414 Proce:edings of the; 



will fail of the responsibility that rests upon it to do 

 practical work, if we do not, before we disband, take 

 action of a nature that will enlist the influence of every 

 one here and the organizations they represent. Rail- 

 roads, timber owners, and lumber manufacturers, those 

 interested in irrigation, those interested in mining, 

 those interested in industries collateral to the forestry 

 question, we should enlist their cooperation and service 

 to have laws enacted in the United States that will at 

 least put the United States on an equal footing with 

 our neighbor, Canada. I sincerely trust that we will 

 not adjourn without having some resolutions passed 

 that will invite the cooperation of all the bodies here 

 represented, to have the Timber and Stone Act 

 repealed. The Timber and Stone Act, as we have 

 learned in the Secretar}^'s report, allows the United 

 States Government to sell land in fee for $2.50 an 

 acre, while the reservations of the Chippewa Indians, 

 which were sold at public auction in December of 1903, 

 realized for the timber alone, the land itself being 

 reserved, $15.06 an acre, or more than $2,600,000, as 

 against $438,000 that the Government would have 

 received at $2.50 an acre. Why should the United 

 States Government sell what it owns for less than its 

 real, its market value ? There is no reason in the world 

 why this should be done, and if I am not out of order, 

 Mr. Chairman, I think it would be appropriate that I, 

 or some one else, should make a motion that the 

 recommendations that are in the Secretary's report 

 shall be referred to the Committee on Resolutions; 

 that the Secretary be requested to tabulate those recom- 

 mendations so that he can present them to the Com- 

 mittee on Resolutions, so they can consider them and 

 bring them before this Congress to be acted upon 

 before we separate. 



