The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1910-04-03
CONSERVATION NOW
VEX|NG PROBLEM
Fate of Various Measures in
Administration Scheme Yet
to Be Decided.
PROSPECT OF FACTIONAL
FIGHT VERY APPARENT.
If Eastern congressman Knew
Conditions in the West, 1t
Might Help.
BY Associated Press

K
WASHINGTON, April 2.-Members
of the house and senate are struggling
with the question of framing laws to
further conservation. Both houses OF
congress have been SO occupied that
little attention has been paid TO the
subject until the last two or three days
ago. Since Friday, however, efforts
have been made to get some of the ad-
ministration measures dealing with con
servation into shape for presentation.
The public lands committee of the
house has gone to pieces on the pro
posed law to authorize the president TO
make Withdrawals and classihcations of
public lands and the members are now
divided into several groups, each pull
ing in a different direction.
Variety of Bills.
The chief questions with which the
legislators have to deal in connection
with conservation are embodied IN bills
on the following subjects:
Withdrawal and classification of pub
lie lands.
Conservation of coal lands.
Conservation of water power.
Conservation of oil lands.
Conservation of phosphate lands.
The first four will receive serious and
earnest consideration.
The bills on the lastnamed one are
likely to be lost in the general fight
on the others. There are any num-
Der of bills pending N congress upon
all these subjects and how best TO har,
monlze them and arrive at some mutual
basis is the question.
President Taft will be drawn into the
fight, and today he informed some mem
bers of the committee he desired to
talk with them next week in the in
terest of harmony.
Split Of Republicans.
In the committees, the Republican
members are split upon the question of
whether to violate all past withdraw
ais OF public lands, about which there
Is a doubt of legality, or to leave that
to future determination by the
courts.
Representatives Pickett of Iowa, Par
sons of New York, and Gronna of North
Dakota, all Republicans, are standing
firm for vahdation of past Withdrawals
Chairman M9ndell and Representative
Smith of California, Morgan of Okla
homa. and Pray of Montana are oppos-
ing this valuation, Their objection,
they say, is that thousands of people
have taken up coal and oil lands and
expended large sums in developing In
the belief that the government with
drawals were illegal. Unless these claim
ants are cared for, they will oppose a
valuation
Democratic members say Republican
members who want to qualify the vail
datlon are not for real conservation
at all, but are merely aiming at a
whitewashing' of the administration
on this question. They have introduced
bill of their own on the subject
smoot Is Getting Busy.
Senator Smoot last night called a
meeting TO discuss the question of oil
lands. 1t was attended by Senators
Smoot, Clark of Wyoming, Hughes OF
Colorado, Chamberlain OF Oregon.
Dixon of Montana, Secretary Ballinger,
Representative Smith of California, and
one or two others. The meeting re-
suited in no definite agreement.
Details OF bill to provide boring for
oil on public lands was fully discussed,
disclosing widely divergent views.
Length of lease, payments, matter OF
securing permits all proved subjects of
disagreement.
The question of water power on pub
lie domain is also full Of possible eIe-
ments Of dispute, and ii is sure to cause
plenty of trouble. A proposition to
turn over to the states the matter of
regulation OF granting rights Of way
for power companies operating on the
public domain is said to be meeting
with general favor, but there is still
much opposition TO the federal govern
ment relinquishing any part of the CON.
troll it may have over wafer power
sites.
Although the conservation question
is said to be rocky road for the leg
islators to travel, there is great mis-
understanding of conditions, 1t is said,
and few of the members are fully ac-
quainted with the vast detail of the
subject. Eastern members are unfa-
miliar with conditions in the west, and
the reports from the latter section en-
couptered great difficulty in explaining
the actual meaning of conservation as
it relates to the people. Nobody ap-
pears to be opposing conservation, but
tho uestqion is, how to conserve.