THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



201 



fact that under the language of the provision in ques- 

 tion the Secretary of Agriculture was not confined to 

 making an equal exchange of acreage. The provision 

 was considered very dangerous. 



The provision for continuing special fund for 

 co-operative work was also objected to, and following this 

 the provision whereby it was intended to make ad- 

 vances of money to chiefs of field parties which they 

 could expend for fighting fire and improving forests in 

 emergency cases was stricken out. 



Excessive Traveling Expenses of Forestry Officials. 



At the conclusion of the discussion on the points 

 of order against the paragraph, Mr. Mondell offered 

 the following amendment : "That no part of the money 

 herein appropriated shall be used to pay the trans- 

 portation or traveling expenses of any forestry officer 

 or agent except he be traveling on business directly 

 connected with the Forestry Service, and in further- 

 ance of the work, aims and objects specified and author- 

 ized in and by this appropriation." In support of this 

 amendment Mr. Mondell called attention to the fact 

 that the Forestry appropriation was a very large one, 

 and over and above the demand for all salaries in all 

 branches of the service there was a balance of over 

 $1,760,000, which could be used at the discretion of 

 the Forester for almost any purpose within the very 

 wide discretion granted under the language of the 

 paragraph. He also called attention to the fact that 

 very large sums of money had been used by this 

 Bureau for traveling expenses; that in the detailed 

 estimates of appropriation before the Committee there 

 were single items for traveling expenses amounting to 

 many thousands of dollars, and that the aggregate of 

 traveling expenses run into the hundreds of thousands 

 of dollars. 



Meetings Packed by Forestry Officials. 



Mr. Mondell stated that it was a matter of com- 

 mon report throughout all the western states that no 

 public gathering could be held without the presence 

 of a large number of Forestry Officers from Washing- 

 ton and elsewhere. He stated that they were "de- 

 lightful gentlemen; the people of the west are glad to 

 see them; within reason they ought to travel about 

 and become acquainted with conditions, but it is some- 

 times felt that these gentlemen appear in such numbers 

 as to very largely control the sentiment of meetings 

 held for an expression of the public opinion of the 

 region." He called attention, in this connection, to a 

 meeting held last June in Denver, to a meeting of the 

 National Irrigation Congress at Sacramento and to other 

 meetings which he said were largely attended by officers 

 of the Forestry Bureau apparently with the idea of 

 controlling the action and resolutions of such meetings. 

 After considerable debate this amendment was carried. 



Mr. Mondell then offered the following amend- 

 ment: "Provided that no part of this appropriation 

 shall be paid or used for the purpose of paying for, in 

 whole or in part, the preparation of any newspaper or 

 magazine articles." A point of order was made against 

 this amendment, as it was made against the other, but 

 it was promptly overruled by the Chair. 



Discussing this amendment Mr. Mondell said: 

 "That it is popularly believed that a considerable por- 

 tion of this appropriation is used for the purpose of 



paying, in whole or in part, for paper and magazine 

 articles that appear under the names of contributors 

 who contribute to such newspapers or magazines. Now 

 my purpose is, so far as possible, to prevent that kind 

 of use of the people's money. I believe in the Bureaus 

 advertising their work widely. I am in favor of proper 

 publicity in every important Bureau of the government. 

 I know of several Bureaus whose work of disseminat- 

 ing information through the newspapers and otherwise 

 is most helpful. I approve of a proper Bureau of 

 publicity to give the public knowledge of what the De- 

 partments are doing. But if I am correctly informed 

 this Bureau has been doing a work beyond that. It 

 has, directly and indirectly, been encouraging and pay- 

 ing for the preparation of newspaper and magazine 

 articles placing an exaggerated value on its work, and 

 particularly in encouraging people who saw fit to im- 

 pugn the motives of or criticise Members of Congress 

 and Senators and other men in public life who do not 

 agree with some of the acts and some of the policies 

 of the Bureau." 



After some considerable discussion in which Mr. 

 Mondell insisted tbft his amendment would not prevent 

 the dissemination of proper information by the Bureau 

 the amendment was adopted. 



Mr. Mondell then offered an amendment which 

 was intended to compel the Bureau to exclude large 

 areas of nontimbered lands from the reserves. Dis- 

 cussing the amendment he called attention to the fact 

 that is was notorious that large areas of nontimbered 

 land and land not needed for the conservation of water 

 were included in reserves, and in this connection he re- 

 ferred to part of a reserve in his state in which he 

 claimed that half of the land was in private owner- 

 ship, and of the remaining 50 per cent not over 20 

 per cent was timbered, and though the people in the 

 vicinity of the reserve had petitioned to have these 

 lands excluded from the reserve, the Forestry Bureau 

 had refused to do it. After some discussion it ap- 

 pearing to some of the Members that there was some 

 doubt as to whether the language of the amendment 

 would not work to prevent the exclusion from the re- 

 serves of some heavily timbered lands, the amendment 

 was disagreed to. 



Government Monopoly of Available Timber. 



Mr. Mondell then offered the following amend- 

 ment: 



"That no part of this appropriation shall be used 

 for the negotiation of any sale of timber in any Na- 

 tional Forest at a price above what would constitute a 

 fair and reasonable price for such timber were it sold 

 in competition with timber of a like character in the 

 same locality on land in private ownership." 



In the discussion of this amendment Mr. Mondell 

 reviewed the practice of the Department in many of its 

 sales of timber from the reserve and stated that the 

 creation of reserves in his state had tended to steadily 

 increase the price of timber and had, in certain local- 

 ties, raised it as much as $6 per thousand. He ex- 

 plained that by the creation of great reserves containing 

 practically all of the timber in a given region, a Gov- 

 ernment monopoly has been established, and that taking 

 advantage of this condition the Forestry Bureau had 

 arbitrarily raised the price of stumpage to a price far 

 beyond what private parties owning stumpage of the 



