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Show 618 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT ability gave added value to the base of land or water or both and aided in building up a tax base. This, said one beneficiary of the Taylor Act, was one of the purposes of the act.23 Supplementing this concept of com-mensurability was the policy of granting priority to owners of forage land which was used in livestock operations in connection with the public lands for any 3 years or any 2 consecutive years between 1929 and 1934. Commensurability and priority were the bases for the allocation of permits and when reductions in the number of livestock had to be made because the districts were overgrazed, such reductions again were based on these concepts.24 Unfortunately, the base period on which priority calculations rested were years of great distress in the livestock industry, particularly in Nevada, and a number of ranches had fallen into bankruptcy and liquidation, the stock and various rights were sold and priority rights were thus lost. Later, when the grazing authorities and the advisory boards tried to give somewhat greater emphasis to the rights of substantial property owners who had gained priority between 1929 and 1934, it was found necessary to reduce the rights of those lacking the same commensurability or priority. R. H. Rutledge, formerly of the Forest Service, who replaced Farrington Carpenter as Director of the Grazing Service in 1939, later summarized his conclusions regarding the progress made in administering the rangelands. The set of regulations or code which had been carefully prepared with the aid of the advisory boards was in great detail, difficult to interpret, and confusing to stockmen and officials. The personnel were largely drawn from stockmen's ranks, including some who had experience 11 Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Public Lands and Surveys, United States Senate, on Administration and Use of Public Lands, 77th Cong., 1st sess., 1941, Part 1, p. 103. 14 Secretary of the Interior, Annual Report, 1938, p. 111. with the Forest Service or with other agencies of the Interior Department. The advisory boards, Rutledge thought, provided an excellent system but he conceded that errors would be made-and presumably he meant they had made mistakes.25 Senator Pat McCarran of Nevada felt that the levy of 5 cents per head per month for livestock grazing in the districts was not justified, since he had no evidence that the forage had improved since control had been initiated. He listened to the tales of alleged favoritism in the assignment of grazing rights, and to the complaints of the American National Livestock Association, whose headquarters were in Wyoming, and he became very critical of the Grazing Service authorities. He introduced a resolution into the Senate on March 9, 1940, embodying the charges made by the Livestock Association and calling for their investigation as follows:26 To what extent have the emergency powers conferred upon agencies having jurisdiction over public lands been abused? To what extent have purchases by the Resettlement Administration and the Farm Security Administration as part of the submarginal land retirement program been conducted without regard to the adverse effect upon the state and local taxing units or the proper balance of livestock units? To what extent have the Federal land administering agencies been enlarged and extended and bureaus within bureaus been created? To what extent have these bureaus interfered with established and legally recognized water rights? To what extent have public lands been 15 Hearings . . . on Administration and Use of Public Lands, 77th Cong., 1st sess., 1941, Part 3, p. 898. " Cong. Record, 76th Cong., 2d sess., p. 2593. Hearings . . . on Administration and Use of Public Lands, 77th Cong., 1st sess., 1941, Part 1, p. 297. |