Forest of Time: A Century of Science at Wind River Experimental Forest

Chapter Four: A Forest for the Long Term

50 { Chapter Four A Forest for the Long Term { The most progressive nations are without exception those which have engaged most extensively in research. —Earle Clapp1 Research at Wind River languished following World War I. By 1921, after a series of resignations and budget cuts, Julius Hofmann once again found himself the only professional forester at Wind River, attempting to keep experiments going single-handedly. During this time, Hofmann was finishing his Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota, and would occasionally spend time there. It was during one of his trips to Minnesota that Hofmann met Leo Isaac, a young undergraduate forestry student. Isaac, who would eventually make his career at Wind River, remembered Hofmann as “one of these dashing, plunging sort of fellows . . . Right from the beginning, he insisted that I should come out and go into forest research. He arranged to have me come out as his assistant at Wind River. But a week or two before I got to come out here I got a telegram from him that his appropriation had been taken away and that he wouldn’t have an assistant.”2 Conflicts appeared to be mounting between the dashing, plunging Hofmann and T. T. Munger, the reserved, punctilious New Englander. Isaac remembered that “Hofmann got into some battles with Munger and some of the other foresters and they punished him by pinching his spare cash off.”3 Clashes between Hofmann and Munger would intensify with time, but before leaving the Douglas fir region, Hofmann had a role in crafting an important piece of forest legislation. In the 1920s free enterprise and self-regulation began to replace the government-led reform of the earlier Progressives. Forest industrialists A Forest for the Long Term { 51 banded together in trade associations that gave them greater political influence to leverage government partnerships. Some, like former Forest Service chief William Greeley and former District Six forester E. T. Allen, made the jump from federal service to private enterprise and now advocated for strong partnerships between industry and government research.4 In particular, they lobbied for a national forest policy that would increase federal fire protection without incurring federal regulations on industrial timber harvest.5 Greeley courted the powerful support of Oregon senator Charles McNary and helped organize a trip for the legislative committee to visit the forests of western Washington and see the effect of fires on the federal forests. Hofmann was called on to help devise a forest policy that could be supported by legislation.6 In 1924 the policy was passed in the form of the Clarke-McNary Act, which funded research in forest economics. The act also provided federal support for planting and fire protection without any regulation of harvest practices on private land. A truce between Hofmann and Munger had been called while Hofmann worked on the Clarke-McNary legislation, but tension between them resumed immediately after the legislation passed. Although the research position with Hofmann had been cut, Isaac decided to go west anyway. Hofmann helped him land a job at the Chelan National Forest in northern Washington, and “at the first opportunity for expanded research they brought me down as a field officer there at Wind River,”7 where the young field officer witnessed conflicts between Munger and Hofmann escalating over petty expenses. Isaac recalled that if Hofmann wanted to do something, “he’d go ahead and do it whether he had money enough in his appropriations or not.” That included paying for the construction of the governmentowned house Hofmann had built at Wind River. “I was between two fires because there was very bitter feeling between Munger and Hofmann,” Isaac said.8 The exacting Munger finally called Hofmann to the carpet for overbilling a small travel expense. Hofmann refused to make up the difference. The issue—half the cost of a hotel room— was trifling, but it became a showdown. Isaac recalled, “He [Hofmann] claimed he had made up the difference on the meals. But they told him to correct it and he refused 52 { Chapter Four to do it, he was that stubborn.”9 Hofmann was given a six-month disciplinary furlough; he immediately resigned. With his hands full as director of silvics for District Six, Munger needed someone to fill in for Hofmann and oversee research at Wind River. He called Isaac in “to tie up loose ends at Wind River” and offered the young researcher Hofmann...