earn the people of our five western forest states $27,500,000 a
year._

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

PLAIN WORDS FOR OUR PRESENT POLICY

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

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

_Forest fire destruction is a danger in every way as real and immediate
as riot or invasion, equally measurable in losses to us today and