There has been placed in my hands a paper purporting to be issued by the programme committee of the Public Lands Convention to be held at Denver. The preliminary discussion of the general subject in this paper contains several statements to which I desire to call your especial attention, as they not merely misrepresent the attitude of the Administration, but portray that attitude as the direct reverse of what it really is.
The first and most important of these misstatements is to the effect that there has been a change in the public land policy of the Government, which change will result in depriving the Western States of the right to settle the public lands with American citizens. This allegation directly reverses the actual facts. The course the Government is now pursuing is to carry out the traditional home-making policy of the United States as to its public lands. The men most interested in opposing the action of the Administration are those who are endeavoring to upset the traditional course of the Government, and are doing all in their power to turn the public lands over to be exploited by rich men and powerful corporations whose interests are hostile to those of the homemakers.
The policy of the present Administration has steadily been, and is now and will be, to promote and foster actual settling, actual home-making on the public lands in every possible way.
We have incurred the violent hostility of the individuals and corporations seeking by fraud and sometimes by violence, to acquire and monopolize great tracts of the public domain to the exclusion of settlers. The beneficiaries and instigators of, or participators in, the frauds, of course,, disapprove the acts of the Administration. But if the Administration's policy is upset, the one man who would be irreparably injured would be the settler, the homemaker, the man of small means who has taken up a farm which he intends himself to work, and on the proceeds he intends to support and bring up his family.
Lastly, the coal lands that were withdrawn from settlement to enable Congress to consider a law to protect public interests against the coal monopolies, by leasing the rights to mine the coal. Unfortunately, Congress failed to act in the matter and most of the coal lands have been already restored to entry, while the remainder are being restored as rapidly as the necessary examinations in the field can be made.
As a matter of actual fact, most of the coal lands have hitherto been taken under some forms of entry other than those of the coal entry laws, and in many cases by actual fraud. The Administration will certainly renew its efforts to get Congress to pass a law which will do away with the fraud.
The writers of this programme state that the plan of Government control of the range submitted to Congress last winter involved the perpetual ownership of the lands by the Government. This statement is not in accord with the facts. This proposed law specifically provides that the range land under Government control should be open to entry or location under all of the public land laws and provided in every way for the protection of the rights of the settler. As a matter of fact, one of the prime reasons for advocating its passage is because if enacted it will safeguard the rights of the homemaker on the public range far more effectively than they are now safeguarded, and would make settlement easier and safer than it can possibly be under present conditions. Administration, but portray that attitude as the direct reverse of what it really is.
As to the forest reserves, their creation has damaged just one class; the managers and owners of great lumber companies, which by illegal, fraudulent or unfair methods, have desired to get possession of the valuable timber of the public domain, to skin the land, and to abandon it when impoverished well nigh to the point of worthlessness.
It has been alleged that the Government intends to make the users of water for irrigation pay for their water. There has never been any such intention, and no such course will ever be followed while the present Administration is in existence. But owners of water power within National forests should certainly pay something for the valuable services rendered to them by the Government. They are not being charged and cannot be charged for the water, so far as the National Government is concerned, but for the protection to their watersheds which they themselves would have to bear the cost of supplying if the Government did not supply it for them.
The last day of the proceedings at the Denver convention was also marked by the speech of Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot, wherein the head of the Forestry Service of the Government set forth some salient facts in regard to the conduct of his bureau. In the course of his remarks, Mr. Pinchot said:
"The National forest policy, as we now have it, began when the people of the United States themselves began to realize that the timber was being cut faster than it was being reproduced. The American citizen uses wood more freely and depends upon it for his comfort and well-being more directly than the citizen of any other nation. Ours is a civilization of wood as much as it is of coal and steel. We are using every year three times as much wood from our forests as they are growing. A great timber famine is not only in sight, but it is approaching with bewildering speed.
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