OCR Text |
Show ADMINISTRATION OF PUBLIC GRAZING LANDS 625 owners who relied in whole or in part on the public lands in the grazing districts. How could such small numbers so influence public opinion in the West? Although livestockmen organized in the National Wool Growers Association and the American National Livestock Association constituted a tiny fragment of the population of the western states, their political influence has generally been large, except when they seemed to be in conflict with the homestead element. Marion Clawson, when director of the Bureau of Land Management and as such responsible for the administration of the public rangelands within the grazing districts, said in 1950: "It is doubtful if today any public land policy could be adopted which was unitedly and strongly opposed by the range livestock industry. Its influence is probably greatest in a negative way, in the prevention of the measures it opposes. It cannot always obtain the measures it seeks."40 Because of the influence these associations exerted, they deserve attention in an account of the forces shaping land policies. The National Wool Growers had a budget of less than $50,000, provided mostly by levies on sheep raisers in the range states based on the number of their stock or the amount of wool they produced. A smaller part was raised by an annual auction of breeding rams. Their journal, The National Wool Grower, like every good house organ, represented the point of view of the sheep raisers in the range states, but not stridently. It provided space for views differing from its own and included more than one article dealing with range problems by H. Byron Mock, who was in charge of the Salt Lake City office of the Bureau of Land Management.41 Only when its contributors were aroused to intense feeling by attacks upon the livestock industry or when their representatives met with those of the American National Livestock Association was it induced to take rather extreme positions on government policy and the management of the public lands. The National Wool Grower expressed doubts about the desirability of private ownership of the rangelands. Its contributors preferred state ownership and management to Federal, and regarded private ownership as the ultimate objective, yet the journal conceded that many range users were opposed to any change. The tax system, they feared, would make private ownership altogether too costly, though there might be other gains. The small ranchers in particular were opposed.42 The periodical gave space to a representative of the Isaac Walton League who wrote in opposition to private ownership.43 At the Herald Tribune Forum on Western Land Policy it summarized Bernard DeVoto's and Far-rington Carpenter's speeches equally, which is more than can be said for Harper's Magazine** The platforms adopted by the National Wool Growers at their conventions were somewhat more extreme than the views expressed in The National Wool Grower. In 1946 the National Wool Growers' platform advocated the establishment of a court of appeals to which decisions of the Forest Service on grazing questions could be taken, the management of public grazing lands by one department which should recognize "vested grazing rights," and require permittees to comply with the terms and provisions of their permits. It declared that grazing fees should be based on the 40 Clawson, Western Range Livestock Industry, pp. 11,381-82. 41 "Stockmen's Use of Public Lands," National Wool Grower, 38 (April 1948), 12-15. "National Wool Grower, 36 (November I, 1946), 5; 37 (May 1947). "National Wool Grower, 36 (November 1, 1946), 5; 37 (May 1947), 6. 44 National Wool Grower, 38 (March, August, November, 1948), 11, 6, 7 ff; 44 (February 1954), 13. |