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Show LIVESTOCK MEN C D NTEST LAND WITHDRAWAL Meeting at Fredonia Saturday Satur-day Night Attended b.v Large Number Utah and Arizona Cattle Raisers One hundred and fifty cattle and sheep men met in Fredonia Arizona, last Saturday night to confer with Commissioners W. W. Seegmiller of Utah and Thomas Maddock of Arizona, concerning the recent proposed withdrawal of 2,000,000 acres of grazing land in Utah, Arizona Ari-zona and Nevada. On motion of Judge D. H. Morris, of St. George, ' every man stood up in protest against further government withdrawals of grazing land on the Arizona strip and contended that other withdrawals should be restored to stockmen for grazing purposes. pur-poses. Mr. Maddock explained the purpose of the meeting, stating that the government proposed a temporary withdrawal of two million acres of grazing land running run-ning east and west through LTtah, Arizona and Nevada, along the Colorado river, and a tract of 160,000 acres acres on the Kai-bab Kai-bab forest and also an additional 42,000 acres in Houserock valley. val-ley. He stated that he had no power to help the situation, that he was appointed by Governor Hunt of Arizona, that Mr. Seegmiller Seeg-miller was appointed by the-Utah the-Utah governor, to investigate the situation, study the range problems, prob-lems, meet with the stockmem and report back to their respective re-spective governors. President Heber Meeks of Kanab, Ka-nab, explained how the people had come to this country in the early days for the purpose of making homes and not fnr- exploiting ex-ploiting the country. They purchased pur-chased land from the Indians, built up large herds of cattle., at one time numbering 15,000 head, and also that many sheep.. The Kaibab proved to be the-key the-key to the success of the livestock live-stock industry, because the desert des-ert proved to be only a winter-range. winter-range. He told of bow the Moccasin Indian reservation was located in the very heart of one of the ranges, the area of 12 by IS miles was selected by the government, gov-ernment, including all the good springs and waterholes on that side. He said there are only 70 Indians left and the men, about 25 in number, work for the white men on the surrounding ranches. The Indian servico maintains a herd, but the Indians get no good of it. Mr. Meeks told of how the government took over the K;ii-bab K;ii-bab forest and how the stockmen stock-men were given a lot of promises prom-ises concerning range rights, replanting re-planting the forest and restoring grazing. The people, having full confidence and faith in these I (Continued on page 4) STOCKMEN PROTEST LAND WITHDRAWAL j' (Continued from page 1) i m-n. turned over their range ; rights, and soon a policy of : ' elimination began. Today 1700 j head of cattle and 2200 head of ; shfep constitute the total herd and they are only part time, i Men have tried to remain in the ! cattle business by ranging on I the desert alone, but it can't ! be done, the speaker said. The I i people have stood by and let j.the government take their range Juntil it has meant loss and poverty pov-erty to them, and now, if the , government moves them off the mountain they are out of the ! livestock business. The speaker said that the people of this section of the j country believe the scenic won-I won-I ders should be preserved for the J tourists, but there is no need ! to withdraw such large areas. A curtailment of these with-! with-! drawals is wanted by the people ;who have built permanently and : intend to stay. j Mr. Ashton, of the Associated j Civic Clubs of Southern Utah, Isaid: "All the affiliated service clubs of southern Utah and nor-jthern nor-jthern Arizona have gone on rec-j rec-j ord as being opposed to this j withdrawal. We proposed a bill to the last legislature which was j introduced by Senator Seegmil-i Seegmil-i ler. If this proposed government plan goes through, three-fourths j of the Arizona strip will be j withdrawn from grazing and it j will break the cattle and sheep : men who live in southern Utah I and northern Arizona who de-! de-! pend upon these ranges." I David Hirschi of Hurricane jsaid: "We can never be a great I agricultural state. We have only i a few meandering acres along j our streams. Ours is a livestock I state; it cannot be anything else; we have millions of acres I of public domain. These moun-j tains have been a key and support sup-port to the desert grazing, but the desert is nothing without the mountain. I believe, like President Presi-dent Meeks, that there is plenty of room for the tourist, the deer and the cattle." Judge D. H. Morris of St. George was the next speaker. He said: "There is not one town that this grazing affects that can live without the livestock industry. in-dustry. There is no people in the United States more, loyal than these people. They came here and conquered it, and made it a fit place in which to live, and now the government will drive them out. I say to these commissioners that if there is anyone entitled to these mountains moun-tains it is our people of the west, net the tourists of the east. They wouldn't even be here if we hadn't already built the roads over which they travel. trav-el. A thousand deer would attract at-tract them as well as a million, and a few good white-faced cattle would look good to them." "We must all go away from this meeting," said Commissioner Commission-er Seegmiller, "resolved to write personal letters to our governors and each of our senators; it is all that we can do. If all the men of Utah, Arizona and Nevada Ne-vada who are affected by this proposed act will send in personal per-sonal letters, IJeel sure that the government will not pass this bill over our protests." An executive committee was appointed consisting of the following: fol-lowing: Chas. Heaton, of Moccasin; Moc-casin; David Hirschi, of Hurricane, Hurri-cane, and Israel Esplin, of Or-derville. Or-derville. Those from St. George who attended the meeting included W. B. Mathis, D. H. Morris, John Schmutz, Jack Finley, Ward Esplin Es-plin and County Agent Walter F. Smith, and there were good representations from Hurricane and the Long Valley communities. |