greed. Well, let's look at the public lands, the federal lands. In that 

 first 100 years after the American Revolution there was undoubtedly a 

 great deal of waste and corruption. This nation squandered its public 

 lands and squandered its resources. It gave far more lands to railroads 

 and corporations than it ever gave to schools and colleges. Most home 

 -steaders, according to some historians, ended up losing those lands to 

 land speculators and those with money and political influence. The history 

 of that first 100 years is a dismal story. It's a story of broken promises 

 to Indians, to war veterans, to poor and landless people of this nation. In 

 the West, stockmen were leaders in diverting the Homestead Act to the 

 settlements of blocks of land and preventing legitimate settlement of 

 western land. It's one of the reasons we have the Bureau of Land 

 Management lands today in a scattered land ownership pattern. But the 

 history of the public lands, particularly in the 20th century, has some 

 very noble aspects. We have set aside public lands as part of our history, 

 as part of our frontier, as part of our great biological and natural 

 heritage. We have one of the finest wildlife refuge systems of any nation 

 on earth. We have pioneered the concept of national parks, an idea that 

 spread throughout the world. An ideal started right here in the state of 

 Montana among pioneer Montanans. And finally, we have pioneered 

 conservation efforts in the use of public lands for a variety of purposes. 

 And I have certainly criticized the BLM probably as much as any one in 

 this room, but I don't think there is any doubt we have made great 

 progress in the conservation of natural resources. So during the last 100 

 years, particularly in the 20th century, i think it's gone a long way to 

 compensate for the greed and selfishness of the first 100 years. But 

 today we have those who would turn back the clock on public lands to an 

 earlier exploitative era. There are several myths related to sagebrush 

 rebellion. One of those is that somehow we should give these lands back 

 to the States. And a most elementary understanding of public land history 

 will demonstrate that this idea is absolutely and totally false. During the 

 original Continental Congress, the 13 colonies debated over the public land 

 issue for many months. In fact, it held up the ratification of the articles 

 of confederation. The reason was there were about six colonies led by 

 Virginia, Georgia and others that held vast land claims west of the 

 Appalachian Mountains in wilderness lands between the Mississippi River 

 and the crest of the Appalachians. They couldn't decide what to do with 

 those and the small states like Rhode Island and other New England states 

 who did not have western land claims feared that Virginia and the other 

 states would dominate it. And led by Thomas Jefferson, the landed 

 colonies--the original states--decided to deed those lands to the federal 

 government. That was 233,000,000 acres. They did that in a very 

 magnanimous gesture. They did it because they understood it's importance 

 to consolidate this new nation. And that land was the first and virtually 

 only source of power that the new nation had. It paid off war debts and 

 it was a source of influence for the new government. But because those 

 states--those original states of Virginia, Georgia and the Carolinas, had 

 deeded those lands to the federal government, they wanted to make sure 

 that the other states that were carved out of that 230,000,000 acres did 

 not retain their lands either. And those original states always protested 

 any large land grants to the states when they entered the union for the 

 simple reason that they gave up a vast empire of land to national 

 interests. They also firmly believed that no one state should benefit from 

 those because the entire 13 colonies had fought in the revolution. 



