OCR Text |
Show Woolgrowers Influence Votes, Sheep Trips Nature, Prof. Says Western Woolgrowers have a few words of reubtal to say about the University of Denver this week following a vicious sheep condemnatory Monday night broadcast over KOA by Prof. Alfred Crofts in the D. U.-sponsored U.-sponsored program, "Journeys Behind the News," which is re-broadcast re-broadcast over 15 other stations. Crofts charged that 50,000 wool-growers wool-growers "influence the votes of 20 U. S. Senators and hold the balance of power in our two-party two-party political system." "Man and the domestic sheep have kept an uneasy partnership since the Late Stone Age when the first shepherds in Central Asia protected the mountain sheep from its enemies, the wolf and the bear," broadcast the University Uni-versity of Denver program. "They failed to realize that the balance of nature had been, fatally fa-tally disturbed, that thetimid lamb carried weapons more deadly dead-ly than the fangs of the wolf: nibbling teeth that cut the growing grow-ing grasses, at the root and little shuffling hoofs that kicked the dry earth into spirals of dust." However, Professor Crofts de- clared: "It remained for our America to produce the full cycle, cy-cle, from the prodigality of nature na-ture to man-made desert within one lifetime. He charged fhat "not long after- '49 the California Califor-nia foothills were 'sheeped over' and abandoned to thorn, scrub and acrid weeds. Splendid virgin vir-gin forests were burned down to provide a few extra momhfuls of forage for the sheep. "Sheep in the Rocky Mountains Moun-tains represent only one-thousandth of American agricultural wealth," Professor Crofts said and then went on to expound: "It is doubtful wisdom to wreck our national domain for a small fraction of a small industry. At a time when a sheep was worth $4, an elk free in the woods was valued at $1,000." The professor of history reminisced rem-inisced that "Central Asia was the first land to be devastated by its flocks. The soil blew south over China; the land became desert des-ert and the Mongolian shepherds became the Golden Horde of Jenghiz Khan that fought its ways across the world looking for a new home. VThe sheep had moved on to the hills of Palestine, a land of green pastures and still waters. Some centuries later, Palestine had been gnawed down to gravelly gravel-ly uninhabitable slopes and the children of David were exiles far away in the Ghettos of Europe." He broadcast: "What has happened hap-pened to Central Asia, Palestine and the Mediterranean basin may happen here. Voluntary cooperation coopera-tion cannot check the ravage of overgrazing. "The Forest Service started late; only 44 years old, it is charged with repairing the damage dam-age of two centuries. If it is to rebuild the abundant and beautiful beauti-ful America of primitive times, it will need our unlimited support," sup-port," he declared. Also, the Denver University professor attacked the recent hearings by the House Public Lands Subcommittee, going into a very damning description of stockmen appearing at the Grand Junction hearings "Witnesses, carefully selected, spent the day in aimless, half-literate tirades against them (government agents)." ag-ents)." Crofts said that "the committee com-mittee was packed from the outset out-set since the Forest Service has no representative in Congress." |