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Show ¦•-. ADMINISTRATION OF PUBLIC GRAZING LANDS 623 the administrative officers, the livestock associations next set as their goal the elimination of Federal ownership and management of the rangelands.36 This could be accomplished by reviving the policy of unlimited sales of public land or by permitting sales of tracts to adjacent owners in a much larger way than was authorized in the Taylor Grazing Act, or by transferring the rangelands within the national forests and conveying them, with the rangelands within the grazing districts, to the states. A third method was to obtain for the users of the range an absolute transferable right to the lands upon which they were grazing their stock. To gain any of these objectives called for a concerted attack upon the Forest Service for its so-called "Cut and Cut" policy which had reduced the number of animals allowed within the forest ranges and had also had the effect of reducing the value of ranches previously dependent upon the forest lands. Early in 1946 Senator Edward V. Robertson of Wyoming sponsored a bill to convey to the states the unappropriated and unreserved lands within them, lands withdrawn because they were believed to contain coal, oil, gas, phosphate, potash, or other minerals, and all lands within the grazing districts. The president of the National Wool Growers Association thought the measure did not go far enough since the states were not required to take the land. It was reasonably certain that some states would not do so, that others might wish to take only the more valuable lands and that there would be nothing but confusion. He advocated that all lands in the grazing districts and in the national forests that were not multiple use, important for timber growing or water conservation, should be sold at a reasonable price, on long terms, and at low interest. As further refined, Robertson's bill would have allowed stockmen 15 years to purchase the 38 Phillip O. Foss, Politics and Grass, p. 190. land their stock was grazing upon, a purchase price based on the carrying capacity of the land, required 10 percent down, and the balance in 30 years, with interest at \y2 percent yearly. Lands that were not bought in this period were to be conveyed to the states. Ninety percent of the income from the sales was to go to the states. The only concession the stockmen would make to 20th century conservation thought was to allow the mineral rights to be reserved to the United States.37 Other proposals advanced by stockmen were to give legal status to the advisory boards of the Forest Service, to make permits irreducible, and to have the grazing lands within the forests transferred to Interior and sold, to restore the position of register of the land offices which had been abolished by President Truman's Reorganization Plan No. 3, to amend the Act of June 25, 1910, authorizing withdrawals, a power the stockmen felt had been seriously abused, to revoke withdrawals applying to Utah, and to authorize the expenditure of 10 to 50 percent of the receipts of the national forests for range improvements.38 Many stockmen wanted to be rid of the Grazing Service altogether, to enlarge the acreage limitations on sales in the Taylor Grazing Act, and to assure that the fees charged by the Grazing Service should have no realtion to the market value of the grazing privilege. Above and beyond these objectives was the feeling of westerners that their section had been shortchanged in that the Federal government had retained a large part of the public lands, whereas in states farther east, like Illinois, Iowa, or Kansas, all the 37 The National Wool Grower, 36 (April, August, September, November, 1946), 17, 10, 5, 16; 37 (January 1947), 11. 38 National Wool Grower, 37 (March 1947), 10. Senator McCarran introduced the first 40 bills in the 80th Congress, including most of the proposals of the stockmen. Cong. Record, 80th Cong., 1st sess., Index Vol., p. 657. |