For many years experienced and practical men in the West have protested against the policies pursued. Previous to the establishment of the forest reserves the land was pastured by sheep and cattle, admittedly in some instances over-pastured. Frequent fires ran through the country, but in most instances as the country had been closely pastured off and fires had usually recently occurred, these fires did only incidental harm, and in a general way the great forests of the West in many districts—although the result of mere natural processes—as valuable and magnificent as there are in the world, were retained in their primitive and perfect condition. For a good many years now exactly the reverse of this primitive condition has prevailed. Sheep have been excluded and cattle have been limited; falling and decaying timber, the growth of vegetation from year to year, and the accumulation of underbrush and debris have continued; and we have gone on conserving our forests in such a way that we have been accumulating fuel and the elements of destruction, piling up wrath against the day of wrath, until the fires, in spite of precautions, have started, and the destruction that has resulted is inevitable. What is needed now in this particular is a surgeon who has the nerve to amputate the conditions that create fire, and until this is done the danger will go on increasing from year to year and more destruction than benefits will inevitably result. To those who suggest that a sufficient patrol will prevent fires, I respond that they ought to try the experiment of filling a building with powder, putting an ample guard around it, and touching a match to it.
These great reserves have been practically closed to settlement and homesteading. The price of pasturage has been increased, the number of cattle and sheep pastured has been diminished, and the price of meat correspondingly advanced. The price of stumpage has been doubled and trebled, no small mills have been or can be successfully started, and the price of lumber to consumers has been increased. The policy has limited the construction of canals and other appliances for irrigation, and still more effectually limited the construction of like appliances for the diversion of water for the development of electric power. If this water could be diverted for irrigation and electric power under State laws without other restraint, the quantity available in the majority of the western States is so great that the supply would exceed the demand, the price would be lower, the consumption greater, and in every way the people would be benefited. The country would be settled, the people would be more prosperous, the supply of water and electricity would be more abundant and cheaper, and all of the people and all of the industries would be correspondingly more prosperous.
It is gratifying that the line of cleavage and difference between the advocates of bureaucratic control over local industries and the advocates of local self-government have been better defined. Upon the all-important question of the law applicable to this subject, I submit that there is little ground for honest difference. The Supreme Court of the United States has decided practically every phase of the matter over and over again, and the law is settled to the following effect: That the United States Government owns the public lands in each of the States as private proprietor and not as sovereign; that it, the Federal Government, if it seeks to assert any authority in any State, must find its warrant in the Constitution and not in the ownership of the public lands; that the authority of the United States Government to adopt needful rules and regulations in connection with public lands is an authority to protect its proprietary interest and not exercise governmental functions within any State; that every State is upon an equal footing with all of the other States, and for the protection of its own people, its own industries, and the regulation of its own monopolies, each State has all of the powers of any other Government; that the United States Government exercises the same power, and each of the States exercises the same power, "no more and no less," regardless of the existence or non-existence of public land in any State.
The whole pretense made by some that the United States Government can exercise exceptional governmental authority in a State having public lands is a pretense and a pretense only. Under the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, such a claim has no shadow of foundation, and its assertion is merely injurious, detrimental to capital, destructive to industry, and can never serve any useful purpose of regulation or otherwise. These principles being fully decided and clearly in mind, it is hard to understand why the issue is raised, and how it is hoped that the policy can be imposed upon the western States or any other States under the Constitution. It has been said with derision that the corporations are appealing to the Constitution. I would to God that neither the corporations nor the American people might ever appeal to anything worse. However much evil may have been taught, no honest man need be apprehensive of injustice if his rights and the rights of his fellow citizens are always measured by a just construction of the Constitution of the United States. (Applause)
We are told, and I think some of our adversaries honestly believe the tale, that all of the remaining resources of the country belong to all of the people. That "all of the resources belong to all of the people" is a slogan that sounds good. Its chief defect is that it is not true, and the next objection is that to assert it now, after pursuing an exactly contrary policy as to four-fifths of the Nation's resources, would be an intolerable injustice. The United States Supreme Court decided a long time ago that the United States Government received and held the public lands as trustee for the benefit of the people and the States within which they were situated, to the end that they might be disposed of to actual settlers at nominal prices in order that the country might be settled, cultivated, populated, and developed; the lands come under the taxing power, and all of the unrestrained functions of State government. These decisions have been reaffirmed, and it has been held that the United States' title and trusteeship as to the public lands is identical in all the States. Therefore it is not true as a matter of understanding or of law that the United States is the unrestrained proprietor of the public lands, but it holds in them a trust; and I submit that no justice can be done or good come from the violation or attempted violation of a trust. Considering the equity of the situation, if the United States is now the owner of the remaining lands and resources for all of the people, it has been such from the beginning of the Government; and having disposed of these resources to the beneficiaries entitled thereto, it is now seriously proposed to seize upon the remaining fraction and hold that fraction for the benefit of all the people, as much as for the benefit of the people and the sections of the country that have received their proportion as for those who have not received theirs.
The situation might be illustrated by this simple statement: Uncle Sam may be assumed to be the father of four sons; we will name them East, North, South, and West. Uncle Samuel being liberal to a fault and mindful of a trust, has transferred to his three elder sons, East, North, and South, all of their share in his estate. But these elder sons, especially after their industrious younger brother has begun to show the real value of his portion of their father's estate, begin to look with covetous eyes upon the younger brother's inheritance. Finally a deep sense of justice begins to pervade the minds of East, North, and South, and they appear before Uncle Samuel and say, "Father, you have been very profligate in the management of your great estate. You have turned over to us and to our children without needful restriction the whole of the proportion that we can rightfully claim. In the doing of this you have shown great incompetency and have practiced many faults, and behold, you have sinned against Heaven and in the sight of men. We can see no way of atoning for this awful offense except that you shall take and hold that portion of the estate that should descend to our younger brother for the benefit of all of your children. And as a further atonement, having shown in the distribution of your estate to us that you are dishonest and incompetent in the last degree, in consideration thereof we will nominate and appoint you the landlord and guardian, without bonds and forever, of that portion of the estate that, except for this atonement, would have belonged to our younger brother; requiring you, however, to see to it with scrupulous care that we, your elder sons, shall receive from the rents, leases, and profits of this estate our equal shares with our beloved younger brother." Painful as it may seem, these elder brothers seem well nigh unanimous as to this scheme of atonement, and Uncle Samuel seems weak and subject to the influence of the majority. History, however, will record that the Constitution broke the will and the elder brothers were charged with the costs and counsel fees. (Laughter)
If anyone present feels justified in challenging the accuracy or historical correctness of the foregoing statement or its logical application to the situation, he will now please rise and state his case or hereafter forever hold his peace.
The overshadowing political reason why the United States Government must invade the public land States and assert powers of government that it cannot assert in any other States we are told is to control monopolies. As a controller of monopolies not constitutionally subject to be controlled by the Federal Government, and under claims of title to the public lands, the United States Government and its respective bureau chiefs would have St. George, the dragon destroyer, outclassed at the ratio of sixteen to one. It may do as a political issue for a long time, but if the people of the western States had no powers of government or sources of control within themselves, or except through the Federal Government, the public lands, and the heads of bureaus, these people would have little to expect or hope for.
It is gratifying, however, to observe that instead of being helpless and impotent, the western States not only have all of the powers that are vested in any other Government for the protection of their people from monopoly and wrong, but an understanding of their constitutions and laws clearly demonstrates that they are showing themselves far more alert, advanced, and capable in these functions of government than either the Federal Government or the older States in the East. It ought not to be necessary to say to an American audience that it is elementary that the people of a locality can give themselves more honest, efficient, and better government than can be given to them by any remote authority. The reason for this is so simple that the only excuse for attempting to deny it is the ignorance and incapacity of the people concerned to carry on or carry out self-government. The people of the western States alone will suffer if they do not efficiently and intelligently exercise their undoubted authority to supply themselves with good self-government, and efficiently control and direct their own industries and their own monopolies.
About the only argument that is made in favor of Federal control and against local self-government in the West is that the corporations appear to prefer the former. The question is not what the corporations prefer but what the Constitution requires; and, in the next place, the corporations do not deny the authority of the States because they are advised that they cannot and therefore should not attempt to do so, and because they are advised that they must in any event submit to local self-government and that Federal control would be an additional and not a lawful but a wholly unauthorized usurpation of authority. The American people, of all people in the world, have earned the reputation of being the most obedient to law and the least submissive to usurpation of any people in the world. If some of our wealthy men and some of corporations have offended against honesty and attempted to circumvent, misapply, and misuse the law, these are instances to be regretted, condemned, and punished. The practice should be abandoned, and if not abandoned rigorously prevented; having it, however, religiously in mind that ultimate justice can be done and the law vindicated only by adhering to due process of law.