Logging Footage

The logging footage was great and shows what men who "want to work" can do. Regarding the conservation/replanting dialog, that surprised me but was very appropriate. But the outrage of E. Arnold's charactor regarding the Governments' up and coming taxes was well heard, just as they are today!

Conservation was THE topic by agriculturalists and environmentalists in the 1930s. Surely you remember the Dust Bowl, the classic bad example of what stripping the land can do. There was also a strong feeling by FDR's advisors that with the so-called "closing of the frontier," the glory days of capitalism were over and socialism would be the way of the future including govt control of resources and the use of taxes for a massive redistribution of wealth, in violent contrast to the "anything goes" lack of regulation of the late 1800s that didn't change very much until the Great Depression. I won't say pro or con of these extreme governmental mood swings, just stating the point of view of that time.

It's interesting how TR is a stand in for FDR in this movie so that saying Roosevelt can mean both to the audience, many of whom blamed the rich for the stock market crash and impoverishment. The sympathy would not have been with Mr. Glasgow who is portrayed as a low-level robber baron who has no moral qualms about taking what he wants no matter who or what gets hurt.

My father worked for the Ohio Match Company in the late 30s and went out to Idaho to take movies of their logging operations, which by then were very environmentally aware. Of course even today there are illegal clear-cutting operations in the country that law enforcement tries to stamp out.

Yes, the wood clearing and cutting operations scenes were not just 2 seconds thrown in. They went on for a while. Really great shots of the oldtime methods of transporting the logs down the river and of the tools they used to chop the trees down and cut them up.