, 1927-08-24

The sheep industry should do
its share, but we are too disreput-
able.
We are apt to discredit any move
ment we endeavor to assist.
While the policy of Conservation
is based on the assumption that
all western people are either min
ors or imbeciles, sheep men are
considered even worse.
The sheep industry has the singu-
lar and unfortunate distinction of
being the only legitimate and reput-
able business in the United States
which has been a constant target
for abuse and libel by its own gov
lernment.
There is no other group of honest
and industrious men in this nation
which has had thus to struggle for
three decades against a persistent
governmental campaign of malices
and Misrepresentation.
You are constantly pictured as
ruthless devastators of public prop
erty, leaving nothing in your path
but wreck and desolation.
1t is not so many years ago that
an Honorable Commissioner of the
General Land Office delivered him
self of a TRADE against sheep, COM
pairing them to clouds of devastat-
ing ~locusts, leaving nothing in their
path besides desolation.
Sheep have left much in theiI
path besides desolation.
Sheep have passed over these
mountain states and have left be.
hind them everything that speaks
of progress, of stability, of comfort
of plenty, and of beauty. They have
helped to build our thriving cities
with their beautiful lawns and gar.
dens. our ranch homes. each in it:
little neck of green, our fine roads
our paved streets. our irrigation
system and these school houses
fitted With luxuries once unknown
even Ia the palaces of kings.
We welcome our eastern friend.
when they come as visitors to oul
homes or to our mountains, or a.
new citizens. to share the burden
of development.
1t is continually said that oul
business lacks stability. There i.
an alarming disposition to assis'
us. The only thing that makes ii
unstable is constant government med
ding and restriction. The only
person to be concerned over the
instability of his business is the
owner of it.
The Departments at Washington
are concerned only in providing
that we need-guardians-and wei
paid ones
Their solicitude for us suggests
that of the boy who is escortine
his girl home from the movies. He
is hoping she will slip so that he
will have an excuse for putting his
arm around her. He hopes to have
her show instability so thai he car
grab her. We have two suitors;
it has become a question of whether
the Department of the Interior OF
the Forest Service is to embrace
us and fondle us. But in either
event we have the right to ask
these gentlemen if their Intentions
are honorable.
The Forest Service has avowed
auctions in numbers under grazing
permits until a certain irreducible
minimum las been reached. Col.
Greeley informs us that this mini
mum has not yet beer fixed, but
that it will constitute the smallest
number of sheep or of cattle which
will enable the owner to exist out
side of a poorhouse.
Existing permits will be divided
among new applicants until all
owners are reduced to an absolute
equality. We can surmize that this
minimum will be somewhere be-
tween 500 and 1000 sheep. Every
man will be on an exact equality
with his fellows, and forbidden by
government to rise above it.
Such a limit has never been sug-
gested for any other business. 1t
is un-American unprecedented.
Charles NJ. Schwab began as a
day laborer. He Is now one of the
specular captains OF Industry. Our
Secretary of the Treasury, Mr.. Mel
Ion. has risen from a poor boy to
be one of the richest men in the
United States, and is by some, con-
sidered, the richest individual in
the world.
j. J. Bernet, first a blacksmith,
then a telegraph operator. has just
recently ben raised to the presidency
of both the Nickle Plate and the
Erie Railroads.
Newspapers and magazines are
daily telling us Of some millionaire
of today who was the newsboy or
the poor emigrant of yesterday.
Such things constitute the romance
of business.