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Show wheat from the chaff Monday's visit from Washmgfton of U. S. Senator Wallace F. Bennett and Congressman Laurence J. Burton, for ihe express purpose of seeing- for themselves them-selves what new park additions consisted of, and learn how people felt about tfhe enlargements, involved in-volved a gT.-'nt number of people and tens of thousands thous-ands of words. - 1 The visit was, however, appreciated by the people peo-ple of SouMieasteflri Utah wlho were pretty much cau.ght by surprise at the January 20 presidential proclamation whiclh set aside nearly a quarter of a million acres of Utah land as park additions. It crave residents an opportunity to express themselves to people who will be involved in tftie official action to follow. A number of things became quite apparent during dur-ing the day, and most people- involved were agreed on a number of items. First of all, although the Ar-dhes Ar-dhes -expansion includes a number of really intrest-ing intrest-ing features such as Klondike BlufEs, Herdina Park, lower Salt Valley and Cache Valley features which we feel surely should be included in the Park; it will be hard to justify the inclusion of vast acreage between be-tween these features whidh contain little more than crested wheat and juniper. The "straight-line" theory of drawing boundary lines seems to have prevailed at the Department of Interior When this proposal went to President Johnson hence the inclusion of these acreages of dubious aesthetic value. It is to be hoped that the hearings coming up in tine near future, where testimony will be taken on the creation of national parks from these national monuments, that sound, sensible arguments can be placed before the lawmakers whidh can in actuality result in some boundary modifications if the proposed pro-posed law passes. If reason and common sense prevails at these hearings and is carried back to floors of Congress there is every reason to believe that certain lands which are best suited to multiple-use factors, can be returned to the public domain; with the aesthetically important areas remaining in tJhe national parks. |