Without this publicity the Forest Service could not have survived the attacks made upon it by the representatives of the great special interests in Congress; nor could forestry in America have made the rapid progress it has.
The result of all the work outlined above was to bring together in the Bureau of Forestry, by the end of 1904, the only body of forest experts under the Government, and practically all of the first-hand information about the public forests which was then in existence.

In 1905, the obvious foolishness of continuing to separate the foresters and the forests, reenforced by the action of the First National Forest Congress, held in Washington, brought about the Act of February 1, 1905, which transferred the National Forests from the care of the Interior Department to the Department of Agriculture, and resulted in the creation of the present United States Forest Service.
The men upon whom the responsibility of handling some sixty million acres of National Forest lands was thus thrown were ready for the work, both in the office and in the field, because they had been preparing for it for more than five years.

Without delay they proceeded, under the leadership of Pinchot, to apply to the new work the principles they had already formulated.

One of these was to open all the resources of the National Forests to regulated use.

Another was that of putting every part of the land to that use in which it would best serve the public.
Following this principle, the Act of June 11, 1906, was drawn, and its passage was secured from Congress.