Show j THE r CONSERVATION SWINDLE The Worlds World's s Work has haSan an article on conserva conserva- Lion tion The cl closing sing paragraph reads r ads as s follows The country has made mader up its m mind nd about conservation the conservation the right utilization of our resources re re- sources sources It believes in n it It is anxious to put i its beliefs fully into Y-into into practice There will be lit little e toleration for those who d delay lay the great task in order to benefit their private schemes of exploit t tation We fain would ask the writer o of the above what he really knows of the subject he writes I so airily about The burden of his article is that the theto genera general government owns the public domain doma n to be disposed of for the common benefit of the United States That has been the law for years but how has that law been applied Up to lo the time tim Mr 1 Pinchot conceived the idea that it would be fine to blast the prosperity of half halfa halfa a a dozen states and one territory in order to make room room for some hundreds of government agents the theory agreed upon was the thing most needed on the public domain was to have it utilized utilized util utile in a way that would cover it with homes where a mighty people would grow up That was vas the rule for years rears In some cases the government exacted per acre to cover the cost of surveying and issuing the patents in other places it gave the settlers the land if they would but occupy occupy it The result was that the foremost nation of all the earth explored and occupied the country all the way between the I seas There was but one brief change Certain I men took up liA p th the Pinchot idea and the experiment was vas tried After that the report states states' that all I th the revenue leven revenue e received did not cover the cost of i sending g ag agents to collect the rentals and on on the r. r t showing congress congress stamped out the whole business business busi bUSl- ness ness without one one- dissenting vote But 1 Mr r. r Pinchot revived it and Mr Roosevelt Roosevelt Roose Roose- I ve velt t ap approved oved of his work york though he e spent 10 in m the experiment and with the result that Alaska AlasI a with plenty of coal at its doors is j 9 obliged to send bend to foreign countries for fuel Heretofore if a man on the frontier found a coal mine he could buy it at 8 8 or 10 10 per acre He e could buy a timber tract at a reasonable price i or pI have a water power by filing upon it or if he found faun d oil he could buy the land on the same terms that had to be paid for coal Now over I vast ast areas of ot desert des rt land nothing can be done J until water is obtained Mr 1 Pinchot has seemed 1 delighted in t tying ing the he hands of the men on the thep p frontier who are struggling to live It seems that Worlds World's Work Vork fork p proves of f that policy i which only shows that it essays to fo write learnedly learned learned- I ly y on subjects which it knows no more than Nicodemus Nicodemus Nico- Nico demus knew of the second birth The assumption I i tion that the men who would change this and give the men on the frontier the same privileges that the frontiersmen of the land had for I iy years vears ars aI are are e all gr grafters is entirely gratuitous and has lias h no foundation f on fact Th The Th e east has quite i as as asas large a proportion of grafters as as' the west it has moreover a mighty host of I am better than thou men and no scarcity of educated gen gels gentlemen who believe they are capable of expounding expound expound- jug ing 1 g any subject and through some occult knowledge knowl knowl- knowledge edge of their own can read rightly y the characters and motives of men miles away W of whom th they y know nothing |