The Richfield recorder. (Richfield, Idaho) 1909-1931, 1909-11-18

Golfers Weekly has taken up the fight against Secretary
Ballinger and is telling a million people every week. how dan
gerous a man he is for the people to allow in their service.
Golfers is a great paper, with an unusually keen sense oil
iustice and the courage oil saying what it believes. But like
most other desperately earnest champions, 1t sees only two
sides. Only one side, IN fact, It's own. All others have no side
at all. They are prevents, or crooks, or weakllngs.
Just now, it is champonng the cause OF the people VS..
the corporations that want to get land, or coal, or timber. mat
is a good idea-keep the public utilities for the benefit OF the
people. But in its zeal for saving these things, 1t seems to en-
dorse in toto the policy OF the forest reserve system. It per
laps does not know that the forest reserve now covers close to d
million acres of Idaho school land, land that was gwen to the
schools OF Idaho as a perpetual heritage. Inns lana belongs
to the schools Of Idaho and not to the people OF the United
States, or to the forestry bureau as a good thing to pay salaries,
or to anyone whatsoever to be used as a boost Tor carrying out
the theories Of conservation. The state oil Idaho could con-
serve the resources on this million acres OF land, as well as the
national government. the work OF the state fire warden is just
as effective, and far less expensive to the state, as the work OF
the forest rangers IN preventing fires.
But whether Idaho burned Tor the ashes all the great trees
on its lands or set fire to the coal beds that underle some OF
the hills, or trained the sheep to digest resin and eat all the
pine trees clear down to the roots, or famed the rivers with
stopped the SHOWS from failing on the new nigh h1Is, these re-
sources are ours; they do not belong to the general government,
or to the forestry bureau, or to posterity. 1t IS not national con
servation that the people Of Idaho object to, they want justice.
They wan back the lands that have been stolen from them. They
were promised, through various national grants, a prior right
to select lands Tor various state purposes as Iast as these lands
were surveyed. When the forestry bureau filed on the 20,
100000 acres Of Idaho land, the state was deprived of the inn
pied Ii not contract right 10 select from the pubic domain as
1t existed at the time Of admission to statehood, or when the
lands were granted to the state. The state is the loser. The
forestry bureau is conserving our resources, as the burglar
or higlwayman conserves the property Of the householder who
owns it. Golfers great magazine, beng a great and valuable
resource for the people because Of its courage and ability,
would be a good subject for the nation to 'conserVe"-Wh1ch
in this case means to steal by force. In the face OF its own ar
gument, Golfers is the best possible thing left in the whole
present publishers, that the government had no part III It's de
velopment, that the publishers are able to make and to keep it
good for the benefit Of the public.
If some Of these ''conservers' would apply their own doc
trine to their own cases, as they are applied to the public lands
Of Idaho that have been benevolently assimilated by the enthus-
iastic national lfesavers, they might get a new light on a ques-
ton that has more than one, or even TWO, SIDES.