Fortunately, the charge of illegal action is absolutely false.  The Forest Service has had ample legal authority for everything it has done.  Not once since it was created has any charge of illegality, despite the most searching investigation and the bitterest attack, ever led to reversal or reproof by either House of Congress or by any Congressional Committee.  Since the creation of the Forest Service the expenditure of nearly $15,000,000 has passed successfully the scrutiny of the Treasury of the United States.  Most significant of all, not once has the Forest Service been defeated as to any vital legal principle underlying its work in any Court or administrative tribunal of last resort.  Thus those who make the law and those who interpret it seem to agree that the work has been legal.

But it is not enough to say that the Forest Service has kept within the law.  Other qualifications go to make efficiency in a Government bureau.  A bureau may keep within the law and yet fail to get results.

When action is needed for the public good there are two opposite points of view regarding the duty of an administrative officer in enforcing the law.  One point of view asks, “Is there any express and specific law authorizing or directing such action?” and, having thus sought and found none, nothing is done.  The other asks, “Is there any justification in law for doing this desirable thing?” and, having thus sought and found a legal justification, what the public good demands is done.  I hold it to be the first duty of a public officer to obey the law.  But I hold it to be his second duty, and a close second, to do everything the law will let him do for the public good, and not merely what the law compels or directs him to do.

It is the right as well as the duty of a public officer to be zealous in the public service.  That is why the public service is worth while.  To every public officer the law should be, not a goad to drive him to his duty, but a tool to help him in his work.  And I maintain that it is likewise his right and duty to seek by every proper means from the legal authorities set over him such interpretations of the law as will best help him to serve his country.

Let the public officer take every lawful chance to use the law for the public good.  The better use he makes of it the better public servant he becomes.  One man with a jack-knife will build a ladder.  Another with a full tool-chest cannot make a footstool.  The man with the jack-knife will often reach the higher level.  I am for the man with the jack-knife.  I believe in the man who does all he can and the best he can, with the means at his command.  That is precisely what the Forest Service has been trying to do with the money and law Congress has placed in its hands.