, 1908-01-25
BUDGET SQUARES WITH PRESI
DENT.

We are panied to note that Editor
Barrow of the Budget has gone owe
into the class that bowls instead of
reasons. He has been rather fair in
his discussion of the control of the
public lands, but in this weeks issue
of the Budget the following language
Is used:
The west Is facing the crisis of a
Century-a danger which threatens its
development and prosperity more than
mere words a eNpress-which means
ruin to thousands of our people with
contingent commerce AID industry, and
If accomplished will not only rob us
of that on which all prosperity and dll
development is based but will inaugu-
rate n Russia-like reign of government
tai supervision throughout this coun-
try under which free and fus -blooded
men n long survive because it
will be 4 condition to which they AN
not submit. The Tribune should un.
dertsaud that the people of the west
are Just awakening to the magnitude
of this threatened holocaust. The
| lNNhNNl NAlAAbh was uDl DdNhtu-lA
did not express the views of a misguid-
ed minOrity-it but voiced the protest
of those who already realized the dire
portent Of federal range rule, to which
have been added tens of thousands
who, too, have studied the problem and
who now see the inevitable ruin and
devastation sure to follow in its wake"
The foregoing is just a little up in
the atmosphere. President Roosevelt
has never been accused of anything but
fairness. He has ever stood for the
rights of the poor man, of the middle
class. against those whose desire APP
pears to be to hog everything in sight.
It is the testimony of Mr.. L. j. Bell ana
dozens of men who are now running
stock in the Medicine Bow and Sierra
Madre national forests that Mr.. Pin,
chot has treated them fairly.
Mr.. Barrow says the Denver conven-
ton Cmedning the convention held last
summer) was not packed. And it may
be added that the stockmen's conven.
ton held there this week was not
packed. The n re%Eudiated the land
policy of the national administration,
the other endorsed 1t in the strongest
kind of a manner. The first declined
to make a roll call, the second was fair
enough to give every person there an
opportunity to vote. The only thing
asked by the great majority of the
stockmen OF the west is a fair deal.
The policy advocated by DR.. Wilson
three years 6 and heartily endorsed
by Mr.. Barrow at that time was a good
one-one that all the stockmen. of the
west could safely get together upon
now. 1t asked for legal control of the
grazing lands of the west, a control
that would give permanency to the
range business and security to the in
vestments therein.
Passing over some more of Mr.. Bar
rows appeal to passion, we find this
paragraph:
1T is true that everybody-the
Sneepman and the ranClman whether
st~ockgrower or farmer-would favor
a lease law. Not a man of them all
but would hail with glad acclaim a law
under which they could secure public
land adjacent to present holdings at a
reasonable rental. 1t is this universal
desire which has given a semblance
OF western endorsement to the Roose-
velt-Pinchot proposition, and it is this
desire which still influences those h
profess a sympathy with the range
rule movement. But while all favor a
lease law, yet all insist that the lands
so leased be under state and personal
control as now, instead of subject to
federal dictation as Mr.. Roosevelt pro.
poses"
Aside from the fact that the great
majority of the people who have given
consideration to the question are ia
yorable to having the nation and not
the state control the ~unreserved and
unappropriated public lands, the en-