through the mistaken policy which has become traditional with the Interior Department of the United States, of disposing of all the public assets in the way of land that they could dispose of as rapidly as possible. The States have not behaved differently. The State of Nevada, for instance, was given some three million acres to dispose of for the benefit of the public schools. They proceeded to squander this land in 40-acre patches to be selected in any practical amount that anybody wanted. They had their vast lands skinned, the water taken up, and they forced the purchase of land everywhere by stockmen, and of course the bigger stockmen and the people with the larger capital could more easily avail themselves of this privilege. Whereas if the Federal Government and the States had frankly recognized the situation, had realized that over vast areas of this country the highest and best immediate use was for grazing, and by a system of leases had provided for adequate, proper, and careful use of these grazing areas, retaining the title so that as time went on if higher uses than grazing could be found for any of this land it could have been taken out of the grazing lease area and put into cultivation under whatever homestead laws or other laws might seem to adequately cover the situation. My contention has been since my advent in Congress in 1910 and 1911, that the burden of proof was on any one who would dispose of the public lands. Unquestionably a great deal of the public land should have been disposed of in fee simple private tenure. The homestead policy of the Government has in a vast majority of cases in the earlier settlement of the middle west justified itself, but the burden of proof should have been on those who would take anything out of the public domain. For that reason I was glad to take up the contention for grazing leases. There was a bill introduced in Congress I think in 1911 known as the Lever bill, to provide for grazing leases. Two years after I entered Congress I had a position on the Public Lands Committee, and reintroduced this bill. The idea of the bill was not primarily to secure revenue for the Government from the grazing privilege. It was to charge merely low, reasonable prices for this privilege, to so divide the land as to encourage the largest possible number of small, independent stockmen. To give them certainty of tenure over the property which they must look to to graze upon. And to carry them along for a period of 10 or 20 years, with the opportunity to fence, and thereby conduct their business more economically and sensibly, and with less destruction of forage. To give them opportunity to improve their watering places, and to pipe and carry water to where it was needed on the range. This policy set up by this bill recognized the necessity of adequate hay land in conjunction with the grazing. Any one who knows anything about grazing in the Great Basin country or anywhere in this arid country knows that without a winter supply of hay the grazing on adjacent lands is practically valueless. And so that any procedure which permitted the homesteading of all available hay lands was bad, because it would destroy the use of the adjacent range, and hay lands should have been worked out in conjunction with these grazing leases. 43213-25-PT 14 -2 At the time of the hearings on this bill in Congress there were also hearings on a bill known as the Ferguson bill, introduced by Congressman Ferguson, of New Mexico, known as the grazing homestead bill, to provide for 640-acre grazing homestead. At this time I was a larger landowner and a stockman of some considerable holdings, and I was under continued abuse by all the demagogues because they took it that my appeal for a righteous and proper use of the grazing lands was coupled up with the intent and the hope that large stockmen like me would thereby get the first chance and monopolize the range, whereas exactly the contrary was the policy of the bill and the policy of the leasing system as I saw it. No one with any sense at all or knowledge of the grazing business can fail to realize that the best and most economical handling of livestock, the greatest amount of saving in time of adversity, comes from the use of comparatively small cattlemen. I have seen small cattlemen in New Mexico who had access to the forest reserve haul water to cows that were down. I have seen them cut brush and feed their livestock and carry them through. Things that are not consistent with large stock raising and things that the hired men on the ordinary ranch would not think of doing. I merely mention these things in passing as giving one of my reasons for saying that the small man is the better economic factor. In addition to which, in our desert States, needing population of the right sort, they can not get the right sort of a population unless the population is self-sustaining, and a lot of hired people are not as good as a lot of self-respecting stockmen. And just as bad or worse than the hired system, much worse than the hired system, is the system of ragtail and bobtail starvation system that has followed the blackmailing institution known as the grazing homestead. My bill was turned down owing to the action of my friend Frank Lane, of the Interior Department, and Assistant Secretary, now Senator Jones, of New Mexico. In spite of all of the representations I could make-and I saw clear through the whole grazing homestead bill and its results-in spite of all my efforts that bill was passed and went to the President for signature. I knew the President intimately. I believed that he had confidence in my views on the subject of conservation. He consulted with Secretary Houston, of the Agricultural Department, who thoroughly agreed with my view. But there was always friction between the Agricultural Department and the Interior Department, and Secretary Lane greatly resented any interference, even any recommendation, by any other department of the Government, and I have here my correspondence with the President and the President's reply, and the President's final letter stating that he signed the bill creating these nuisances because he was given assurance that the Interior Department would be extremely careful in making surveys and in specifying lands that were fit for this grazing homestead tenure. I replied showing that there was no limitation at the bottom. That there was a limitation at the top. That no one could get a 640-acre homestead that was fit for an agricultural homestead, but at the bottom the whole thing was wide open. And then quit. From that time on the Interior Department has acted with an obsession of wastefulness. I saw a statement some time back that the present head of the Land Office was proud of having disposed of some 17,000,000 acres of public domain. I have had personal experience as to what this disposal means. It means miserable starvation on the part of the bona fide locater who has reason to complain that the Government has misrepresented to him what it disposed of to him in telling him that this land is stuff upon which you can support a family upon 640 acres. Moreover it has been a pestilence to the already existing livestock man, a source of endless blackmail, and as time goes on, if this evil measure is not repealed, the blackmail of these locations will follow every successful business, and men conducting the livestock business will be forced to buy them out or will sit down and watch their livestock stolen by people who otherwise would probably starve. To go back for a moment: In the grazing policy of the Government there should have been recognition of the well-known fact that vast areas of our country are fit for nothing else; that the only return that can be gotten in terms of valuable commodities from these great stretches of territory comes from the harvesting by sheep, goats, or cattle of the forage which otherwise would go to waste. It should also have been recognized from the start that this tremendous forage asset needed care, attention, and proper harvesting; that nothing more pestilential, either socially or economically, could be devised than turning people loose to fight for the first privilege of the use of this property. It should all have been regulated, divided up, and people given an assurance that at least for a given period of years, until other and higher uses might be found, that they should have of this great benefaction of forage sufficient to support them and their families in decent shape. No such policy has prevailed in the public domain. There has been a proud boast that this was wide open, the place of opportunity, where men stood alike. Yes; the man who had the longest-legged band of the driest sheep could get to the grass the quickest and starve out the shorter-legged bands and the young sheep. The man with the largest herd of cattle could probably eat off more feed and absorb more neighbors' cattle than the small man could, although in the warfare that has followed this sort of thing the small men. have sometimes gone into a beef business that has been extremely profitable. The whole thing, the contention between individual owners and the contention between classes of stock, the battles between the sheepmen and the cattlemen that have brought murder and horror to the range, were all part of this harum-scarum, careless, heedless disposal of the public property. And the result of it all, when we come to terms of economics, the most serious loss of all is to the quality of the range. Anyone who has known the range, has known, for instance, a region like Steen Mountain, in Oregon, can recall the tremendous supply of nourishing grass, can recall the fat stock that came out of there. And now, under the present system, the last time I was there I walked over piles of dust, where the very deer were down in Henry Miller's hayfields, because they were starved out of the mountain grazing-all part of a heedless, silly policy. Now, I do not want to try to build up a complete scheme, but I do urge upon this committee that they consider the situation, and when they get a realizing sense of the utter evil of past history in the disposal of grazing and the destruction of grazing, that they make up their minds that as soon as possible they will endeavor to have this miserable starvation homestead law repealed, which is no less fatal to irrigation projects than it is to grazing, and which will dog a fellow and produce waste and drag tribute out of every productive enterprise in the whole grazing country. Get that repealed. And then turn in and endeavor to see how many of these homesteads have been properly forfeited, and see that they are cancelled, and then take account, district by district, as was provided in the original leasing bill, of the areas of grazing left, and endeavor to establish under a leasing system in connection with hay land a policy that will lead to the establishment of men who can follow their business profitably. Cut up the thing into as small units as possible, so that there will be an increase of self-respecting stockholding families. And by this procedure the range will have a chance to come back, and we probably in a few years will find a supporting power equal to what it was years ago when it was probably on the average at least three times as valuable in the production of meat as it is to-day under this insane policy that has been pursued. I thank you. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Kent, have you completed your statement? The CHAIRMAN. Are you engaged in the livestock business? The CHAIRMAN. You are not engaged in the range business? Mr. KENT. No. I found the homestead law was going to put me into a place where I either had to be blackmailed or commit fraud, and I got out. The CHAIRMAN. You were formerly engaged in the livestock business? Mr. KENT. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. How long were you engaged in the livestock business? Mr. KENT. I was engaged in the livestock business in Nevada from the time I got out of college in my boyhood until 1917, from 1881 to 1917. The CHAIRMAN. Did you graze within the confines of the national forest? Mr. KENT. I had nothing whatever to do with the national forest. We had a very little of it. It did not amount to anything. We had a very little forest area up in the northern part of Nevada. The CHAIRMAN. Well, you had some experience, though, with grazing in the forest reserve? Mr. KENT. No; I didn't have any personal experience with grazing in the forest reserve. That was when I was away, and what little we had I didn't have anything to do with. The CHAIRMAN. Your experience was on the public domain? The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Kent, we are going to want to recall you for questions later, and we will excuse you now, but we would like to have you back again. Mr. Petrie. STATEMENT OF HARRY PETRIE, MILL VALLEY, CALIF. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Petrie, will you give your name and address to the reporter, and whom you represent? Mr. PETRIE. Harry Petrie. Mill Valley, Calif. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Petrie, are you engaged in the livestock business? Mr. PETRIE. I am in Colorado at this time. The CHAIRMAN. And you also represent other interests that are grazing? Mr. PETRIE. I have for a number of years represented interests in Nevada and California; yes. The CHAIRMAN. Are you a user of range within the confines of the national forest? Mr. PETRIE. I have been a user of the forest reserve for a period of 15 years. The CHAIRMAN. What forest, Mr. Petrie? Mr. PETRIE. The Pikes Peak and Arapahoe of Colorado, the Humboldt Forest of Nevada, and the Mono Forest of California. The CHAIRMAN. Have you grazed upon the unreserved public domain? Mr. PETRIE. For a period of more than 40 years. The CHAIRMAN. What branch of the livestock industry have you been engaged in? Mr. PETRIE. Cattle. The CHAIRMAN. Exclusively? Mr. PETRIE. And sheep. Both personally and for large companies as manager. The CHAIRMAN. And your experience of grazing has been in what States? Mr. PETRIE. Colorado, Nevada, and California, but with a more or less general knowledge of conditions in seven range States. The CHAIRMAN. And how many years of your life have you devoted to the livestock business? Mr. PETRIE. A good portion of the last 42 years. The CHAIRMAN. Now, Mr. Petrie, have you a statement that you wish to make to this committee in your own way? Mr. PETRIE. Why, I had not prepared any connected statement. Perhaps your purpose can be best served and time also saved by asking what you wish to develop. I might ramble on here for two or three hours and still not hit the point that you are interested in. If you could direct your inquiry to something that this committee wants to find out relative to this business I will do my best to answer. The CHAIRMAN. Very well; any time you want to enlarge or develop, do so in your own way. You are aware that the grazing within the forest reserve at the present time is not a legalized right. Mr. PETRIE. That is my opinion. The CHAIRMAN. In your opinion, is the livestock industry of sufficient importance that it is entitled to a legalized right rather |