?

Fritz: Redwood on Big River, and pine elsewhere. Many seed trees had

252

Fritz: been left, and the area logged by each company each year was small.
This permitted excellent natural reforestation. The same was true
In the pine region areas logged In the early days.

Fry: Your main purpose then was to give ihem an indication of what kinds
of logging were actually going on, and then, in the case of the ones
like Big River, what could be done with proper forestry techniques.

Fritz: Not exactly. The main purpose was to show that there was a forest
situation that needed recognition and action. We also had the
human relations problem — education of local officials and business
people. We held one meeting for county supervisors of the redwood
and pine regions. Most of them had only the most meager concept
of the possibilities of forest management for permanence.

Fry: The county supervisors?

Fritz: Yes. And I'll never forget what a rancher in Mendocino County

said: "You're all wrong; cutover land should be converted into
grazing land."

Fry: You mean that this was more or less the consensus of all the supei —
visors in the redwood and pine counties?

Fritz: Not only most of the supervisors but the general public. I had
the privilege of asking questions at these hearings.

Fry: Before we go on, what was the reaction of your Committee to the
suggestion that this be turned into grazing land?

Fritz: The Committee would ask questions to bring out certain points. They
had very little or no understanding at all except for two men per
haps: Rosecrans, who knew something about conservation in general,
although he was not a forester, and the other was a resident of
Shasta pine country.

Someone asked a pine county tax assessor who was there for the
meeting, "Aren't you interested in this land being kept productive?"
His answer was, "It'll take about a hundred years before you can
get a crop, and I'm not going to live that long, so why should I
worry about it?" Those are not his exact words but that's the
sense of his answer. He was interested only in today and his term
in office.

The redwood supervisor was, I think, quite honest in this belief
that he did not believe that you could raise tree crops like you
do grain crops, crop after crop. So I asked him, "Mr. X, how do
you think the redwood lands should be handled?" And I'll give you
his exact words: "I would cut them clean and then I would burn hell
out of them and I'd sow them to grass."

Lambs and calves can be harvested every year, but the forest is

253

Fritz: handicapped because of the long rotation.

Fry: This was a different supervisor from the first one you told me
about?

Fritz: Yes, a different man, a redwood county supervisor; the pine man
was an assessor.

There is no quarrel with converting to grass but one should first
assure himself that it can be done profitably and permanently. A
lot of our pasture land in the United States was developed that
way in the eastern, southern, and middle states. And some natu
ral prairie land has been converted to grain land. Even some of
our cities and truck farms are on what at one time was forest.
But we also need lumber, veneer logs and pulpwood, and wooded
parks.

Fry: At any rate, this didn't create any serious problem with the Com
mittee, I take it. The Committee wasn't swayed by this sort of
talk?

Fritz: No. All these meetings were held in 1944. Times were changing.
Since then a great change, all for the better, has come about in
the personnel of our county officials. Incidentally, about two
months after our supervisors' hearing, I met the redwood sheepman
on the street. We were good friends. After a little bantering,
he volunteered that he learned a lot at the hearing and that he
was changing his attitude.

We came to the end of the year '44, and the Legislature would go
into session in January of 1945, so I had to have a report. I
nearly dropped dead when I discovered that all the notes that I
had kept on three-by-five cards had been mislaid.

Fry: This was your card file of the hearings?

Fritz: Yes, all the ideas that I had been going to put in the report. I

just couldn't find them. So I locked myself into one of the vacant
rooms on the campus in the forestry building, and got myself a tab
let and started to write from memory. The legislators were al
ready arriving so I wrote the report "backwards." I wrote first
of al I a "thumbnail" sketch, which would be a sort of summary, a
very skimpy summary, of the findings and recommendations. Ft
covers less than one page in the report. About a week later. I
wrote an ''extended" summary of the report. Each summary was
printed and distributed to all the legislators. Each of them had
a copy on his desk. Both are in the final report,* the thumbnail

* 'The Forest Situation in California. Report to the Legisla
ture by California Forestry Study, created by Chapter 1086, Statutes
of 1943, State Printing Office, Sacramento, 1945. 189 pages.

254

Fritz: sketch on page nine, and the extended summary on pages nine to

eighteen. Then I wrote every day from morning till night with a
lead pencil (I'm not good on the typewriter) and completed it in
about two weeks.

On the report you'll find the name of Marguerite Bridges, as sec
retary. Senator Biggar authorized her to come down to Berkeley
to take dictation and do the typing on the report. I'm no good
at dictating, so I would dictate only ideas and elaborations and
she would type the report as I finished the pages. In that way,
we finished the report.

Then of course, we had to hold meetings of the Committee right
away to go over the report. The Committee really studied every
word. We often sat up late. My personal annotated copy of the
report will be turned over to the Bancroft Library.

Fry: Is the map in all the copies of the report?

Fritz: The map of certain solid blocks of cutover lands appears only
in a separate printed supplement to the report, titled Forest
Purchase Areas: Recommended For Further Investigation try the State
Division of Forestry. It was distributed only to the Committee"
members and some state officials. There were two printings. The
first was hurried to the legislators without an index. The second
had an extensive index bound in.

Fry: Did you do the indexing?

Fritz: Yes, all but the typing. I had a simple method that I used to
use when I was editing the Journal of Forestry . This calls for
indexing not only titles of paragraphs but significant words. The
Table of Contents itself requires nearly three pages, the Index,
ten pages. The extra labor of providing a good index is small
compared with that on the main report, and it makes any book more
useful. A book with a skimpy index is an abomination.

Fry: What did the report recommend?

Fritz: The principal recommendations were for establishing a system of

state forests, passing a forest practices act, provision for stag
gered terms of Board of Forestry members, and others. They appear
on pages seventeen and eighteen of the report.

Fry: Did you ever find your card file?

Fritz: Not until after I was retired in 1954, nine years later. I was

cleaning out some files and there, hidden In the back of a drawer,
I found them. It was some time after 1 had noticed my files had
been tampered with, I don't know why. But I did not want to take
a chance on losing my card file. Hence, their hiding.

In those days, I had a very good memory and could remember even

255

Fritz: small details. Comparing my card file with the text of the report,
I found that I had missed very little.

The report, although I wrote it. must be regarded as the report
of the Committee and is so described on the title page. It would
carry more weight with the legislators.

Fry: It's the report that you and Marguerite Bridges hammered out?

Fritz: She had nothing to do with it except the typing. She was a pub
lic employee hanger-on. No doubt there is a lot of that in every
capital city. She went along on some trips but I couldn't get her
to keep a note.

Fry: Then the report was submitted to the Legislature.

Fritz: Yes. Remember that the original bill of January, 1943, was solely
for the purpose of acquiring lands for state forests. California
was one of the few forestry states that had no state forest sys
tem at that time. But in '45, as a result of this study, we did
a lot of other things. We provided for a Forest Practices Act,
we provided for insect control, better fire protection. We also
recommended that the Committee be continued another two years.

Of course, all of these recommendations had to be put in separate
bills in '45. The governor signed them all. But no money for set
ting up the state forest system was provided, only the authoriza
tion.

Fry: You went on further study excursions the following interim year,
didn't you?

Fritz: Not I, the Committee did. The war was over and my campus duties
increased as the enrollment boomed.

Fry: Were you with the Committee then?

Fritz: Sometimes, but I had accomplished my original purpose. George

Craig became the consultant then. There were certain matters that
warranted its continuance. These were pointed out in the 1945
report.

The Committee's report started the ball rolling for all the legis
lation passed in '45. It included the resolution for the Interim
Committee for '46.

Fry: Yes, which had, I think, $5,000 less than your Committee had to
work with, but they did essentially the same thing. They held
hearings and they went around and visited various forest areas.

Fritz: The first Biggar Committee had $15,000 for the study and printing.
Its interests were directed mainly in other channels. I was one

256

Fritz: of several who recommended George Craig to follow me; he was a
very able young man, a graduate of U.C. in forestry. He did a
very good job. They got out a printed report also, a very good
one.

Fry: George Craig is now head of the . . . ?

Fritz: He's the executive head of Western Lumber Manufacturers, Inc.,
in San Francisco.

Fry: What was George Craig at that time?

Fritz: George was a wartime officer in the navy. I think he was dis
charged in late 1945. The Committee job itself was a temporary one.
These jobs are never permanent.

Fry: You wrote your report in December of 1944 and early January, 1945,
and it was presented to the Legislature in 1945. Did you have any
personal contact with the Legislature then, or did you not go to
Sacramento very much after that?

Fritz: Yes, I did, mainly to go over the report with the Committee. After
that, I was no longer the consultant of the Committee, but George
Biggar or somebody else would ask me to come up.

Fry: He would just ask you to come up to testify?

Fritz: At committee hearings, yes, I attended those. You see, a Univer
sity faculty member is not supposed to go to Sacramento at all,
except if he is requested by an assemblyman or a senator. I was
requested to go up there. (Of course, while I was working on this,
I was the consultant; and that was cleared with the President's
office. So I was in the clear in all that.).

Fry: We haven't really rounded out that story. It sounds as if you
turned in your report and then sort of vanished. I don't think
that was true.

Fritz: After this report was submitted, I was still asked to come to Sac
ramento to discuss certain points with this or that man, I've for
gotten who, but quite a number all together. They were a large
group except for special committees.

During that time of course, this bill and others were in the lap
of the Legislature. Bill Schofield^ manager of the California
Forest Protective Association, handled the several bills pertain
ing to forestry. Rex Black had resigned his job.

*See William R. Schofield, Forestry , Lobbying, and Resource
Legislation, typed transcript of a tape-recorded interview con^
ducted by Amelia Fry, University of California Bancroft Library,
Oral History Office, (Berkeley, 1968).

257

Fry: Schofield was the new lobbyist for the California Forest Protec
tive Association?

Fritz: Yes. Schofield looked after the bill whenever it was necessary.
I would say that Schofield kept it -live. Schofield was not a
newcomer to Sacramento. He had had a lot of experience with the
Legislature because he had been with the State Board of Equali
zation; his specialty there was forest taxation. He was a good
selection for the C.F.P.A. job.

Fry: What was the general reaction of these various groups we had talked
about?

Fritz: All favorab le.

The Leg is I at ion

Fritz: I might have misled you that I was through with the Committee in

early '45. Actually, I was with it through the entire term of the
Legislature in '45. Here's something you mustn't forget: I was
one of the authors of the Forest Practice Act, aside from the State
Forest Acquisition Act. It happened this way.

I was still working with the Committee, and we had to have a bill
for forest practices; and I had heard that the state of Maryland
had written one which was considered by the U.S. Forest Service
as a good one. So I felt that if the U.S.F.S. thought it a good
bill and if it fits our situation here, why not pattern ours
after the Maryland bi I I?

That would do two things: it would give us a running start on a
good bill, and it would also obviate criticism from the U.S. For
est Service, which is very good at looking down the necks of for
esters and lumbermen not in its own employ. It was very alert to
any move that might rob it of a chance to control or regulate
private lumbering and influence any activity by foresters not in
i ts own emp I oy .

There were also those of us in forestry who believed in the pri
vate enterprise system. The U.S. Forest Service in those days was
very socialistic, at least for forestry. Some were real socialists.

Fry: So you felt that this would be good strategy and that you would
have the support of the Forest Service?

Fritz: Yes, so that if any legislator went to the Forest Service and

asked about it, they'd say, "Yes, it was patterned after the Mary
land Act." That was just a following out of my philosophy that on
matters like this, you'd better find out where your opposition is
going to be.

258

Fritz: The lumber industry, as far as I was concerned, was not consulted.
I didn't consult the Industry for the bill, even though I was on a
retainer with the California Redwood Association, hoping to get
forestry out of the swivel chai1- and Into the woods. It was an
entirely different venture from my forestry endeavor. It had
nothing to do with the legislation. In fact, I think the lumber
industry would have objected strenuously if I had engaged in in
fluencing legislation under their name. I was not on their pay
roll but just on a retainer or per diem basis. So I could be in
dependent.

Fry: I understand from Schofield that the lumber industry felt that

some kind of forest practice legislation was inevitable, and they'd
better get the kind they wanted or they might have complete govern
ment control of their operations.

Fritz: He is probably correct. Like myself, Schofield was one of the for
esters who was also a private enterpriser, and we couldn't see that
the Forest Service should own and direct everything.

If the Forest Service could dictate how a lumberman is going to
cut his lands, when and where and how, then the government could
also dictate to a farmer what crop he's going to plant and how
he's going to do it and when he's going to harvest it, and so on.
And that could lead to how we comb our hair and what kind of
clothes we wear, and so on. I was against it. If any cutting
laws are needed, they should be state laws.

So I wrote to Maryland for several copies of the bill. After
study, it looked to me like it would fit our situation, and I
sent a copy to Bill Schofield.

Incidentally, the Chief Forester of the United States had al
ready written an article which was published in the Journal of
Forestry, touting the Maryland Act as being a very good one,~o it
gave us something to hang our hats on.

Fry: This would have been Lyle Watts, right? What do you think of him?

Fritz: One of the weakest chief foresters we ever had and the most
social istic.

When I got this copy, I had been working on a bill to fit the
details of our situation here, using the Maryland law as a pat
tern. I was pleased that before I had finished mine, Schofield
had at the same time written a bill patterned after the Maryland
Act. Of course, that was his job. Our bills were very much alike
because both were patterned after the Maryland bill. It was for
tuitous because Schofield, being the lobbyist for the lumber in
dustry, could go to the pine and redwood people through the C.F.P.A.
and have his bill cleared. They accepted his bill.

We all felt that if the lumber industry didn't do something about

259

Fritz: it, they'd have something rammed down their throats, which none

of us would like. Also I felt that somebody should take the ini
tiative, and I felt also that the bill should contain nothing
which would develop opposition in some corner where we wouldn't
expect it. And Schofield would naturally do that because he knew
what the timber industry would take or not take. It made me write
into that bill only those things which I thought we could pass
or have passed, but would improve cutting practices.

So that's the way the two bills were written. Had Schofield or I
followed a different course, the Legislature would have thrown the
whole thing out.

You have to remember this: that the lumber industry is very large
as to the number of people in it. You have very large companies
and you have a multiplicity of small ones. The large companies
were doing some things they could have improved. In fact, that's
what my job was for, as an advisor to the redwood industry: "What
can we do to improve our logging, to make our plants permanent?"

Now that's a pretty broad statement. And when you come down to
the details, it has every kind of ramification. I knew what they
were doing in the woods. In the ten years since Article X of the
N.R.A., a decided change had been made in the woods. The good
companies were already doing more than was required in a Maryland-
type law.

We were trying to catch the horde of fast-buck operators who In
vaded the state during the war and were creating havoc in the woods.
They also got into trouble with the Fish and Game Commission for
blocking the streams. The Commission would attack not only these
operators but the industry as a whole. Public agencies often "paint
with a wide brush." It was a case of a blunderbuss instead of a
rifle. Everybody got hit, the good and the bad.

I didn't think that was fair to make big noises to the public where
a reasonable operator was involved, when the cooperative approach
would have done better. Also, I felt it was hurting my own efforts
to get certain forestry practices into the woods. I was trying to
get the selective cutting method established on a larger and more
intensive scale. We couldn't write a specific si I vicu Itural method
into the law because conditions varied from company to company and
from region to region, because of terrain, site factors, conditions
of the old growth, and even markets and equipment. The latter con-,
trol how intensively one can utilize a tree once it is felled.

So the bill was presented to the Biggar Committee, which was still
in force. Then the Committee would go over the bill and would say,
"The Legislature will never buy this," or "They'll never buy that."
The result was that we had a Forest Practice Act which had the basic
principles in it.

After some small changes back and forth, the Biggar Committee

260

Fritz: approved it, and it was introduced and became S.B. 637, bearing

the names of Senators Biggar, Carter, and Fletcher. It was intro
duced January 25, 1945.

Fry: Why don't we insert right here what the major provisions were. I
think I have them noted down here.

The bill provided for a rules committee of timber owners and op
erators in each region, one in the redwood region, one in the pine
region, and so on.

Fritz: The Forest Practice Act, as passed, was in large part a self-
policing law. It recognized the differences in forest conditions
and therefore divided the state into four districts. Each dis
trict was given a committee of timberland owners and operators to
write the rules of practices regarding cutting, protection, erosion
control, reforestation, and so forth.

It recognized the right of an owner to convert his land to another
legitimate use, like grazing. (This part of the law was badly
abused by the fast-buck operators and owners of small areas. Many
owned only a quarter section, an effect of the old Homestead and
the Timber and Stone Acts.)

Also provided for was the privilege of alternative forestry prac
tices to meet certain local conditions. All the rules of practice
and their amendments, including variances, must be approved by the
State Board of Forestry.

Fry: I have here that "there were four major merchantable timber regions
in the Forest Practice Act as it was delineated in 1945."

Fritz: Yes, you're right. It's four.

Fry: "™7 . . . and a forest practfce committee of five, of which four were
appointed by the governor. One was from the Division of Forestry.
These men developed rules for logging, protection and regeneration.
After the two-thirds vote approval of rules by the timber operators,
they were then submitted for approval by the Board of Forestry and
put into effect."

Fry: Why was there no way to enforce any of this until later on, when
it was amended and violation of the rules was made a misdemeanor
in the mid-1950's?

Fritz: That's an interesting point. We had a meeting in 1945 of our in
terim or Biggar Committee, and we were going over this bill. Scho-
fleld's bill and my bill were gone over thoroughly. They were very
similar, but there were some differences. One was the penalty in
mine, while there was none in Schofield's.

Fry: What was your penalty? Do you remember?

261

Fritz: It was very, very small.
Fry: A fine, or . . . . ?

Fritz: It was a fine. In some versions ot the original bill — oh, -here
It is right here: $500.

Fry: But Schofield's bill didn't have any method of enforcement?

Fritz: Actually, a fine of $500 doesn't mean anything. Some disinterested
logger could afford to pay the fine and keep going until another
inspector happened by. There never have been enough inspectors.

The Committee asked that the fine be taken out, believing that the
important thing was the registration. That is, a man cannot oper
ate unless he's registered. Withdrawal of registration is a very
serious penalty. If you stop his logging operations for only one
day, he loses much more than $500.

The bill reads: "All timber operators engaged in cutting or re
moval of timber or other forest products from forest lands for
commercial purposes shall register with the State Forester to per
form such operations. The fee for such registration shall be one
dollar."

Fry: But then, if registration carried no threat ....

Fritz: Here it is: "Every timber operator who fails to register as pro
vided for in this section shall be prohibited from cutting or re
moving timber or other forest products for commercial purposes
from forest lands."

Fry: Yes. That's from S.B. 637.

Fritz: Actually, that's a very serious penalty. He could be stopped by
an injunction.

Fry: It would require a court injunction; that is cumbersome.
Fritz: Yes. Unfortunately, the courts are slow.

You might be interested in how the two versions of a forest prac
tice bill were resolved. As I said earlier, Schofield's bill and
mine were very much alike but mine contained some ideas not in
Schofield's and vice versa. The hour was getting fate, (C~or
FT ~PM,"~so~we adjourned the Tormal meeting, but Senator Biggar,
SchbTfeld and V were asked to go to the hotel and resolve the dif
ferences. By I or 2 AM, we had the differences ironed out to
Biggar's satisfaction. Schofield's bill had all the changes en
tered, and having already been cleared by the possible opponents,
the industry, it was accepted and mine was tabled.

The next day the Committee okayed the revised text. Biggar later

262

Fritz: had it drafted as a bill, and it became S.B. 637. The Legislature
approved It and Governor Warren signed it on April 23, 1945. Thus
it became Chapter 85, Statute 1945, and part of the Resources Code.
Early in 1947, after the regional committees had completed draft
ing the rules, the State Board of Korestry, upon due study, approved
them and the law became effective.

Fry: And then in the three-man meeting, what you did was adjust any
differences and put them in Schofield's bill?

Fritz: We were directed by the Committee, and all we had to do was add the
verbiage. We made some other changes In English, of course, to
make it read well. Schofield was satisfied and I was satisfied
and Biggar was satisfied, so when we went back to the Committee
the next day, they approved it and Biggar then introduced it to
the Legislature. He had others sponsor the bill with him, Sena
tors 01 iver Carter and Ed Fletcher.

There was always a certain trio in forestry legislation — Biggar,
Carter and Fletcher. Fletcher came from San Diego and though not
on the Committee, had some contact with timber through represent
ing owners who were in financial difficulty, like the Ward Estate.
Carter was an attorney In the pine region and Biggar came from the
redwoods. All of them were quite interested in forestry.

Oliver Carter was a senator for several terms. Then he was made
a federal judge with headquarters in San Francisco.

Ed Fletcher was a realtor in San Diego. He got in very early and
made some of the biggest deals in southern California. In some
way, he also got interested in the Ward Estate of Michigan, which
owned extensive tracts of redwood in Del Norte County. They were
unable to pay county taxes in the I930's. To raise the necessary
money, the Wards decided to sell part of their timber to the U.S.
(This is now in the Redwood National Park controversy.) Uncle Sam
is "broke" and he is doing, or would like to do, what the Wards
did: trade their redwood forest to one of the owners in exchange
for his timber which lies within the proposed park area.

Fry: When this bill was introduced, was there much opposition from any
quarter?

Fritz: Very, very I ittle.

Fry: We haven't discussed the provision in the bill to allow for con
verting the specified land use of a tract from timber production
to something else, such as grazing or agriculture. I understand
that later on this was one of the loopholes that the State Board
of Forestry was trying to plug up because timber operators could
use it to enable them to clear-cut their property. Was this pro
vision in your bill?

Fritz: It probably was in both of our bills, my bill and Schofield's,

263

Fritz: since they were both taken from the Maryland bill, and because

Maryland as a state had a lot of forests which were scattered and
in small units, land which couldn't be cultivated or used for some
other purpose except housing developments. And I think it should
be in there. I don't think you could get any kind of a forest
practice bill passed without that provision because we have a lot
of forest land in California which Is being crowded by rural de
velopment; also, more land is required for grazing.

For example, there are many livestock ranchers in the state that
own anywhere from twenty to fifty thousand acres apiece. Part of
their land is timbered and part is grass; and sometimes the tim
ber encroaches on the grass, or has in the past, and they want
that timber cut. They want and need grass. They certainly have
the right to raise grass for their livestock.

That has been a great fight in the past, but I think it's pretty
well resolved now, or understood. Many small owners and contract
loggers took unfair advantage of it, and the state I think was too
wishy-washy about it; the state had not enough inspectors. The
law should have provided for a time limit and a penalty that, if
the logged area was not actually devoted to the new land use — if
he could not show proof that he actually seeded grass on it at so
many pounds per acre, or that he put houses on it, or put the land
to some higher use — he would then have to reforest it at his own
cost, or the state would do it and bill it to him.

The omission of such a quid pro quo was a big mistake. But it is
doubtful that the bill would have passed without the provision
permitting logged land put to another use. In fact, Senator Swift
Berry, a forester and former lumber company manager, told me a few
years later that, "If you had not put that into the original bill,
the Legislature would never have passed it." That doesn't mean
that h_e_ would have voted against it, but that the Legislature would
never have accepted it.

Fry: I have some suggestions here that you made in 1952, in a kind of
Forest Practice Act review that was held before the State Board
of Forestry. There are nine suggestions that you make here for
improving the Forest Practice Act at that point.

Fritz: It included a performance bond, didn't it? I don't remember all
the details in that statement. I tried several times to have the
law strengthened but got snowed under each time.

Fry: Yes. In fact, you say here that the first thing that should be

added to the Act at that point Is the actual licensing of loggers
and that these licenses could be revoked, if necessary.

264

Fritz: That was accepted later.

Fry: And second was the licensing of foresters, and third was the bond
ing of owners and operators and in case of violation, costly court
proceedings could be avoided. You said, "Greater care will be used
to prevent damage to residual trees. And those who build up a good
performance record could have the bond requirement abolished."

You also suggest that land clearers be bonded, and you suggested a
system of land classification with benefits for those who hurry up
reforestation on forest land faster than natural regeneration.

You asked, in 1952, for more personnel for enforcement. I think
this had always been a complaint, hadn't it, that they just didn't
have enough personnel from the State Division of Forestry to
actually do all the inspections and the follow-ups that needed to
be done?

Fritz: That is true, but the State Division of Forestry also had a theory
that they had to go through the "educational" process first with
the operators. I bought that idea for the first few years, but
education Is — like it is at the University — a never-ending job.
You have a new crop of students coming on every year and you have
a new crop of loggers coming on too. So it didn't work out. They
had one man there, a law enforcement man, that I thought was sabo
taging the whole thing, but I couldn't prove it.

.

I had forgotten that I had made so many recommendations. I got
badly beaten on the bonding.

Fry: That never came about?

Fritz: No, I was beaten on that. I can tell you this also. Some of these
1952 points were objected to by the lumber industry. I don't think
they would object to them now. The permanent operators had nothing
to fear and much public good will to gain. At that time, all the
principal pine and redwood operators practiced selective cutting.

Fry: On what grounds did they object to the bonding of land clearers?

Fritz: They were not too certain forestry would work out well. They were

not sure that they could reforest it in the definite number of years
that would have been specified. Looking back, their pessimism was
better grounded than my optimism. Nature is still against us. In
fact, many foresters are not sure. So I was on weak ground, but
bonding could have been taken care of, at least to require that
they f i re the slash and drop seeds on the ashes.

None of these items that you have read to me did I take up with
the redwood industry, for which I was an advisor; I never consid
ered it necessary. The redwood people were exceeding the law any
way. The principal violators were the many small fast-buck operators

265

Fritz: that flooded the region during and after the war. Very few of

these operated on redwood land, but their logs had to be trucked
through the redwoods to the small mills on the Redwood Highway.
I am grateful to the redwood industry for letting me go on as a
free agent, while continuing as thc'r advisor.

The Doug I as Fi r Region

Fry: After this Act was passed, the Douglas fir industry more or less
came into its own in California, didn't it?

Fritz: It started in 1940 and was already on its own. I must make it
clear that the Douglas fir region — most of It — lies east of the
redwood region, but the mills were on the Redwood Highway and
most of these mills have melted away. It was the Douglas fir
operations that needed policing. There were very few small red
wood mills. The Douglas fir operations were on scattered small
properties. That's a hangover from the days of the Homestead Act
and the Timber and Stone Act, under which you could take up 160
acres for a small fee. It made logical logging impossible for
sustained yield.

On the other hand, the redwood lands had been reconsoM dated
seventy to eighty years ago. The Douglas fir region, lying along
side the redwood region to the east, was not considered accessible
until the war years. It was never ^consolidated after the U.S.
mistakenly broke it into 160-acre units. They were good laws for
Nebraska and Kansas, but not for mountainous country or for timber
country. It was the worst thing that could have happened.

It is the basis of so much mismanagement. Some people were jailed
in the 1890's and the early I900's for fraudulent use of the laws,
Included were a few congressmen and U.S. land agents. I refer you
to Wallace Stegner's book on the western lands, and his reference
to Major Powell of the U.S. Geological Survey, one of the first
and most vocal critics of the two laws, Homestead and the Timber
and Stone Acts.

Many of the newcomers were fast-buck operators. They would log
off a quarter section and move on. The state had a hard time keep
ing up with them. These little operators came down from Oregon,
Washington, and from the southeast. Some of them had never operated
before, although they might have worked for a logger in some minor
capacity. They couldn't lose. Here was Douglas fir timber at a
dollar a thousand board feet when it was worth ten dollars a thou
sand.

Most of this timber was on ranches, or the owner was the descendant
of a family that located 160 acres and paid taxes on it of only a
few dollars per year. So they kept the land, believing that some
day it might be worth something. But along comes a little gyppo

266

Fritz: logger, and he asks the rancher what he wants for it. He'd say,

"I don't know. What's it worth?" The logger might say one or two

dollars. The rancher would make a quick multiplication and the
total would look very good.

Fry: So the ranchers were selling the Douglas fir off their lands?

Fritz: Ranchers, yes, and other small holders, city people — people scat
tered all over the U.S. because the descendants of the original
homesteaders had scattered to many parts of the country. I had
letters from a lot of them. A consultant could have done a lot
of business with them for managing their properties. I wasn't
interested in liquidation, which most of them had in mind.

Fry: They were all selling their timber very, very cheaply?

rr'Tz: Yes. The logger couldn't lose. The logger bought the timber cheao,
He could go to an equipment man and say, "I'm buying this timber
over here and I'm going to pay for it as I cut it." And the equip
ment man would say, "How much are you paying for it?"

He'd say, "One dollar a thousand." "Hell, you can't lose at that
price. How much equipment do you want to buy on credit?"

Fry: So he could borrow from the equipment man and get a tractor.

Fritz: Yes. He bought the equipment and paid for it as he got the money
back from selling the logs to the sawmills. Many of the Douglas
fir sawmills were separate ownerships from the logging at that
time, although some mill men financed the loggers.

In the redwood areas, in contrast, the milling and the logging
were done predominantly by one company. It was completely inte
grated because years ago the small lands had been consolidated,
blocked out by watersheds, as I said.

The Douglas fir was in the inner coast range, between the Central
Valley and the coastal redwoods. These men couldn't lose, and
they figured that they'd just chop down the best trees and take
the best logs out of the best trees. They cleaned up. Many of
those lands were logged three and four times. There would always
be somebody coming back to get what the preceding logger had left.

Fry: So this was eventually clear-cutting going on. Do you feel then
that the Forest Practice Act really was effective in dealing with
the Douglas fir problem?

Fritz: No, not with that type of operator. He could cut 160 acres in a

very short time, before an inspector would get a chance to get out
there. And there were so many operators, more than a thousand in
one district, that one inspector for a county couldn't cover them
all; so the logger could be back in Oregon or Washington where he
came from by the time the inspector came around.

267

Fry: The State Division of Forestry wouldn't have a chance then to get
a court injunction to stop him.

Fritz: No. There are a lot of things jno sees in hindsight, of course.
With postwar urgencies for catching up on peacetime building,
many things are overlooked. One small operator told me, "This is
pioneer country and anything goes." He not only made a mess of
his logging and gypped the owner of stumpage payments, but was
actually trespassing on neighboring lands.

Fry: Have the rules changed much in the Douglas fir region regarding
cutting practices? In the northwest, it has long been the orac-
tice to cut Douglas fir forests in blocks. Is this true in
Cal ifornia?

Fritz: Most Douglas fir stands have to be clear-cut. Even the Forest
Service does it on national forest lands bordering the redwood
region. But the U.S.F.S. follows up with slash disposal by burn
ing, followed by planting or seeding. If you look through the
Sierra Club's pictures, you'll find some pictures showing clear-
cutting. If you know the stumps and if you know the area, you'd
know whether It was redwood or Douglas fir, but too often a Douglas
fir area of stumps was labeled redwood. It's a misrepresentation
that has caused many readers to be I ieve it to be redwood.

Fry: Are Douglas fir forests even-aged in California as they are in
Oregon?

Fritz: Not so much as in Oregon and Washington.

Fry: Did the Forest Rules Committee consider block cutting an accept
able practice for Douglas fir?

Fritz: Yes, indeed. It is not so much the method, but how the method is
applied that is important, and what is done to keep the land pro
ductive.

Fry: There was no change in rules then for Douglas fir, it was block
cutting from the first? And all the other areas had selective
cutting rules.

Fritz: In Douglas fir there was some selective cutting from the start.
But there was generally another logger who took out some of the
residual trees, and he was followed by still another until nothing
was left but debris. A few owners did do some reforesting but it
was sma I I .

One owner who took great pains to hold loggers to their contracts
was Dr. William Kerr, owner of a large ranch east of Korbel in
Humboldt County. He resorted to seeding and planting after the
loggers were finished and the slash was disposed of or protected
against fire. He also saw to it that seed trees were left.

268

Fritz: I don't know of any block cutting (in which alternate blocks are
left standing) in the Douglas fir area by small operators. They
couldn't afford it and the owner wanted the land cleared. Don't
forget that a large part of the Douglas fir region in northwest
California is also ranch country — sheep and cattle. The north-
facing slopes are forested with Douglas fir, while the south and
west slopes are fields of grass. Obviously, the ranch owner wanted
more grassland.

Even before World War I I , he tried to eliminate the Douglas fir by
girdling or burning. When the war demand for lumber developed, the
rancher was elated that now he could get his land cleared and be
paid for it. That's why some of the stumpage was sold so cheaply
in the first half of the I940's, but eventually the more progres
sive ranchers learned that it is difficult to maintain grass on
former Douglas fir land.

There is an important feature that should be mentioned here. The
stockmen, having great faith in their local farm advisor, W. Douglas
Pine, got him to make a study of the ranch-timber problem. Are the
owners getting enough for their stumpage from the loggers? Is it
true that the owner is better off to leave his north and east slopes
in timber production, or can they be converted to grass?

Douglas Pine's study had the blessing and support of the rTumboldt
'County Supervisors. His report makes interesting reading. What
he reported was what foresters had been recommending for many years.
But this time the story came from a farm advisor who was born in
the county, was known and highly regarded by everyone, and who knew
the ranch owners' problems, as well as those of stock raising.

The impact of his report was surprising. The county appointed a
County Forestry Department with a trained forester in charge and
set up a County Forestry Committee of about twenty local people.
The county no longer has a forester. He is now a member of the
County Farm Advisor's department, a more effective way to handle
the job. The Committee is operating and holding almost monthly
meetings.

Fry: We might back up and ask you to tell what brought on this migra
tion of loggers from Oregon and Washington in about 1940.

Fritz: It was brought on by the war. The war started in '39. You may
not know that wars are fought with lumber, as much as with steel.
There's more tonnage of lumber used than steel.

Fry: Why did they come down from such heavily forested states as Oregon
and Washington?

Fritz: That's a good question. The Oregon and Washington people had

adopted the forestry tree-farming idea ten years before the Cali-
fornians — not quite ten years.

269

Fry: Yes, but they didn't have their Conservation Act until about
1941, did they?

Fritz: I believe so. There was also t^.e Cnon -governmental]] tree-farm

program, which was started by the Weyerhaeusers In 1941. It was
a private undertaking to draw attention to the fact that a lumber
company, to remain in business after their old growth is gone, must
be protected against fire, insects, and disease and that the public
has a stake in sustained-yield management.

It takes a lot of acres to keep a we I I -equipped company in a never-
ending supply of trees. So they bought as much of the loosely-held
second growth of small and medium-sized owners as they could. Since
the gyppo operators were already cutting second growth here and
there, they found it more and more difficult to buy more second
growth as they needed it.

Two benefits were early realized from the tree-farm program: It
prevented not only premature cutting without provision for con
tinuity, but it made it possible for the more strongly financed
and more efficient operators to realize their hope for perpetual
timber crops (sustained-yield management).

So the gyppo operators looked far afield for timber and found it
in Humboldt and Del Norte Counties in California, in an area there
tofore considered inaccessible.

Fry: At any rate, consolidation of lands in Oregon and Washington forced
the small loggers out.

Fritz: Yes, that is the point. They learned there was a lot of old-growth
Douglas fir available for logging In California, and they came down.
There were few roads. How did they get Into it? They flew over
it. "We can handle this timber," they said.

Down here it was considered so inaccessible that even the federal
government didn't inventory it closely. The gyppos came down and
looked over the timber and the terrain. They found they could buy
Douglas fir stumpage so cheaply that they could afford to build
roads into the forest despite the rough steep terrain. You can do
an awful lot with timber that's worth more than ten dollars if you
pay only one dollar for it. That's how they got by.

Of course, once that rush got underway, it boomed. The lobby of
the Eureka Inn, which I had known ever since the hotel was built
in 1922, was crowded more than ever — timber cruisers, loggers,
sawmill men, speculators, investors, brokers, and so forth. One
prospective logger asked me, "What's wrong with this Douglas fir
timber?" My reply was, "Nothing. It was considered to be too in
accessible for the time. Why do you ask?" "Well, it is so dirt
cheap." That was in 1944.

Fry: And I guess the wartime demand for timber added to this.

270

Fritz: You could sell any board that would be suitable for dunnage on
shipboard.

Fry: So this Influx of successful gyppos was probably one factor then

that encouraged your large timber owners not to buck a Forest Prac
tice Act.

Fritz: No. The old- line companies had not waked up to what they were

missing. As to the wartime influx of loggers, this was believed
to end with the war. The Forest Practice Law was largely my own
idea at the time. It was hard to stomach what the "temporary"
loggers were doing to the forest.

Fry: The large timber owners supported it though later?
Fritz: They were doing better then, in the logging part anyway.

Fry: Do you feel that the Forest Practice Act was as effective as it
could be at first, under the circumstances?

Fritz: Through hindsight, we could have done many things that we didn't
do. As soon as the law was passed, I stepped out of it. I fig
ured I'd done my job; let them do theirs now. I used to attend
meetings where the rules were discussed, but not regularly.

Fry: This was a Forest Practice Rules Committee?

Fritz: Yes. I was never on one; I used to sit in with them as an auditor
and to some extent as a commentator.

I'd like to make one closing statement on this subject. The pres
ent L~I967U agitation in Sacramento by the Sierra Club to rewrite
the Forest Practice Act is motivated less by a desire to improve
the cutting practices than to harass the larger operators. At
nearly every session of the Legislature since 1945, there have
been amendments to the Act, and this bill from which I read you
a part, is now much different than the 1945 version.

The Sierra Club is especially agitating against the present per
missible clear-cutting. They'll never kick that out of the law.

It should be retained but it does need safeguards. They want to
make the whole situation look bad for lumbermen and foresters.

It's just another gimmick to enhance their status as saviours.
When the bill was under discussion in 1945, there was not a peep
out of the Sierra Club that I know of.

Can we drop the Forest Practice matter now and go to your next
subject? We have given it too much space already.

The Redwood Rec
Fry: Md like to ask you about the feasibility of clear-cutting in the

271

Fry: redwoods. There's been a great deal of controversy raised by what
was done in the Arcata Redwood Company lands, the clear-cutting
there in Humboldt County.

Fritz: What is your thought there? That clear-cutting is a general prac
tice? Or that it is not proper?

Fry: Well, neither. I think that is what the preservationists like the
Sierra Club are trying to say. But my question is: Do you still
think that selective cutting is good practice, or that clear-cut
ting is sometimes advisable where you have windblow problems? I
understand that you recommended clear-cutting the Arcata Company
redwoods there.

Fritz: Selective cutting has a number of advantages but it is not always
applicable. Sometimes selective cutting won't work but clear-cut
ting, of course, will work anywhere. Arcata Redwood Company tried
selective cutting for about ten years. They did an excellent job
and I used to show pictures of it to doubters. But then we learned
that the residual trees are easily felled by wind and because the
gravelly soil gave only a weak foothold.

In new country you never know how a method will work out until
you have given it a thorough trial. In the Arcata case, the Com
pany was forced into clear-cutting because of the heavy annual
blowdown.

Fry: Clear-cutting always works for regeneration too?

Fritz: No. You can't wait for nature to do it; you have to do it your
self. You either plant or seed. In northern Humboldt and Del
Norte, you have a better chance for success by seeding than you
have farther south. I can't see where so-called block cutting has
answered the regeneration problem. The openings are too large. If
the openings (blocks) are small, there should be a good response
from natural seeding.

Reforestation, even natural seeding in the case of selective cut
ting, is difficult almost anywhere in California. I wish that
economic conditions were such that we dared spend seventy-five
dollars per acre. That day may come; it isn't here yet.

Fry: Is the high cost due to the lower rainfall?

Fritz: Yes. The selective cutting that you were speaking of is not the
selective cutting that I had recommended. It's a little heavier.
It's more like what is called the shelter wood system used in
Europe. I think it's too heavy. The Sierra Club, of course,
calls it clear-cutting, even If ten trees per acre are saved.
There should be a minimum of five trees to the acre, and these
trees must be selected for their seed-bearing capacity.

Fry: Five seed trees per acre. This always confuses me in redwoods,

272

Fry:
Fritz:

because I thought redwoods reproduce most easily by sprouting.

Of course, the stumps do sprout. That's very fortunate. But with
only thirty-five or forty tree0 per acre to start with, the stumps
are too widely spread. Natural or artificial seeding is required
to assure a fully-stocked stand. Otherwise you will have, say,
thirty-five clumps of sprouts per acre with too much open space
between. We ought to have a minimum of five hundred trees per
acre in addition to the sprout clumps to start with after cutting.
Each stump, if it sprouts, can be counted as several in the five
hundred.

You are not alone in being confused about sprouting. Redwood for
estry, like all western forestry, calls for a lot of pioneering by
each company. At one time, we were satisfied with the sprouts
alone. We know now that that is not enough.

Many people regard the redwood region as so wet that reforestation
should be easy. It is indeed wet in the winter. But from June to
October, occasionally to November or December, we get so little
rain as to make it correct to describe the region as semiarld
In some years, the ground is full of seedlings until May or June.
By July, it is often difficult to find one seedling. The rest
have succumbed to soil dessication.

Were it not for the frequent fogs and overcast days, the situation
would be impossible for reforestation except by such heroic meas
ures as planting seedlings grown in large pots, 1 rrigating, or by
providing numerous windbreaks. Fog is not necessary for redwood
but soil water is. Fog reduces or inhibits evaporation, and it
no doubt supplies considerable moisture through the leaves. But
fog is not dependable.

In the Arcata case, the residual stand, left after logging for
making further growth and for reseeding the blanks between sprout
ing stumps, must remain standing. If it blows down, as it did in
the Areata case, the loss is not only a loss of seed trees and the
growth in volume of these seed trees, but an absolute loss of their
original volume through shattering as the trees fall across. I saw
the wreckage after one wind and was saddened as I have never been
before in forestry work. Salvage was costly and the splintered
logs left quite a mess. That was the end of selective cutting on
Arcata fs property.

I might add another factor: Several trees fell across the high
way. I was told that one fell right after a loaded school bus
passed. The logging foreman was quite alarmed over the danger and
cut all the trees in the strip bordering the highway. This strip
had been left a few years earlier to preserve the general scene.

Maunder:

When d i d you f i rst become
Association work?

interested in the California Redwood

273

Fritz: One who, like myself, taught sawmill ing and wood technology had
many contacts with lumber associations. C.R.A. handled all the
statistics, conducted the lumber grading committees or bureaus,
and dealt with the Forest Prodi'cts Laboratory (at Madison, Wis
consin) on study projects concerned with mechanical and other
properties. So it was natural that I should be known to the staff.
It was a mutual benefit.

I have done work for the Douglas fir and western pine associations
as well as the redwood group. I was never on the payroll of the
Redwood Association. Being on academic status, I was privileged
to do consulting work. Most of this, for the redwood group, was
in the forestry field, beginning in 1934 as a result of the N.R.A.
Article X. When the N.R.A. was knocked out by the Supreme Court,
Article Ten provisions were continued voluntarily. But I was com
pletely independent, as an advisor.

Maunder: Did this come out of your first work with Mr. C. R. Johnson of the
Union Lumber Company?

Fritz: Indirectly. When I went across the river and laid out the "wonder
plot," I thought, after having measured It and marked it for per
manent consolidation later, I would never see It again because I
didn't expect to be in California that long. I hoped others would
fol low through.

But as it turned out, I've stayed here almost forty years now and
I've remeasured that plot in three different decades. There's one
coming up in 1963, and I hope I live long enough to measure it
again because the data will be very interesting.

May I add at this point that the forestry work I did for the red
wood people was what the University should have done anyway.
Without the additional compensation, I could not remain at the
University of California.

Maunder: Have they been following your original plan for cutting?
Fritz: For second growth?
Maunder: Yes.

Fritz: Second growth was not in operation until the past few years. Those
few who are cutting second growth are doing it only experimentally,
following my original suggestion; but most of it, being in small
unstable ownerships, is being cut on a quick cut-out-and-get-out
basis. In my opinion, that's a grave mistake. The larger companies
are holding to it for the future.

274

XI THE FOREST PRODUCTS LABORATORY

Fry: Do you want to go back to a 1943 report of yours on the Forest
Products Laboratory for the California Assembly?*

Fritz: If you wish. We have a forestry alumnus named Wendell Robie, of
Auburn, California. He's one of those dynamic men who has a wide
range of interests. Being a retail lumber dealer, he saw the prod
ucts phase of lumbering, although he was very much interested in
woods forestry and civic matters in general. He was one of the
founders of the Forestry Club at the University before we had a
forestry school .

Fry: Back in the early Nineteen . . . ?

Fritz: 1912. He and I would meet once in a while and discuss the state's
forest future. I told him about having been disappointed when I
came to the University in 1919 to teach lumbering and forest prod
ucts, but found no equipment. "What we need," I said, "is a Forest
Products Laboratory. A university of this size and standing could
do a great deal of good with such a laboratory." Other universities
had small to large forest products laboratories.

He thought well of the idea and without my knowing it, he got his
own assemblyman to introduce a bill calling for the establishment
of a Forest Products Laboratory at the University of California.

Fry: He was from where?
Fritz: From Auburn.

Fry: Do you remember making a report to the Assembly for a Forest Prod
ucts Lab? According to my notes, the Assembly, in 1943, passed a
resolution calling for a report on the need for a laboratory, what
it would do, what It would cost, and so forth.

Fritz: Yes, I remember it very well. By the way, here's something that

affects what I said about George Craig. This is our recommendation
that the California Forest Study Committee be continued for another
two years dreading from report! "for a study of certain aspects of
the forestry situation which could not be gone into in the time
avai I able."

Fry: That's on page eighteen of your report?

Fritz: Yes. "That the proposed Forest Products Laboratory at the Univer
sity of California be established as soon as war conditions permit."

^Resolution Chapter 121, May 8, 1943, California State
Assemb ly .

275

Fry: So it was already proposed by the time your report came out. I
guess that was referring to the '43 proposal?

Fritz: Was there a bill?

Fry: I think it was just a resolution.

Fritz: It was a bill originally, but they changed it to a resolution in

'43. Robie got his assemblyman to introduce the bill for a Forest
Products Laboratory. It was a very short bill. I don't think it
had more than eight or ten lines. I felt at the time it had no
chance at all of passing.

In fact, when there was a ripe moment, I mentioned that it was not
the time to talk about that because we were in World War II.
Whereas the acquisition of cutover lands was something that would
require funds over a long period of time, the laboratory would re
quire money right away.

In 1943, there was introduced a bill, but changed to a resolution,
asking the University of California to write a report on why it
should have a Forest Products Laboratory. I was detailed to write
it by the head of our school, Walter Mulford. The report was to
have been presented to the 1945 Legislature. It did not get that
far. I wrote the report, and we had a lot of copies mimeographed.

Fry: Perhaps I should insert here that there's a copy of it in the

University of California Library under what's called "Pamphlets.''
Its number is SO 359.

Fritz: My memory now gets clearer on this matter. The war was over as
far as Germany was concerned In April, '45. So the Legislature
was already thinking about postwar problems. We had a very large
state committee on reconstruction and unemployment. I was on one
of the subcommittees of which Walter Johnson of San Francisco was
chairman.

Fry: You were on that committee as a representative of the University
or representing forestry?

Fritz: The University. You don't represent the University; you're asked,
you're picked out of the University, by somebody from the outside
who thinks you ought to be on the committee.

Fry: In 1945 then, you think that this committee to tackle postwar

problems might have had something to do with — might have included
the Forest Products Lab?

Fritz: I was on Johnson's committee, not for the laboratory as such, but
for what the lumber industry could do to make employment for the
war veterans who might need jobs upon their discharge. We used
to laugh about it because we felt there'd be no unemployment at

276

Fritz: all in California, because although most of these people all wanted
to stay in our state, it was a matter of relocation and reemploy-
ment. We'd have plenty of work to catch up with this great back
log of things that were held in abeyance until war's end.

Fry: You thought that a housing boom would ensue.

Fritz: Yes. No one could tell what else might increase the demand for
lumber and thus make jobs.

Walter Johnson was on the main relocation and rehabilitation com
mittee and was the chairman of the subcommittee I was on. That
committee did a great deal of work and made a lot of reports. But
as it turned out, we developed no unemployment. Unemployment was
the thing that had worried everybody.

Instead of submitting my report on the laboratory, the University
decided to hold it and to put the laboratory in a long list of
buildings it felt were needed to catch up on the wartime post
ponements.

Fry: I see. And that's how it became a part of the postwar program.

Fritz: That's just about the way it happened. I finished the report and
was ready to give it to the Legislature when I was told it would
not be necessary because the laboratory proposal had been ac
cepted as a desirable building by the University. But it was
given a rather low priority. I was glad that my report was not
presented, because there were several things in it which even
today make my face red.

Fry: How's that?

Fritz: It was brief and too modest. One thing was, I asked for only
$100,000 to run the laboratory. If I remember correctly, the
original bill (1943) called for $250,000 for the building alone.

Fry: $100,000 annually, you mean?

Fritz: Yes. My idea was to start small and build up. But I put $100,000
down because I figured we'd need only a few people to start out on
some of the products problems I knew were aching to be solved.
Furthermore, with only $250,000 one could not build and equip much
of a lab. But the University felt differently and made a bigger
thing out of it. Before the war, we were on a starvation diet in
contrast.

Every time I heard of the status of the Forest Products Laboratory,
the amount of money that the University was asking for was in
creased. The building cost, estimated In Robie's 1943 bill at
$250,000, climbed to one million and then to two million, accord
ing to my recollection. Anyway, no special legislation was needed.
The University of California is no piker when it comes to asking

~

277

Fritz: for funds.

Later, I helped again in a small way. The dean of the school
asked me to draw up general plc.is for the guidance of the archi
tects. In order to do so, ! made trips to various very modern
laboratories to see how they were arranged and equipped.

Fry: What laboratories did you visit?

Fritz: One up in the state of Washington, the Weyerhaeuser 's laboratory;
also Standard Oil's laboratory, and several others.

Fry: You mean their petroleum laboratory?

Fritz: It was a chemical laboratory, yes. We had to have a chemical

laboratory too, because the chemistry of wood is very important.

Fry: This was at the request of Dean Mulford?

Fritz: Yes. He approved my suggestions.

Fry: How did we finally get the Forest Products Lab at U.C.?

Fritz: It was on that big building program which included several kinds of
U.C. buildings — a large chemistry lab, mathematics building,
music building, and a new forestry classroom building, all of these
on the campus.

Fry: This was in the Fifties, just as you retired?

Fritz: This was in the late Forties. But the laboratory had a very low
priority. The forestry classroom building had a high priority.
It was a badly needed academic building to be shared with other
departments. It was one of the first ones to be finished after
the war, 1948. The products laboratory was still on the list,
but low down. I think we got that somewhere in the early Fifties.

Fry: Before you retired, as you remember it.

Fritz: Yes, just before I retired.

Fry: How much did you do in the actual drawing up of the plans?

Fritz: They were plans as to what was needed — a wood chemistry laboratory,
a testing laboratory, a dry kiln, and so forth, and a list of rooms
and equipment.

Fry: A list of the functions the lab should provide for?
Fritz: Yes; I did not even finish that.

Fry: I wonder if this is in your papers anywhere. I don't remember
seeing it.

278

Fritz: No, there was no correspondence about it. It was just myself and
Mu I f ord and Professor Cockrel I who followed me.

Fry: And where would your suggestions and plans be?

Fritz: I don't know where they are. I had the official drawings of the
Weyerhaeuser laboratory. They sent me copies and I made sketches.
By plans, I mean only the general idea of space, functional rooms
I i ke a small dry kiln, and floor plans or layouts. The file was
still small and didn't amount to much anyway. There was mainly
telephoning and visiting. At that time, everything was in its pre
liminary stage. The real plans would be drawn by the University
architect.

When the war ended, Professor Cockrel I returned to U.C. from war
time duties at the great U.S. Forest Products Laboratory, at Madi
son, Wisconsin. I soon discovered to my surprise that Mulford had
assigned the job he had given me to Professor Cockrel I without in
forming me. I was still on the committee and I would see the plans,
by that time drawn by the architect, but I had nothing more to do
with it except as a member of the committee.

I'm very happy as to how the laboratory worked out. It is a much
bigger thing than I thought we could get approved in 1943, and I
had done so little on it, that I think my part in it was just prac
tically nothing, except for the Sacramento part. It looked like
the penurious days at the University were over. We no longer talked
of mere hundreds of dollars.

I was a little peeved that Mulford would do such a thing, but it
was characteristic of the man to assign something to one member of
the faculty and then that member would suddenly discover that some
body else was working on it. So I dropped it like a hot potato. I
was due for retirement anyway.

But everything came out well. The selection of Fred Dickinson to
be the laboratory's director was a happy choice. He took over while
the architects were still drawing up the plans in the early I950's.
The laboratory is now a real organization, thanks to Fred Dickinson,
and has already won considerable renown. It is something that the
University can always be proud of. Dickinson is a good administra
tor and a good researcher.

One day the head of the school was interviewing candidates. I had

heard that Frank Kaufert, who I thought was a very good man for

the job, had decided not to accept it. I was very regretful of it

because he was a very able man. It was not the University's fault;
the man himself made that decision.

Then one day I was in the office, and I noticed Fred Dickinson sit
ting in the dean's office — the doors were open. I decided in my
own mind there was only one reason why he should be there — I knew

279

Fritz: his history. I went to my office and telephoned to the Dean of
the College of Agriculture, and told him that I had noticed that
Fred Dickinson was in the forestry dean's office — does that mean
he's being considered for the headship of this laboratory? He
said, yes. The Dean of Agriculture was an old friend of mine,
Knowles Ryerson. I told him, "Knowles, for God's sake, don't let
this man get away from you. This man is tops. He has something
the other men didn't have."

He said, "I'm awfully glad you telephoned me about it because we
were in a quandary about him." I don't know whether what I said
about him had any influence but anyway he got the job, which was
a satisfaction.

Fry: Why did you not seek the directorship for yourself?

Fritz: I have been asked why I did not seek the job. In the first place,
I was so near retirement that it would not have been offered me.
Then also, after dec! inlng consideration for deanships at Syracuse,
Idaho, and Michigan State, and noting many times how deanships
deprive a man of time to do things in his direct profession, I
felt certain that administrative work was not for me. I have
enough difficulty organizing my own life without trying to direct
an organization. Having started a successful move for a labora
tory at U.C. is enough satisfaction.

Fry: Your move for a laboratory was initiated in 1943, twenty-four

years after you came to the University of California. Were there
any earlier efforts?

Fritz: Yes. In 1925, there appeared to be an opportunity to make a bid
for a forest products laboratory. It came about thus: The Uni
versity had earlier acquired a tract of land in west Berkeley for
agricultural experiments. Professor William Cruess, of the Fruit
Products Division of the College of Agriculture, came to me one
day to suggest that if we worked jointly, there would be a better
chance for a successful bid. He was to have one half for his fruit
products experiments and I was to have the other half for a forest
products lab.

I took it up with Professor Mulford who thought well of the idea
and approved my spending some time on rough plans for display to
the administration. Some months later, he came to my office and
told me to discontinue my "planning" because the administration
had decreed that it was "not the function of the forestry school
to make money for the lumber industry"! That stopped me. No one
had previously brought up that view.

Any improvements the Forest Products Laboratory could develop would
promote the practice of forestry. It was up to the others how they
used our data for a more profitable business. Apparently, Bill
Cruess got a similar instruction. His fruit products laboratory
idea also died.

280

Fritz: When we were moved to Giannini Hall, one basement room was assigned
to forest products studies. I requested Mu I ford's approval for the
purchase of a testing machine. It was denied with the comment:
"We should not duplicate equipment already available In the Uni
versity's Engineering Lab."

Some years later, after our removal in 1948 to what later became
Mulford Hall, Professor Bob Cockrell was successful in getting ap
proval for a testing machine. Maybe I didn't punch the right but
tons. Also, Fred Baker had become dean after Mu I ford's retirement.

After the Forest Products Laboratory was completed (in Richmond),
I never visited it. My part in it was finished. The director,
Fred Dickinson, is such a competent man that he doesn't need the
advice of a retiree. My main interest was to have such a lab
authorized, built, and staffed. Also, my interests changed some
what, away from products. Actually they didn't change but returned
to my original interest: getting forestry out of the talking stage
and into the woods.

281

XI! FOUNDATION FOR AMERICAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT (FARM)

Fry: When you retired in 1954, my notes say that you became an advisor
to F.A.R.M., which spelled out is what?

Fritz: Foundation for American Resource Management. It was incorporated
in 1955.

Fry: How did you find out about this?

Fritz: I met Mr. Carl F. Rehnborg in 1950, at the dedication of a red
wood grove.

Fry: I understand from talking to you previously that it was a relative
of Carl Schenck who introduced you. Is that right?

Fritz: Yes. I was introduced to him by the late George Merck who was at
that time the chairman of the board of Merck and Company. George
Merck was a sincere conservationist, especially interested in the
promotion of forestry.

Fry: Is that the pharmaceutical company Merck?

Fritz: Yes.

Fry: And Merck was a relative of Schenck?

Fritz: A distant cousin.

Fry: Was it at this meeting that Rehnborg said he was interested in con
servation and was considering setting up a foundation to promote
it?

Fritz: Yes. Rehnborg had put up some money for a redwood grove in honor
of his wife. The dedication we were participating in, however,
was that of the Schenck grove, named for Carl Schenck, a German
forester who came to the United States in the middle I890's. He
founded Bi Itmore Forest School. Schenck himself had come from
Germany for the dedication. Rehnborg told me about his plans and
asked if I would be willing to help him out.

Fry: To organize a conservation foundation?

Fritz: Yes, and I agreed that I would. And I did become one of the incor-
porators of the foundation five years later. Mr. Rehnborg had ear
lier asked me to take charge of the foundation, including solicit
ing additional funds. I declined with thanks but agreed to act as
an advisor on projects. This I expected to do without compensation.
I had other plans for my retired years.

Fry: So you started this about 1955, is that right?

282

Fritz: Right. Between 1950 and 1954, I saw little of Mr. Rehnborg. He

had become acquainted with Luther Hester of the Isaac Walton League
and hired him to run the foundation and, of course, the preliminar
ies to incorporation.

Fry: And is that when you began to be formally connected with it?

Fritz: Yes, first as an incorporator, and then as a trustee and vice-presi
dent. Mr. Rehnborg was made president.

Fry: The purpose of this was what, specifically?

Fritz: As Rehnborg described it to me, he wanted to start a foundation

which would encourage forestry practices, and the preservation of
forests, scenery, local customs, and so on. He talked about buy
ing up all of the cutover lands in the redwood region and then
reforesting them! That was a huge order. When he talked to me in
those days, he said little about saving more redwoods but expounded
on forestry.

Fry: What kind of a man was Mr. Rehnborg?

Fritz: Rehnborg was a very interesting character, very intelligent, very
active, but also precipitate. He and I were almost the same age.
He apparently had had a rough early life, but since World War II,
he made too much money too fast in his food supplement business.
He wanted to spend some of it for good purposes. Of course, there
was a tax gimmick too. He preferred to see his money spent rather
than leaving it to Congress.

Just how deep his interest in conservation was at that time or
whether it was just the idea of being a prominent man in the con
servation field, I could not fathom at the time. At any rate,
when he started F.A.R.M. he agreed to support it for five years.
In that time, we sponsored the forestry studies of various people
who couldn't finance their own research.

To start the ball rolling and to have an early product, the founda
tion got out a printed bibliography on coast redwood.* (He had a
great love for the redwoods.) He thought that would be a good way
to start, after which we should have made a lot of contacts with
people who are researchers and who need funds to conduct their
studies. But after about three years, it was very evident that
his interest had changed and that he had become enamored of Tahiti.
He told me he wanted to help preserve the old way of life of the
Tah itlans.

*Emanuel Fritz, Cal ifornia Coast Redwood, an Annotated Bi_b_-
I iography Including 1955, published by Foundation for American"
Resource Management, San Francisco, California, 1957.

283

Fry: Was this in connection with his Nutrilite Products, Inc. business?

Fritz: No, it was entirely separate. Our funds came via Nutrilite Founda
tion, which Mr. Rehnborg had organized for supporting boys' camps.

Fry: What had you done by the time you saw his interest beginning to
flag?

Fritz: We had given money to study the influence of soil fungi on the

health and vigor of tree seedlings and their establishment, a book
for guiding conservation teachers in the north coast counties of
California, and a book on California lands by Dana and Krueger, and
so forth.

Fry: And had you actually bought up lands and made any plantations?

Fritz: Not an acre.

Fry: Did you never buy any lands?

Fritz: No. I explained to him what it would mean. It would take sev
eral hundred million dollars to buy up all the cutover lands in
the redwood region and reforest them. He was told of the diffi
culties attending reforestation and that considerable research
is needed to study effective reforestation methods.

Fry: And I understand you had $100,000 to work with, is that right?

Fritz: You mean to start with? No, we had $50,000 to start with. He

put a total of nearly $500,000 into the Foundation. That included
costs of running the office, which cost did not come from Nutri
lite Foundation's treasury but out of his persona! pocket.

At the end of the five-year period, he was so involved in Tahiti
that he decided to dissolve F.A.R.M. We had also learned that his
understanding of conservation was preservation. Forestry to him,
I learned, was not conservation.

Fry: Was this money that he put into F.A.R.M. Nutrilite money or his
own money?

Fritz: The money to F.A.R.M. came directly from the Nutrilite Foundation.
Nutrilite Foundation owned a large share of Nutrilite Products,
Inc., of Buena Park, California.

Fry: So I suppose the money for the Nutrilite Foundation in turn came
from Nutrilite Products, Inc.?

Fritz: Yes. Nutrilite Foundation was eventually to own ninety percent of
the producing company. I don't know if they ever got up that high
or not. It was a very profitable thing. His product at that time
was sold as a food supplement — vitamin and mineral tablets and cap
sules, distributed direct to the house by agents through a private

284

Fritz: sales company. It was a very Interesting marketing practice, and
it was separate from Nutrilite Products, Inc. We had nothing to
do with that, of course. Later on, he developed a line of cos
metics. At the present time, I don't know what they're dolnq,
except for the food supplement ~nd the cosmetics. His Interest
has changed again. He's now absorbed in astronomy and has his
own observatory.

Fry: Where's that?
Fritz: Near Hemet.

Fry: What was he doing in Tahiti then, that began to take money from
your . . . ?

Fritz: I don't know. He went down there I think just on a visit and
loved the spot and soon felt that that particular kind of life
should be preserved, along with local traditions and customs.
Then he bought the hotel, and a year later, it burned down. I
think he has rebuilt it. It cost him a big wad of money and was
a great disappointment to him.

Of course, he had to work with a government that took Americans
for suckers, the French government, and just what the status is
at the present time, I don't know. He was justifiably very angry
over having been so badly used.

Fry: How did you find out that you were supposed to dissolve F.A.R.M.?
Did this come as a surprise to you?

Fritz: No. He was one of the trustees. Kenneth Smith was president at
that time. I was surprised that his interest in it lasted tha+
long.

Fry: So you saw this developing then, through your board meetings and
so forth?

Fritz: In fact, I was in Europe in I960, away for three months. I was
told about it before I left. When I came back, all I had time
for was to gather up my own stuff and see that the remainder was
packed and shipped to Buena Park.

Fry: Can you give us a description of what you did for these five years
that you were with F.A.R.M.?

Fritz: The amount of money he gave us wouldn't go very far. Three appli
cants were for money for studying mycorrhiza, publishing a redwood
bibliography (completing one I had started), and sponsoring a
Douglas fir insect study. We sponsored preparation of a book by
Dana and Krueger, provided funds for a guide book for redwood
region conservation teachers, and supported a teacher to work
for his Ph.D. degree and thesis on redwood.

285

Fritz: We gave one man about $7,500, as I recall it, to get a Ph.D. at

Oregon State College and to write a dissertation on the management
of old-growth redwood.

Fry: Who was that?

Fritz: Professor Ed Pierson of Humboldt State College. We had many ap
plications, we turned down some, and we learned how many people
wanted a cut of the pie. Some projects didn't qualify at all. Of
course, actions were taken not only on my recommendation but by
the trustees themselves.

We had somewhat over $100,000 left when we closed shop in I960.
This the trustees voted to spend directly on a study of methods of
reforesting old redwood cutover lands, a method which would give
a higher percentage of survival than was being obtained.

Fry: This sounds like one of your ideas.

Fritz: It was the original idea of 1950, the one I'd told Mr. Rehnborg
about when he first asked me about projects. He bought the idea
but later he didn't regard it as germane to conservation.

The trustees voted the money to be spent on this reforestation
study. I was the trustee to oversee it. We hired a forester as a
field man who, with periodic help, would do all the work — the
planting, look out for the protection, keep the records, keep up
the fences, and make periodic studies of the survivals. And wher
ever possible try to figure out why some plants died.

We thought that the man should put his full time in on that, not
as a side issue, and that he should live near the project. So
the man had to live in Fort Bragg, nine miles east of the project
area. Too many times, projects like that are started, and the
plants are put in the ground in the spring and are not looked at
again until the following year; and it was impossible to pinpoint
causes. But our man was out there all the time so he could detect
if anything was wrong. The project was begun in 1961 and finished
in '66.

Fry: Who was this man? Was he a forester?

Fritz: We had three of them in succession. One unfortunate thing was we
didn't have the same man the whole time. The first was Henry
Houghton, a Syracuse graduate but not in that particular field.
His experience was mostly in forest engineering work. He had to
quit us because he was losing his eyesight.

So we got another man, a graduate of Humboldt State College in
forestry, Fred Gius, who was very good and tremendously interested.
But he was killed one night in a highway accident. So then I got
another man, James Rydelius, and by chance, he also was a graduate

286

Fritz: of Humboldt State College and also had a master's degree from Yale
University Forestry School. (Fred Gius had a master's from the
University of California.)

Fry: And how did your third man work out then?

Fritz: Excellent. He was coauthor of the final report.* Like Fred Gius,
he was tremendously interested. So interested that as long as he
lives, I imagine he'll be going back there to see how his plant
ings are getting along.

The project was to run only about five years because the first two
years of a plantation in this region are critical. If the seed
lings survived them, one could say that it was established. So we
started a series of experiments the first year and duplicated them
the second year and added some new ones the third year and so on.
We even started some in our last year. I've been up there once
since, to see how they're getting along.

The report is finished and the Foundation is now being dissolved;
and the residual money is being returned to the Nutrilite Founda
tion, which in turn will use it for its boys' clubs. Mr. Rehnborg
had a great interest in that.

Fry: Boys' Clubs of America?

Fritz: I don't know if they were purely local or affiliated with the
Boys' Clubs of America.

Fry: How much money did you have to return?

Fritz: Something like $20,000. So the project cost us about $80,000.

Fry: Were you able to carry on this project long enough to bring any
conclusions to light?

Fritz: Yes, we found some very important things. One of them was that

most of the mortality of seedlings begins right away, right after
planting, and continues through the next two or three months. I
think it's important because that gives an idea of what one must
do to get a better record of survival.

We know that we have to have good stock, we know that we must have
good soil, we know that the soil must be moist all through the sum
mer, moist enough for the plant. It's a question of seeing that a
good plant is properly planted in the first place, to see to it
that whatever moisture is in the soil from the winter rains is

*Emanue| Fritz and James A. Rydejius, Redwood Reforestation
Prob I ems: An Experimental Approach to Their Solution, FoundatioF
for American Resource Management, 1966. 500 copies.

287

Fritz: conserved or made to last through the summer. We tried putting

down sheets of building paper on the ground, with the plants com
ing up through holes. (The same scheme is common in the great
pineapple fields in Hawaii.)

Fry: To conserve moisture?

Fritz: Yes, to conserve moisture by preventing evaporation. There were
many other things that were recommended that didn't work, for
example, treating a plant with a coating that would cover all the
leaves and stems and in that way cut down transpiration. It didn't
work well enough. We also pruned the twigs to restore a balance
between roots and needles. Some roots are lost in lifting the
seedling from the nursery and transplanting it. It's a good idea
but not practical enough.

Most of the methods helped, but they didn't justify the extra cost.

Of course, our project was on a very uncongenial site. We took it

because we felt it to be a good growing site once the new forest
was establ ished.

Fry: You didn't plant plots then on different terrain, different soil
conditions?

Fritz: It was all more or less the same soil, thirty acres of it. On

such an area, there are bound to be some differences, even between
each planting hole. We talked about having a soil analysis made
early — one of the first things — then decided not to because we
wouldn't know any more at the end than we did before, for this
reason: when you make a soi I analysis, you do it by sampling.
That doesn't mean that you're going to put a plant where you got
this sample. And it doesn't mean that the plant that you put
there will either grow or die.

So I preferred to do all the planting first and continue the pro
ject to some logical end, and then make our soil examination, con
centrating on only the spots on which the trees died. We were less
interested in the ones where the seedling survived.

Fry: In other words, you were aiming at seedling mortality and the

causes of that, not especially on comparative growth rates under
varying conditions.

Fritz: No. We used both Douglas fir and redwood, more Douglas fir than
redwood.

Fry: So this was more than just a redwood study?

Fritz: You know, when a farmer plows a field, what he plants is determined
not only by what the soil will grow but what the market will buy.
At present, the market will buy Douglas fir on a larger scale than
it will redwood, of the same age — under one hundred years.

288

Fry: Were you concerned also with the relationship of redwood growth
among Douglas fir, and the relative mortality?

Fritz: Yes, when they're mixed up; that would work out that way anyway
because we have the rows togetner, they alternate.

Fry: You might tell us the size in acres of this study and from whom
you borrowed the land.

Fritz: The fenced area was thirty acres. We didn't use quite all of it.
The Union Lumber Company, of Fort Bragg, gave permission for its
use.

Fry: And this meant you had about how many thousands of seedlings to
look after?

Fritz: I never added them up. Every year we'd buy more than ten thousand.

Fry: What happened when you had to close this down? Do you think any
body's going to be around to do the soil tests?

Fritz: The company has a forestry department.
Fry: And you think Union will continue this?

Fritz: Oh yes, they go out there once in a while to check up on the plants
and to see what they look like. And also to check on the fences.
We had to put a fence around the whole property to keep the deer
out because next to fire, the deer are the worst handicaps we have.

Fry: Yes, the deer keep nipping off the tips of the seedlings.
Fritz: That's a very discouraging thing. They take more than the tip.

Fry: You could study the si I vi cultural aspects of growing redwood seed
lings, but you'd still have the deer to contend with.

Fritz: Of course, we don't know how many the deer got that we attributed
to other causes, although I don't think they'd amount to anything
because our fence was tight at that time. Later on, we noticed
the deer started breaking through the fence, and we put up fences
inside the main fence. Every time we planted something, each
year's planting was then fenced separately.

Fry: Do you think that this is going to be something that can be used
by the industry?

Fritz: Unquestionably. The forestry department of each company got a
copy of the report, also each redwood region library, and each
local high school and college.

Fry: Are you going to follow up personally just on an informal basis
what the seedlings do?

289

Fritz: I'll be going up there once in a while. Of course, I can't walk
very much any more and have to depend on others who might be with
me. Jim Rydelius will follow through also, if only for his own
benefit.

Fry: During these five years, did you spend any time out there on the
ground going over things?

Fritz: I went up there occasionally, not as much as I would have liked,
but enough to keep in touch with the men. We had frequent tele
phone conversations. I got a weekly report of what was being done.

Fry: Was this a full-time job that you had?

Fritz: 1 got no compensation out of it. The local field man was the only
salaried employee. Occasionally, he had to hire others for help.

Fry: So this wasn't some kind of postreti rement employment that you
had?

Fritz: No. 1 did get part of my expenses. The money all went into the
project and to the man we hired. We had to buy a truck, a chain
saw, and a lot of small tools. The chain saw we needed for cut
ting down some of the Interfering trees that occupied part of
the area.

Fry: I see that your report is 128 pages. This is available, I guess,
in the Forestry Library, at U.C.

Fritz: There are no copies to be bought now. We had only five hundred
printed.

Fry: How do you feel about this whole F.A.R.M. project? Are you sorry
that it ended?

Fritz: I wish the Foundation could have had a more substantial base. It
was very difficult for me and other trustees to understand just
what Mr. Rehnborg had in mind, how he interpreted conservation or
forestry. I don't know today just what he means by conservation,
except that he does not regard reforestation as conservation!

Fry: What's an example of what he thought conservation was?

Fritz: Buying a piece of land and calling it a park, not cutting anything.

Fry: More a preservationist?

Fritz: Yes.

Fry: Have you received any response from your report yet on the part
of foresters in industry?

Fritz: Oh yes.

290

Fry: What's some of the feedback that you've gotten?

Fritz: They're all delighted to have a copy, and they complimented us on
the amount of work that went Into It.

Fry: You have a feeling then that this will be incorporated into for
est management plans, where redwood reforestation needs to be done?

Fritz: No, that is not something that you can incorporate, but it can give
you a lead as to how to do the planning. At least the foresters
will know the experience we had so that they are on their guard.
I understand it's to be reviewed somewhere. Maybe it will be
"panned. "

Fry: Who did the editing on the report? Did you do it?

Fritz: Yes. I wrote maybe ninety percent of the first drafts. I would
write, and Jim would go over it. Jim would make a lot of changes
and I would rewrite it. In some cases he wrote the original and
then I would edit his. So I think you could say that it was a
fifty-fifty job. How the contents will be used is up to others.

Jim, I am happy to say, got a job in Simpson Timber Company's
research department before the report was finished. So he put
in a lot of time on his own.

Fry: What do you think of your work with F.A.R.M.?

Fritz: I never wanted a job from F.A.R.M., but I succumbed to Mr. Rehn-
borg's initial enthusiasm. I had much different plans for my
time after retirement from the University in 1954. Before I could
get my breath, the simple office space I had recommended grew to
four rooms. Had Luther Hester been kept in F.A.R.M. as its ad
ministrative head instead of being taken into the company, where
he rapidly became its president for a short time, F.A.R.M. might
have survived the changes in interest. In its short life, F.A.R.M.
did do considerable good at a low cost.

291

XI I | GENERAL COMMENTS

Maunder: Do you see any long-term dlm!m.rlon of the influence of one or
the other type of forester, as the field develops?

Fritz: I believe you refer to the employment of forest school graduates
by private industry. The number in private employ is already
exerting a strong influence.

Maunder: Is the proportion of foresters in private employ going to con
tinue to increase?

Fritz: Oh yes, it's bound to happen. You just can't hold forestry back
on private land. It's impossible because of the inexorable laws
of economics and the desire of the timber investors and the manu
facturers to stay in business. It's the only business they know,
and they are bound, without the help of any foresters, to give
thought to the perpetuation of their industry.

s out of logs, it has nothing but scrap value,
a continuous supply of logs and if it is properly

When a sawmi I I i

whi le if it has

maintained, it's better than a brand new mill

Maunder: You were over at the Fort Valley celebration, and you heard some
of the talks and speeches that were given there. You heard Dr.
Richard McArdle's talk that night in which he dealt to a very
considerable degree with the history of forestry and the prog
ress, or lack of progress, which he felt
par i son with, let's say, developments in
might you say of this expression of opinion from the top echelon
of government forestry?

was being made
other fields.

i n com-
What

Fritz: I have a high regard for Dick McArdle, both as a man and as a for
ester. He came up through the ranks during the days of turmoil.
He has a better bunch of men under him than did his predecessors,
better trained and better outlook. There are, however, several
on his staff who absorbed some of the socialistic views of the
Thirties and Forties.

It is hard for a man in public service to fight off the temptation
to lord it over others. Mac is not of that breed. I don't think
he was pessimistic over the lack of progress. He has seen much
progress in his own time. There could have been more, of course.

Maunder: What would you say about McArdle's statement that progress in for
estry has been slower than that in the fields of medicine, trans
portation or communication? Does his analogy bear up under careful
scrutiny?

Fritz: The progress of forestry, I think, has been good when you analyze

the handicaps. The handicaps were men like Gifford Pinchot, Herman

292

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Chapman, Earle Clapp, Chris Granger, and several others who kept
the pot of antagonism constantly stirred.

Forestry would have come to the lumber industry if there had never
been a forester in this countr/ or a forestry school, but it would
have been slower and it would not have been launched as we II as it
is being launched now, because foresters in the past — in federal
service, in the state service, and in the forestry schools — have
all contributed a great deal to the knowledge of forestry. A lot
of it is purely academic, but on the other hand, a lot of it is
very useful and it has made people think. However, I think the
progress of forestry would have been better and faster if Pinchot
had set the stage for a friendly cooperation, the kind of coopera
tion that Greeley was trying to work out.

I think it's a great tribute, a monument, to Colonel Greeley that

a short time in the Northwest,
entire United States. He was
but it has been proved quite

he was able to do so much in such
His influence has spread over the
severely criticized for his stand
correct at the present time.

I think from here on out, forestry is going to develop so rapidly
that it will outdistance the academic foresters, and I think that
in the future, the Forest Service will be just one more bureau.
Leadership will come from the foresters in private employ as to
the progress being made. The comparison between forestry and
medicine is well made. Medicine is much older, its men have had
better training, and the economic aspects were quite different.

I don't think that a man can do as good a job in public service
as one in private employ, where somebody is watching him all the
time to see that he spends every dollar and every hour economically
and that he produces something for it. There isn't that supervi
sion in public employ, whether city, state or federal.

Let us not forget that our public foresters have not yet learned
to their own satisfaction that they are managing the forest cor
rectly. Certainly the national forests are not managed as economi
cally as they could be.

That would seem to imply that a greater and greater proportion of
the original and field research in forestry is going to be spon
sored and carried out from the private side rather than the public.
Is that the course that you expect to see develop?

I do, and It's been true of all professions and industries. Much
of it is experimentation rather than research but just as impor
tant. Take the steel industry — you can't say that its progress
was due to federal activity. It was done by men who saw the value
of research, and I would single out two men: Andrew Carnegie and
Charles M. Schwab. They saw the drawbacks of the steel they were
making at the time, they needed better steel, and they got it by
turning researchers loose. My very first job of any consequence

293

Fritz: was from the president of the Maryland Steel Company. When I went
into his office, he was sitting at his desk with a compound micro
scope studying a piece of polished steel. That was all brand new
at that time. When I got into forestry, a lumberman wouldn't know
which end of the microscope to look through and probably thought
you were foolish to look at wood so minutely.

The story is different today. At least, such study is now res
pected. But don't ridicule American forestry. I think the Ameri
can foresters are way ahead of the European foresters when you con
sider the economic conditions and the short time they've been at
it. We'll probably be a long time reaching the intensity of Euro
pean forestry. I hope we never have to come to it. We might have
to if our population is permitted to boom along as it has, but it
is not good for the country.

Maunder: Emanuel, all through your professional career you have been, I
think, noted as a letter writer, article writer, and a public
speaker at important meetings of conservation groups and the for
estry profession. Can you tell us a little bit about that part
of your career?

Fritz: I don't know that it's so very important. I wrote a lot of papers,
but they were mostly of the argumentative type, or in the form of
argument — more of that than technical, although a few of the ar
ticles I have written are technical and some were never published.
I probably did more of that than some other teachers, but there
were many teachers who did a great deal more than I did and did
it much more effectively.

I have always fought shy of the platform and still get scared when
I do mount it. I am not a good speaker and can make an awful mess
if I try to speak extemporaneously. You probably noticed at the
recent S.A.F. and A.F.A. meetings, I kept myself in the background.
1 follow the practice that if anybody else is doing the job I'm
thinking about, let him carry the ball; and if he gets into trouble,
I'll help him out. But as long as he's doing a good job and is
accomplishing something, I won't interfere with him. There's
enough glory for all.

Maunder: I've noticed that in recent years you've been a rather frequent
contributor to discussion in the pages of American Forests maga-
zine. When did you get interested in the American Forestry Asso
ciation? Can you tell us a little about your participation in its
affairs and in its publication?

Fritz: I've been a member of the A.F.A. as long as I've been a member of
the S.A.F., and I've always taken a strong interest in it, but the
A.F.A. has been up and down. For many years, it was considered
to be the mouthpiece of the Forest Service, and then when it ac
cepted advertising from the lumber industry and ran an occasional
lumbering article, it was accused of being under the thumb of the
lumber industry. I think if either was a fact, it was bad, but

294

Fritz: in general, the A.F.A. was rather independent.

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

The fact that I didn't write much for the American Forests maga-
z i ne in the past was due to my feeling of ob I i gat I on to the Jour
nal of Forestry. In more recent yc-TS, because the American For
ests

In

magazine has a different audience than the Journal
I thought my articles on certain subjects should go in
were not articles, incidentally, but letters.

of Forestry,
there. They

You look
means of
estry?

upon the American Forests magazine as one of the principal
reaching the public in matters of conservation and for

Yes. Just because a person is not directly involved in natural
resources doesn't mean he is not interested. Its audience is not
trained in general conservation or forestry, or mining or water
shed protection, but they're all fine people, they're well-meaning
people. They get only one side of the story from the propaganda
that the press publishes. Sometimes the magazine itself is some
what one-sided. The most recent example, I think, is the issue
of this past spring which goes overboard accepting the interpreta
tion of the Forest Service in the Timber Resources Review data.
The data is probably all right but the interpretation has gone
wild, I think.

In other words, you feel that Jim Craig and his staff have missed
the point on that particular issue?

Yes. The editor is

but he's definitely

not a forester,
interested. He

he'<
is

's not a conservationist,
a journalist, and a jour
nalist's job is to print articles in his magazine that will be
read. Like many editors, he has to depend on what is sent to him,
and it takes a keen nose to detect the possibility of the stuff
being slanted. Agencies sending out news releases don't do it
to help the press, but to do one of two things: to do genuine
educational work, or to soften the public on some action the
sender hopes to take against possible opposition.

Press releases need careful scrutiny. Then there are the free
lance writers who have a flair for writing but not the will or
training to investigate facts.

Emanuel, looking back over your career in this ffeld, how would
you evaluate your contribution to the field of forestry?

Well, compared to that of many other foresters, my contribution
is miniscule. When I switched to forestry, I felt that it was
not only a desirable profession with a constructive objective,
but nothing seemed to be done about it except talking and writing.
So I decided early to make my own activity the transfer of the
talk into action: putting forestry into the woods. At the
University, I taught lumbering and wood technology, not forestry.

295

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

But the vacuum in forestry drew me in and ever since then, my own
concern and activity is related to getting forestry into the woods.
I think I have been at least partially successful. Perhaps I also
helped defeat the trend toward socialism in forestry.

•

I felt that if I stuck to forestry, I wouldn't be scattering my
shots. Furthermore, I don't think I would have had the capacity
to take care of them all. I notice among those foresters who
shifted over into watershed protection and wildlife management
that they haven't done forestry very much service by leaving it,
or they haven't done very much for the other fields by going into
them because they certainly were not trained for them.

Recreation seems to be getting more and more attention these days.
Have you anything to tell us about the history of the development
of that concept of forest use?

Recreation was always a part of forestry. Its increase was in
evitable. The American people have always loved the outdoors.
There was so much woods and forest to go to close to the towns,
big and little towns, that the people got an idea that all the
wild country was theirs to enjoy.

As a teenager, I was out in the
larly in the beautiful Druid Mil
On Saturdays, my classmates and
we'd bicycle out on the country
days — hard on tires.

woods a great
I Park, on the
I used to take
roads, such as

deal, and particu-
edge of Baltimore.
a lot of hikes, or
they were in those

Maunder:

Recreation must be made a part of land management. Forestry, re
creation, and wild life management must be made congruent elements
of forest land management or there will be interminable conflict.
But private owners who are opening their lands to recreation and
fixing up overnight camps should familiarize themselves with legal
aspects. They are setting up what the public will demand as a con
tinuing right. Entrance fees should be required when feasible.
I've noticed that wherever a recreationist is charged for a picnic
table, he is always a better citizen, a better housekeeper, than
if it's all free and he thinks that there'll be a ranger around to
pick up after h im.

What do you think lies behind this temporary trend of making
private lands freely available for the recreationist? Why don't
they charge for it?

Unless a caretaker is always in attendance, entrance fees are
hard to collect. The cost will have to be charged to the public
relations account. Prepared camp sites help concentrate the
people, so they can be observed, to prevent mischief, and to
facilitate sanitation and fire protection.

What do you think of the wilderness proposition that's so much
before us these days? What do you know about the history of the

•

296

Maunder:
Fritz:

Maunder:

Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

Maunder:
Fritz:

Maunder:

wi Iderness i dea?

The wilderness area is just, you might say, an extension of pub
lic parks, but it has that name because it's not in park status
and it is certainly wild; yet if is actually park land when you
come right down to it. The present Controversy over the Wilder
ness Bill, Senate Bill 4807, would not have occurred at all if it
had not been for some so-called professional conservationists who
are making jobs for themselves in demanding that the already exist
ing wilderness areas be given legal status.

They have legal status now, in a way,
want it surrounded, you might say, by
their own supervision. I think that'
cause you superimpose on the National

but it's flexible. But they
a fence of law and then have
s very bad management be-
Park Service and the U.S.

Forest Service another authority. They claim that they won1'
exercise any authority or interfere with the National Forest and
National Park people. Well, you never heard of a bureau being
set up, or even an office, that remained stationary. They wi I 1
have to have supervisory personnel, rangers, and fire protection.
The present publicity will cause so many people to visit the wild
erness that it will not long remain wild.

Tell us about your affiliation with the Sierra Club,
you join that group?

When did

Well, I would have joined it immediately on my arrival in Cali
fornia, but being in forestry work, I would get plenty of hiking
on the job. Before the University had automobiles and before I
had one, I would walk many, many miles in the woods, and I'm
glad it was necessary to do so because in my opinion, that is the
only way to learn something about the forests. You can't travel
as fast and you have to stop and rest and look around. If there

is a better way, it's
watches the trail and

from the back
your eyes can

of a horse where the
roam around at will.

horse

When did you get into the Sierra Club?

About twelve years ago. One of its officials, a good friend of
mine, thought I should be a member, so I signed up.

Have you ever taken part in their affairs?

No. I don't care much for their kind of hiking and big parties;
it's more of a mob. I prefer a more leisurely hike so I can learn
something about the vegetation, rocks and general terrain.

This Club draws to a considerable extent for its membership from
businessmen and professional people, doesn't it?

Fritz: Yes. That's the logical membership because they don't have as

much opportunity as a field forester has, to be in the woods, and

297

Fritz: in order to save time, they join the Club and have organized hikes.

Maunder: You've observed a lot of groups of this kind during the years.
Have you developed any insight into the mentality of people who
make up these very voca! conservation groups?

Fritz: Yes, I have. In general, they are a fine class. Some join to en
joy the outdoors with others of the same interest. Some join to
help the Club promote its projects, such as saving the dinosaur
area, a part of Grand Canyon, and the wilderness. Just to be hik
ing is good fun and healthful exercise. A few, interested in plants,
animals or Insects, get much more out of a good hike. A Club hike
is a good medium for making friends — and also converts for the
Club's projects.

Maunder: Do you think this is a generalization you can make about the rank
and file of the members of such groups?

Fritz: One gets the impression from the Club's pronouncements on causes
that it regards itself as the only simon-pure conservationist.
The idea of putting a resource like a stream or forest to some use
is abhorrent to the extremists. Nature must be left alone. The
wilderness must not be touched. The "ecology must be left complete,"
whatever that means.

Maunder:

Fritz:

Well, conservation is indeed important. It should start at home.
Many of our loudest conservationists direct conservation only to
the other fellow's property. To really enjoy the wilderness, one
must be the first one there after the snows have melted. When the
hikers have come and gone it is too late. The vegetation really
takes a beating. Having said all this, let me hasten to say that
we should preserve reasonable-sized areas in their primeval condi
tions except for trails to which visitors must be constrained.

What other groups or organizations fall into this same general
category, which you define as "professional conservationist"?

There are now a number of resource conservation associations. All
have a good purpose. How they go about achieving their objective
depends on the executive head. Very few are trained for the job.
To keep the organizations alive, the executive must be adept at
keeping his members stirred up over causes, issues, and projects,
much like a trade union boss.

I fail to see why there is so much agitation to set up a council
for support to the heads of the National Park Service and the U.S.
Forest Service. The wilderness has been protected for many years
by the National Park Service and U.S. Forest Service. Even if a
council is set up, the protection job will remain within these
bureaus. But once a council is set up, it will soon grow into a
large bureau. Bureaus are never static. They grow and grow. The
public will be invited to visit its wilderness estate. NoTfTTng

298

Fritz: could be worse than to have the wilderness overrun by people.

Soon they will demand roads and buildings and that will be the end
of the wi Iderness.

Maunder: Do these conservationists stand opposed even to trails in this
wi I derness area?

Fritz: Not so much trails as jeep trails and roads. They don't want any
vehicles out there. Horses and mules are permitted, but they have
to eat and they certainly aren't going to carry hay for them.
Except perhaps for oats, they're going to have to live off the
country. If twenty-five parties go over the same trail, the last
party is going to have a hard time finding feed for the horses.
So there goes your meadow and there goes your prairie and all the
wild flowers we came to see.

Fry: This has been a big recording project for you, often with many

long intervals between sessions. It is time we signed off, though
I would guess that you are accustomed to such assiduous work.
Thank you very much for your labor.

APPENDICES

300

Ufjcoionumdatlops for Accelerating
1 '•? ~y i Oil. pi*, R fad w ood lands for -to

In ,'y op 5. 1' ion, oho acquisition of superlative stands of redwood
..'or , reservation, oa atnte parks Is not progressing rapidly enough.
<: i -•'•" hnv-a Mboat 73,000 acres In federal, state, county and
.vi^tto rarku of which all but abov.i 10,000 acres is old ^rov/i:^

'Ae should have an additional 30»000 acres to five us a tot>:O.
o.:' about 3.00,000 acres in perks. This would amount to more than
1 3^ of the ares of remaining stands of old growth. The volune of
old growth timber in the parks is not known. If similar superla
tive timber is added to round out the 100,000 acres the volume
could be as high as 25<& of the remaining stands.

The addition of 30,000 acres becomes more remote and more
unlikely, each year unless the acquisition program is atepped up
quickly ^ The reasons follow.

Wo used to be able to buy the best timber for #2,5^ P&~ M<
Similar timber today will cost 10 to l£ times as much.. Old growt
t'.nber is no longer in surplus. This fact and the decreased
purchasing power of the dollar operates against us.

It la more difficult today to obtain large donations. Any
moiiiGf donated today will buy only a small part of what they
would, have purchased only a few years ago. If we wait for
donations at the rate they are coming in the 30,000 acrey will
never be acquired. Ko timber owner will wait so long. He will
cut his timber or have it cut by someone else.

The matching principle, under whioh private donations ure
matched by State money, is pood as a principle, but as lon£- as
State money is not available until an equal amount of other
money is contributed the State's dollar is worthless*

The longer we v;ait to complete the purchase program the
more money will be needed and the less likely will it be forth
coming. The day of ridiculously cheap stumpage is overc The
current price is not yet at its upper limito Certainly it is
not yet a a high as the price of less superb Douglasflr, sugar
pine and ponderose pine*

Remedies

To accelerate the purchase program I suggest thorough
of the following:

1, iixplain to the Legislature the situation as it I* and
that it Kould be cheaper for the State to scrap the matching
principle., pass a bond issue of $30,000,000 at once, and complete
the purchase of the nocessary tracts as quickly as surveys,

APPENDIX A

301

appraisals and negotiations can be completed, {For every $1000
the State contributes today to match $1000 of pr5.vate money «
were the private $1000 available - the State will have to con
tribute §2000 or more when private money does become available
soina years hence. And at that time the private contribution
will have to be doubled also. Consequently the State would be
oat not one panny by appropriating $2000 now to moke pur chases
outright and without private help).

2, Make our money go farther by a change in the League's
basic principle under which purchases must be untouched old
growth. We already have enough primeval park land for scientific
purposes. A large part of the 30,000 still needed would be
injured very little, and only temporarily, if, prior to acquisi
tion and under League supervision, light selective cutting is
arranged for. In this way we would lose some of the largest
trees but the areas could be acquired much more cheaply andj. by
the time they are really needed for public use, the residual
trees would be grown to greater size and all gaps would be filled
in. Timber so thinned grows at an accelerated rate. Highway
strips would be left intact except for dangerous trees.

The figure of 100,000 acres is my own estimate of a desirable
completed total program. As far as I know the Save-the-Redwoods
League has no written program for its guidance or for the en
lightenment of County officers and private owners who want to
know and should be told what the League's plans are. The Olmsted
data should be worked up without delay and made available, even
if it requires the employment of a full-time assistant*

The Save-the-Redwoods League has done an outstanding Job in
acquiring about 60P000 acres of redwoods for state parks over a
period of 30 years. The rate of aoquisltion has slowed down
significantly. The League cannot maintain its pres,tige if it falls
down on the Job of completing the acquisition.

I ask that the President be directed to appoint a committee
to investigate this matter without delay and report within 3 months
on the advisability and desirability of the recommendations made
above.

Etnanuel Fritz
University of California

Presented to the Save -the -Redwoods. League Council
October 23, 1952

jbee

302

li. ..« i. .'MI ,iu..'>.rl»J

iJM. 3. Piv.it. Or. Job :
Ye-irs, Ukcly To Go
In "Clerminff"

LUiEBEE IirrSKSST

!,TA?T STARTS 1YIOVE

r.olph Sayc Firittj V7111 Get.
Rid Of Official Dis.

loyal To Him '

f^TATB yORESTEK M. ». •
'*•' PRATT i« facing ouster by'
Governor James Kolph on com-
p.!ftlnt« flt*d l»y Rex jflaclf of Sun
I'runclaoo. chairman of the »ttU« ' '
for«'fttry. i*x«^iitl^o **v?re».»i
tnry *f t.so Ciiilforii1" *'i'i'«'1* * " °°
tocUve Annotation and legislative
!o!>by!nt for Uio Jari;«r lumber in-
tercatii.

The governor adniltlii'l to-day '
sk hua re-con\inend»d thut '
jPrett. who ho» been foronter for
'!".»«in yoars. be ountod tin the
'. thrvt he ")• Inoompoient to ,
the forestry camp unaio-

\Vhl!o the wovernoi- walrt he will
tfillt with IJInok und Pratt before
actSnur on tho for«i«<r'« o\tstcr ree-
ontmondatlon, Kolph'H • aftcretury
\rroto e, >M.ei? to th^ dhxjctor of
nnturnl resouroea last -\.> k request-
Inj; tbut Pratt b« rem-Mw.l.

The ouMinjr of Prkit. U K tj-an-
«olr«». Rolph «ald. will be "just

w beiRlnnJnic of the <:l«ftnlnff out
OJ? tbOBe offlclole wtto iiave been-
heM In fat Jobe from tho prevloun

mtnlatrnUon but who tre i'«ld 1.O
be dlt/lovnl to me."

It hfts tikcrv two year*.1' said
ljih. "td find out who thej* dis
loyal |ruy»' RIO, and nmrk m> won!
I'm prolnjj io clcftn 'em out or they
will hovw In run to cover. I'm Jfo-
liur to br<»s!< uj» Uil» rliiir."

Th« jfo/PiTu* fan -ly shouted fn
thux rtuolurlnj: hlmuelf to n^w*)>«.-
pci-nifii who had gatiu-rad In lilx

(/flU'll to JlUlltlfO Uln'Ul tlU IJl'OjfVOtJM

of ilii* |«we.rt.9fk*tlon4 h'lnj miulii In
thre<.0iipn> titli'iilft K« un nflcrinutli
of thft 4l«eAAr>«. of WMitrr W. f>ir-

rn.6^, Kn<f fyrnff,

of
«f

|'he_ projipnoK t» find ovit wh«rtJ»«r
•there 15 i»,ny -t.ru (h t/« them ami if
JSo io tnka .'ppiuiii i»tt»ctio-
1 ••PUfiiitf /ny trip trv«ut>t .,
Iniiitjimn counllvs XJ'f last

«n!d the ;roVi?t nor, "mnfly
•/I'M: auu'.o to me cvajntc

A VII4

'•lie IK «huryeiJ with r'Kyinj m>Ji-
tlrn, of hiiVma doAO <\vtylhi:i* pot-
.•<lble to <Jcft»t 'uHilcr Hup.n I.,
Preiitnn for tn« /i|>pol' %t* ':ourt, una
Ivllh incompfl<«n««. (n Jt(;;Mir>;;-for-
le.'it fhC"» la Uiu <-o«*l countlc.v.

"I novnr hvxxi'd nnxthin/ Vtiit pro
t<):i.< A|;nlna*. Pmit on tho trip, »!•
| though 3 l^vc rvcvivj<l i:ume T*lt-
-Mu>i iii>vln;f th^l h4 bo rttuin«u.
'Black h;ii informed me that
l.i iiK.oinv***'^ to du'n'lte, tht
. — _...Uhtii<;nt nnd «up»rvlklou nt
trt« forestry ucrntployiiient e.amps
lth<4 M'ltxter and l»«i Hd!\eil t'Ki h?.
| be ri«miv«>l."

.

UTt Jit rCporUd StACk hu!l A oundj.
«t« for J'ratt'* ]>c»itlon. wtil. li
. n year, but tho jrovcrnoi-
knowledge of this. Hr :•
to Imva u oonferenco \\llh

to-day.

Kaluln<r hl>( volne to H hliyh pitch.'
the governor doelnrod he l« dctcr-
lnbtl to huve a showdown on
Uio»i< who hnvc Accepted i*\o>-»
fi-om me In itute portions hut \vM
- now knifing mo in the buck."
XVU! JIo BOM.

I'm KolnR to be the head of tin*
ni'mlnlnti atlon," assorted R o 1 ]> h

with empliiuls, "and if the evidence
proves/ Pr«tt should be fired he
W»l be flri-d. And I 'will start In
ii»n otherx, too.

"I'm dlsifiict^d w.'th these psaJm
vln^eri who vrui»o me to my f«.ct.
Kocept /uvors in the form of /n't
state Jobs th«y hold under former
administrations »<nd then knife mo

"Appointive utate officials
going .to be loyal to me or I'm
iivr to kick them out of thels-
JODK. Surely I am entitled to lo-
alty from nil who hold office at inv
plensiire. Evci-ybody will azn-V
to thnt.

"I have b««n tol.l that a lot of
OfflclaU »rd <ll»loynl to rr* and Tin
on tholr tt-afl. If I fintf out th««r
rflportd arc true, they will be oiufc.
ed without c«roo»ony."

Bfnme* Jllaok.

Pr<itt l*i«l th« entire movement
» brlnjr about hla removal to
3!ock. Ho said Hlaek hny b«rn
'R" for him since the Rich-
. administration.
He attempted," salt! Pratt, "to
.mo removed during thr
administration. He even
.w«nt so fnr SK to go to the ran^~
crsnnd attempt to break down my
organization. Ho became partlca*
Iii.i-iy obnoxious wt the be^lnntnr
A: the prftKcnt adminlstrutlon an«1
b«*n xnooplnjr around trying to
£oi uomethlnif on me.

Hears Ouare-r Tolk.

edc>l on g«tt!n»; on
board of forestry and fjot tlit
rnor'a car on the ors«nlr.atlon
of the unemployment ciiinjis. When
I returned from the Kast In Jan-
uary After attending a convention
of the National Association of
State. Forenters. of which I <im 4
past prcaldtnt. T heard that I wns
:o be ourttod nnd tr*nnfiifrrA to
run the ututo nitymir>' ut Davl*,

"I f no nil nut Vtgi. 3')npk w*t f«»

(man wU° w*s «>uKin>f tK«« jtatt-

rn«nt<. i »«t Koid «r 8i«c«t«nrf ne

teH m*. KA /,\t t vvagn'i t>>e n>,u,

f dt rW'*i »f r

ovr (he, O)>iMntiop» of the j
.jtatn nurnury.

OFKKKM TKATT .H.HV >

"Hleck lo!rt nui h» IhoiiK'it. N« I
'•siiild crl mi.' W.iKiO u. .veur fur tho ^
• lull. J/<- au'd thut If the inmu-j ^
could 'in, !»• fouiul In thn fiiniU off
ItUc ntaU* ilUUIon of forrst -y. thru
ftv* would niulin up the dll fi-reiuvf !
I out of hU own f mills. 1 pn<*imifl h«i
nv-unl the fumU of lh» (ullforn'it
r.>'e»l Froti-ctlv* AniooUtlon, ef .
whloh lie In Hecrrtary." •.

Pmtl. 5uld thai on Octoh.-r . filh '
Dan H. Blood, Btnte dlrenor ufi
.-. ilurnl rej-ourc-B. received H let-:
»•!• fioni Wil'Um A. Smith, pnvjte. I
•rrretary to Governor Kolph, Btst-
[lug fhnl arrangement* were bcin^'
I made with the Htxie bo.in! of for-
'entry to jive him xnolher posi
tion. Thin waa followed hy a *eo-
ond letter from Si:il*h on October .
ii'tn, InNtructlmt Blood to remove:
Prutt from office. Ulood at that,
<lme I* staled to have nuked for a{
personal letter from the governor i
'embodying those inntructlons. Thu
lett*r ha» not been written BO far
an la known.

MAV NAMKD.

Sonfleli.', a Umlter ar>-
for the' »tale board t£ '
,'i^iiaJlrjitlon, I* aUited to be fh«|
ni»n that V.lurk vmnt» to buve ao-;
pointed n» bUile foreat^r. Scuftuhl >
'WBK fonnerly n«orrUry of the Hum-;
.boldt Jledwond Association nnd 6i/
• ftunner of Kureka.

Pratt denied he had engaged in
any politics ngNinut Judge Preston,
and added thut hi* had nclusJly
worked for JudRe Preston during
the campaign and had nuKPTe-ntrd to!
the men In the organisation tntt|
they vote for Prerton. He ail<l»di
the. governor's charge of dolaxr poli-i
tics uRatiiAt Prevton was rather i
amazlnc. In view of the fuels.

Aconsntlon Denied.
One accusation agalrut Pratt )»'
that be went Into ilrndoclno Covn-l
tv In the same automobile with'
Justloe John F. Pullen. Hei v.^orv
ouily denied thin report und »AIJ •
that the men on thli> trip Into V:»n-l
doclno County were a reine«»n'jk-
ilv« of tho division of parU* and a
reoresentath'e of the houtlnt; com-
mlnilon.

'I have extended every co-opera
tion to Bluck," said Piatt. "la tho
oneratlon of the unemployment re
lief camp*.

When I returned from the Eaati
In January, I found thut the oper->
uUon of thene eampe undnr Black
had gotten Into a maas. I Instructed!
the men In my organization to ex
tend every eo-oparatlon ponlbla to
tklni? thetie camps a succrns and
it was through uie erYorti of th.j
Diamber* of my organ Izutlon that |
the unemployment ca^ips were put1
over.

"I think that I c*n run tbU Job
*• state for»»ter as well es any- .
body .eMe In California and I In
tend to put up a fljjht for It, The I
governor has given rae personal &<-
»uranr,e on at least three occasion*
i that my work Is and ha.t been

APPENDIX B

<rf

303

mnmnrp*

ABOUT FACES
ON FORESTER

FIBINIiMftVf

w*Wfl^W3n?wTji L,

All A "Mistake" 8*71 lolpfc

At Storm Against Proposed

Action Takes Shape

WBAflt OCOM «OIOKLY
AS 0TRENOTR UVSALED

'Mast

Bam An«th«r
planation Of

it «••*> a*r *, •Ufa** «f»r
t*ia Mite* ahgnt Covenaw
Ralpfa gotag ta. *1to»« Mate For**t-
•r M. B. Pmtt

"A caee M mtoUKMl UantMr."
cald fh* governor "Jt must have
been lomebody who looked Ilk*
Pratt who campaigned la the north
ern part of the *tate knocking; Jus
tice Hugh JL. Preston.

•Tou know. I've alwmya liked Mr.
Pratt. H« will stay oa the Job."
startling •nte.asr

Te«Urday morning. returning
from • trip through «ln« northern
count!**, the governor pounded hU
desk and fairly ehouUel MM daaun-
rlaUoit of the vetenui »t»i« for«*t-
»F before tk* »»«••. Ms ona*g*d
him with "dlaloyalty- to th* Rolph
I administration. and Inefficiency as
{heart of the division of forestry.

Yeaterdny af tei noon, the gover

nor'* wrath cooled quieUy. Tix-

"dlnloyalty" rharired to Prmtt wa«

' found to be baaed upon the arMvi-

, tlei of "someone who looked Ilk*

Pratt* It waa emrgxUrt It might

have been Charle* K Bill*, cam

paien manager (or Judge John F.

And the Inefficiency charge djr-
solved into thin air when Charles
J. Dunwoody, director "f tha con
servation department of the •*•*»
fhftnU>er Of. coinm«n». .»v* •«»
governor son* idea of tn, »tor;i>
which would break ovw his ad
ministration if he removed the
•tate forester.

"I can produc* r*pre*«ntatlve* of
aoo organlaatlons who will testify
thnt Pratt muit b« rttalaed for
thr prolrdlnn of the fttatv'H for-
oi*t>." nii.l1 Dun woody

Ji tcmiwn. to t?l ft

f (S32.

•a*** HftKIIng H0g.

i •»* «ov'-nor Midden decision
••• -«taln P ai* .••<»•'• hi* rigorous
,r>.| »o> .fi"rtu> n> nuu< 'at.on of a
,c* hour- fx''i"i figuratively left
H«!xrord Hl». l>. .-hnirman of the
-tate bonrd ••' forrn'ry and a Umi
l>er r.'inimnv i..l>hvi-t, "holding the

v. .r H..I«H Ka*«d hl« attack
,,„ .iv '-i^-irr >ipon com-
:. :,. .^.1 with him by Black,
«cd nv1" • uninr* he had heard on
.,!, r..ti<TT> 'Hp. Pratt threw th*
•hint • -n«< i"1" Black's 1»P as th«
iiin. nitiion of a neralstoilt attempt
v,y n:«. k to «*t him out as staW

IB "I/ovflfesfc"

yesterday, the (tovernor
•»i\^1 in Pratt *nd Black for a
-rmnd r.y '""n.l" affair, which
w. ly (i<'velri|i»"1 Into a lovefest.
. .v,c ,-onclu:-'»n of which he an-

jnced .

•Mr Prati )••** convinced me ot

„», loyalty i- my *dnli'
m« I hav« f^'ind upon
JjSn th.t ch-i^e. of
mad* agaia*t him are
It waa t>r«h*blv • oa*« of

M no
I

tlon

m a-ured

.tate labor camp P^amfor
corolne Winter will P«>c***V • No
lnefflct*ncv wan proven to »•. *
UM 1 M* Pratt He wa. «co«-
menrted to me hv J ohn
of

Park In S^n .•

Thn-ati-n<«d (Storm.
Re-«ortH th»( 1'tatt wa» to "go

Ion ala w«>' <""" th« Rolpn ?f"
! family .tlrrc^ up a "*»"£'•

In favor of the man who had
tha -St. ftwrster for OfUen
. Ttjrecalled tb« Uma when

TconTlnued On Pag* Two) •

GOVERNOR ABOUf
FACES ON PRATT

(Continued From Pa«« One)

virinor Friend W. Rlchirdaon'at.
tempted lo i amove him aaveral
I year* ago.

"I can pioduoe 1,«00 wttneaMB,
I who will Uetlfy to Pratt'a afflcienoy
;to every on* that Blu-'t ran pro.
duo* to SS.y ha la Inefficient," aald
Dunwoody. He mentioned aevera]

• atate-w'rte or«:anlsatloni

Th« guvrino? Mini he had r*-

• calved nuinriou^ irltRiann urging
Pratt'a rutenUon, amuna- them be
ing on* from Erneat O. Dudley,
Bxster, a member of the board of
foraatry

Letter- Dtaappwu.

One anvle of th* Pratt oaa* waa
the myaterloua dlaappearance of
the tw., Itllrra «rni by William A
Smith -• • HFI mtiiry to Ouvei

nm Rolph. to Dan H. Blood, director
of natural raaourc**, on* Inatruot*
Ing Blood «o fir*" Pratt, and th*
other atal ng arrangement* w*re
beln(( made to place I'mtl In Hn
other ata<e poutUam.

Blood aaid "the latter* a»t*t h*V
fare ma now." atooreUry Omltfc
•aid: "Blood h««n't the letter*, hai
he?"

Olh«r Bunion
Th* atorm around Prtitt's heart
revived ruinnra of certain intereita
"gunning" for Jam** M. Bennett.
oil and ga* uonaervatlon attorney
for the department of natural re
sources

Oil companies have not been In
agreement with B*nnett'i method
of MUuic.'iig the act. Governor
Rolph Inatructcd Earl Oilmor*.
head of th* Ullmor* OH Company,
to investigate th* matter again.

Governor Roloh doea much of hi*
tlylnc in the Gilmore Oil Company
plaM. »l|atad by Ko*coe Turner.
ftftllfortfia'a "KeMMky cote»»l,"

PraM r»ww »one*sa.
A* an aftermath of ycrterday •
actlvlllea. Black announced to-day
he would pa«« to Pratt all control
of th* atate lahni camp program.

Black htadK<l th* «late labor
camp proxram lant Winter and waa
to do ao airain this year, but after
Governor Rolph »aid yeoteiday that
Black'a Inefficiency charx** agaln<t
Pratt weie n.u urov*n Biaek made
th* following BiHUment;

"AltbouKh I will remain cbalr-
aaan of th* California labor camp
oOflpaillU* and will handle what
ever bdfln*a« com** before the
;oinaiittee. I »hall tuin over to Mi.
PraM tii». i umiUcte opera'lon. ad-
rnln -! i jtir.ii. surulv pur-ha^jnK and
uicitlion i>' ii. i- . .ruin-

M«MM Turn*» Over.
"Since I40U.OOO ha* been made
avai, able l>\ the committee and a
general plan of operation ha* o*en
set loi iii It la not probable that the
comaiittee will meet axaln before
Jaauarv Int. when the committee
tnav wish to prevent emergency
•slaiatlon to the leg-lalature."

Pratt said th* dlvlalon nf forevtry
at wlllinK to asKtime th* burden of
th* entlie iiroKi-nm and that a pro
trrmm of uriwerlnra will h* an
iocinrf.1 lalvi

APPENDIX C

Sacramento Bee

jNew lVie.nix;.
"•Forestry Board Frets In
Deadlock On Pratt Oust

er

By

DEAX.

°

°"

remove Pratt. . __ - — -- •

At the «vme time B. C McAllister or t(vmorroWj ln advance

of Piedmont. H. ' in.

room
roudy

the dlvUlon o
cast tli,-lr vote, for
U Che -natter

up.

And Professor Frltr. wiw

u
. M. and for three , boui

'iMnfk telephoned from tho gnvcr-
.; ' „,.•,, ott|cfl to the tlir«( nMmhm

Appointed only V.'.dnoeday night. |JmirnoJ.
Fritz, a professor «i ihe University | Th(. cost of brlnelnr th« board
of CAllfornla. Inimi'-cd he found I ,nrnib«» h«re wa. compu(
hii Initiation Into .f»riical pol*« ' ^- Mcrr,ftn,.. Shlllnl»h.
quit* a bit diffe'Wt than ho h«d| Thc KOVfrnor took coffnlMnce of
expected from tKt. ojict of his', th,; controversy la«t nlKht. by d»-

.io iiiqu...^. whoilicr he thoufihl
ho was appointed for the purpose
of rrlvlnR the Pratt ouster forces

majority "n fli

minlMtratlve problems then

If ihcso difficult!*/! become to In-

"I'm

Frlotulh Jlully.

i" oust Pratt
onsorvnllon oil
. :'.y to th« sup
'.d enter.

the governor

Efforts by IU.-..
aroused friends u
jover the slate to
port of tho btaic

They have bo.iii,,.- — ™
to take eteps to prevent the re
moval of tho mini who organized
tho division of foi-citry seventeen
years a£o and hos served a* I
ihoad evtr since.

Cattlemen K::c5{ Pratt,
CullfornU lives. ock men came
Utroncly to the d< IOIIKO of the stnto
Iforostcr. ch.irirlnff the ouxter move-
menl IB fo.itcrcd by ihe private tlm-
'bor Interests.

The CnHfornla Cattlemen* £s.so-
ind the

Y</u can o»y 111 Use a -

He made It clear his remarks!
were nov directed specifically »t'
ths forestry board, but at all state |
boards and commissions In ten--
erul.

Merrtam said as far as be know*
T'rutt It MBtlsfiictory. The fovernor
denied eliarc'* "InilUr to ihose
filed airwinst Frntt by »l»ck two
yeiirs ngo have be«n received by
blm.

Xordenbolt Lenvea.

To complicate things even fur i
thcr, Gcor«e D. Nordenholt, btats
director of natural resources, who
his the final appointlns power
over the st.ite forester. i«it Sacra- •
mcr.to a short time before the,
1 forestry board se«ilon.(
reported by his office to i

for}. "-Yon cun put

TOOT y«wr», .,.- W. I'. Wlnt. seo-Jwdd Member
•rfttory ol tho wool prowors' proup.
"Blac'i 1» secretixry of t!io Ciilfor-
nla liorefit rroteetlvn Axuoolivtlon.
nn orjvnt>>r.ntlon of thn private tlm-
b?i Jnter»«t» who tuo opposed to
Vratt.

"We have every iunltorl
the governor e-n<l d" not believe
he would permit ^Ifuh Interest*
to dictate his n<-u..u ."

' If It l« Ula-'k's lni«ii!n>B to rt-

m«n'e Pratt, he * |ir.rtt»eour»fO«l,

for lie oummonert «n"'h<r mnetln..

^j v. i rt Dus i rt I' i ^ • • ^t. ^

i"1 Oc»v«rnor Marrlam mid ho win I Anthony
' (n»inh4r |«<«i[bo*k

Professor Frit*, *rho teaches for-:
ostry at the University of Callfor-|
nla, showed up first ut ths fores-1
try bourd office* for the meeting.

Many IMiono Culls.
Then lie besin rerriv!..:; t»lc-
jihor o cnlls. One came from the
1 e.wf rnnr's office.

Pioti'^wjr Frit* tlton butlnrted
ihiH isineoiit tlRht around his ne.c'n,
••>i.:k'U up his brief C.MC fpd hlke.1
lin ths Hot«l .Senn'or (O*W

A«lt"l what hln futoi'* . .Inr *r«.

'*

304

78;

305

San Francisco Chronicle December 15, 1934

*"»

o r.^is to rest,
Board Votes,
Pratt Ouster'

Ask* Appointment of W.

R. Schofiehl as Ilia

Successor; Climax

»;f Long B.Utle

I

I— Tilt

Board fit Fores', ff. »::h lour,
» t il« seven members in attendance.!
t*.iy voted ir> remove Merritt B. j
•p-t.u as Sute Forester and to ap- ,
I IK, hit \v.;:ia.-n R. 3chofie!d o( Sac- ;
ramcnlo In his place.
. This action Ls in the form or a
' -ecnmmendalio.i, which now joes to
i Oe*;r,T« D. Kordenholt. is Director !
-rf Natural Resource*.- who has the i
' final power in oiwnUs.n j the present
, sute Poreaier or hiring a new one. ;

ENDS LONG BATTLE

The board's action today climaxes

' a lone battle between Pratt and

i ft. Kexford Black, the chairman of

jttM board, which had Its inception

(four yean ago. Pratt had served
for 17 yean.
Kad Pntt remained M BUM
. Poreeter until December W. he would
t have gained permanent civil service
I status under UM new civil service
tot He has served 17 years a* State
Poraster.

•leak jtatod that this wae UM
reaaon for the board's action today.

THRU ABSENT

Threw member* of the board

atoHRt and bad previoualy sent a
tetter to Governor Prank P. Meniajo
<»aWMrty proUMloc acainat UM
mettt«f eaU aad adding that they
vwld iwotoat angr action that WM

.

TRe ntetabait la atundaocc. be-
fidi» Black, wf re K. Walton Hedcea
Of San JUkO B»utl-tr : Swift Berry
of OaaitBo ftod WL.;.-..U j Boice of
Lamport, who wai appointed «o
ttM koard iMt oifbt by Uie Oovtr.
°er. The abMot membcn ware H S
OUman «f L«e An»f. •*. Emeet
Dudley of iH III i m«| 6. A. Me-
Allauuur of Pladmoni.

Black atatad that the four board
members - •-'ted themselves toute
sMpe to .jus employment for Pratt
to f«rait*7 wark. very probably M
director of UM State Aureery at

CI OITKU

__ JPf%tt

and dereltetioc of

m& him aterplr 'or

of hto antlnsM. aad stated

eatryM MrtMH a^veatiOM, includ-

BBipeoytof taWMlafttv %o ft^bt ftosa
aad «f ostnt tMk trudes ID f%b*- '
to* ttrea. Ha fltaUd he WM dereB a !
In not charglnj eerUln lookout man
who had through nef licence per-
niitted fires to start and spread.

Gchofleld now tt adminlatraUv*
entlneer for the 8UU Board of
legalization. He is a (raduau of
the University of Idaho school of
Jonptry. and has been In toreet
Vlah and Monu*».

APPENDIX E

306

Sacramento Bee December 17, 1934

H«. .:»<>

hat teen
.not to Pratt." wii-
ti. at I'r.itl •*•;$

*u

"« > •

w»»r«
K*t«» *

pniurt la* n,

(Howl'"*-

*»d

l»c«

c <•-,.. if ti.nk '

l.-nir ' tlif chare*".. i:<Tl.i.-- '
uc t)* .ml )|4bu4iic«4 ':» >y»l« ••' ,
of !'«iif nr^ fi'.htrrfc »oi,ir -fmo •'<••

n **tfcM»

v.H'J

r*nry-v«\ •$• Fr^.t <%« fof-eoUr and
tc in ^ star a bur* nia-
loiiiy i... .ho bo^rU far U. firit
time hi taking suto oacnp William
J Hulc* <-' L*fc*port

Hnlra »»•» ayaolntad to tha board
r rid ay night fc» Governor Marrlam.
only a faw hear* Wore tha meet
ing tlmr

Th* aaaalnn s«i urday waa a heat
ed affair, lirld hri'.ud clOH«d door*.
•tlvea -,1 the pro**, ware
by B.I order Unurd li)
Ulack. the newipartrr rm-u l>Mor
forced to grt tbatr IxfomwUnn
from words lliut pourcU tbrough
Ule Uinnom.

Wi.ril* My.

Bitter Word- flrw <rt the m*>:t!r>*
bl'ick •»:<: tnat two yt*. i -s keo fife
nflercd Pri't the prorrf'-''t'OD that
If h( woalti rmlpn he would put
blm In oh*if* at the etalo iiur»tiry
at 1900 a rnnrih. He claimed Prat;
at.Tud to (t and liter broke hU
word

»taM farMter Mild. "I mrrtly kalU

I WOilld COQkUliT it."

Black Inicrn.pteJ w'1. h

"You did no auch damned thing!"

Pratt M. ite^s titatenirnt
Alter tb* ni*vtlr.x Pratt mad* th*

In Smaklni; t» ih« bou<<4, £lk<k (
:a.k«>d cold -ui k*y. If : r«.ft r«-
maln«d In rr: t. he would bat
bl*nk*t*d Into civil i*rvlc« M*|
would not permit that If he could
help It

S«r«nUvn >-*nr* on UM Job MMMf
liolfclnc to him. f

-WeVe .'«t to Ml rlfht aowT I*'

TelU Of rn«* Kfforl

v!'w cf lh* Prot»«t of th.

ni.wb.r, of iho bo«rd not
pr«**Bt, I will carry on until no
ttCU4 toy nir.cu.- Nor«:*nhcK ae4
br G«v^n\j. &UrrUn. Tbar* .•
^m*O>lnc d***"" dowa aboot thu
Oi«' I don : un< er»t«nd

•> brtU^A achofleld k*» b*«n
•»inln»tc4 brcaiM« Black fool* he
will b« more attcBtlv* to Uia tum-
••* lutrr-»t» IHMI I have boon.

"It kM i>i-»n mv policy to con- :
»»"» r nnt only Umb«r bint v»«ter-

•on th* joh

"Two »~rf eg*," Black aald. •!
ttt#4 to haya. Mr. Pratt ramoved.
Bu* iiw («Jlforma Btata Okaratx-r
.,( O>ntmw«*i nirncd tha heat on
4ov«r*er aW)**. Governor Bolph
MM w«««C *e>d ytaldad and vfr.
rraM •fae^a* *« tk, job Aad a*m
:ha .t«»' cUm^r ef rommarer I*
tmintag «k* fciajt »n Oe>v»rf»ar Mar
la

Oea* tnoMMit*

Blank eit»i *eveMl trivial Inol
U att**»fi to nr*r* hi*
of uMffietaaWT aad d«r*n«

.

"J tow M-. P»«tt ahoul thnt."
*at4 Black, '»>at be dM «ot 1la-
chane th* to"»o«t h*B»MI«Urjr a*
he aVould hive d«M«. TliiH I ba-
wa,

(a :ha a eantime. powerful mtar- '
uii TtUUly interaitcd in fire pr.-«- '
work la California »r» mov-
ta th* daf*na* or the state for
Ut*V.

At tha NortlietB Oall/urni:v Fir*-,
*nfi\'t AaeootKtlon laaetlng to An-'
bu.-n y««t*rday, a resolution v.a«
udi.pted unaninioualy urging OOV-.T-
Jkaf Men i im to keep Fratt In tfc*-' !
t<rr«cc. Auothor ouu» u>ma D/rff-
t«r Nordaohclt to ratuia the »t».tt,
foieclcr tei aen-lce.

Reaxtlutlan I* Given.

Th* raiolutlbn to Ucrrlaa da-,
clare*:

"Certain Interact* In th* etata aw,'
•aklrooa of making a change In the
•ffce of ttate faractar for their'
own telfUh culna." • |

la, a.dt:raa«ing th* gathering,1
wKiih gav* htm a tremandr.ui ova-
t.i»n Pra;1. aaiJ It u qu*a:k>nabi*
wr.c'.her Haturday'* ar.*etine wa* a

AUo nu..k ur»

r-n^r-i »Utr eulomobHr to all
! » nx etliijc « f a vawen'*

.U? x KS

Tj4rryi rf cammo; E . Waltm
Hutf|*« or Oan Juan Bcxurmc^ ar.f.

He

'car h«

n.e I

of

n 't J«« ».h»
U> «u <0 th»
***..on. '

,

He »cf.f*d tha »t»t* f.u»»;*r
hU failure to

307

Selfish Interests Seek
To Crucify M. B. Pratt

A T a rump seeelon on Saturday
•""of the stale board of fore»try.
attended by only four ot Iti seven
m«raber«, the ou«Ur of M. B. Prutt

It. nfftre (or seventeen y*tr».
would have been blanketed Into
civil service under the constitu
tional provision overwhelmingly

California's conscientious and aM« i Approved by the people at the la*t

•tat* fore*t«r, was recommended to j election.

Goorge D. Nordenholt, director of i Thus the people'* will U flaaeUd

Ut state department of natural re- I by the political «poil»Ur*. and

1 their intended victim I* on* man In
!ih« stats Mrvto* who merited every
'lifeguard which civil senri** could
i throw around him.

sources.

The prime mover 1* this shameful
action 1s one B. Rexfr.rd Bis
secretary ot ths California Fore<
Protective Association — an orjruTv
liatkm that promote* the piogram
of the private timber interests of
UM stato— and chairman of the for

final outo.<rm» lies In the
at Oovevnor frank f. Her

ri* has re/wed to bow i
te the will of theee Interests, M. B i
Pratt hi atated to walk the political j
yttak while his place 1* filled by
0»* who will be the yea man of
eertaln timber baron*.

The manner In which this nefarV

The

handt

i tarn.

It Is his word tn*t will ratify the
indefensible and unpardonable ao-
uon of the state board of forestry
or that will *OOUh thl* oomtaenptj-
hlc plot to sacrifice an able state
official to the entmoalUe* of •a*-
ish private mtererrts.

To claim that the final decision
la up to the state director of net-
out business wa* concocted tind | urs! resource* fool* not *vea UM
brought to fruition wrote a new low children in the kindergarten grades.
to the annals of political- chlcanrry j This director hoM* hi* office at
T>i. meeting Itself wa* manlpu- > i he pleasure of the governor. Hoi*
laietf In *uch a fashion as to make • responsible to the governor for all
It Impractical If not impossible for 'bis actions. And whether his de-
the friend* and ntpporter* of Pratt i clslon 1* to be for good or I", the
to be prevent jettisons of California rightly and

Nor are the people of Callforn.a I properly will hold the governor re
ft* deej and buad M U be obllvl- ispoaalUU therefor,
cms t* UM faet that the fourth

tkftt UM
rot»- which made pOMthl* th* »<
tioe fcewltl* to Pratt— wa* east by a
Lake County ros^. itastlly nam»' 'o
the board by G- »*rnor Frank T
Jeerrlam

The whole bu«ioe*s reeks of uc
derhandeJ poltins ana • eon»,-.-
acy to get rid of s man who*e orly
crime has h»rn -o work Talthfu!ly
and fearlessly for the
of California's frrest*.

Thl» action is made the more r«p-
rehen»lble by the fact that it w*«
taken with malicious intent just
five days before Forester Pratt,

U. B. Pratt should be retained
In office.

His reoord, hi* high sen** of pub-

, iir senrlos, hi* devonon to the

• . rv'ple of conservation, and hi*

; ref>.,ital to aocept dictation from the

^•strucUonUt* have m\d» him *f.

.1 •. siuahle public servant, on«

. »-.om the people of CsJIfornla de-

•nand shall stny as »'»t« fornstnr

Governor Merrtsm. It ls up to

you.

What are you going to do, cru
cify M. B Pr»tt or rep- 1!*te this
rank attempt (o play p.. • '.cs with
ithe forests of California

srn.u.'.'

APPEND I X G

•euclu-

Sacramento Bee December 17,1934

308

TICK SACRAMENTO

u

PI an' rw w-'-v L

oLALS. nhi h&i

NlTlAK llini. 1/11% Ig

i personal mitpKnni.sm nr.a\
,"em Blnrk'K pnrt. lilank
s Lth* timber lnurrM<«. 11 the

« MAMA M/ M».-v r'.lllfsll.r.

ratt

I Professor, Who Refused To •*
| Catspaw On Board, Telia 05 t
Unfair Procedure

McClalcby X^w* papers Service)
SAN KHANCIl-iCO. Doc. 17.— Pro-
lessor Eroanuol Fritz, ammclato pro-
fruor of forest) y of the Unlvomity
of California, '.o-day vigorously de
nounced S. Kex.'ord Black of San
Fr&neineo, tho friend who obUIncd
him an appointment on the ntato
board of for«»lry, for attempting to
us« him ns a catipaw In Block's
persona' oanr.-alr.n to ouvt SUtc
Pororter M. B. Pratt

deoJnrrd tlir.t a« Inr as h«

ftAfT of tfta California For«st Coi-
fit<KCtvn Afsorlntlnn. Hot t!n< Major-

U concerned, ••It ;>o lonjrnr it of pri
mary Importniice whether or not
Vr»it's otut«r by the bo.ird Snttir-
day 1* approved by director of
'Natural J-VK>;ircfts Goorffo B. Nor-

but.

real n.nenUon Is

\v them mid I know th« mor"
«lo not cnre paftlrnlavly*

allns under the
of a for^-try codo tliat i« far
more rlglil «hmi any re<iul»«we«t
Imposed by (he *tntR.

"I rejrard Pratt ts nn honest .ini!
enpablo ofriciai. There K " qurs-
tlon of whether ho In th« 'high
irrad* man for thw .^rowir-s j«fc but
that I do not Know. I want \'> oo
fo(r. It i« not lair to ouchro a man
out Of his job without & irir or a
hsarlnc before the boar.t There
laagpncral ftollng amon^ foitftei-*
that Block hn« haraf.«cd Pr.xtt MO
much In the p»»t us to tlo Pv.itt's j
hnnde mid make his work Innf 'cct>
lv«. .

.Procedure I» Improper.
• *K Pratt la not th« oomjvifont
ninn thnt the «tnt<! forester .ihoutd

tot

which 'took .place between
uM&ty and Thursday. .
7rite WM appointed to the board
lay by. Governor Frank F.
int. b"ut.«c\ Thursday, bafftre
ewen utet cworn in, notified the
governor thU he could not accept
> E«od*n J.i Given.
^Ivc* ^/|K r,i the reaiton:
O'llckl/ perceived wiuit Jllocl;
1*JM 6l"in» io do. He \va« work*
tey frlCfvlNlUp anvl my conft-
.„ Je W Wnk, to «»o me «w H orrf»-
•Ayr a(t«Jnrt Pratt. I wiu> wUUn?
to *ftr*f- *n the board, when the
ten* offered me, a« a
on

jto tnftki. nrtlon dlfflciJt Tiip bf.itt

torofes«or Issued a •tatem«ntior(rrtnir.iitlou» concerned to have an
aMeribing: all thfl clroum*tuttc«s 3 ppportxtnity to present their cane
•ttirouadfn* b<* brief entry into aD(1 tn conduct on oncn comi^titive
poUtios and hi* *»tld«n exit, all of exf.ailiwtloa In which Prntt coiUd

corr.r-oto with the rest on an equal
basis. a,

"A« for William 3. Schofteid, the
admlnUtrative engineer of the
board of equalization, who. was rec
ommended by th» majority of t.'ie
forestry board Saturday for Pratfi
job, I have nothing for or aipUnkc
fclm."

Frltr. hnrtnjr Jtotton hU

|>ra(n«t npalnst I'lack's mel.joil* of
domination off hl» chest, t,n\A ha
Wdntfl to he entirely fatr to Gover-
sioy itlorrlam «nd inftUn it olnor
thnt the governor kpperuntl.v U

lntf no nctivo part In the battlo.

xa'.A, however, that xonio for<*«t-
cr»' Jsel tha ^ovcmor hnu not

oJ w!nn, nnd I hop« our

fr)«'ndjl>lp tvll] not Vw ,'ff«i'ardi»*41 out of h!» way to ice that Pratt to !
InoldV.iit, But X will not,e<T«lt » fair d*u».

bn u,«d In thnt w»y._
jtot do for a friend
mo to do, .

lattfr.. Of Bnlng Fair.

' 'Having the whola Btate forestry
[ situation dominated by one man
ar«.1 to m» *» distinctly

.

. _ of. forestry la Citiift.mi«. I
f«r no brt«rfor Pratt arid'aloo
hav». nothlnfe affalnnt
.=iace«>0r. It 'Id jmt
'

proposed

. a matter of

taAz and preventlntf the whole
•.forestry situation in tb« (Ute from
jt*6parctlE«l by th» arol>ltion»

board «•• keptin

of

not mtt Jor

Sxater Eankcr Hits
Bkc!c For Dictation

(r-*cCInt<-".<> Xowspapors Service) j
EXETER (Tulare Co.), Doc. 17.— I
Erne -t Dudley, Kxetcr banker and '
a member of the state bo,ird of
forostry, sees in the diatnlFual of
State Foretter M. B. Pratt the as-
sumptldn of dictatorship by 8. R.
Black, board chairman and aecru-
tary Of the lumberman* aarnciation.

"I cannot
the mcthodn he
He b&s

with Black In
Dudley *ald.

<U«Utor for

APPENDIX H

Sacramento Union June 13, 1936

309

In Queen

» « » ¥ . .»-;•: - *

From Whfeaker Ui4» Hor
- tempi* to Ou*t M.; B,

*M

UM of Helen
Uajt to Mt
•ooth^rn California,

matter *h««

Air S^uidrom
Block -CM War TVut

.*tmy torch
fea4 ««r«

•iOM tO U90M

iquor
Plan Proposed

APPENDIX I

.

•

310

ffotec from a. A.

1)

1936 , pp. 3-12

L«tUr fro» 8* H. MeDaaiels, Chairman of Columbia
River Section, stating thnt * special committee
Of the section will «tudy Black case with an eye
to by-la.ws-—ftAe<iuete pr'>tecti-u of the individual
from unf <•> intoi} or hasty iction.

Chapman'* answer was in two ,viris as follows!
Procedure iu Constitution ,
Procedure »<~txially follows J

1) Procedure iu Constitution ,md By-laws;
2)

Charges were ^iynwd by s«v«n people«~.ChfcDman s«sys
names are wit-n*il an<l '\.ll pue^Res (including
Black's) have r.«en wrong.
Charge* presented to 3. 4. P. January 28, 1935

1) Black secured a position on the State Board of
Forestry ty politic.-.! m«onn, and <>fcted chair-

2)

3)
4)

1}

7)

man at request of Uolph for the purpose of
getting Pratt dismissed.

He tried without the sanction of the Board to
get Governor Rolph to dismiss Pratt— "inoom-
petency and political activity. "--Governor
thought that he had the approval of the Board.
Black has discredited Pratt to his supervisors,
to the public, and to subordinates.
Black has usurped th« authority or' trie state
forester.

About the saree as number four
He failed to call meetings for the Board of
i'ores try— usurped the r>ero«?Htives of the
5t«te Bo.^rd.

tfhen the initiative was won to put the State
Forester under the nrotection of Civil Service, p ,
Black tried to «r*t the Board of Forestry to
dismiss hia in the interim, wnich Dlau<c could
have done with the new Board member Fritz's
vote. But fritz caught on and w uld not accept
the appointment.

Note: B^ard
mombt-rs intent

dismissal were
S. Rerry and
Hfdges*

Chapman, with Black's okay, sent a co<^ ot t,> e
charges to CFPA directors. Swift Berry .ma Mr. Moir
accused Chapman of "broadcasting the cnaivea^.
Chapman say« that /(lack Vave me no names of persons
to write to corroborate his statements made in his
reply idafentsej of July 18." However, Swift Uerry and
Richard C«1^M« sent $a f»ro-Biak«rtc

^- ; -': •

«

APPENDIX -J

..'• • •• •

311

Votes fr«m 3. A. T. Affairs (continued)

The case was sent to council on September 20., 100
pages single spaced. Each member read it, mailed
in his vote, and mailed the Case testimony to another
member (There were only four conies.). The verdict
on November 20th was— * tpelied. El;:ht members out
of nine on the Council voting yes. (Kotok voted no.)
(Friti was on tne Council at this Lime.) Charges
number five, six, and one were thrown out because
tney required proof of motives.

Black's answer to the ohargesi He had requested
that Chapman have onur^os publinhsu in the Journal
but that this could not be done because of Black's
attack on Pratt in ni* own defense.

• •"*-•>' I

Chapman says that lilacK, Berry, and E. l. Allen
were the only ones who made attempts to tin Black's
actions with hi- motives, to insist o* trying the
state forester as pnrt -f the Black

Chapman defends the countercharge that the U. S.
Forest Service men wan tod Pratt retained, becaune
"lumbermen" wanted him fired; Chapman .says that
Berry intimated tne opposite point of view.

September, 1935 Investigation ended

312

SAP Affair* March, 1936 Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 19-20

"Petition in the C*B« of S. Rexford Black"
From th« California Section ind the two Pacific
lorthwest sections. (December 12, 1935 Petition)
Council agreed on January P5 to grant a review.

Charges against Chapman ware ai^/r.-.l by Swift Berry,
R. A. Colgan, Clyde S. Martin, T. K. Oliver, and
W. R. Schofiald. As a result of Chapman's work in
the Black case, the following charges were presented
to Society vlo«-presld«nt S. T. Dana on September 21,
1936s The undersigned herewith present. . .charges
that ri. H. Chm ojcOi. . . AC ted with conduct unbecoming
a professional forester and in a manner deliberately
unethical for H m^r^bpr o-f the Society, in connection
with his handling of the S. Kexford Black charges
by masking public stit^ments tending to reflect upon
the reputation of other foresters so us to prejudice
their moans of darning i Linelih 'od, without at the
sane time "iving equal publicity to defense state
ments. " Specifically, the most Importfint charges
centered around a letter which Chanman had printed
in the SAF Affairs (February, 1336) in response to
a request for information concerning t :e Black case.
Part of the charge involved Chapoiun's alleged unethi
cal mention of Swift Berry and E. T. Allen in this
letter.

Dana notified Chapman cf the charges and the two

corresponded concerning how tne mutter should ce
handled. Chapman, ^robubly desirinr to clear his
own name, wanted to have the charges investigated.
One opinl m :v»-inpt ir-vr btiwation wus CK:. t by Col.
Greeley, wh<- w .a CV-KI ro. in of a Society
which was revl«wtnp t e Black caoe.

On Poveirber llth JWna s^Dmitt^vi u ttemorandum to the
Couiioil with » c^ljot vuncurtiin. t .o Chapuian case.
This ballot det»ruirt* • thit J-ir-t would investigate
the cade, wnioh was in line with the ouciety*e by
laws. Various t proacr. -s to the case were offered
and it was suggested trimt Uiscusaion shou^U be o
an to the g*ner*l proc«".(res which .^lio^id ^<.: followed
in such cases.

from the berinnirv Ut^n - <ttackeu i;,e cm « on two
levelai that of Chaplin'? yuilt in thl* particular
case, and th»*t of tie general problem of how to
handle such cases in t « future. Uana'n report to
th« Council md the buKot on March 19, l'j?7 illus
trated this division. The Council r«fi.-ond*»d by

•^^r--^^7'^^^^':':f •'•";•'" rci|

313

'- :. ' >*-'-'•'•

unaaiaoualy rotiag Oaapaaa aot guilty and accepting
Dana's auggastioa far ahaages in tna by-laws to meet
such cases in tha fvtttra.

Dana based bis deoiaioo aone*rning Chapman *s inno
cence on several points. One of the major issuaa
was the propriaty of th* latter which Chapman had
had printed ia tha tjf mfTllfif Daaa Justified this
aot as foliowsi

•Opinions may wall diffar as to tha extent to
which publicity should be carried in easso of this
sort, but that tha Prasideat and tha Council have
the rl^ht to make their fltdirrs, with the reasons
therefor, aa generally krvwn as they think vise
seoc.n to ire < .-.d* ' wt .tbl^. In the rr^so^t instance,
it Boer^ed rf-uior.^;!? tc r«uae that other sections
would alar- the CoJunMu River Section's de55ire for
further infonaa'.lon, 'P-* hnd <\r oc.'jn' rirht t.hersto."
Dana fel: :h>it Chapman h d not actr»d unethically
in oiaitVx-.tf Bl.-.c 'e tfef^nr-e becnusc the letter had
merely contained the chnr/^ec— wl th neither opposing
or agreeing *r£uat:nts. Fi'.rthermore, the defense
contained numerous unfavorable references to Pratt.

A further specific charge accused Chnpnan of making
derogatory romurka concerning tvo men, who had de
fended Mlack. Dana termed the Ir.n^u^e used as
*Ui;fort'^iate" and would have preferred to see the
msflmsa of people omitted fron a discussion of prla-
ciplse. However, he felt that the statement could not
be termed unethical, since it did faithfully portray
the position which the two men took.

1941— CTFA approved the constitutional riDendment to
reorganize the State board of Forestry, (on November,
1942 ballot). CFPA raport «uys there wr.s opposition
from the U. S. Forest Service and th« State Forester.

Proposition 6— defeated

. .

• " . . • . ',•' -•..'•• .• -'•'^'^

• ..'.. • • • ...

314

Reprinted from JOURNAL OF FORESTRY,
Vol. XXX, No. 8, December, 1932

Krport on the California Stale Labor
Camps. By S. Rexford Black. Cali
fornia State Unemployment Commis
sion, San Francisco, California. 1932.
47 pages.

A copy of this report by S. R. Black,
should be in the hands of every Gover
nor in the country and those other officers
and private individuals who are con
cerned with or interested in the allevia
tion of unemployment. It describes how
California reduced the length of its bread
line by sending some of its unemployed
to publicly-operated labor camps in the
forests where the men were given shelter,
subsistence, clothing and tobacco in re
turn fpr a maximum of six hours work
each day. The plan was admittedly an
experiment and only about 3300 men
wore cared for, but it was such a success
that it will be placed in operation again
tills winter on an enlarged scale.

The underlying theory of the California
plan is that the average unemployed man
is willing to work if given the chance
and that if he cannot work for a wage
lie is willing to work at least for his bed
and board.

California had to meet the problem of
caring for, not only its own unemployed,
1'ut in addition a horde from other states
that doubtless was lured on by the pros
pect of a more equable winter climate.

In all, 28 forestry camps and 2 high
way camps were operated. The men in
the forestry camps built 504 miles of fire
breaks and roads in addition to other mis
cellaneous fire hazard reduction work
such as cleaning up inflammable debris
around recreation sites, along highways,
etc. A total of 200,399 man-days' relief

in the forestry camps cost the state $109,-
893 or approximately 55 cents per man
per day. The men were recruited through
various charitable agencies in the cities.
"Only volunteers were accepted in the
camps, but after reaching camp, each man
was required to work, or leave." The
men were housed in tents in some cases
and in others in buildings such as unused
logging or construction camps. Medical
attention was provided through a first-aid
man in each camp. Food was of standard
construction camp and logging camp
kind; camp officers ate at the same table
and of the same food as the workers. The
camps were operated from December 1 to
early in April.

The author, S. Rexford Black, a mem
ber of the Society of American Foresters,
Secretary of the California Forest Pro
tective Association and recently appointed
Chairman of the State Board of Forestry,
served as chairman of the Governor's
State Labor Camp Committee. He is re
garded as the "father" of the state labor
camp plan. The report gives just the bare
facts of the establishment and organiza
tion of the camps; Mr. Black might well
have gone further and discussed their so
cial aspects. These impress the reviewer
as follows:1

Operation of the camps has emphasized
some very important factors which should
be of interest to all concerned in social
welfare work. The camps took jobless
men off the streets, away from the neces
sity of begging and away from the per
nicious influence of the psychology of the
disgruntled mob. They gave the men a
healthful outdoor occupation that kept
them physically and mentally fit and self

'See also "Camps for the Unemployed in the Forests of California" by R. L. Deering. JOURNAL
or FORESTRY, Vol. 30, No. 5, pp. 554-557. 1932.

APPENDIX K

315

1028

JOURNAL OF FORESTRY

respecting. The camps attracted only ,lic
bcllcr class of the jobless. The genuine
bum stayed away from a camp where he
is expected to work; more than that, when
the news spread eastward that indigents
in California were being sent to labor
camps, the real bum cut his westward
journey short. In this respect the labor
carnp idea really aided relief agencies in
sifting the bum from the willing but un
fortunate.

The camps were models for discipline.
There was no disorder; very little super
vision was needed. The camps were self
governing, and infractions of rules were
dealt with by the men themselves. The
men were quite satisfied and there was
apparently no feeling among them that
the state was taking advantage of their
dependence upon it to get work done
cheaply.

The forest is a huge reservoir of work
that can be tapped at any time without
much preparation. Debris piles up,
roads, trails and firebreaks grow over,
diseased trees menace others, erosion com
mences in barren spots, etc. All of this
requires correction and none of it requires
any great degree of skill from the labor-
era. It requires only simple planning and
preparation and no great amount of
equipment; its results bring returns in
reduced hazard at once; there is no in
creased expense for maintenance after the

work is dour, anil it can \ni stinted on
short notice and stopped without loss. In
these sensos a clean-up job is a better la
bor project than reforestation. It would
take too huge a sum of money to do such
a clean-up job if the cost were to be
charged solely to the work accomplished,
in fact it just would not be done. On the
other hand the public care of jobless
through charity is also costly and there
is mighty little to show for the expendi
ture except that idle men have been kept
idle, herded in large population centers
where they become the prey of social
•agitators. Why not combine the two — keep
the men occupied at some work that will
stimulate them mentally and build them
up physically and at the same time get
some needed public improvements accom
plished. It is superior to straight-out
charity. Unemployment, especially the
seasonal kind, is always with us though
noticed by the general public only during
business depressions. To give the unem
ployed a dole is as vicious as to starve
them. To make a big play at relief only
during emergencies is unsound. The for
est can take care of the jobless in normal
times as well as during depressions. This
fact should not be lost sight of. It may
be the solution of a large part of our an
nual unemployment relief problems.

EMANUEL FRITZ.

' • <• '

* <«'• '

» •

EMANUEUFR.TZ

102 TM« UPLAND*

BIRKELIY 5. CALIFORNIA

316

X

'

^b

W

APPENDIX L

A ft,

i

f-ui

a- -ue,

ef

- <*-£- b

re, >* &

. //I J??& X

3ti/j3s> &**&' 2. /e^^y *&*

*,

A? in t ^ fa >^A//?^A; R J

INDEX

318

Abbott, Lyman, I I
Adirondack Mountains, 24
agricu Iture,

forest lands converted
to, 262

Agriculture, U.S. Department of,
6, 21, 40, 76n, 78n

departmental reorganization,
235-41

see also Forest Service, U.S.
Ahern, George P., 174

Air Arm of the Signal Corps
(U.S. Air Force), 69-72

a I idade, 43

Al len, E.T., 153, 227

Amador Timber Company, I 18

American Conservation Associa
tion, 180

American Forestry Association,
34, 40, 153, 166-7, 293-4

American Forests [American

Forestry! . 13. 136, 166, 293-4

American Tree Association, 166
Arcata Redwood Company, 271-2

Arizona, 31, 49, 58-9, 68-9, 72,
79-80, 160, 167, 186

Arkansas, 27

Armour and Company, 3, 6

ash, 129

Association of County Supervisors,
Cal ifornia, 245

Atlantic Monthly. 15

Averel I , James L., 151

Bai ley, Richard, 206

Baker, Elmer, 144, 149, 196

Baker, Fred, 280

Bal linger, Richard A., 29

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, 17

Baltimore City College, 3, 18

Baltimore Manual Training School,
see Baltimore Polytechnic
Institute

Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, 3,
5, 7-10, 16-9, 23, 82, 87, 161

Bancroft Library, see University of
California Bancroft Library

Barnum, M.M., 144
basswood, 57
Bates, Carlos G. , 174
Benedict, C.C., 70
Berry, John, I 18, 144

Berry, Swift, 74-5, 118, 152, 221-2,
263

Besley, Lowe I 1 , 194-5

Bessey, C.E., 97

Bethlehem Steel Company, 17

Beyond the Hundredth Meridian. 32

319

Biggar, George, 220, 243-4, 248-50,
254, 256, 260-2

Biggar Committee (California,
Legislative Forestry Study
Committee), 248-65

Biltmore Forest School and Estate,
18, 20, 99, 101, 200, 281

Biological Survey, U.S. Bureau of,
161, 170

Birch, Dwight, 152
Birmingham, Earl, 146

Black, S. Rexford, 142, 152, 202,
208-21, 227, 245-7, 256

Blodgett Forest, University of
Cal i fornia, 105

Bohemian Club, 104
Bowman, Isaiah, 59
Boyle, Ed, 109, 196

Boys' Clubs of America, 286
Breaking New Ground. 30
Bridges, Marguerite, 254-5
Briegleb, Phil ip A., 229
Brown, Edmund G., 208
Brown, Harry P., 18, 84
Brown, Nelson, 84, 94, 156, 196
Bruce, Donald, 79
Brundage, M.R., 124-6

Bryant, Ralph C., 23-6, 82, 84-5,
157

Bull Moose Party, see Progressive
Party

Bureau. For all government bureaus,
see under the names of the subjects
with which they deal: e.g. , Land
Management, U.S. Bureau of

Burnett, (official Hammond Lumber
Company), 118-9

Burns, Mike, 248

Butler, Ovid M., 166, 193, 207

CCC, see Ci vi I ian Conservation Corps

California, 14, 30-1, 37, 39, 42, 44,
68, 74-5, 79-81, 88, 96, 99-100, 104,
107-16, 121, 138-41, 151-2, 161,
208-12, 217, 239-40, 273-4, 276, 283

and the U;S. Forest Service, 117,

140, 209-14, 219-20
California Forest Practice Act,

242-57, 260-3, 271
Douglas fir logging, 39, 141, 265-9
Fish and Game Commission, 259
Legislative Forestry Study

Committee, 250-7
northern, 210-11, 271
redwood state parks, 136-8
southern, 210-4, 216, 250, 262
State Board of Equalization, 257
State Board of Forestry, 208-22,

242-9, 254-, 260-3

see a I so redwood industry; redwood
forest; University of California

California Coast Redwood, an Annotated
Bibliography Including 1955. 282

California Door Company, 118

California Forest and Range Experiment
Station, U.S. Forest Service, 117,
123-4, 126

California Forest Practice Act (1943),
242-50, 255, 257, 266

California Forest Protective Association,
142, 21 I, 213-4, 245, 256-8

California Redwood Association,

320

and Article X, 141-2

and Forest Practice Act, 245-6,

258
Emanuel Fritz, advisor to, 132,

136, 272-3
logging conferences of, 145-9

Cambria Steel Company, 5
Campbel I, Donald, 71
Canada, 37

Capper Report (1920), 104
Carnegie, Andrew, 292

Carter, Oliver, 244, 248, 259-60,
262

Chapman, H.H., 169, 207, 224,
240, 292

against federal regulation, 76,

180, 241
and U.S. Department of the

Interior, 236-8
memoirs, 174
professor, Yale University, 23-7,

82
Society of American Foresters,

166, 188, 190-202, 206, 215-33
with U.S. Forest Service, 65-7,

240

Charles Lathrop Pack Foundation,
165-6

Chrysler Corporation, 150
Church, Irving P., 9-10
Civi I War, U.S., 7, 23-4

Civilian Conservation Corps,
105, 165, 198, 210, 216, 222

Clapp, Earle, 75-6, 171, 174,
179-80, 183, 240-1, 292

Clarke-McNary Act (1924), 153, 222

Clepper, Henry C., 175, 190

Cl iff, Edward P., 229

Coast and Geological Survey, U.S., 22

Cockreli, Robert, 278, 280

Coconino National Forest, 68

Coeur d'Alene National Forest, 49-50,
55-8, 69, 79

Cole, Harry W., 146

Colgan, Richard, 74-5, 152, 221-2

Collingwood, G. Harris, 194-5

Col I ins, Truman, I 53

Col I ins, Walter, 130

Communism, 91, 175-7

see also Fritz, Emanuel, political
phi losophy of

Conant, J.B., 8, 82
Connaughton, Charles, 229
Connecticut, 26, 49, 65, 217
conservation, 169

early history of, 16-7, 27, 34, 36,

40
European influence on American, 21

see also conservation organizations;
preservation movement; timber
management; Forest Service, U.S.;
lumber industry; names of indi
vidual conservation organizations

conservation, proposed U.S. department
of, 235-40

conservation organizations, 27, 34, 41,
297-8

clear cutting, 100, 122, 176, 262,
267, 270-1

see a I so names of individual organi
zations

321

Cool idge, Phi I ip, 227

Cope I and Report, see National
F'lan for American Forostry

Cornell University, 2, 8-18, 20,
23, 41, 83-4, 86, 94, 99, 101,
161-2

Cornwall, George M., 29-30

Corporations, U.S. Bureau of, 47-8

Country Life in America. 18

Cox, Wi I I iam T., 202-8

Craig, George, 255-6, 274

Craig, J im, 294

Crosset Lumber Company, 167

Crown Zellerbach Corporation, 88,
144

Cruess, Wil I iam, 279
Cuba, 6

Dahlgren, Calvin A., 53
Damtoft, W.J., 196, 200
Dana, Samuel T.,

at University of Michigan, 94
Foundation for American

Resource Management, 284
in U.S. Forest Service, 65-6
Journal of Forestry, 157, 160,

162, 164, 183
Society of American Foresters,

194-5, 221

Davidson, Margaret G., v
Dean, George, 213
Denny, Paul, 244, 248

Department. For all Departmental
level government organizations,
see under the names of the

subjects with which they deal: e.g.,
Interior, U.S. Department of the

depression, the (1930s), 95, 105, 129,
164-5, 187-8, 195, 198, 224

see a I so New Dea I
Deutsch, Henry A., 223
Diamond Match Company, 74
Dickinson, Fred, 278-80
Dinosaur National Monument, 297
disease control, forest, 24, 269

Do I beer and Carson Lumber Company,
119, 123-5

Done, J . Robert, 229

Douglas, Helen Gahagan, 134-5, 185

Douglas Bill, see Roosevelt National
Forest Bi I I (1945)

Douglas fir,

called Oregon Pine, 131

forestry practices, 129, 224, 250, 26~

in Arizona, 59

logging industry, 39-40, 129, 131, 141,

146, 149, 224, 250, 265-9, 284,

287-8
on Oregon and California Railroad

Lands, 40

research on, 284, 287-8
trade association for, 273

Drury, Newton, 120-1, 137
Dubois, Coeurt, 152
Dudley, Ernest G., 214
Duke University, 60
Dunning, Duncan, 123
Dunwoody, Charles, 140, 211

322

dust bowl, U.S. middle went, 31

Drake, George, 1133

eastern United States, 82, 129, 226

forestry in, 26, 176
geology of, 21
grazing on, 253

see a I so names of individual
states

education, see engineering educa
tion; forestry education; names of
individual institutions

Eggelston, R.C., 49
El am, A.W., I 19, 144
engineering, 285

education for, 7-14, 16-7, 19,
32-3

England, 122
equipment

al idade, 43

and trade associations, 148-50
donkey engines, 116, 143
fire fighting tools, 44-5, 148
logging trucks, 148-50
McGifford loader, 168
torque conductor, 148
tractors for logging, 122, 129,
142-50

Eric Forest School (Duxbury, Massa
chusetts), 43

eucalyptus, 116, 128-9

European forestry, 86, 97-103, 293

influence on America, 21-2, 30-1,
33-4, 83-4, 86, 98-101, 154

Evenden, J im, 53

F. Knapp Institute, 7-8

F.A.R.M., see Foundation for American
Resource Management

fedora I regulation of private forestry,
37-8, 76-8, 92, 104, 117, 138, 152,
174-5, 179-82, 185-8, 190-1, 216,
220, 225, 238-41, 257-8

Fernow, B.E., 13-4, 86, 98-101, 157-9,
183, 204

Fernow, Fritz, 14
fir, 59

see also Douglas fir
fire

controlled burning, 26-7, 213, 267-8

education in prevention, 87

federal prevention work, 43-4, 50-1,

57-8
forest fires, 44, 50-2, 57, 69, 100,

I 12,129,138-9,21 1,213,250,269
lookout stations, 43,45-6,50-1,58-9,61
mapping, 43, 45-6, 54, 58-9, 61
prevention, 26-7, 43-6, 50, 57-9, 87, 1 53,

210,255,295

private protection associations, 21 1 ,21 3
slash disposal , 267

state prevention programs, 43-5,210-11
suppression, 43-5, 50-1,57-9,145,148,

153,226,255,295

Fletcher, Ed, 244, 259-60, 262
Florida, 80
Foley, John, 206

Forest Conservancy Districts Act,
Maryland (1943), 258-9, 263

forest economics, 85-6, 102-3, III, 113,
I 19, 125, 128, 155, 167, 169, 226,
271, 291

Forest Economics, 86

forest engineering, see engineering

Forest History, v, 174

323

Forest History Society, i, ii, v

forest mapping, 43, 45-6, 54, 58-9,
61

Forest Practice Act, California
(1945), 39, 242-73

Forest Practice Rules Committee,
California, 267, 270

Forest Products Journal, 161

Forest Products Laboratory,

University of California, 155,
274-80, 286

Forest Products Research Society,
153, 233

Forest Products Laboratory,

Madison, Wisconsin, U.S. Forest
Service, 90,. 152, 233, 273, 278

forest research, 155, 246, 265-7,
275-8, 281-4, 288-9, 290, 292

redwood, 108-36

wood technology, 90, 233

see also Forest Products

Laboratory, Madison, Wiscon
sin; Forest Products Laboratory,
University of California; Fort
Valley Forest Experiment
Station

Forest Science, 232-3

Forest Service, U.S., 34, 37, 41-4,
46-7, 58, 69, 72,74-5,79-82,86,
97,107-127,133-4,156,167,170,
I 84, 1 88, 190-1 , 194, 199-202,204,
212-5,228-32,258,293-4,291-2,
296-7

and federal regulation of

private forestry, 75-8,92,104,
I 17,138,152,174-82,185-8,190-1,
216,220,237-41,257

and forestry schools, 75,80,117-9,
126

and private industry, 47-9, 74-81 ,90,

92,123-5,134,185,214,226
and the Society of American Foresters,

221,228-9
department reorganization plans,

235-41

early ranger stories, 52-6, 62-5
early lack of medical provisions,

62-3,65
experiment stations, 3 1 ,58-67, 160,

179-80,229

fire protect ion, 43-4, 50-2, 57
Forest Products Laboratory, I 52, 1 55, 161 ,

233,273

fraudulent homestead claims, 55-6
land acquisition, 121
state relations, 44,205-17,220-2,257-8
Sustained Yield Forest Management Act,

1 38-42

see also names of individual forests

Forest Situation in California (1943),
245, 253-5

forest taxation, 35,37,40,122,245,257

Forestry, U.S. Bureau of (later U.S.
Forest Service), 22

see a I so Forest Service, U.S.

forestry education, 16,19-27,32-4,114,
154-7,179-80,294

and the U.S. Forest Service, 75-6,

179-80,237,292
dendrology, 22-3, 33
European influence upon, 21 -2,30,

83-4,86,154

forest economics, 23,85-6
in fire prevention, 87
in grazing, 82

in sawmilling, 82-5,88, i 02, I Cc, ! Zz, 273
in si lviculture,22-3,88
in timber uti I ization, 24-5, 81 ,83-4,88,

96,106,294
in wood technology, 23, 81-4, 86, 90,

96,102,130,233,274

see a I so names of individual schools
Forsl ing, C.L.,223
Fortune, 18,228-9,232

324

Fort Valley Forest Experiment
Station, U.S. Forest Service,
59-68, 72, 80, 160, 186, 291

see a I so Southwestern Forest and
Range Experiment Station

Foundation for American Resource
Management, 281-90

France, 69-70,74,80,122,154,284
forestry in, 21,30,33-4,98

Franklin Delano Roosevelt National
Forest proposal, 134, 235

Fritz, Emanuel ,

childhood and education, 1-33,
36,41-2,84-5

instructor, Baltimore Polytech
nic Institute, 17-9

opinion of progressives and
G. Pinchot, 13-4,27-32,34,
75-8,92,97-100,169,176,179-82,
185,233,238-40,291

assistant, Forestry Department,
New Hampshi re, 40-7

fire prevention, U.S. Forest
Service, 37-8,42,47-58

si I vicu I tura I ist,U.S. Forest
Service, 58-66,79,231

World War II experiences, 68-74, 80

professor, University of Califor
nia, School of Forestry>79-8l.,l 16
1 24, 1 30-2, 1 40, 1 43, 1 54-5, 1 64-5,
169,172,221-7,242,256,273,294-5

researcher and consultant, redwood
industry, 89,96-7,108-19,124-8,
130-50, 157, 162,234,245,258-9,
264-5,271-3

consultant, U.S. Department of

the Interior, 73, 234-8
member, SAFj 51 _4; | 66-7, 176-208,

214-33, 236-8
editorships, Journal of Forestry,

157-89,176-8,194-5
instructor, Cornell, 162-3
researcher and consultant,

172,224,245,266,288-70,273
and the California State Board of

Forestry, 228-32, 242-9, 254, 263-4,

266-7
consultant, California Legislative

Forestry Study Committee, 250-8

and California Forest Practice Act,
260-7,270

and the U.C. Forest Products Labora
tory, 274-80

adviser, Foundation for American
Rer-ource Management, 281-90

pol itical phi losophy,36-8,8l ,91 ,100,
I 1 7-8, 1 25, 1 36, 1 73-7, 1 83-90,220,225,
243,257,295

opinion of U.S. Forest Service, 48-9,
65-6,72-3,75-8,92,98,1 17-8,121,123,
134,139,142-3,156,166-9,171,174,
179-80,183-6,191,199,204,212,222,
226,228-9,230-41 ,258,269,292

opinion of U.S. Department of the
Interior, 170-1

opinions on state forestry, 203-4,
208-20,260

opinions on lumber industry, 79, 1 17,
153-7,169,179,185,186,226,292-4

conclusions on history of forestry,
291-8

papers in Bancroft Library, 32

Fritz, Esther Phi I I ips, 57,69,80,87

Fritz, Gustave,3-4

Fritz, John George, 1-7, I I

Fritz, Rosa Barbara (Trautwein), 1-2, 86

Fritz, Theodore, 3-4, 6, 16-7

Fruit Growers Supply Company, 88

Fry, Amelia R., i, vi, 256

Geographical Review, 43n

Geological Survey, U.S., 38, 265

geology, 22-3

Germany, 1-3,7,86,97-100,154,275,281

forestry in, 12,18,20-1,30,33-4,97-101
Gi Iman, H.S., 214
Gius, Fred, 285-6
Goodman, C.B., 168

325

Grand Canyon National Park, 297
Granger, C.M.

and G. Pinchot, 75, 292
and Society of American

Foresters, 188,194-5,197,

204-5,207

Graves, Henry Solon, 21-2,27,94
154,181

Gray, Dana, 149
Gray, John, 146, 149

grazing, 212-3, 223, 239, 252-3,
260, 262-3, 268

see a I so range management

Great Southern Lumber Company,
24-6, 84-5, 168

Greeley, William B., 47-8, 74,
92, 156, 219, 232, 292

Green, Samuel B., 97

Grondal, Bror, 233

Guthrie, John D., 68

Hale, E.E., I I

Hal I, Ansel , 80

Hammond, A.B., 71

Hammond, Leonard, 71, 118-9

Hammond Lumber Company, 71,
118-20, 144-6

Hannum, Warren T., 248
Hansen, P.O., 229
Hardtner, Henry, 167

Harvard University, School
of Forestry, 82, 102-3

Hawkins, Elmer, 17
Hawley, Ralph C., 21-4, 82
Hearox, Ed, 153
hemlock, 13
Hemphil I, John, 103-4
Hendee, Clare, 229
Hester, Luther, 282, 290
Hetch Hetchy Va I ley, 30
Heyward, Frank, 226
hickory, 57, 129
Hiram College, Ohio, vi
Hirst, Edgar C., 41, 43

History of the Forest Products Industries:
Proceedings of the First National
Col loqui urn, v

Hobart Mi I Is, 88

Homestead Act (1862), 38-40, 55-6, 260,
265

Hoover, Herbert, administration of, 15,
28, 105, 170

Hoover, Theodore, 105

Hough, Frankl in, 16

Hough, Romeyn, 84

Houghton, Henry, 285

Humbird Lumber Company, 47

Humboldt County Forestry Department, 268

Hyatt, Waldron, 146, 149

Ickes, Harold, 29, 96, 234-6, 238-9

326

Idaho, 47, 49-50, 55, 61, 79,
86, 116, 147

I I lick, John, 234

Indian Affairs, U.S. Bureau of,
Forestry Division, 187, 234

Inland Empire (U.S. western pine
region), 50, 79, 116, 152

see a I so names of individual
states

insect control, forest, 255, 269

Institute of Professional Foresters,
231-2

Interior, U.S. Department of the,
40, 93, 96, 98, 170-1

department reorganization, 234-5

see also Park Service, National;
Indian Affairs, U.S. Bureau of;
Land Management U.S. Bureau of

Intel-mountain Logging Conference,
147

Internal Revenue, U.S. Bureau of,
115, 121-2

Iowa State Col lege, I 10
Iron Trade Review, 15
Izaak Walton League, 282
Jackson, Tom, 144
James, Edward, 107
Jemison, George M., 229
Jepson,,Wi I I is L., 116
Jewish people, 49
Jewitt, G.F., 153
Johns Hopkins University, 7

Johnson, C.R., 108, 118, 127-9, 273
Johnson, Gardiner, 221, 247-8
Johnson. Walter, 275-6
Jordan, David Starr, 104

•

Journal of Forestry, 31,76,136,151-4,
156-89,197,204,206,233,237,239,254,
258,294

Kaufert, Frank, 278-9

Kel logg, Leonard, I 10

Kel logg, R.S., 196, 199, 228

Kerr, William, 267

Kimbal I, Dexter S., 15

King, Wil Mam R., 8, 17

Kittredge, Joseph, 79

Knapp, F.B., 43

Kneipp, L.F., 174, 177-8, 182

Knight, Goodwin, 208

Korstian, Clarence, 60,194-5,238

Kotok, Edward I .

Forest Service, U.S., 117-8, 120, 124,

140,212,215-8,222
Society of American Foresters, 194-5,

215-8,222

Krueger, Myron E., 114,142,144,284
LaBoyteaux, Clarence, 125
Laird, A.W., 48, 79
Lake States, 50, 55

see a I so names of individual states
Landenberger, Fred, 149

327

Land Management, U.S. Bureau
of, 40

laurel , 116

Legislative Forestry Study

Committee, California, 250-65

Lehigh University, 9
Leonard, Jacob M., 244, 248-9
Lincoln, Abraham, 38
Lind, C.R., 229
Literary Digest, 1 5
Livermore, Norman B., 206
livestock, see grazing
Logger's Handbook. 46

logging, see Doug las fir;
logging equipment; lumber
industry; pine; redwood industry;
timber uti I ization

Louisiana, 24-6, 69, 77, 84, 167,
226

Lovejoy, P.J., 93
Lowdemi Ik, W.C., 174
Luf berry, Raoul, 71

lumber industry, 15,24-6,112-4,
127-30,138-45,213,243,250,
258-9,275

and forestry education, 85, 97
and state regulation, 266
and the California Forest

Protective Act, 245,

258-64, 270
attacks upon, 23,27-8,47-9,

169,259
destructive logging, 252-3,

259,261,265-7,273
government regulation of,

37-8,75-7,92,104,117,138,

152, 174-5, 179-82, 185-8, 190-1 ,216,

220,225,238-41,257
industrial forestry, 24,37,42,77,98,

1 27, 1 38-42, 1 52-3, 1 56-7, 1 66-8, 1 85,

223-8,232,247,259,263,288-9,291-2
ins-l^bll ity of, 35-40,252
NRA, Article X, 141-2,187-8,259,273
public relations, 139, 145
relations with U.S. Forest Service,

47-9,74-81,90,117-9,240
timber fraud, 39, 55-6
trade associations, 141-2, 146-50,

155-6, 172-3,245-6,258,272-3
waste uti I ization, 100,112-3,132,

141,155

see also Douglas fir; marketing
lumber; names of individual
companies; pine; pulp mills; redwood
Industry; sawmi I ls;timber utilization

Lutheran religion, 2, 7-8
McAl laster, B.C., 214
McArdle, Richard, 291
MacArthur, Rod, 242
McGifford, loader, 168
McGi I I University, 99
McGinness, W.G., 229
McHarg, Charles K. , 49
MacKenzie, Don, 147
McQuen, W.A., 206

McSweeney-McNary Act, see Reforestation
and Forest Products Act (1928)

Malsberger, Henry, 226

Malvern, Steve, 79

Manary, Gordon, 122, 146, 149

mapping, see forest mapping

market controls, see federal regulation

328

of private forestry
practices; timber supply

marketing lumber, 102, I I 1-3,
155,169

Marsh, Ray, 75, 171, 242

Marshall, Robert, 94,174,177-8,
187-8

Marshall, Trustee, 94
Martin, Clyde, 153,221

Maryland, 5-6,15,18-9,26,44,69,
80,83,89,96,163,295

Forest Conservancy Districts
Act (1943), 257-9, 263

see a I so Baltimore City
Col lege; Baltimore
Polytechnic Institute;
University of Maryland

Maryland Act, see Forest
Conservancy Districts Act
(1943)

Maryland Steel Company, 293

Mason, David T., 47, 79-80,
85-6,97,108-9,1 11,1 15-6,
129,132-3

Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, 9

Maunder, Elwood R., i, v
Mencken, H. L. , 7
Mendocino Lumber Company, 108
Merck, George, 281

Merriam, Frank F., 208,210,
213,222

Merriam, Lawrence C., 88

Metcalf, Woodbridge, 107,109,
21 I

Michigan-California Lumber Company, 74

Mi I ler, Herm, 88

Minnesota, 37, 97, 203-8

Minnesota Dai ly, v

Minnesota Experiment Station, 205

Mississippi, 24, 42, 56, 84

Montana, 37, 47, 49, 79, 116, 147, 184

Moore, Bi I 1 , 247

Mother Lode, California, 251

Muck, Lee S. 96, 234-8

muckrakers, 15

Muir, John, 82, 137

Mulford, Walter, 133, 180

Cornell University, 20

Forest Products Laboratory, Berkeley,

275, 277, 280
Society of American Foresters, 177,

204

training, 1 00- 1
University of California, 79-81, 91,

93-5, 102, 105, 223

Munns, Ed, 171, 174

Munsey's, 15

Murphy, A.S., 122

National Geographic Magazine, 59

National Industrial Recovery Act (1933)
and its administration, x, 119, 124,
131, 141-5, 182, 187, 240, 259, 273

National Lumber Manufacturers Association,
195

National Park Service, see Park Service,
National

329

National Plan for American

Forestry (1933), 48-9, 76, 241

natural resources, proposed U.S.
department of, 235-40

Nature. 166

Nebraska, 97

Neff, Phil, 53-4

Ne-ha-sa-nee Park, 24

Nelson, DeWitt, 208

New Deal, 31, 61, 105, 179, 181

see also Civi I ian Conserva
tion Corps

New Hampshire, 42-5, 47, 61

fire fighting, 44-5

Society for the Protection of

New Hampshire Forests, 41
state forestry, 40-6

New Mexico, 68

New York, 44, 69, 80, 107

New York State Col lege of
Forestry, 88

Nezperce National Forest, 58

North Carolina State University,
60

Northeastern Logger. 172
Northern Redwood Company, I 14

Northern Rocky Mountain Logging
Conference, 147

Northwestern Pacific Railroad, 128
Nutrilite Foundation, 283-6
oak, 16, 57, 129

01 iver, T.K., 88, 221

Olmsted, Fritz, 152

Olson, C.J., 229

Olympic Logging Conference, 147

Oral History Association, vi

Oregon, 29, 39-40, 47, 79, 88, 116,
141, 144, 153, 219, 265-9

Oregon and California Railroad grant
lands, 234, 236

Oregon State College, 83, 156, 285

Osborne, Bush, 58

Outlook. II, 15

Pacific Logging Congress, 30, 145-7

Pacific Lumber Company, 88, 114, 120,
122-3, 162

Pacific Northwest Region (Region 6),
U.S. Forest Service, 267-9, 292

Pacific Southwest Forest and Range
Experiment Station at Berkeley,
I 17-8, 125-6, 133, 231

Pack, Charles Lathrop, 166-7
Palmer Lumber Company, 47
Panama, 29
Parkinson, Dana, 75, 228-9

Park Service, U.S. National, 88, 137-8,
296-7

redwood national park, 135-6
department reorganization plans,
236-8

Pearce, Kenneth J., 156

330

Pearson, Gus, 31, 59-66, 68, 72,
80, 160, 186, 231

Peavy, George, 156
Pennsylvania, 44, 75, 97

Pinchot estate, 20-1, 24,

26-8
Pinchot and department of

forestry, 28
steel industry, 5, 17

Pennsylvania State College, 5

Pennsylvania Steel Company, 5,
17

Pershing, John J., 70

Person, H.L., 125-6

Phi I I ips, Roy, 69

Pierson, Ed, 285

Pinchot, Cornelia Bryce, 180

Pinchot, Gifford, 159, 180, 232

and federal regulation, 74-8,

92, 104,152,174,180,238-41
and forestry, 20-4,97-101,

154,291-2
Grey Towers estate, 20-1,24,

26-8

personal ity, 28-32
post- 19 10 political career,

28-9
zealous crusader, 13-4,27-34,

75-8,204

pine, 16,27,37,59,79,121,152,
214,246,250-3,258

California, 81,1 15,122-3,

152,251-2,262,264
Lake States, 50
long leaf pine, 24
southern, I 52, 224, 226-7
trade associations for, 273
western, 55, 1 31, 224, 273

Pine, W. Douglas, 268

Pooler, F.C.W., 73

Porcher, Frank, 62-3, 65, 68

Pot latch Lumber Company, 47-8

Powel I, J.W., 38, 40, 265

Pratt, Merritt B., 81, 209-22, 247

preservation movement, 107,115-6,120,
135-8,155,169,197,253,267,270-1,
282,289,295-7

see a I so conservation; conservation
organization; names of individual
preservation organizations

Primer of Forestry. 13, 21-2

professional forestry associations,
151-4, 157-69

see a I so Society of American
Foresters

Progressive Party, 28-9

Public Domain, the U.S., 36, 40, 97

public regulation of private forestry
practices, see federal regulation
of private forestry; state forestry

Pulaski, Ed, 52-3, 69

pulp mil Is, 103, 155, 253

Pulpwood Conservation Association, 226

Purdue University, 19

range management, 223

see a I so grazing
Reagan, Ronald, 206
Recknagle, A.B., 196
Record, Sam, 21, 23, 58, 82, 84-5

recreation, forest management for,
100-1,239,250,295,297

331

Redington, Paul C., 161-2,
170-1, 176

redwood forest, 39,81,89,96,
107-50,187,238,240,270-3,
285,287-8

California state parks, 136-8
fire in, 100,108,112,129
preservation of, 107,115-6,

120-1,135-8,262,267
publ ications,282,284,286
research on, 285-9
second growth, 108-14, 251

see a I so redwood industry

redwood industry, 89, 96, 103,
107-36,148-9,162,21 1,214,
238,240,243,245-6,250-3,262,
265-7,270-2,282-3,285,288-9

and California Forest Protec
tive Act, 258-9
clear vs. selective Jogging,

270-1

consolidation of, 264-5
destructive logging, 252-3,

259, 273

ki In drying, 108, I 14
labor relations, 91
NRA, Article X, 141-2,

187-8,259,273
public relations, 139,145
sawmills, 107,113-5
second growth logging,

108-14, 273
trade associations, 141-2,

146-50,155,245-6,258,

273

use of tractors, 144-5
waste uti I ization,! 12-3

see a I so lumber industry;
redwood forest

Redwood Regional Logging
Conference, 146-50, 155

Reed, Ernest, 206
Reed, Frankl in,

and Journal of Forestry, 31,165,

189-202
and Society of American Foresters,

173-5,178,181,183,187,206-7

rei ores tat ion , see timber management

Reforestation and Forest Products Act
(1928), 153

regulation, see federal regulation of
private forestry; state forestry

Rehnborg, Carl, 281-6, 289
research, see forest research
Rhoades, Verne, 194-5
Richards, Edward C.M., 174
Robie, Wendel I, 274-6

Rocky Mountain Forest and Range
Experiment Station, U.S. Forest
Service, 229

Rolph, James, 216, 218

Roosevelt, Franklin D., 175, 188, 205
235-6, 239

Roosevelt, Theodore, 13-4, 24, 28-9, 97

Roosevelt National Forest Bi I I (1945),
135

Rosecrans, William S., 248, 252
Roth, Filibert, 13,20,22,84,98-100
Rothrock, J.T., 97
Routh, Hugh, 102-3
Row lee, W.W., 18
Russia, 49

forestry in, 31-2
Rydelius, James, 285-6, 289-90
Ryerson, Knowles, 80, 279

332

Sacramento Bee. 208, 213

Sage Land and Improvement
Company, 107

Sammi , John C. , 88
Santa Fe Railroad, 128

Save-the-Redwoods League,
107,1 15-6,120-1,136-7

sawmills, 35-6,38-40,82,85
88, 96, 107, 1 13-5, 1 $2, f55,
266,273

refuse burners, 26
saws, 25-6

see a I so lumber industry

Schenck, C.A., 30, 98-9, 101,
281

Schofield, William, 214, 221,
245, 256-62

Schurz, Carl , 98
Schwab, Charles M., 292

Second Redwood Logg i ng
Conference, 146

selective cutting, 100,110-2,
I 17,1 19-20,122,124-6,
129-33,136,143-5,162,176,
214,234,264,267,271

see a I so timber management

Sequoia sempervi rens. see
redwood forests

shelter belts, 31-2
Shepard, Ward, 171,174,194-5
Show, S.B., 120,123,127,215-7,222
Sibley Journal of Engineering, 43n

Sierra-Cascades Logging Conference, 147
Sierra Club, 99,137,267,270-1,296-7

see a I so conservation organizations
Silcox, F.A., 61,174,184,240-1
si I vicu I ture,see timber management
Simpson Timber Company, 138, !4I, 290
Smith, A.W., 10

Smith, Herbert, 160,181,189,196
Smith, Kenneth, 284

Society for the Preservation of New
Hampshire Forests, 41

Society of American Foresters, v,75-6,
150-91,236-8,293

and C.M. Granger, 188,194-5,197,204-5,

207

and Edward I. Kotok, 194-5,215-8,222
and Raphael Zon, 205, 228
and Walter Mulford, 177, 204
Division of Private Forestry, 223-8
Franklin Reed's dismissa I , 191 -202
H.H. Chapman and Interior, 236-8
H.H. Chapman case, 221-2,228-33
Rexford Black Affair, 214-21
Unholy Twelve Apostles, 173-89,191,

198,225
Wi I I iam Cox case, 202-8

Society of American Range Management, 223

soil erosion, see watershed management

Sound ings, v

Southern Lumberman. 1 72

Southern Pacific Railroad, 128

southern United States,

forestry, 24-6, 226-7
grazing, 253

333

pine forests of, 152,224,
226-7

see also names of individual
states

Southwestern Forest and Range

Experiment Station, U.S. Forest
Service, 167, 291

Sparhawk, William M., 174-5, 182
Spirit Lake Lumber Company, 47
sportsmen, 244

see also wi Idllfe management
Spring, Sam, 94, 194-5
spruce, 13, 58-9
Sproul, Robert, 93, 95
Stamm, Ed, 144, 153
Standard Oil Company, 15, 277
Stanford University, 103-5
Star-Journal . Minneapolis, v
State,- U.S. Department of, v

state forestry, 40-6, 203-5,
208-14,242-73,275-6

and the federal government,

44,205-17,220-2
Cal ifornia,208-22,242-62
fire prevention programs,

43-5,210-1
Maryland, 257-9

Stegner, Wallace, 32, 265

stockmen, see grazing

Sugar Pine Lumber Company, 103

Sunset, 37

sustained yield, 39,138,141,269

see a I so timber management

Sustained Yield Forest Management Act
(1944), 138-9

Swales, Bob, 130

Swingler, W.F., 229

Switzerland, 1-2

Syracuse University, 18,84,94,279,285

Taft, William Howard, 21, 28-9

Tahiti, 282-4

Tarbel I, Ida M., 15, 97

taxation, see forest taxation

Tebbe, Charles, I 18-9

Texas, 68-9

Tiemann, Harry D., 90, 97

Timber. 22

Timber and Stone Act (1878), 39-40,
260, 265

timber claim frauds, 39
Timberman. 29-30, 43n, 59, 61 , 172-3

timber management, 41-2,77,85-6,100,
167,234

California Forest Practice Act, 242-57

Douglas fir, 129,267

education in, 21-5

industrial forestry, 24, 37, 42, 77, 98,
127,138-42,152-3,156-7,166-8,185,
223-8,232,247,259,263,288-9,291-2

redwoods , 1 00, 1 03 , 1 07-38 , 1 43-8 , 1 62,

172,224,243,245,251-2,267,270-2,
282,285,290

reforestation, 37, 42, 57, 60, 1 07- 1 2,
I 17-22, 128-30,242-6,260,264,270-2,
286-8

silviculture, 226

sustained y i el d,39, 138-9, 141 ,243,265,
269

334

thinnings, 103
tree farms, 36-7,138-41,226,
268-9

see a I so lumber industry;
sel ective cutting;
sustained yield; timber
uti I ization

Timber Resources for America's
Future, 77-8, 294

Timber Resources Review, see
Timber Resources for
America's Future

timber supply, U.S., 36-7,
39-40,100

timber famine scares, 77-8

timber uti I ization, 42, 155,239,
263

and forest economics, I 02-3,

I I 1,1 13,1 19,125,128,155,

167,169
clear cutting, 100, 122, 176,

262,267,270-1
destructive logging, 252-3,

259,261,265-7
during World War I, 74
early famine scare, 13, 15
education in, 81-3, 86
euca lyptus, I 17
second growth, 108-14,251 ,261
selective cutting, 100, 1 10-2, I 17,

I 19-20,122,124-6,129-32,

136,143-5,162,176,214,234,

264,271

shelter wood system, 271
state regulation of, 245,258-61
technology of, I 16,122,129,

142-5,148-50,294

see also Douglas fir; lumber
industry; marketing lumber;
redwood industry; sawmills

Times-Tribune. Minneapolis, v
Titus, Robert U., 196
Torrey, Bert, 144

Tourney, James W., 22-3, 33, 57

trade associations, 141-2,146-50,155-6,
172-3,245-6,258,272-3

a I so names of individual associations

transportation,
airplanes, 70-1
automobi les, 107
he I i copters, 90

railroads, 52-3, 107, 109, 120, 128
trucks, 121

tree farms, 138-9, 141, 185, 226, 268-9
Trees of North America, 16
Tugwel I , Rex, 61

Twentieth Engineers (Forestry), U.S.
Army Division, 68, 74

Union Lumber Company, 107-11,115-6,118,
127-8,130,132,143,273,288

United States. For all federal depart
ments and bureaus, see under the
names of the subjects with which they
deal : e.g. , Forest Service, United
States

United States Air Force, 69-70
United States Army, 68, 74
United States Civil War, 7, 23-4

United States Coast and Geological
Survey, 22

United States Congress, 39, 42,44,76,
152,176-7,185,200,282

United States Geological Survey, 38
United States Naval Academy, 8, 10
United States Supreme Court, 142, 273

University of California, Bancroft
Library, 32n, 82, 93-4, 150, 162,
194, 254

University of California, Bancroft

335

Library, Regional Oral History
Office, i,vi,256

University of California, College
of Commerce, 85

University of California, Forestry
Library, 109, 289

University of California, Library,
275

University of California, School
of Forestry, 16,19,71-2,80-97,
108-10,1 14,132,140,142-4,152,
154-5, 157, 164-5, 172,221-3,225,
227,249,256,273-80,286

establishment of, 79, 91, 274
experimental track for, 95, 102,

105
Forest Products Laboratory,

274-80

Forestry Club, 274
rival school at Stanford

considered, 103-4
sawmill ing courses, 82-5, 88,

102,108,273
wood technology courses, 81-4,

86,90,96,102,130,273,294
timber utilization courses,

81,83-4,88,96,294

see a I so forestry education
University of Idaho, 56, 94, 279
University of Illinois, vi
University of Maryland, 3-4

University of Michigan, 18, 20,
93, 99, 162, 279

University of Minnesota, v
University of Oklahoma, vi

University of Washington, 83,156,
233

Urania Lumber Company, 167

Vanderbilt, George, 101

Van Dyke, Henry, I I

Virginia, 70

Vyzsotzky, Professor, 31

WPA, see Work Projects Administration

Wackerman, A.E., 167

Wagner, Roy, 121-2

Walker, Thomas B., 37-8, 40

Wallace, Henry A., 235

walnut, 16,57,111

Ward, family estate redwood lands, 262

Warder, John A. , 34

Warren, Audrey L., 163-4,194-5,197

Washington, state of, 15,30,39,47,79,
83, 1 16, 141 ,231 ,233,266-9,277

Washington, D.C., 28,47,49,58,63,66,
70,72,80,93,96,1 15,135,152-3,
163-4,174,182-6,192,222,231 ,234

Washington University, St. Louis, v
waste utilization, 100,112-3,132,141,155

watershed management, 101,1 40,21 1,216,
250,260,294-5

Watts, Lyle, 135, 184, 258

West Coast Lumbermen's Association,74, 1 56

Western Forestry and Conservation
Association, 153,. 156, 225-7

Western Lumber Manufacturers, 256

western United States, 38,41,54-5,57,
79-80,83,105,129,146,153,176,190,
226,238,272

336

see a I so names of individual
states

Weyerhaeuser Lumber Company, 139,
269, 277-8

Wheeler, Benjamin Ide, 91
Whisnant, Archie, 146
wilderness, 196-7, 295-7
Wilderness Act (1964), 296

wi Id I ife management, 239, 288,
295

Willamette Valley Logging
Conference, 147

Wi I I iams, James T., 206
Wi I son, Stanley, 68
Wi I son, Wood row, 29
Wing, W.P., 213
Winnington, Jack, 53
Wisconsin, 168, 204
Wohlenbert, E.T.F., 68,121-2
Wolff, M.H., 49,51,53-4,56-8
Wood. 84

Woodbury, T.D., 117-20, 123-4,
126-7, 215-7

wood technology, 158, 233, 273

education in, 81-4, 86, 90,

96, 102, 130, 233, 274
redwood, 113, 115, 130

Work Projects Administration,
105,165,198,210,216

World's Work. I 5

impact on forestry, 74, 77-8

World War II, v, 39, 87, 91 , 1 12 .1 14, 121 -2,
134-5, 138,140,146, 185,224,243,251 ,
268-70,274-6,278,282

Wright, Wilbur and Orville, 70
Wyman, Lenthal I , 60
Yager, Gus, 53-4
Yale University, 192

Forestry Library, 26,85,230
School of Forestry, 2, 18, 20-7, 40-2,

47,49,57,59,65,67,69,84,86,90,

200,217,240,286
Woolsey Chapel , 2, 1 I

Zori, Raphael , 224

and G. Pinchot, 30-1, 75

Journal of Forestry. 157-60,162,174,

176,183,186,191

Society of American Foresters, 205, 228
U.S. Forest Service, 65, 230

World War I, 2,36,49,68-80, 168,
231

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