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Show DRY FARMING AND STOCK RAISING HOMESTEADS, 1904-1934 523 since the livestock industry which was partly dependent upon them was being adversely affected, some form of regulation of lands was necessary. He believed that most of the range states were in favor of government control.65 William Spry, Commissioner of the General Land Office, addressing the same convention, did his best to convince the live-stockmen that if the bill of the Senate Committee on Public Lands to provide for leasing of the remaining lands and the repeal of the 320- and 640-acre Homestead Acts became law, the Department of the Interior would not favor "commercializing the public lands," that is charging for their use at going economic rates.66 It was this question of the rate that would be charged for the use of the lands that disturbed the stockmen. In the national forests the rates were set by officials who felt it was not fair to charge less than the going rate for pasturage. If it did, the government would be subsidizing stockmen grazing their cattle or sheep in the forests who were competing with others using other rangeland that had to carry the full commercial cost. After some sharp discussion of a resolution favoring the establishment of government controls over the remaining public lands, during which the cry of bureaucracy was raised and preference was expressed for giving the lands to the states, the resolution was adopted by 18-7.67 In 1928 the American National Livestock Association- took a clear and unequivocal stand in favor of leasing the public lands and asked that "Congress immediately enact a law" for the leasing of the unappropriated public domain by the proper Federal agency; . . ."68 Representative Edward T. Taylor of the western Colorado district, himself a cattleman, in a reminiscing speech in Congress a year after the adoption of the Taylor Grazing Act, blamed the roving sheepmen who had no economic base and who had come "to monopolize a large share of the public domain to the ruinous injury of the small local farmers and stockmen. The resulting conflict of interest between the resident land-owning stockmen and these migratory owners had been very bitter, often resulting in bloodshed and strife of various kinds." In the absence of Federal regulation the states had been obliged to assume jurisdiction over the public lands and had enacted legislation providing a procedure for adjudicating such issues in the state courts. Individual priorities to ranges were recognized, exclusive right to public lands near developed stock water was acknowledged, and it was forbidden to graze sheep within 3 miles of a town or residence. Taylor conceded that the Forest Service over the course of 30 years had worked out "suitable rules and regulations" for the rangelands under its jurisdiction, and was preserving the range and rendering a great service to the stockmen and to the country, but he complained that "bureaucratic regulation is the law of the forest reserves."69 In her examination of the background of the adoption of the Taylor Grazing Act Miss E. Louise Peffer has shown how livestock interests became disaffected by the way the Forest Service managed the fee question for grazing in the forests though she places some of the blame on Congress for considering raising fees to the economic value of the forage. Forest Service officials 65 American National Livestock Association, Pro-ceedings of the Thirty-first Annual Convention, 1928, pp. 74-81. 66 Ibid., pp. 107 ff. 67 Ibid., p. 183. 68 Ibid., p. 97. 88 Cong. Record, 74th Cong., 1st sess., June 28, 1935, p. 10394. Taylor added: "This is not the law under this Grazing Act." |