The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1911-09-30
HOSTILE TO BUREAUCRACY,

HOSTILE TO BUREAUCRACY.
We are glad to see that IN the Pub
lie Lands convention in Denver there
is a pronounced feeling against the
bureaucracy which mt Washington is
undertaking TO grasp to itself the con
troll of the country, even to the ex-
tent of multiplying the laws and deny
ing the rights of the people enjoyed
and exercised since the foundation of
the Republic. 1t does no good any
more for a citizen to undertake to
put into practice his plain rights under
the law. The bureaucrats step in and
make it so difficult for him, that I'M
less he is very rich man, he is obliged
to abandon his rights and to forfeit
his claims even though they may he
perfectly valid in the law. As Mr., Pin
chot said a few years ago, the law for
bids the Forestry Service doing the
very things that the Colorado Mining
Association claims that service was do
ing; and under that subterfuge he made
y.
things complained of went right along
in defiance of law. and without re-
gard to Mr. Pinchot s remuneration,
A good deal Of complaint was made
by number of speakers. Mr.. Tracey
objected to the slowness and meager-
ness of the reclamation work. Governor
Carey of Wyoming has a paper, to be
is not conservation, and clearly Mr.,
Carey was entitled to speak on this
subject by reason of his thorough
knowledge of Western conditions, and
his deep study into land projects. The
Carey land act is his contribution to
the facilities of Western colonization
and reclamation of arid lands.
Former Secretary Ballinger of the
of the Interior made a Wig
orous attack upon the bureaucratic ten.
denotes Of governmental administration,
and protested against the stoppage of
and development, He main
tanned and showed clearly that it is
far better for the country 10 allow
individuals to investigate, to prospect,
and to open homes, mines, timber claims
and utilize water rights as heretofore
through all the history OF the Repuh
lie. than TO stop all development at this
time and wait the tardy actions of the
keeping everybody off the
public domain in the meantime.
We all know that individual enter
prise and development have heretofore
preceded by long leaps and bounds the
slow and official action of the govern
ment with regard to occupation of lands,
It has not been the practice of the
government TO keep everybody out of
the public domain until all of the lands
were surveyed, charted and offered for |
sale. On the contrary, the occupation
IF the lands. the upbuilding of homes,
the reducing of the wilds to cultiva-
ton in the face of barbarism, have al
ways preceded the government official.
lom, sometimes by long periods of time. |
The only great contest that has ever
arisen in this respect has been by rea-
son of the well-known slowness of the
government agencies in catching UP and
keeping pace with the movements of |
the advancing pioneers and settlers.
There is no reason in the world why |
he same old policy which has had such
results in the development
IF the Republic should not be con-
,inued. There is no reason possible To
urge why the former practice should |
ne reversed and development be made !
20 wait upon the slow motions Of the !
government in surveying, mapping and /
laying out tracts for settlement and |
If that had been the prac-
tice from the first, there would by this
ime have been 10 settlements this side
If the Mississippi river. But it was
impossible to restrain the pioneering
pirit of the American people, and they |
vent far beyond the officialdom in
opening up and developing the country
md advancing the area Of civilization,
just so they ought TO be allowed to
10 now; and Mr. Ballinger, in pointing
,ut that Alaska is, by reason Of the
severity of its climate and the rigor of
Is temperature, especially entitled TO
yet what advancement II can without
waiting for the slow governmental ac
ivities, is emphatically right There
an be no question but that the gov
rnment lags away behind in all these
matters: this is notorious and every one
s impatient with il. And to call a
alt now, TO say that the government
must not only be allowed to catch up,
mt TO precede. is simply call for par.
lvsis, for the full-fledged sway Of the
bureaucracy, which is get
ing to be about as odIous, as tyrannous,
md indefeusIbe in this country as the
ike bureaucracy is in Russia where the '