THE FOREST RESERVES 125 



gentlemen have, in the face of the amendments suggested, spent all 

 your time denouncing the bill as unjust and infamous. . . . You have 

 aimed your talk at the immaterial parts to consume time. These argu- 

 ments have come from gentlemen who have special timber privileges 

 already and who desire those privileges continued. . . . Whether 

 intentionally or not, you who oppose this bill are the aides of the 

 monopolists who have had the special privilege of cutting government 

 timber for nothing. You will deceive nobody by denouncing those 

 benefited by your opposition if successful." 



Without a doubt, McRae here exposed one of the main reasons why 

 some of the western men opposed the bill. Settlers and miners had 

 become accustomed to free timber and were of course opposed to any 

 legislation which required them to pay for it. Bell of Colorado and 

 Hartman were frank in stating that this was an important reason for 

 their opposition. Hartman pronounced the bill "infamous in the 

 extreme." "It means," he said, "that thousands of miners all over our 

 western country will be precluded from obtaining the timber necessary 

 for the shafts in mines which they are working. It means too, that 

 settlers engaged in agriculture, in stock raising, and in various other 

 industries pursued in the West will be compelled either to violate the 

 laws of the United States and become timber thieves or else freeze to, 

 death." Rawlins offered an amendment giving settlers and miners free 

 timber for firewood, fencing or building purposes. 



Mining interests feared the bill on other grounds, however, than 

 merely that it would deprive them of free timber. As Hermann pointed 

 out, the reserves had not yet been opened to mining, and any provision 

 for the protection of the reserves would result in shutting out the 

 miners altogether. Without a doubt it was the situation of miners 

 which caused a large share of the hostility to the McRae bill, and to 

 the forest reserves in general. If the bill had included a section direct- 

 ing the Secretary of the Interior to eliminate al] mining and agricul- 

 'tural lands from the reserves, it might easily have passed, but as it 

 was, it aroused entirely too much opposition ; and Coffeen finally 

 brought the opposition to a climax by offering an amendment abolish- 

 ing all reserves except those in the three coast states — a proposition 

 which Bell heartily endorsed. Perhaps fortunately, this did not come 

 to a vote, and some days later the bill was withdrawn. 



