The weekly chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Craig County, Okla.) 1905-1913, 1910-09-16

and the timber crop should be taxed
when it is cut, so that private for
estry may be encouraged.
5. The private ownership of forest
land is public trust, and the people
have both the right and the duty to
regulate the use of such lands in the
general interest.
"As to lands:
l. Every acre of land should be put
to whatever use will make it most use
full to all the people.
2. The fundamental object of our
land policy should be the making
and maintenance of permanent pros
porous homes. Land monopoly and
excessive holdings must not be toler-
ated.
8. Settlement must be encouraged
by every legitimate means on all land
that will support homes. Thus the
tillable land in public ownership with
in anG without the national forests
should be disposed of in fee simple
! to actual homemakers, but not to spec
ulators.
f. The first and most needy thing
i to do for our cultivated lands is to
preserve their fertility by preventing
erosion.
5. The non-irrigable arid public
grazing lands should be administered
by the government in the interest of
the small stockman and the home
maker until they can pass directly in
to the hands of actual settlers.
l. 6. Rrights to the surface of the
public land should be separated from
rights to the forests upon it, and the
minerals beneath it, and each should
be held subject to separate disposal
The timber and stone act should be
repealed
'''As to our minerals;
l. Those still remaining in govern
ment ownership should not be sold,
but should'be leased upon terms favor
able for their development up to the
full requirements of our people. Until
legislation to this effect can be enact
ed, temporary Withdrawals of land
containing coal, oil, gas, and phos-
phate rock, are required in order to
prevent speculation and monopoly.
2. 1t is the clear duty of the fed
eral government, as well as that of
the states in their sphere, to provide,
thorough investigation, legislation, and
regulation against loss of life and
waste of mineral resources in mining.
with regard to national efficiency:
1. The maintenance of national and
state conservation commissions is
necessary to ascertain and make pub
lie the facts as to our natural re-
sources. Such commissions supply
the fundamental basis for cooperation
between the nation and the states for
the development and protection of the
foundation of our prosperity
2. A national health service is
needed to act in cooperation with
similar agencies within the states for
the purpose of lengthening life, de-
creasing suffering, and promoting
vigor and efficiency of our people,
"In the effort to conserve our nat
ural services, we recognize that COM
binations against the public welfare
which recognize that combinations
against the public welfare which ex-
tend beyond states lines, can be met
effectively only by agencies equally
capable of operating across such
boundaries. 1t is clear that the con-
troll of interstate commercial power is
possible only by the use of interstate
federal power. We are opposed to
the extension of state jurisdiction at
the expense of real control by the
Ipeople over monopoly as in the case
of water power.
while | do not believe that the
Estate alone can carry out the conser-
vation program in the face of inter
state attacks upon it, l do not fail to
recognize the great and useful part
which the states must play in this
great movement for the permanent
Iwelfare of all our people, Also, | ap-
preciate that in much of the work
ahead cooperation between the states
and the nation is an essential condi-
tion of success. But when | see the
special interests attempting to take
refuge behind the doctrine of states
rights, propose to say so.
1T is not possible in a speech like
this to give the details of propositions
covering so wide a field as the con-
servation question to which l have re-
ferred. To carry out this program in
the coming and future sessions of
congress and of the state legislature,
the friends of conservation will de-
vote themselves with ever increasing
energy and ever increasing prospects
of success, as conservation more and