Mr. THALMAN. I think it is a good thing. I think it ought to help to give them an idea as to what conditions are. I don't think they realize the conditions that the stockmen have to go through here.

Mr. MCLEAN. I don't think that anybody wants to get the idea that this is at all a personal scrap against the supervisors of the forest. I think most of the stockmen have very good friends in the Forest Service. It is the system that we are against, and there is no personal feeling or personalities to enter into it, except in very rare cases.

Mr. MCNAMARA. There has been one point brought out several times at these hearings in regard to the difference between putting this under the Agriculture or Interior Department. Most all of the business of the Interior Department at the present time is made up of business in this western country; there is practically none in the East; whereas in the Agricultural Department the big thing with them is the general farming conditions, and of course we all know that the largest agricultural interests are in the Middle West and in the East, and up until the present time all of our Secretaries of Agriculture for the last 35 or 40 years have come from the Middle West. Nearly all of our Secretaries of the Interior have been western men; and if this were put in the Interior Department, the interests would be so strong from these 11 western grazing States that the Secretary of the Interior would be a western man, a man that knows the condition of the West. I merely bring this out for your consideration.

Mr. DILLINGHAM. I would like to hear from Mr. Harold Jensen.

Mr. JENSEN. My opinion is a good deal like the other fellow's. I would favor the State handling our open range and the forest reserve, too, if it were possible. I believe we would get better adjustment in our forest if the State handled it than we are getting now, and I think it would be more practical for the State to handle its own State lands. I think that through the associations handling the land in certain localities we could get along very well, and it would be very satisfactory. Whatever system is worked out I think would be well. It seems as though the way our forest is run now we are the "goat" all right. There is no question about that, and we always will be as long as it is run by eastern men.

Mr. DILLINGHAM. What do you think of the plan to lease the range? Would your business stand up?

Mr. JENSEN. It might, but if conditions prevail as they are now they would have to be pretty good to stand it, and as it is now we do not know what we have. I would rather have the land controlled as the water is controlled. If we have a decree, it is about as good as a deed to a lease. It appears to me that we could run our stock to suit ourselves, and it would be more profitable. There is no question in my mind but what there is more or less loss when we have to run our stock on the forest by rules and regulations laid down by the forest.

Mr. DILLINGHAM. Is there any other gentleman who has any remarks? Anything they would like to say or any questions they would like to ask?

Mr. MCKINNEY. I came down to speak for the Morgan Creek Cattle Association, Challis. I am pretty much familiar with conditions and I believe now, at the present time, instead of putting the public lands under a bureau the thing to do would be to reorganize the Forest Service and get that on some satisfactory basis. I don't think the forest affects the sheepman as much as the cattleman, because the cattleman is on there three or four months and the sheepman about 60 days, but if the cattleman has to put up with in the future what he has to-day I would go out of business now. If they could put the grazing on the forest and public lands under one commissioner it might be better, because, you see, in the spring, if the forest does not open until along in June, the cattlemen have to hold their stock on the lower range until the range opens, but if they could have the whole range all the way back, instead of killing off the early feed, they could utilize all of it at an earlier date. Under administration of two departments they would have nearly double expense, and then, as they say now, it would be just to cover the cost of administration. That was what the forest was when it first came in, but the expense grows and in a few years we will have to go out of business if it keeps on.

Mr. BACON. That was pretty thoroughly discussed at Dubois and that was the conclusion the meeting come to up there, that this ought to be under one head. However, they were not going to have it under the Forest Service unless that bureau was entirely reorganized. In going around over the

State and talking to these fellows, that has been in the large majority of cases the sentiment, and if you had two bureaus you would have added expense, and they would constantly conflict. Now, then, if you have one head it is going to be easier to handle it. That is what those fellows thought yesterday at Dubois and that is my conclusion. If we could get the forest and all the resources in the State back to the State, I would certainly be glad to see it done. I don't know whether I would like to have the State take the tag ends and the Government the others.

Mr. DILLINGHAM. Is the sentiment here pretty much the same as in your other meetings?

Mr. BACON. With this exception: While a lot of the fellows rather wanted to see it under State control, after they discussed and talked it over, they thought it would split up the administration of the grazing so, and that the State would tax the leases so heavy that they rather thought they would rather have the Government handle it. They don't want it to go under the forest unless it is reorganized. Now, that has been practically unanimous. They feel this way: If they can get a court of appeals which will be composed of active stockmen, if they can get a board of appeals of that kind and get Congress to pass a few sensible rules and regulations, making it a law, and put you on there with a legal right, and let you put as much stock on that range as you please, just as long as you do not destroy that range or break the law, and if you should, then it goes up to the board of appeals to determine. The man that is using the range should have a prior right on the range. They do not think that a man should come in on the outside until you have ample range to run your stock. I think our rights on this land should be legalized. If we can get this as a legal right with certain rules and regulations passed by Congress, so they are laws and nobody can change them unless Congress changes them, and then have stockmen in the West administer this thing, I think it would be all right.

Mr. DILLINGHAM. Has the time come when we could get some sort of a motion that would show the sentiment of the stockmen here, on the question of reorganizing the Forest Service to administer grazing on all the lands? I think you would be opposed to two separate organizations handling this range. I know in talking with the men in our local section that has been the sentiment. If we could make a motion defining the legal rights, something along the line of water rights, one favoring the reorganization of the Forest Service and a board of appeals composed of stockmen of 11 Western States and all administrative offices in the West, then we would be getting something tangible out of the meeting to go on record when the committees of the State association meet with the committees that are coming out from Washington.

Mr. PACK. I don't want any of our local rangers or supervisors to feel that I am against any of our local men, but I would be afraid of placing our public domain under forest supervision without some reorganization, on account of just what I saw in Utah where I came from. They took in all the public domain and they first agreed to make the opening date April 15, they did that for a year or two, then they made the opening date May 1, and they then made the opening date June 1. We sent two delegates of the association on that thing and tried to show that it was impossible for us to run stock if we were not permitted to go on before June 1. We held a local meeting with district 4 at the time when Mr. Sherman was Chief Forester and what they told us amounted to about this: "You can put them in your feed lots and feed them until June 1." That meant that we would have to quit. I am afraid they will keep setting our opening date back until we have no place to run our stock for several months in the spring and fall.

Mr. BACON. I would like to have the motion that was passed yesterday read. Motion read by secretary: "If the public domain is going under any form of control, it is the consensus of this meeting that it be put under control of the Government and in the same department as the Forest Service with a court of appeals."

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Chairman, if this supervision of public domain is going to be put under some bureau it probably would be better if it were under the State for the simple reason that four years ago I went back to Kansas City with some cattle and I met an ex-Senator on the train from Kansas, that was a feeder and he asked me where I was from, and in the course of the conversation he brought up the range question. He asked me what it cost me to graze a steer for the summer and I told him 66 cents. He said, "My God, man, why aren't you rich?" I asked him what it cost him and he said $2 a month a

head. He thought that it was absolutely ridiculous that a man could pasture a steer for 66 cents from April 16 to September 1. Now, that is why I think the supervision should be under a western bureau of some kind for the simple reason he was an eastern man, he had been one of the Senators who had argued against the range conditions in the West and he contended that with only 66 cents a head the western man should be rich. I told him that if he would guarantee that I could turn out 250 cattle and in half an hour's time drive them in and get 250 I would be willing to pay $2 a head a month for that assurance. As it is I lose 15 per cent. I can rent a pasture from one of my neighbors and I can drive them out in a half hour's time and get the same number I put in. If I turn 250 cattle in the range April 16 and I get them back in October I am 15 head short on every 100 that I turn out. I ride one day for every animal I turn out, which is an additional cost of $4 or $5 per head. If I turn out 100 head I get back 85; in Kansas I get back 99 and have to ride only a half day to do it and with these conditions that exist here we are out a big loss and a lot of time for just a little bit of profit that they do pay. I think it should be in the West; those gentlemen do not realize the loss of time and cattle we have.

Mr. DILLINGHAM. What is your idea, gentlemen, on some definite action on some motion? What action do you wish to take on this line?

Mr. OLSON. I would like to make an amendment to that one read by the secretary. That the men were to be western men instead of eastern men.

Mr. DILLINGHAM. If Government control is to be set up for grazing on the unoccupied public lands, that the administrative offices should be placed in the West with a board of appeals of 11 western livestock men, and that the rights under which stock would be grazed would be made legal by acts of Congress. Mr. FULLMER. I make that motion. Mr. LARDER. I second that motion.

Mr. DILLINGHAM. You have heard the motion. Any discussion? Any remarks? Are you ready for the question? All those in favor of adopting this

as the consensus of opinion of this meeting say "aye."

(Ayes carried unanimously.)

Mr. DILLINGHAM. There has been a good deal of favorable comment on State control under a leased system through associations. Do you wish to put yourself on record by voting on that phase of the discussion?

Mr. McLEAN. The lease system by associations could also be handled by the Department of Interior.

Mr. DILLINGHAM. A motion favoring the lease system rather than for the range to be administered by the Forest Service as now organized would be all right.

Mr. MCKINNEY. If those leases could be legal so that they would include grazing land on the forest as well as off, and then be handled and make the lessee responsible, they would do away with considerable expense of so many hands handling it, and it would be more satisfactory.

Mr. DILLINGHAM. If you could make a motion like this: That we favor the grazing of livestock on the public domain and Forest Service, to be put under a leasing system which shall be run by local associations rather than have the grazing administered by the Forest Service as now organized.

Mr. MCKINNEY. I make that motion.

Mr. PACK. I second it.

Mr. DILLINGHAM. Any discussion? Any remarks? Are you ready for the question?

(Ayes voted unanimously.)

Mr. BACON. I don't think there has been a more opportune time since we had a stock business in the West than there is now to get what we want, if we will just go after it. Those fellows down there have their ears to the ground and are all listening. We do not want to make it a personal matter, but we are not satisfied with this system, and let's just keep fighting and hollering until we do get what we want.

Mr. MCLEAN. We certainly appreciate all the assistance from the cattlemen we can get. Attend all these hearings and get up and talk and help back us up on this thing. We want, if possible, to go before these committees as a united front-all the livestock interests together-and stay together instead of having original ideas pop up all over the State from different associations.

Mr. DILLINGHAM. I have arranged in the different towns where you are to hold meetings with the executives of our association to come themselves, and bring their friends and associates to your meetings and we expect to hold

nine meetings throughout the State before the meeting held in Pocatello and Boise. I hope to get a record something like we are getting built up here. I presume we can have a committee from the cattle and wool growers in joint session before we come before the committee at Salt Lake?

Mr. BACON. I think you ought to do that; you ought to have a good representation down there. These fellows might get the idea that it is just one branch of this livestock industry which is making the holler.

Mr. DILLINGHAM. Mr. Gooding, could we have some remarks from you on these questions?

Mr. GOODING. I don't have very much to say on these things. I have enjoyed the meeting very much and as a member of this committee which is holding these hearings I am neutral. I don't like to take sides on it.

Mr. DILLINGHAM. Mr. Bacon, have we covered this ground as definitely as we should?

Mr. BACON. I think so.

Mr. DILLINGHAM. Anything further to bring up before we bring the meeting to a close? If not, I take this opportunity to thank the Idaho Wool Growers in behalf of the cattlemen and also in behalf of the sheepmen of this locality for having this opportunity to be with you and show their interest in these very important matters. I am confident that the whole future prosperity of the livestock industry, so far as the West is concerned, is going to depend largely on the interest and activity of the livestock men in the next 30 days, because some law is going to come out of the next session of Congress next winter at Washington that will put you in business or put you out. The time has come to make some disposition of the public domain. Right now is the time, like Mr. Bacon said, to make the holler and get all the publicity we can in every way, by writing letters and getting yourself interviewed, by talking with business men and bankers. I think it would be a good idea to send two men over different parts of the State and talk to men, speaking before business mens' clubs, Kiwanis Clubs, Rotary Clubs, and chambers of commerce and all the business men we do bus.ness with every day in our own business. I find they are very ready to join in with us and bring whatever pressure they have to bear on friends in Washington. I am planning on being in Idaho Falls on the 11th of June and if there are any of the stockmen here who could possibly spend a little time they should go. The new Secretary of Agriculture is going to be there and he asked for a kind of family visit.

Mr. BACON. I might say this in regard to Mr. Jardine. We think we will be able to have a little conference with Mr. Jardine in the evening of the 11th as he will not be able to come to our meeting in the afternoon. We can have probably 25 or 30 minutes' talk with him. I hope some of you men will go up there and get a chance to tell him some things he doesn't know about. Mr. DILLINGHAM. Anything else to come before the meeting? Motion to adjourn would be in order.

Mr. OLSON. I make the motion that we adjourn. (Meeting adjourned.)

PROCEEDINGS OF THE HEARING ON PUBLIC LANDS HELD AT SHOSHONE, IDAHO, BY THE IDAHO WOOL GROWERS, THURSDAY AFTERNOON, JUNE 4, 1925

Meeting called to order at 3 by Mr. Ed Gooding, chairman.
Present: Twenty-eight cattle and wool growers.

Introduction of Mr. Donald McLean by Mr. Ed Gooding, who discussed the public lands question, quoting arguments for and against the different methods as given by different stockmen at former hearings.

Mr. ED GOODING. We would like to have a full discussion of this subject and I think perhaps the best way to get it going is to call on you for your ideas. Mr. James Farmer, from Bliss, we would like to hear from you.

Mr. FARMER. It seems to me that if these laws can be enacted the Forest Service is in such shape that they could handle these areas probably cheaper and probably more satisfactorily than any other way that I see at the present time. I feel a good deal like that fellow who said that he had been in the business 40 years, only I can't say quite that long. But for one I would much prefer to see the range under the supervision of the Forestry Department if such laws can be enacted rather than under State control. I expect that

there is a good many of us here that could say we do not agree with the Forest Service in just the way they handle all things, but to my notion the number of livestock that is being cared for during the summer time in our forest of to-day are quite great enough in number, and I believe that if our public domain was handled in some such a manner it would improve to a certain extent. I don't know that I have given this matter the proper thought that I should have to really know what would be best, but those are just a few of my ideas. Mr. ED GOODING. Mr. Fred Gooding, from Shoshone.

Mr. FRED GOODING. Mr. Chairman, I can't quite agree with my friend Farmer in his remarks about letting this grazing remain in the Forest Service. They are just whittling us down until some of us who have been in the livestock business for 40 years (I have come pretty nearly being in that long) know what we are talking about. When they created this forest we had, I think, about 23,000 ewes and now I think I have a little less than 8,000 and they have cut us again 5 per cent more this year. If they continue those things, how much longer are we going to run on the range? I quite agree with Mr. Stanfield in many ways; it would be better if the forestry people would take the money they take from the sale of timber and plant trees there where trees have grown before and let us build up the forest where forests have grown before for the benefit of future generations. The President of the United States stands very high in my opinion, and I notice he is trying to do something along the lines of reforestation. But the Forest Service at the present time has gotten away from planting trees or growing a forest. All they think about now is building roads for tourists and also seeing how much money they can get out of the livestock men. I am opposed to that method of handling the range and the forest. In this country we have forestry schools where we educate men to grow things and do things for the forest, but they do not apply themselves to growing trees. They spend much of their time trying to run a business, such as stock,, which they know nothing about, and make a mess of it. I think it very necessary that we should try to protect the forest all we possibly can and we should encourage the growing of trees all we possibly can. We ought to have a bunch of young men planting trees and protecting them all of the time instead of trying to protect the sheepmen. The sheepmen can protect themselves if the Government will give them a chance. I am going to say to you that as far as the range is concerned and the forest is concerned, the sheep have been more of a benefit to the forest reserve than all of the rangers that have been in the West. Sheep will eat up the undergrowth and brush and keep it down in such shape that since we have had sheep running on these forests we have not scarcely had any fires at all where we have had livestock to control the undergrowth. So I am opposed to Mr. Forester having anything to say about running our sheep. We have been having a lot of young men that never owned a hoof of livestock in their lives, and they have told us how to run our sheep long enough.

They

I think we ought to recommend something to this Senate committee. are going to turn this thing over to Congress to pass a law at the next session and they are going to have some rules and regulations not alone in the forest but over the whole of the range, spring and summer and fall. And the eastern people think we ought to pay something for it in some way or another.

I don't think we should manage all this range under two departments. It should be managed under one only. It should be under the Interior Department. I believe we could get better rules and regulations than we can any other way. We have got a lot of fellows like Mr. Greeley that do not know any more about livestock than a 10-year old school boy and who want to make rules and regulations for the livestock men. I think we ought to have a committee of this association there to recommend something that would be permanent-something that we could tie to. These 11 western range States should have a court of appeals where the livestock men could appeal to and get justice. It is impossible to get justice now, as we have no one to appeal to, only a few young fellows that have not had any experience in livestock. I would suggest, if I had my way, the appointment of a committee consisting of one member from each State of the 11 western range States, appointed by the Secretary of Interior or the President of the United States, and, further, I would recommend that they should be paid a per diem and their expenses while serving in that capacity. In that way there could then be appointed a subcommittee in each one of these States which would make rules and regulations that would fit the States' climatic conditions, and not have one rule treating Arizona and Idaho alike. In that way each State would practi