THE EXTENSION OF NATIONAL FORESTS IN COLORADO 



Bv HERMAN H. CHAPMAN 



TEN years ago opposition to the National Forest 

 policy in Colorado reached such proportions that 

 the State demanded and secured from Congress 

 a law which took from the President of the United 

 States the power, given him in 1891, to proclaim new 

 National Forests within the State. Five other States 

 were also included in this measure, namely, Wyoming, 

 Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Montana. 



To-day the people of northern Colorado have peti- 

 tioned and secured from Congress a law permitting the 

 President to increase these same National Forest areas 

 by the addition of over half a million acres of land. No 

 incident in the entire history of the struggle between 

 nationalism and States rights as applied to our western 

 public lands so emphasizes the growing understanding 

 and approval with which the National Forest adminis- 



tration is regarded as this complete reversal of attitude 

 on the part of a State which has been conspicuous in 

 the past for the violence of its opposition and the broad 

 and sweeping character of its attacks on the Forest Serv- 

 ice policies. In fact, the insistence of the actual residents 

 of the great agricultural district bordering the foothills 

 of the Medicine Bow Mountains for an extension of the 

 National Forests placed certain Colorado politicians in 

 an embarrassing position, leaving them, so to speak, high 

 and dry, and nullifying much fiery oratory and indignant 

 declamation. 



The opposition to National Forests in Colorado cen- 

 tered about the development of the publicly owned water- 

 powers, and these interests are by no means converted 

 to the idea of retention of government ownership and 

 regulation to-day. From this group it spread to the 



A BEAUTIFUL VIEW OF THE CANYON 

 Along the Estes Park road — a beautiful stretch typical of the scenery of the section which it is desired to include within the Colorado National Forest. 



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