The Kalispell bee. [volume] (Kalispell, Mont.) 1900-192?, 1902-03-19
TO SAVE The TIMBER
FROM MONOPOLISTS
Kalispen Board of Trade Address Letter to
Members Of Congress.
OPPOSE SENATOR W. A. CLARK'S BILL
"No Greater Calamity Could be Inflicted Upon the Unsettled
Districts Unless it Might be the Repeal of the
Homestead Law"

House of Representatives.
GENTLEMEN:
Bill has been introduced in the United States
senate the purport of which is to repeal the present
timber laws including the timber and stone' act and
proposing that hereafter all unapproprated govern
ment timber shall be disposed of only as follows:
That at time in the discretion of the secretary of
the interior, any tract of timber may be appraised
and, after being advertised for thirty days, may be
sold to the highest bidder
The proposed BILL in effect limits the opportunity
of acquiring any of the remaining unappropriated
timber of the country to the large mill owners mine
owners and capitalists who under this proposed
bill, purchase such timber as they want practically at
their price.
1t is fact that in very many timber districts single
large mills mines, snleters capitalists dominate the
local situation that the element of competition in
such places would not be operative.
This would constitute the most lamentabe present
alton Of practical monopoly to large mill men and
capitalists that could be DEVISED much that the
question fairly arises Is this the object the main
object of the bill?
Were the proposed bill to become law, no greater
calamity could be inflicted upon the unsettled districts
of those states where timber lands predominant,
unless it might be the repeal of the homestead
laws. The proposed bill would in such districts seri-
ously conflict with and impede the operation of the
homestead law, timber land would be continuously
sold under the proposed bill which otherwise would
be taken up under the homestead law and rapidly be
turned into productive farms.
Furthermore, under the present timber and stone
act the opportunity is afforded to the ordinary citizen
to become possessed at moderate figure of quarter
section Of timber land apart from homestead. The
ultimate sale of such timber to mills for local other
purposes the distribution Of the stumpage value
among those in humble circumstances whose settle
ment and pioneer work in the district have helped to
give to the timber such stumpage value as it has.
This distribution aids in the building up of COM
nlunites of people who have profted to a moderate
extent from the liberal developmenta laws of this
country, to which laws the country owes first of all
its rapid rise to commercial power and greatness
Some time still needed for these laws to aid in the
settlement of the unsettled districts.
That the and appropriation of the timber of
the country should be surrounded by safeguards look
ing to its preservation from waste and guaranteeing
proper provision for the future is right and wise
These safeguards have been provided and further
contemplated in the form of various forest reserves
The setting apart of these reserves to a reasonable
extent is loyalty acquesced in, by those districts
where the measure presses the hardest.
But this proposed bill is in no sense forest reserve
and preservation bill, it opens out the whole
naming unappropriated timber of the country,
surveyed as well surveyed, to those who muster
sufficient influence to prevail upon the secretary of the
interior to have approved and offered at auction any
body of timber which they might desire to obtain
The most valuable feature of the hitherto land and
timber laws of the United States has been that the
laws definite, ineligible and equally useful and
available for all.
Inc present proposed Dill, by introducing an unl1n
tied discretionary power of the secretary of the inter
lor puts the ordinary citizen at great disadvantage
as compared with the moneyed man of influence and
makes it impossible for any to know his position
with respect to the ultimate action of the secretary of
the interior regarding any particular body of timber;
except that the of large financial and political
interest would rarely fail secure what he wanted.
The proposed bill has been carefully framed to leave
to the settlers and ordinary citizens the lowest mini
privileges short of the absolute deprivation of
any rights opportunities whatsoever-and the bill
almost accompshes this extreme
1t is true that some abuses may have taken place
under the present laws, including the timber and
stone act but no land law could probably be framed
that would be entirely free from attempted abuses 1t
would be difficult to conceive of a law admitting of
abuse Gas compared with its stated intent) than
the new law proposed by Senator Clark.
Under the proposed bill real abuses could be accom-
plished that would be technically legal under the law
Such abuses have occurred under the timber and
stone act have been in distinct contraventon of law,
and illegal timber grabbers have awakened to the fact
that the present law is not in their interest and
its abuse has led and almost inevitably must lead to
detection and prosecution The result is that such
abuses have been almost entirely abandoned and the