258 UNITED STATES FOREST POLICY 



tion against it ; but it was accepted in the Senate with little opposition. 

 The House, however, refused to accede to it, and the bill went to a 

 conference committee, which, in its report, left out the worst features 

 of the amendment. The Senate, by a vote of 36 to 27, refused to accept 

 the conference report, as did the House also, and the bill went back to 

 the conference committee a second time, but the second report again 

 refused to accede to the Senate amendment; in fact, it was further 

 from the Senate view than the first report had been, but after some 

 debate the Senate finally adopted the report. The House conferees 

 received felicitations for "outgeneraling" the Senate members of the 

 committee. The amendment, as finally passed, directed and required 

 the Secretary of Agriculture to segregate all lands that "might be 

 opened to settlement and entry under the homestead laws applicable 

 to the national forests." "Homestead laws applicable to the national 

 forests" meant, of course, the Forest Homestead Law of 1906, so that 

 there was really no change in the law, except that the duty of the 

 Secretary of Agriculture to open up lands was now mandatory. The 

 sum of $25,000 was appropriated to cover the expense of opening 

 these lands, and each year since 1912, $100,000 has been provided 

 for this purpose. 



Thus the national forests successfully weathered the storm of 1912. 

 There have been other attacks since, but it seems likely that this com- 

 plaint regarding agricultural lands will gradually disappear. As a 

 result of the appropriations mentioned above, a total of about 15,000,- 

 000 acres has been eliminated — ^by no means all strictly agricultural 

 lands. Nearly 6,000,000 acres have been eliminated from the Chugach 

 National Forest alone. 



JUSTICE OF THE COMPLAINTS REGARDING THE INCLUSION OF 

 AGRICULTURAL LANDS 



The fact that some agricultural lands have been eliminated from 

 the national forests indicates that there was some basis for complaint. 

 It is certain, however, that the great majority of "settlers" who told 

 such pitiful tales of hardships endured in trying to build their homes 

 in the forests, were not bona fide settlers at all, but merely entrymen 

 who were trying to get possession of timber, mineral deposits, power 

 sites, or other natural resources, with no intention of building homes. 



