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Show ' EDITORIAL: The Public Lands Issue LAST summer's Congressional range hearings aroused little general interest. They were accepted ac-cepted by the public as something some-thing concerning stock raisers, sheepmen and the Forest Service, only. But the report of the House Public Lands Committee, submitted sub-mitted to the Secretary of the Interior several days ago, very definitely blasts that conception, making public interest in the land hearings mandatory. Ostensibly the range hearings, conducted at Salt Lake, Denver, Grand Junction and other points West were an effort to determine whether or not the Forest Service's Ser-vice's administration of grazing lands within its jurisdiction was being played in the right key. The House Committee, under the guidance of Representative Frank Barrett, of Wyoming, has decided that the Forest Service, is directing way off key, and has made recommendations accordingly. ac-cordingly. The general' public, quite naturally, nat-urally, would not lend too big an car to a matter of this nature. But Lester Velie, reporting for Collier's, brings up a point or' two which ties the public good to last summer's hearings, and any that may be held in the future, fu-ture, i VELIE calls the hearings a part of "the great -Western land grab plan," which asks that the United States sell 145,000,000 acres of public lands to ranchers and sheepmen who already graze their stock thereon under permit. per-mit. The price offered for this public ground ranges from nine cents to $2 80 per acre. Under the terms of the plan only stockmen stock-men who now use it will be eligible el-igible to buy. . Lester Velie, who attended the western range hearings, and reported re-ported them for Collier's maga zine, makes no bones about naming nam-ing the American National Livestock Live-stock Association and the National Na-tional Woolgrowcrs as the instigators insti-gators of the plan. Says Velie in quoting a leader of the group, "If we play our cards right, we'll hit the jackpot." Says Velie on his own: "And this 145,000.000 acre jackpot would be only a beginning. Sure to follow would be 80,000.000 acres of forest grazing land, now public domain under the wing of the U. S. Forest For-est Service." According to Collier's ace re- I porter, the American National Livestock Association and the National Woolgrowers speak only for a small fraction of the western stockmen, but this small fraction, made up of big outfits, is sufficiently strong to warrant consideration. That the move is not popular with the small operator oper-ator is evidenced by Senator Arthur V. Watkin's polling of Utah ranchers and public land users. The Senator found sentiment senti-ment in the Beehive state two to one against against the public lands ambitions of the big livestock live-stock interests. "But," writes Lester Velie, "what the people of the West do not know is that public lands have already, in effect, been i turned over to stockmen. What I public opinion barred the stockmen stock-men from doing openly, the Cow and Sheep Bloc in Congress has done quietly." ' Velie lists as members of this Bloc, Senator Pat McCarran, of Nevada; Senator Sen-ator Edward V. Robertson, of Wyoming; Senator Carl Hatch, of New Mexico, and Representative Represen-tative Frank A. Barrett, of Wyoming. Wy-oming. He cites the trimming of the Grazing Service down to an impotent im-potent agency as an example of the Congressional Bloc's success in achieving their aims. The Service Ser-vice was deprived of funds whereby it might adequately administer ad-minister the grazing lands entrusted en-trusted to it. Velie quotes Ed Ennis, of Grand County, Colo., as saying, "With the Grazing Service supervision cut, there'll be a struggle for the range, and the little guy'll get pushed around." Ennis, who runs a total of 400 head of livestock on the public domain, concludes that: "Maybe we'll have some old fashioned range wars. Trespassing? Trespass-ing? Overgrazing? Sure, how are we going to stop it?" 7 PRESUMABLY Velie's account ac-count of the Forest Service hearings hear-ings and his picture of the western west-ern land grab has stirred the Izaak Walton League to action. This group, the most influental of the nation's conservation organizations, or-ganizations, is protesting last summer's hearings on the basis of predjudice. Whether or not the League's dissent will fall on deaf Congressional ears remains to be seen right now it doesn't seem to be getting anywhere. But if the Izaak Walton League is convinced that the public domain do-main is at stake, a show-down fight may develop. In the meantime it behooves every citizen to look into this matter of returning the public domain to private ownership. Anything that affects the status ' of public lands has some bearing on 140,000,000 Americans. The fact that its sale is even being considered is serious. So in the words of our good friend Frank Beckwith, Editor of the Millard County Chronicle, it's time to, "Grab the bull by the tail and look the situation squarely in the face." . |