228 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY 



some of these things we need for our great country should be more 

 in the forefront. We all know that we have great tax problems. 

 A great percentage of the land in this country is in its original 

 ownership. A great percentage is held by older people. A great 

 percentage of it is held by corporations who bought it for one pur- 

 pose and find that today, perhaps, those purposes are obsolete. 

 I would like to suggest that, since President Johnson has asked us to 

 have some imaginative thinking, we tackle the problem of getting 

 open spaces, particularly along scenic roads, by appealing to men's 

 pocketbooks. I am thinking in terms of the Federal tax appropria- 

 tions for large concerns. A large concern on the west coast might 

 pay a Federal tax of anything from $20 to $50 million a year. 

 Supposing that a large corporation had large land holdings on which 

 great stands of beautiful trees existed. Why couldn't legislation 

 be considered at the Federal level where the corporation had some 

 way to pay his taxes other than in dollars? Why couldn't some 

 method be considered by which, when the time comes at the end 

 of the year to make income tax payment, this concern couldn't 

 offer 1 0,000 acres of redwoods instead of $ 1 million or $ 1 00 million 

 or whatever it is that they have to pay to the government? It seems 

 to me, we have got to tackle these problems at their source, one of 

 which is the obsolescence of a good bit of this land. A good many 

 large corporations hold great tracts of land and are trying to 

 consider ways of using it other than as originally planned. 



The second point I want to make is, a scenic road is not a 

 road, it is a corridor. That corridor is like, to me, a cruise ship. 

 Once that ship is filled, once the road is filled with the number of 

 cars that will travel comfortably on it, it should be cut off. It should 

 not be considered as a transportation program, but as a visual 

 recreation program. We have got to consider that quite separately 

 from the freeway program which is quite a different thing and 

 naturally has to be treated quite differently. 



To summarize this, I would like to suggest that one of the big 

 subjects that we study at the Federal level should be ways and means 

 of changing our tax base so that if a man is faced with the selling 

 of his property, he has a choice. Instead of selling it to a redeveloper 

 for a given price, he should have some way of giving it to the Federal 

 government or to the State in lieu of taxes. 



JOHN AUERBAGH. A question to Mr. Hartzog and if time allows, I 

 have a question for Dr. Levin. There are 57 million people riding 



