Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 93, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 March 1910 — PEOPLE OF THE DAY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

PEOPLE OF THE DAY

Pinchot, Forestry Expert. Gifford Pinchot, chief forester of the United States until his recent removal from the service by President Taft, is one of Theodore Roosevelt’s warmest personal friends. As the father of conservation he is popular in the west, and the congressional investigation o.f the charges he made against Secretary of Interior Ballinger promises to be of sensational interest. Mr. Pinchot came fairly by his love of the woods, for forestry was the hobby of his father. The eider Pinchot endowed at Yale the first chair for the study of forestry established In any American college. After finishing a course at Yale young Pinchot spent several years in Europe studying forests and the meth-

ods of their preservation. On his return he went to the Vanderbilt estate at Biltmore and in 1896 was appointed member of a government commission to look over our reservations. As a result he became head of the forestry bureau in 1898. At this time the government had 40,866,184 acres reserved. The bureau’s cost was $28,520 and the returns nothing. At the end of the fiscal year 1907-8 the United States forest reservations covered 162,023,190 acres. In that year the bureau spent $3,368,000 and receipts from the forests were $2,000,000. Mr. Pinchot is a little over forty, a bachelor, and he and his mother maintain a big house in Washington. He spends as little time as possible at his desk. More often he is riding or tramping the big forests of the west He can take care of* himself in the woods as well as the oldest frontiersman.

Wilson’s Absentminded Friend. Francis Wilson declares that an elec*, trician who lives in New Rochelle is the most absentminded man tn the world. Mr. Wilson’s doorbell got out of order and refused to ring. Meeting the electrician, who was also a friend, he asked him to call and make the repairs. Several days afterward he reminded him that the matter had not been attended to and Inquired when he could find it convenient to look in after It The electrician explained. “I called At your house the same day you asked me and rang your front door bell again and again, and nobody paid the slightest attention to me.” A Determined Fighter. Congressman Victor Murdock, one of the insurgents who are fighting against the domination of the house by Speaker Cannon, is serving his fourth term as representative of the Eighth Kansas district Besides being a chief insurgent, Congressman Murdock la a reformer who has done things. As soon as he landed in congress be got busy. He proved to the house that the railroads by an obvious error in calculation were getting $5,000,000 a year too much for carrying the mails. But he could get no action, and it was not until President Roosevelt took a band that the mistake was corrected. Congressman Murdock has been variously referred to as a Kansas cyclone, a live wire and a red headed rustler.

and he may be all of these, but even his enemies agree that he is a sturdy lighter and that fear of the powers that be has no place in his t. art. Born in the Sunflower State thirtyeight; years ago, Mr. Murdock has spent most of his life in Wichita. At the age of ten he started to learn the printer's trade. At fifteen he was a reporter, and at twenty he was practicing that profession on a Chicago daily. In 1894 he became managing editor of the Wichita Dally Eagle. Soon fie got Into politics, and tlcu lievah h!>* congre*. atonal career

GIFFORD PINCHOT.

VICTOB MUBDOCK.