The Cordova daily times., 1922-07-18
AN OLD CONTROVERSY RECALLED

So many things have happened since the Ballinger-Pinchot controversy held the first place in the public mind that the death of Judge Ballinger takes back our thoughts to- events that now seem like old history. But the intervening years throw the disputes into true prospective, and enable us to judge more just lv of the character and motives of the em1n- ent citizen who was furiously assalled by a one-ideaed zeaot and his following at an epoch when muclxracking was the rage, whom President Taft Loyalty defended and who in ally retired from the cabinet in order to re- lieve that chief and his party of embarrass- 1nent We can also appraise the wider, more far-reaching consequences of the political fued to the life of this country and of the world.
 With the enthusiastic support of President Roosevelt Clifford Pinchot had made hmselt the champion of conservation of natural re- sources with which the nation had been pro digal under the delusion that they were in exhaustibe The fraul by which individuals and corporations had asquired much of the public domain was expressed and was skillfully used to inspire suspicion of any person who attempted to acquire public land. Pinchot brouoht about wide extension of forest res ervations and as chief forester, enforced such rigid restrictions as practically prohibited cut ting of timber on them, and he proposed that the government lease, not sell or otherwise aienate. non-preciOus mineral land and water power sites He threw every obstacle in the way of prospectors and procured laws With drawing from entry the classes of land men tioned, preparatory to enactment of leasing laws. That he might work with more freedom, he procured transfer of the forestry bureau from the interior to the agricultural depart ment.
 When Ballnger became secretary of the interior in 1909, he found pending number of claims to coal land in the Chugach national forest Alaska, filed by Clarence Cunningham. l.. R. Glavis, chief special agent for Alaska, had recommended their cancellation as fraud ulent and went over the head of Ballnger to obtain an opinion from Attorney General Wickersham sustaining him. while attorneys in the interior department held the claims lawful. Glavs, by Pinchot's advice, filed with President Taft charges that Ballinger had been privately interested in the claims during the interval between his resignation as land commissioned and his appointment as secre- tary of the interior. A general newspaper and magazine campaign was instigated by Pin chot, but Taft completely eXonerated Balm ger and ordered the discharge of Glavis. Con- gress ordered an inquiry into the whole case and, when Taft sent to the senate letter up holding Ballinger, Pinchot sent a letter to Senator Deliver contradicting the president attacking Ballinger and defending Glavis. For ,this an improper appeal to congress and the public Taft dismissed Pinchot with two of his subordinates. The congressional inquiry ended with a majority report fully exonerat- ing Ballinger and minority report condemn ing him.
 The consequence was that the ulta- -conser- vation policy won. The Cunningham claims and others like them were cancelled, develop ment of Alaska coal stopped until strict leasing law was passed in 1914, and this law had proved so impracticable that there has been little development under it, even since the war ended. The Pinchot policy was applied to