FOREST RESERVES IN IDAHO. 31 



pi'0230secl ^yithdra^Vc^l of land and showing the withdrawal of Xoveni- 

 ber 14, 1903. I earnestly request that you take such action as will 

 restore these lands to the public domain. 



Mr. President, I do not desire to be understood as opposing the 

 principle of forest reserves, but I do not regard these proposed with- 

 drawals as being within either the spirit or the principle of the law 

 under which forest reserves were intended to be created. It was not 

 intended that they should be used to exploit a theory at the expense 

 of the State, nor was it intended that they should be created against 

 the protest of the people most interested in the growth and develop- 

 ment of the State. I know this country; I have lived immediately 

 on its borders for more than twenty-one years. I have traversed 

 much of it, and I should regard it as a calamity to the county and to 

 the State and as unfair to the people who have now or who in the 

 future would have homes and enterprises within Shoshone County. 



The proposed withdrawal for the Shoshone Forest Reserve amounts 

 to more than 1,000,000 acres, and the eleven townships examined for 

 withdrawal and shown on the map in yellow amount to 258,440 

 acres. The six townships withdrawn November 14, 1903, amount to 

 138,240 acres, making in the aggregate more than 1,500,000 acres of 

 land withdrawn in Shoshone County. 



Since the enactment of the law at the last session of Congress pre- 

 venting the location of lieu land scrip upon timber lands, which Avas 

 a threat against the splendid areas of timber contained within this 

 proposed withdrawal, the threatened danger of corrupt practice in 

 the securing of timber lands no longer exists, and it would be a 

 humiliating admission of incompetency for the Land Department to 

 plead that it was unable to prevent fraud in the entry and settlement 

 of these lands. The existing laws contain no threat against the 

 integrity of the public-land system, and because a few or many indi- 

 viduals have perpetrated or are seeking to perpetrate frauds in 

 securing public lands constitutes no reason why that great system, 

 which has been so beneficial to us in effecting the great empire of 

 the West, should be suspended or repealed. 



^ It is too often the case that a new generation, lacking the experi- 

 ence and energy resulting from actual contact with conditions, con- 

 demns the AYork of their forefathers and forerunners. Xo system 

 regarding the public lands which has resulted within our time in 

 creating the great empire lying west of the Mississippi River should 

 be condemned because combinations of capital and corrupt indi- 

 viduals seek to circumvent and avoid the legal restrictions intended 

 to secure a fair and equitable distribution of the benefits of the public 

 domain among all classes of citizens. It would be better that these 

 lands be open to settlement even though it were found necessary to 

 send an agent of the Department to examine every homestead before 

 final entry was made. 



We were made a State and told to grow. We were endowed with 

 generous donations of public land for joublic purposes to stimulate 

 and foster the growth of the State. The public lands of the United 

 States Avithin the State were a part of its assets upon which its 

 growth should rest. AAliile they are the public lands of the United 

 States they are available only to those who go within the State, and 



5245— No. 67—05 m 3 



