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Mr. MAJOR. No; from the condition of the country and the manner in which it lies along this Book Cliff, that it is perpendicular off right down into the Colorado River, and then the gulches run from Piceance Creek almost due south, and we run our cattle from Stewart down to Hunter Creek.

Senator JONES of New Mexico. Well, as it is now several of you run your cattle together, do you not?

Mr. MAJOR. Well, yes; we run them directly south of our ranches, and the ranches are located up and down the creek. There is one string of ranches up the creek.

Senator JONES of New Mexico. Well, it would be quite difficult to divide that range between you people living along that stream, would it not?

Mr. MAJOR. Well, we get along now fine, but you could fence it north and south.

Senator JONES of New Mexico. But if you undertook to divide it between you, would you not have considerable difficulty?

Mr. MAJOR. Well, I don't think so. Of course, we all ride together, and my neighbor's cattle east of me will overlap on me to a certain extent, and the fellow to the west will do the same, but the majority of our cattle are in the center of this strip and south of our range. There is more or less mixing, but then it never has caused any confusion or strife.

Senator JONES of New Mexico. Well, so long as no one has an exclusive right to it I can understand how neighbors would get along together and handle their cattle together. But we were assuming a condition where you should have the virtual ownership of a definite part of it, and your neighbor the ownership or control of a definite part somewhere else. Would it be practiced to divide the range up in that way so he would keep his cattle on his land and you would keep yours on your land?

Mr. MAJOR. Well, that could not be done very well. The way I figured what that resolution intended was that we would have a right to run cattle on the lands that we are now running them on. Senator JONES of New Mexico. You and your neighbors?

Mr. MAJOR. Me and my neighbors; yes. That we would form an association.

Senator JONES of New Mexico. Well, that would be a community right.

Mr. MAJOR. Yes.

Senator JONES of New Mexico. Well, now, you would want that community right transferable, would you not?

Mr. MAJOR. As I understood it, it was like a water right that would be transferable with your ranch, or if you sold your ranch this other right would be transferable as well.

Senator JONES of New Mexico. And would you be willing to submit all questions as to number of cattle and time of the year for grazing, and so on, to a majority vote of that community, or would you want something to say about it as an individual, regardless of what other people might say?

Mr. MAJOR. No; we would stand by the vote of the community, because we turn them out as quick as we can and let them follow the snow out. It is up to the fellow that has the cattle, if he wants to take the chance before the snow comes out, all right. Because there

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is nothing down below until he gets up to a certain height on the mountain before he gets feed.

Senator JONES of New Mexico. All right, that is all.

Representative TAYLOR. Is not the principal reason why you can not take a certain acreage for each man because you could not divide up so everybody could get an equal amount of water, or get to the water at all, and under those conditions it has almost got to be a community grazing district?

Mr. MAJOR. Yes.

Representative TAYLOR. And almost any community of reasonably good citizens could agree among themselves as to the community use of the range?

Mr. MAJOR. Yes.
Representative

TAYLOR. And pay possibly in proportion to the number of stock they had upon it?

Mr. MAJOR. Yes.

Representative TAYLOR. And regulate it that way?
Mr. MAJOR. Yes.

Representative TAYLOR. And in that way, why you would shut out the big concern, and when you come to sell your ranch, why that would automatically take with it participation in that community range?

Mr. MAJOR. Yes.

Representative TAYLOR. And you feel that that could be done that way without any definite acreage allotment?

Mr. MAJOR. Yes.

Representative TAYLOR. In other words, it would be better to do it by the head than by division lines?

Mr. MAJOR. Yes; because as you stated, your water could not be shut off.

Representative TAYLOR. Yes; the water would largely control that. Senator CAMERON. That is all. Mr. Light.

FRED LIGHT. Mr. Chairman, the entire ground has been covered thoroughly. I hope you will pass me up. There is not a word that I can add to what has been said. And I see Doctor Davis here and several others that ought to be heard. And really, Mr. Taylor, there is one thing about bringing the property under taxation that Senator Jones asked that I would not know how to answer.

Mr. SIMPSON. I hope you will not excuse Mr. Light, Mr. Chairman. Senator CAMERON. We will ask Mr. Light to come up here.

STATEMENT OF FRED LIGHT, STOCKMAN, ASPEN, COLO. Senator CAMERON (presiding). Will you give your full name, your residence, and your occupation, Mr. Light?

Mr. LIGHT. Fred Light; I am a stockman, and I live at Aspen, Colo.

One reason, gentlemen, that I did not want to come before you men is that I never in my life was before United States Senators, and I am somewhat stage-struck.

Senator CAMERON. You don't act like it.

Senator JONES of New Mexico. I can say this: A United States Senator is no different from any others. He is just a common mortal, and he has his troubles the same as anyone else.

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Mr. LIGHT. When I heard the question asked of the other witness I wanted to answer the question myself, and I could not answer it. Senator JONES of New Mexico. Well, I think there are a good many of these questions that are quite difficult for anybody to answer, Mr. Light, and I may say in this connection that I have asked a great many questions here which I would not feel like affirmatively answering myself.

Mr. LIGHT. We held a little conference here a few days ago, and we subdivided this subject, and as it stands now, gentlemen, the things that I was to memorize somewhat to put to you will not fit in. Senator CAMERON. Well, let us hear them.

Mr. LIGHT. But as long as you have got me here I will go ahead. I was going to tell you about the difference in community business. I want to cite you a meeting that we held not long ago here. And that community question could probably be arranged satisfactorily if the community was small enough. But now we had a community of 18. Not a one of them could talk English. There were three of us that acted, one as the president, the other secretary, and the other was the board of control. And they are citizens, mind you; they are citizens of the United States. And that is what I was going to talk to you about-the difference in citizenship. And they elected one of them president, the other secretary, and the fellow that was elected president could not put a motion. And the fellow that acted as secretary, you ought to see the notice he got out. I carried it until it was worn out.

And so in this connection I want to tell you that we applied to the Forest Service. We went to them and we said, "Here, we can not get along with these people. Give us a strip, a little strip over here, and put us on, and we will take half of the cattle and we will get along." And they treated us fine. They gave us the strip. If they do not take it away from us, we are satisfied so far as that is concerned.

But I want to say something about this fellow that acted as president over here. He was somewhat boisterous. He is a fine American, he says, so far as Americanism pours dollars into his pocket. We are the makers of this country, ourselves here. I have been in here 45 years. I came across afoot, and I commenced with a few cows, and I was at one time considered quite a stockman, but this panic recently broke us all. And a few of us are hanging on. We don't quite know that we are really broke. We are just commencing to find it out, because I had a notice from the bank the other day, and I was sure broke all right.

Now, I want to tell you about this fellow. They are growing, they are multiplying, they are getting more cattle than we have got, and next year there will be a dozen more of the same class. They are potato raisers on the river, and we can not do anything else but raise cattle. We live up high. We located the first land after we crossed the hill. You know it has been said that if Christopher Columbus had come across the Pacific that the East would never have been settled. And I believe it, because the first piece of land I came to I squatted on it.

Now, there is another question that bothers us as we are now, and that is Mr. Sheepman. He is a nice fellow. He is an American. He

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does not belong to this State, but he comes up here and he is a wellmet fellow. And he says, "I am going to unload about 20 miles from where my territory is, but I am not going to bother you." And he takes off the south sidehill grazing. Of course he says, "I will get over it just as quick as I can." And he takes one bunch and goes over, and it takes them five or six days, and he has about four bunches, and of course he spends a good deal of time there, and finally he takes the grass that I have consumed in the winter time for the 45 years that I have been here. And I have been watching that here with a jealous eye, and I am opposed to that kind of a sheepman. I don't want him to unload there. I don't want him to come there six weeks before the time for him to go on the reserve, but to come there when it is time for him to go on his allotted place. And not eat out the grass of the men that made the country.

Senator JONES of New Mexico. In that connection, I have heard this suggestion, that on top of these mountains are considerable areas of land where your cattle do not reach, and which are susceptible of grazing by sheep, and the suggestion has been made that the sheepmen be confined to those higher lands which are useful for sheep grazing, but not for cattle grazing. What is your observation about that?

Mr. LIGHT. Yes; it is true. But in getting there, that is our objection. In getting to that high ground. And surely they are not going to go over that hill if we can stop it. It is about 7 miles long, and it is Government land, and that is one of the reasons that I and our people there in that particular community would like to have it all under Federal control. That is, the public land and the forest reserve consolidated under one control.

And I heard the question put to-day. I, for one, and the association that I belong to, want it in the Interior Department. Now I am going to tell you why. The Interior Department-the land is slipping away from that department. It is being taken up, and there is less business. The Agricultural Department is growing. It has an enormous business. And the Secretary of Agriculture shall always be, as long as we live, from the Middle West where the agriculture amounts to something. And if it is in the Interior Department, why the Secretary of the Interior twice in my lifetime has been a man from Colorado, and I feel that when you get a western man as secretary of a department that you have a friend at court. And that is one of the reasons. And we are very anxious-it was taken from the Interior Department-that it should go back there. When it was taken I had several friends come to us and say: "The Secretary of Agriculture is closer." Old Jim Wilson was Secretary at that time, and we knew him. But these secretaries change. And we have never had a friend Secretary of Agriculture. This man Jardine, he rode a horse in Wyoming. I guess that may be. But he lives there in Kansas somewhere. And I would rather have Doctor Work. I would rather be under his management. And I think that with the lands in the West, all the unoccupied domain, that the Secretary of the Interior should be a western man. And this question of ours could be easily worked out.

You know this range that we have over there, we kind of claim it. I want to claim it. But I can not afford to own it. The taxes, there are 40 mills to the city, and the county has another 40 mills;

that is 80 mills. I pay $10 for a tax on an automobile, and not the best one that is made, either. And that is why we can not own this land.

But we feel this way, that we are going to make a wonderful country out here on this western slope. It is one of the most wonderful countries, and we are going to furnish prosperous homes here for at least fifteen to twenty million people. And don't you think that the Government could arrange it so that it would give us this range free for a number of years until we get on our feet: or help us to get on our feet, to see whether we are going to continue in this business or not? It seems to me that the Government does things like that. It cleans the harbors for the great navigation corporations; why could it not give us this? If we are at the same time working for the Government and going to make a country fit to live in, the country will have some revenue from the people that we caused to come and live with us here.

It seems to me that there should not be any hesitation on the part of the Government to arrange this some way, and to govern the ownership of this land and this range by the prior rights. Surely a man that has spent his whole lifetime in one of these hills way up high here it is an altitude of 8,000 feet where I live, and if a man lives up there for 45 years his head is either wrong or he is trying to do something.

Senator JONES of New Mexico. I have often felt that he is entitled to everything that he can see.

Mr. LIGHT. Well, that is the way we feel.

Representative TAYLOR. What is your idea, Mr. Light, about the grazing districts, as to whether you think there ought to be individual allotments or community districts, or what?

Mr. LIGHT. Well, if you leave it to our community, if you can subdivide it in a small community, and if we can hold it as we have it here, that would be all right. The supervisor of the district that I am in is in the room here. I can get along with my five other neighbors; there are just five of us there. And if he will stand true to what we have got now, why we are satisfied.

Senator JONES of New Mexico. I think anybody can get along with you, Mr. Light, all right.

Mr. LIGHT. Well, I don't know. It is hard for me to get along with some of these other fellows.

Senator JONES of New Mexico. Well, you have got a real problem here.

Mr. LIGHT. That is why I did not want to appear. This question is a deep one.

Senator JONES of New Mexico. And we have been anxious to get all the light that we could, and as I said a while ago, the questions which I have asked here to-day have not indicated my own conviction on the subject by any means. In fact my mind is open as to what should be done, and I would be unwilling to state right now what I think ought to be done. It appears to me that your conditions here are perhaps different from what they are anywhere else, and ought to be dealt with as a separate situation. And we do not want you gentlemen to feel that after we have concluded this more or less informal hearing that that is all the contact we want to have with you. If you think of anything new, or

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