“Snippets” by Tim Sullivan,
President of R. A. Long Historical Society 2006 to 2014

Christian-Evangelist

          In January of 1910, Mr. Long purchased a Publishing House in St. Louis, Missouri for the sum of $30,000 along with another $30,000 coming from other members of the Brotherhood of Christ.  For a long time Mr. Long felt the power of the printing press for spreading the Gospel.  From that point, the Christian-Evangelist was born.  It was a weekly paper that went to all members of the church (Disciples of Christ).  It contained articles about all the missionary work and all other church news.  The publishing house also printed Bibles and papers needed to do missionary work around the world.  In my thoughts, with everything that is going on with Wall Street, we could use more people like Mr. Long.  Being the man that Mr. Long was, profit was good but greed was a sin.

Reforestation

          R. A. Long is the real father of the Civilian Conservation Corps.  Reforestation (the replanting of young trees to take the place of timber made into lumber), was more than a hobby of Mr. Long.  He thought of every tree as a gift and he wanted to be a good steward by replacing every tree that Long-Bell had cut within his lifetime.  The random cutting and burning of forests was a crime in the opinion of this man who used the natural resources of this nation to build his fortune.

          It all started in 1923 when Mr. Long showed the federal and state governments how reforestation should be done.  This was the first major project of this character ever to be undertaken as a private venture as well as a governmental one.  By 1934 President Roosevelt was copying Mr. Long’s reforestation plan on a national scale.

          Mr. Long was a religious man and extended his personal beliefs into his business.  He conceived Long-Bell properties to be perpetual, like the church, and reforestation on a never-ending scale would permit the company to be so.  From 1923 to 1934 Mr. Long had more young trees planted on properties than the entire state of Wisconsin.

          Lumbermen may come and lumbermen may go, but the project of reforestation is to be like Mr. Long’s church and Tennyson’s brook.  It will go on and on, forever.