THE PERIOD OF BEGINNINGS 51 



try: "Iron men will not invest their money in furnaces, unless they 

 can first secure large bodies of coal lands, and they cannot be had 

 there unless Congress passes the bill now under consideration." 



Opposition to the bill came largely, of course, from the eastern 

 states, although a few scattered voices were heard from various parts 

 of the country. Senator Edmunds of Vermont, one of the earliest 

 conservationists in Congress, was strongly opposed to the policy of 

 selling valuable timber lands in unlimited quantities for $1.25 per 

 acre. "That sort of thing," he declared, "does not do the community 

 in which the lands are, any sort of good ; it does not do the public any 

 good, because the actual amount of revenue derived from these public 

 sales is, of course, very small." The bill, as first proposed, provided 

 for sale at $1.25 per acre, but Senator Edmunds offered an amend- 

 ment providing that the land must first be offered at public auction. 

 The idea of this amendment was, of course, to secure something like 

 the real value of the land, but several of the southern men opposed it 

 on the ground that the offering of lands at public auction involved a 

 considerable expense and loss of time, while the price realized was 

 never more than $1.25 per acre, anyhow. This amendment was finally 

 accepted, however. Senator Ingalls of Kansas pointed out a rather 

 glaring inconsistency in the attitude of the southern men, who were 

 enlarging upon the great need for this law, and upon the great 

 demand there was for the land to be opened up, while in the next 

 breath they stated that the land would never be worth over $1.25 

 per acre. 



The opposition was based on various grounds. Senator Edmunds 

 thought that the price was too low, and probably he did not favor 

 sale, anyhow. Senator Oglesby of Illinois, and Representatives Hol- 

 man of Indiana and Brown of Kansas clung to the idea of settlement 

 under the Homestead Act, as representatives of prairie states nat- 

 urally might. They did not see that timber lands and agricultural 

 lands present two entirel}' different problems and that their dispo- 

 sition involves entirely different principles. The Homestead Act was 

 the only law which should ever have been passed for the disposition of 

 ordinary agricultural lands ; but it was wholly unsuited to timber 

 lands. 



The danger of promoting monopolistic control of the timber sup- 



