34 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



House continuing this whole subject over until the 

 next session of Congress. 



The next session of Congress will convene at a time 

 within two months of the expiration of the three years 

 within which the Senate committee told Congress that 

 all the timber land would be gone unless they got 

 action. 



T. B. Walker is one of those astute business men 

 who has taken full advantage of the idiocy and incom- 

 petency of the men who have framed our timber laws 

 in the past to amass a fortune for himself in timber- 

 lands. He is reputed to be the largest individual owner 

 of timberland in the United States. I do not charge 

 Mr. Walker, with having committed any fraud himself, 

 and the fact that he has acquired a fortune running 

 into millions by the utilization of laws which enabled 

 him to absorb the public forests into his private owner- 

 ship is one of the severest criticisms that can be made 

 of the law I am talking about. 



Now it is a question of money. From the standpoint 

 of Congress this great nation has not enough money 

 to plant those few trees we have in the nursery, to 

 protect the forests of Southern California and the 

 water supply of its farms and of the cities of Los 

 Angeles and Pasadena. 



In the two years that have expired since the Presi- 

 dent has called the attention of Congress to that timber 

 and stone law there has been located under the Timber 

 and Stone Act over 3,000,000 acres of timberland, 

 the greater part of it the magnificent timber of the 

 Northwest, which, according to the report of the Sec- 

 retary of the Interior and the Commissioner of the 

 General Land Office, is worth anywhere from $20 to 

 $100 an acre, for the mere value of the stumpage, to 

 say nothing of the young timber or the land itself. 



