| Show QUESTION OF conservation ADDRESS OF GOV WM SPRY OF UTAH AT AMERICAN MINING CONGRESS following is the address of gov wm win spry of utah delivered at the annual meeting of the american mining congress at chicago in discussing the question of conserva tion permit me to assure you at the outset that I 1 do not corne come before you as an advocate of the so called states rights phase of this important subject the public domain of this country is the exclusive property of the united states suba subject act only to the control and disposition of congress the national government has acquired title to its public lands by succession to great britain by cessions sessions ces from the original thirteen states and by purchase from foreign governments ern ments differing as to conditions of cession to that portion of the public domain which lies north of florida and east of the mississippi the original states were agreed in this one particular namely that the territory thus ceded should be a common fund for the joint benefit of the then members and all future members of the union dif die as were opinions opinion on the terms term of admission of new states justice ultimately iti prevailed and territories are admitted to the union on equality of terms with the original states under a reasonable construction of our constitution the right of congress to administer and dispose of the public lands of the united states as it sees fit and proper cannot be questioned the question of the policy of that administration however is one upon which opinions are widely different it is a subject of surpassing interest if indeed it is not a subject of deep anxiety it is to tile question of policy of administration and not of right to administer that I 1 shall address my remarks four years ago at the suggestion of the inland Water waterways commission president theodore roosevelt invited the vatrious various governors the senators and representatives of the sixtieth congress congro sri and men of prominence in public affairs aan to confer together on the conservation of he natural resources and in may of 1908 there was held at the white house the firsa conservation congress 3 called ostensibly for the purpose of con si dering the use ind and of ahe mineral resources the resources of the land and the resources of the water in every part of our territory as matters of vital concern to the nation as a whole and to all the people it was reasonably assumed that the discussions would be along the lines of waste prevention and that from them there would be evolved a policy of foresight in the administration of the public domain a policy which in its practical application would have in view the needs of the future while adequately meeting the demands of the present this conference for some reason or other resolved itself into a more or less spectacular wordy exploitation of facts regarding the exhaustion of natural resources from the modestly expressed fear that the present day wanton waste of the natural resources would work a hardship on future generations the radical conservationists supported by extravagant statements as to the depletion of the timber the coal and the mineral supply of the nation grew alarmed for the material prosperity of the succeeding generation and taking advantage of a vague public understanding of the meaning of conservation soon had the country on the very verge of a public resource famine so portentous as to demand drastic changes in the administration of the public domain statistics were presented which at the time were unchallenged by which it was proven that within a comparatively ively few years the people would actually suffer from the cold for want of coal that the vast mountain ranges would be stripped of their ores and precious metals that the iron age would be a thing of the past and that the present medium of exchange would have to be abolished in brief that the great american republic would shortly face a veritable bankruptcy of public resources I 1 believe I 1 am safe in saying that the pages of history fail to disclose such a remarkable shrinkage in public resource in so short a time as the shrinkage which followed in the immediate wake of this first and subsequent conservation congresses the boast of the american people that they are possessed of a nation of unequaled not to say unsurpassed natural resource has been temporarily silenced by the conservationist and the bright future has been obscured by imaginary dark clouds of doubt and uncertainty resources underestimated the state executives departed from the first conservation congress filled with conservation ideas and with the understanding that the several states were to have an influence if not a voice in shaping the future policy of public land administration promptly appointed state conservation commissions to act in conjunction with the national government time has demonstrated that there was no clear understanding on the part of the states as to their participation in the conservation movement I 1 believe I 1 am within the fact when I 1 say that time also has demonstrated that the states have had much less to do with conservation in recent years than they had prior to the first congress the only tangible result that has come from the earnest efforts of public spirited men who enlisted their services ices with the utah state conservation commission is the accumulation of facts regarding the public resources of utah mineral coal water and soil which establish the previous estimates of its wealth of natural resource as ridiculously low and demonstrate that the variety and extent of its resource is impossible of even approximation and so it transpires that while the national conservation advocates continue to hold conferences given over largely to the discussion of resource shortage the state conservation commission of utah has fallen naturally and rightly into the discharge of duties that would ordinarily devolve upon a bureau of research and publicity and it is today supplying information on the bountiful natural resources of the state the great trouble with the discussions of the national conservationists has been that they have been altogether too one sided too much has been said of the exhaustion ha of coal and too little has been advanced concerning the fact that we are leaving the age of steam behind us and entering on the age of electricity too much has been said of the depletion of the timber supply while far too little has been said regarding the cement era too many contracted papers have been presented on the exhaustion of the mineral resources of the nation and the mineral deposits have been grossly underestimated I 1 have no desire to combat statistical arguments regarding mineral exhaustion with statistical arguments regarding mineral wealth but I 1 do desire to say in passing that utah will place mountains of the largest and choicest iron deposits in the world against rows of figures on the exhaustion of the iron supply of the nation it will place thousands of square miles of coal measures against the estimated end of the coal supply measured by tons it will meet figures on the passing of the copper output with mountains of copper ore and it is perhaps pertinent to here observe that when the first statistics on mineral exhaustion were being presented at washington in 1908 a utah man was perfecting his plans for a new method of handling low grade copper ore that then lay in the exhausted or non producing zone and consequently found no place in the elaborate statistical data and that since his method was put in operation the exhausted area has developed into one of the greatest copper producing camps in the world too much has been said too much has been said regarding the exhaustion of the soil I 1 submit that soil exhaustion is a problem for conservationists to handle but it resolves itself absolutely to an elastic policy that will meet local conditions it is perhaps true that the soils of the east have been worked too steadily without sufficient fertilization it is abao cutely true that in the west nature replenishes and fertilizes her soils through the nutrition that comes from the everlasting hills irrigation produces crops and at the same time conserves the strength and adds to the life giving properties of the soil mind you I 1 do not desire to be understood as being opposed to conservation nor to wholly condemn the system of its operation I 1 believe in the forest reserve in our own state for instance I 1 have seen great watersheds rejuvenated through government ernnie nt supervision and the water supply regulated and purified but I 1 do not believe in the withdrawal of agricultural lands to be placed in the forest reserve upon which lands nature herself never produced trees and upon which lands human agencies will never produce forests it is in these withdrawals and the withdrawals of agricultural lands because of possible oil deposits that the hardship lies and it is in urging these withdrawals that the radical conservationist does his greatest mischief I 1 do not believe that the conservation of the coal supply means the cessation or even the curtailment of coal production conservation of the coal supply resolves itself into a question of national or state regulation in the matter of its production in other words I 1 believe it is within the range of possibility to so regulate the operation of coal mines as to recover and save for useful purposes a vast percentage percenta geover over what is now actually mined it is within the province of the conservationist to urge and it is within the range of good business judgment to demand that the exhaustion of one particular coal claim or deposit shall not mean the caving in and total destruction of its workings but the saving thereof for the use and benefit of the adjoining property mineral exhaustion a bugaboo I 1 have absolutely no sympathy for the bugaboo of mineral exhaustion no man nor set of men will assume to estimate the mineral deposits of this nation not until the surface of the entire united states has been honeycombed by the prospector and miner will any thoughtful man attempt to approximate the mineral resources of the nation and even then no man will have the temerity to fix a limit to which the sciences may go in discovering new processes of extracting and making useful the mineral deposits of mother earth now as to the policy of the administration of the public domain first of all bear in mind the fact that the states of the union are admitted on terms of equality with this fact firmly established consider that the nation has operated for many years under a liberal policy in the disposal of its public lands that the broad terms of this policy have been fundamentally responsible for the growth development and wealth of the great centers of the east that an empire within an empire the great empire of the west is approaching an era of development that from all indications will eclipse the wonderful growth of the east that the sale of agricultural lands was primarily responsible for the growth in population in the east that the development of the mineral resources added to the wealth of the east and that the use of all the bounteous gifts of nature made the east what it is today because of the extravagant representations which have heretofore been mentioned the former liberal policy of the national government has been materially curtailed vast areas have been withdrawn from entry particularly in the west new and radical departures in the regulations governing the handling of mineral and oil lands have been adopted while it is now urged that water power sites should be withdrawn from entry the leasing of mineral and oil lands and water power sites by the government is being considered as a method of carrying out the conservation idea I 1 present policy pernicious many reasons can be advanced why such a policy of administration administration of the public domain should not be pursued permit me to mention briefly the most important under this policy the states wherein the public domain as yet lies practically in its virgin state are deprived of that benefit that accrued to the older states through the disposal of the public domain and use of the natural resources it is obvious that the development which came to the older states through the disposal of the public domain to individuals will be denied to the younger and less developed states and that while the greatest direct benefits of the former liberal policy accrued to the individual states wherein sales were made the direct benefits not only from the sale but from the development of the public lands in the western states under the proposed policy will go to all the states of the union suppose the government leases its mineral and oil lands and its water power sites and remains forever vested of title who can estimate the loss in revenues from taxation that may be suffered by the states wherein these valuable resources are located which revenues have for years been accruing to the older states because ther their resources have been vested in private or corporate ownership and become subject to taxation by the states a thing which it appears will be utterly impossible under the leasing system so long as the government holds title since government lands I 1 cannot under the constitution be subjected to taxation this phase of the leasing system alone condemns it as a policy in absolute e violation of the spirit of equality of rights in the public domain A material factor in the growth and development of a state is the distribution d i strib ution of the burden of taxation take from the state its right to tax mining claims the mineral and oil output and the power sites within its boundaries and you rob that commonwealth of a revenue that has been a source of ever increasing income to the older states and increase instead of diminish the burden the freeholder is already called upon to bear perhaps a legal expert can enlighten you as to the power of states to tax even the net proceeds of mines under the proposed leasing system from the government thel mineral leasing policy carry the mineral leasing policy a step farther if it is proper that the pioneer prospector the man above all men who stakes his all on a chance that he anahis and his fellow men may prosper the man who invests his money his talents his energy in delving after the mineral deposits of the public domain and who after the expenditure of his means finds a pay streak installs machinery opens up a vein of ore which but for his persistency would have lain hidden up for centuries must turn over to tle the federal government what he has found and if he will continue to develop it he must do so as a lessee why should not the same policy be proper in the matter of agricultural lands in short let the select a piece of raw land which he regards as a possible producer of agricultural products let him clear it of sage brush let him plow and seed the same and if in an arid section of the united states let him at his own expense acquire and deliver to that land the water which is necessary to produce the crop and then if the experiment is a success and he secures a rich harvest let him become a lessee of the federal government and work his land not as a freeholder but as a tenant of the national government which becomes his landlord and I 1 submit that if we are to wait on the national government for the putting of the mineral and oil and agricultural lands in condition for tenancy future generations will be amply provided with undeveloped resources both land and mineral aside from this has always been autocratic while tenantry has developed peoples who lack in the two most I 1 glorious qualities of american citizenship loyalty and patriotism out in the west we have been building up our country by urging people to own their homes to own their places of |
