The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, November 11, 1918, Page 4

R 1 e aa s A s —— et e e Sk V8 A Public Domain Grazing Lands Grabbed Congress Has Adopted Bill to Complete Earlier Victory _of Large Interests— One of the Steps to Rob Country of Reconstruction Material Washington Bureau, Nonpartisan Leader > JHILE the waterpower and mineral land bills promoted by the big profiteering corporations of the United States are still lodged in conference committee in con- gress, and there remains a fair chance that these natural re- sources will not be torn from public ownership immediately, congress has adopted a lesser bill that rounds out an earlier victory of the special interests—a’ bill permitting the grazing lands of the public domain to be handed over to the corporations. Of course this bill does not declare any such in- tention as helping the corporations. It pretends to help the homesteader. It “perfects” the stock-rais- ing homestead act of 1916. That act, which was palmed off on the country in place of the Kent measure which would have kept the grazing lands under public control, and would have resulted in a much better use of the lands, permitted a home- steader to take up as much as 640 acres of non- arable land as a stock-raising proposition. He was obliged to live on the homestead the usual period, and to make improvements. This bill allows him to take up part of his grazing homestead in one place, and live on that part of it, while holding the rest of the 640 acres in some other place, without any residence there at all. John Smith takes yp 160 acres at the foot of a mountain in Wyoming, locating a good 480 acres of summer feed up on the mountain. If both tracts have been designated by the department of the in- terior as “grazing lands,” and if there is no other designated grazing land adjoining the 160 on which Smith puts up his shack, he can drive every one else off the 480 acres of choice summer feed. Chances are that this feed will be the best in the region, and yet the location will be such that no man could possibly live there through the year. Then, when he gets title to the land through the usual proc- ess, John Smith, is ready to sell out at $2.50 an acre to one of the big- gest of the cattle com- panies, because he can not make a living in the cattle business with only 640 acres on which to graze his stock. OPINION OF CHIEF FORESTER Henry S. Graves, chief of the bureau of forestry, reporting to Secretary Lane on this problem of the use of the public grazing lands, four years ago, said: : “In order to secure the best use and development of the open ranges and to adequately safeguard * the interests of the small man and the general public, a system of pub-. lic regulation of grazing similar in principle to that now in successful operation on the national forests is required. With 3 ; liberal provision for the homesteading of those lands suitable for farming such a system would result in stimulating actual settlement by home- seekers by protecting them in the use of the range and enabling them to supplement farming by stock raising. ' The results desired can not, in my judg- ment, be secured by distributing this range among private owners by sale or otherwise and without public control. - Such a method would tend, under certain conditions, to place the bulk of the grazing lands in the hands of large interests, and might actually prevent the use for agriculture oflfiose o In the story on this page our Wash- ington correspondent tells how con- gress has passed a vicious bill which, as one official frankly puts it, “just about finishes the 'public domain.” There are other bills up in congress to give away our publicly owned re- sources in waterpower, oil, coal, pot- ash, ete.” If these bills go through, the country will be handicapped in pre- paring for the reconstruction days after the war and various kinds of mo- nopolies will be safe against any com- petition from the government with its publicly owned resources. Is it any wonder that these reactionaries are trying to raise the loyalty issue to hide their plans for comprehensive thieving within the law? parts of the lands best suited for that purpose, and % A7 In this national forest all debris from lo; there is no danger of general conflagration or damage to remaining trees, trees have been left to form a future forest because the land is not suited fo thus check the development of the small home- stead. Further, it would involve serious detriment to the public welfare through loss of the power of public control in the interest of water conservation for irrigation and other uses. In addition to this, public control would be lost over those lands which through misuse would be exposed to damage b, erosion.” ; ; Now, what is the system of grazing the national forest lands that has been so successful ? BITTER ROOT NATIONAL FOREST, MONTANA farmers otherwise could use for stock pasture as a supplement to their other farming. h _The government determines how many cattle and how many sheep can be grazed on a tract of forest lands—l.n the open parks and less heavily forested areas—in a season. It limits the grazing so that all the stock will be well fed, and so that the range will be fully seeded for the next year. In the past 10 years, or since this plan went into effect, the stock coming from the national forest ranges has. changed from lanky feeders to the fattest sort of prime stuff. The animals have been herded more carefully,” predatory animals have been killed off, . drift fences have been constructed, poisonous plants o ~ PAGE FOUR. f e e ey gging operations is. piled and burned during the winier, when Note how the healthy young ees | 0 atur r agriculture. The reaction- aries in congress are enabling big interests to get hold of upland public domain land like this which: real have been searched, down and the stock kept away from places where they grew. Graves says that “The forests are today prac- tically the key to the adjoining public ranges, which constitute more or less the winter ranges for the stock using the summer ranges in the forests. The damaged condition of the forest ranges at the time various national forests were placed under admin- istration was practically the-same as exists on the public ranges today. Their productivity and carry- ing capacity has been increased, and in many cases the normal condition has been restored.” It is worth while noting that farming lands and ranch property either within or adjacent to the na- tional forests is steadily increasing, due to the bet- » ter feed that can be secured from the forest ranges. At the same time, livestock which has the permit for forest grazing commands a better price on the market than stock using ranges outside the forests. Since homesteads within the forests carry the privi- lege of grazing a certain amount of livestock, the plan tends to bring every possible acre of arable land under cultivation. More than that, the public gets a good rental from the forest ranges. Up to 1914 the annual gross receipts from grazing permits averaged $1,000,000, of which $350,000 a year was made available for the direct benefit of the states in which it was collected. : In the face of this convincing proof that the 300,000,000 acres of public lands in the West should be administered under some grazing plan as the national forests haive developed, congress passed the stock-raising homestead act twe years ago, -and now it has passed the noncontiguous stock-raising homestead measure to complete the first one. The depart- ment of the interior re- ports that there is a very large number—pessibly _near 100,000-—of applica- tions now on file in the general land office for these stock-raising home- steads. WILL FINISH PUBLIC DOMAIN “This will pretty well finish up the public do- main,” was the way Alexander Vogelsang, as- sistant secretary of the interior, stated the situ- ation. “Under the law of N\ 1916 the department is pursuing the werk of des- ignating the - grazing lands that are unsuitable for farming. They will be steadily taken up, and where there arise cases under this new bill, where the grazing homestead located originally by the settler is -less than 640 acres, and there is no . more of this nonarable land adjoining it, the set- tler will get the rest of his 640 acres in some other place. Everywhere in the public land states, where now -the public range is used by every one, the land will come under private ‘ewnership, and these private owners with ranges too small for “ profitable - grazing will % sell out to the bigger fel- lows.” ; ; Congress and the administration are just begm- ning to think about a big nation-wide reconstruction. Yet here is congress, muddled and fooled by a few of our economic junkers, adopting laws that will dissipate what public resources we have left. In the face of absolute proof that the public graz- ing lands of the West should be administered scien- tifically as are the ranges within the national for- ests, the house and senate vote to hand this pasture over to men who will sell it to the land hogs. Only the coming of a general reconstruction pro-