THE STORY OF OUR PUBLIC DOMAIN 23 



which, originally national, the government has with- 

 drawn from settlement and reserved for special pur- 

 poses remain the property of all the people. Na- 

 tional Forests, National Parks, Wild Life Refuges, 

 Reclamation Projects, Mineral, Oil, Potash and a 

 dozen other highly specialized reserves are necessa- 

 rily national properties. Indian Reservations are the 

 properties of Indians. The great majority of these 

 reserved lands occur in the remote western states, 

 whereas the eastern portion of the Public Land 

 states are practically all privately owned and subject 

 to taxation. It is this inequality which excites most 

 of the criticism in the far west. To equalize this, 

 certain definite parts of the revenue derived from 

 Forest Reserves are given to these states as a sub- 

 stitute for the power of taxation. 



Many of us are surprised on first learning that 

 the policy of this government since 1862 has been to 

 give away as fast as possible its vast possessions of 

 land. A large proportion of the actual and potential 

 wealth of America was presented, in the first in- 

 stance, free to its citizens. 



"Imagine," some one once said to me, "acquir- 

 ing the heart of Pittsburgh at the cost of living 

 awhile on the property." 



Could our forefathers have previsioned even a 

 hint of the future, how differently some of the na- 

 tion's wealth might be distributed to-day! 



In early colonial times land was too plentiful 

 to have quotable value. Colonists squatted where 



