The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1916-04-13
State Mine Inspector Replies to Sec'y
Lanes Adverse Report on Smoot Bill

80, with considerable disgust but no
Lane the secretary of the interior at
Washington, who seems to be the au-
tocratic mouthpiece of congress on
such matters, giving his objections to
providing for the transfer to the pub
lie land state, all public lands chiefly
valuable for the development of water
power and the weak reasons sub
mitted in his persistent obstruction of
western progress and development
THE only trouble with the Smoot
bill was the fact that it did not go
far enough. To be consistent with
its past history and constitutional OBJ
ligations-unless the principals of free
self government in state units is a
failure and should be abolished and
the autocratic methods of European
Capitalization substituted in the coun-
try-the federal government could
well afford to deed all public lands
remaining to the respective states in
which they occur excepting such linn
tied areas as would be required for
national parks, Indian and military
reservations, demanding a eompensa-
tion only of such a nature as to ball
ance what it has received from het
central, eastern and southern states, in
which practically all public lands have
been disposed of and are now avail
able as a source of tax revenue for
the maintenance of their respective
state governments.
Could Be improved.
Restrictions to conform with war
ranted and practical ideas of conser-
walton could be invoked in the trans
fer, and the conservation of the west
ern resources could be more intelli-
gently administered by the people con-
the selfish alien interest of the east.
The central government would still re-
tain it's excise power and other rights
of legislative control and regulation
THAT DIRE lHCllGIldDlt anu ought " UG
as sufficient for one geographical d.
vision of the nation as they are for
another, and | think from COMPARE
tive examples of economy of opera
ton in natural resource matters, the
respective public land states involved
are fully as capable of economically
administering their own affairs in
justice to all the people concerned, as
is the federal government with it's long
range inbexible and cumbersome red
tape methods of doing business.
MIR. Lanes remarks about the ex-
panding interstate vlue of electric
energy He ought to be satisfied with
the regulative powers of the federal
government in that connection, for
his conspicuous activities in the in
terstate commerce. commission and
the way he helped to bring the great
railroads of the country to their knees
without the public ownership of sin
gle mile of track, are pretty well re-
membered and in this connection it
may be we'll to recite the enormous
cost of physical valuation of railroad
property in the United States by that
department which has been proceed
ing for several years and will take
several years more to complete, and
when it is finished will be an almost
useless obituary, extremely out of
GATE and behind the times for the
purpose it sought to accomplish.
Court Decisions.
Il personally liseened, month ago,
to discussion in the United States
senate at Washington by several able
statesmen, of the Shields Waterpower
bill in which it was fully demonstrat-
ed by United States supreme court
records that the federal government
does not own a pint of water in eth
er navigable or unnavigable streams
of the country; that the waters be-
long'to the states in which they occur
or whose borders form their meander-
ing banks. The bill in question admits
the right of the government to con-
troll the navigation of said streams and
proposes to improve that navigation
and make it available by the construc-
tion of locks, on demand, at each
power site built on a navigable stream
at no cost to the government with
the definite transmitted value of elm
mating the disgusting pork barrel
scandals which have annually dis
graced the national river and harbor
appropriation bill.
1.-THE total assumed right of the
government in addition to it's control
of navigation is it's obstructive mis-
used power of eminent domain. There
are other solutions for the ethical con-
servation problems than this obstruc-
ton Of their progress and the de-
grading of the rights and franchises
of the western states.
A Poor Argument.
"In the Statesman article of March
80, Mr. Lane, in his endeavor to catch
the sympathy of the people on a
prominent current question of nation
al Importance, further harps on the
need of cheap and extensive water
power reservations for the extraction