From Pioneer to Parasite

So it happened that the first pioneers in the northern were forced to bare their arms and match their strength with the wooded wilderness.  At first the subjugation of the forests was a social effort.  The lives and future prosperity of the settlers must be made secure from the raids of the Indians and the inclemency of the elements.  Manfully did these men labor until their work was done.  But this period did not last long, for the tide of emigration was sweeping westward over the sun-baked prairies to the promised land in the golden West.

[Illustration:  Fir and Spruce Trees

The wood of the West coast abound with tall fir trees.  Practically all high grade spruce comes from this district also.  Spruce was a war necessity and the lumber trust profiteered unmercifully on the government.  U.S. prisons are full of loggers who struck for the 8 hour day in 1917.]

Towns sprang up like magic, new trees were felled, sawmills erected and huge logs in ever increasing numbers were driven down the foaming torrents each year at spring time.  The country was new, the market for lumber constantly growing and expanding.  But the monopolist was unknown and the lynch-mobs of the lumber trust still sleeping in the womb of the Future.  So passed the not unhappy period when opportunity was open to everyone, when freedom was dear to the hearts of all.  It was at this time that the spirit of real Americanism was born, when the clean, sturdy name “America” spelled freedom, justice and independence.  Patriotism in these days was not a mask for profiteers and murderers were not permitted to hide their bloody hands in the folds of their nation’s flag.

But modern capitalism was creeping like a black curse upon the land.  Stealing, coercing, cajoling, defrauding, it spread from its plague-center in Wall St., leaving misery, class antagonism and resentment in its trial.  The old free America of our fathers was undergoing a profound change.  Equality of opportunity was doomed.  A new social alignment was being created.  Monopoly was loosed upon the land.  Fabulous fortunes were being made as wealth was becoming centered into fewer and fewer hands.  Modern capitalism was entrenching itself for the final and inevitable struggle for world domination.  In due time the social parasites of the East, foreseeing that the forests of Maine, Michigan and Wisconsin could not last forever, began to look to the woods of the Northwest with covetous eyes.

[Illustration:  Cedar Trees of the Northwest

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

Stealing the People’s Forest Land