May I speak, therefore, to one thing that has not been mentioned this morning, that is, something other than food for the gut, or food for the hurt. There are other kinds of food in this world that is food for other men.

I join them in believing that America is great and America is beautiful and America is wonderful, and we have used these gifts. We have also misused these gifts. Ninety-eight percent has been used for the boys who have been in the predominance and they have had fun. We have let the pigs run. It is time to say stop before the pigs get it all. The right time is now when there is something left.

Multiple use is not endorsed at all by scientists as a way to preserve the history of our past. It is not endorsed by historians who would like to have the unborn America see what made it great, see a little bit of untouched prairie. It has taken years to define a piece of untouched prairie. To find a piece of virgin timber has taken research.

We do have declared on paper some wilderness areas. Many have been already violated or, let us say, property utilized in the terms of our friends here who have no other language but that which is profit.

Man after man has spoken here to his own gain. These men have interests. These men are Americans and they are good Americans, and they have engaged in our so-called development. There is a point at which to draw the line, and this is the stopping point. There is a line that must be drawn, that must be adhered to in their further use. Less than 2 percent is left that we can show my child and yours and the unborn America what made us great.

I want to speak to the summary statement the club has presented. The first thought is that mankind today is at its highest, we feel. We can also say the wilderness is at its lowest in America and total destruction for mankind and the wilderness is imminent, and right now in view. These are two possible destructions, and we are trying to solve one of them here and now by men of action and women of courage. It is not tomorrow that America the beautiful is to be preserved, it is today.

We have monuments to extinct forms of life, we have a national monument to show us what a Yosemite once looked like. We have preserves, we have so-called wilderness and wild areas, and we had reserves recently violated by oil exploring to the complete destruction of the refuge and preservative act.

We need to rescue now the real and the primitive and the unspoiled while we have it, for we will not have it any longer. You have seen them. They are here cattlemen, mineral men, all honorable, all normal Americans. We are simply saying there is another kind of American; furthermore, there is an unborn American and we speak in behalf of him.

We speak in behalf of these points:

First, if we save the wilderness now, we have some immediate use permitted under this marvelous and orderly act. We will have practical as well as cultural uses. We will have earthy uses permitted under this and we will have spiritual-they laugh, and it is here on record-we will have spiritual uses as real values.

I have seven points which I can cover in 1 minute.

We say: (1) Check areas for science to understand how America ever grew, naturally, physically, and economically.

Now, while we can see no jobs in wilderness, we do believe wilderness can be expanded and perpetuated without undermining the bread-andbutter pursuits of forest-borne communities.

Commercial forest lands are best suited to the endless production of forest crops, and these can be wisely harvested, regrown, and harvested again. This need not interfere with the wilderness program. We favor reserving of well-chosen, appropriate wilderness areas, while always keeping in mind it should not be so much a question of how much wilderness we can wrangle, but how much we can afford. The California Forest Practice Committee is convinced timber management fits in nicely with recreational and esthetic concepts of land use. Timber management poses no threat to soundly selected wilderness areas. Wilderness is safe and certain of adequacy under existing programs. Unnecessary and unsuitable withdrawals such as S. 174 proposes not only strike at western livelihood, but tend to pose a threat to wilderness itself by reason of excesses in withdrawals for this special purpose.

For these general reasons, and on specific points which follow, the California Forest Practice Committee opposes S. 174 while reaffirming its support of the wilderness idea.

The committee views the primitive area features of the bill as very bad. In the Nation as a whole-largely in the Western States-S. 174 would at the outset lock up as a part of the huge wilderenss system some 8 million acres of unclassified primitive areas in the national forests. These lands are known to include large areas of commercial forest most valuable for multiple use and not of proved wilderness caliber.

Congress would not be called on to scan and act individually on these withdrawals, no matter how large, in the manner the national park proposals are acted on. Our committee would like to see Congress scrutinize with a critical eyes and on an individual basis every single plan for special, limited use of public lands. And the burden of proof as to wilderness quality of lands involved should be on those wanting to set aside. Under S. 174 the burden of proof is cleverly reversed.

In California, under the systematic land classification program that the U.S. Forest Service put into effect some 30 years ago, the national forests have dedicated 446,000 acres to strictly wilderness purposes, and at this time 1,094,000 acres more are frozen in "primitive" status pending completion of surveys and studies on which to base classification decisions. Thus, California has 1,558,000 acres of national forest lands earmarked under S. 174 to be placed in the wilderness system at the outset. Of this, 286,000 acres are commercial forest.

In addition, California's 4,026,000 acres of national parks and 194,000 acres of natural wildlife refuges would increase to 5,778,000 acres the total of California lands subject to S. 174. This is nearly 6 percent of California's land area.

Thus our State has a very large and real interest in S. 174. In blanketing-in of primitive areas, California's stake is larger than that of any other State except Idaho. As a transplanted former resident of Idaho, I feel a deep concern over the fact that California and Idaho together stand to contribute more than half of the 8 million acres that would be taken into the wilderness system from presently unclassified national forest lands.

(2) Basic reserve of untouched resource for the new techniques, new minerals of the future.

(3) Recreation of wilderness type-riding, hiking, climbing, exploring, camping.

(4) Re-creation of urban man-by spacious solitude, unspoiled view, music of nature, natural providences of life.

(5) Historic evidences of America's struggle, growth, success.

(6) Teaching and laboratory par excellence.

(7) Living monuments, mementoes, samples of wild, original America.

Millions of years in the making, wilderness will perpetuate itself.

Costs, operations, administration are minimal, or nonexistent.

Preservation is leaving alone, eliminating multiuse, stopping development, holding back progress.

Use is: (a) Future: Reserve resource; (b) Future: Relict, historic; (c) Current: Recreation, re-creation.

ROLAND CASE ROSS, Professor of Nature Study, Los Angeles State College.

Mrs. ProST. The next witness is Mr. Joe Hughes, Hughes Bros., Foresthill, Calif.

And will Mrs. J. B. Atkisson, State chairman of conservation, California Federation of Women's Clubs, please come to the front and be ready to testify?

You may proceed, Mr. Hughes.

STATEMENT OF JOE HUGHES, HUGHES BROS., FORESTHILL, CALIF.

Mr. HUGHES. Madam Chairman and members of the committee, I am Joe Hughes of Hughes Bros., Foresthill, Calif. Our organization, a family partnership, is a second generation, owner-operated sawmill and logging enterprise.

The wilderness bill is of particular interest to us who have lived all our lives within the national forest boundaries. Our father started cutting timber in the mountains of New Mexico at the turn of the century. At that time there were no restrictions or regulations on timber cutting, as the Forest Service had not yet come into being.

We have progressed from the horsepower sweep first used by our father through steam diesel to electric power, and we have grown from a concern hiring a few employees and cutting a few thousand feet to one employing 140 people and producing in excess of 10 million feet of lumber annually. Preservation of the wild land is as dear to us as to any, but we oppose S. 174 for the following reasons:

(1) Because we consider it a gross injustice to existing agencies, who we feel are doing an overzealous job, to take the responsibility from them.

(2) Because the bill in its full import would handicap the economy of the Western States and bring about great unemployment and displacement of people.

(3) Because timber is an agricultural crop and as such cannot be preserved in the field-it must be harvested to be kept growing.

(4) Because it will withdraw from development many other natural resources such as minerals, water, and recreation, to name a few.

(5) Because by its very stipulated exclusion of roads, airfields, and supply centers, it will allow egress to the few most apt to set fires and will at the same time deny the means of suppressing forest fires.

We do wish to thank the Public Lands Committee for allowing us time to express our views.

on June 30, 1950, with a service of my Government of some 39 years, 7 months, and 5 days, all pretty much in the use of lands and their natural resources.

Since my retirement from Government service I have been employed as a forest consultant by a lumber manufacturing company.

I wish it understood that conclusions reached in this presentation are my own, based on my experiences and in no way influenced by my association with Government agencies or private industry, and are given with the idea of help in managing and protecting public lands for all the industrial economy of the State of California, and particularly the area wherein I reside.

As I understand it, the committee is interested in securing public opinion on the proposed legislation which has to do with the so-called wilderness bill, which in turn attempts to set aside certain portions of public lands within the national forests for a specific and continuing use for one class of persons and one class of use. This is indeed a departure from the long-practiced method of permitting the present managers the U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service, and the Bureau of Land Management-of meeting their obligations.

Since my experience has been with the U.S. Forest Service my remarks must deal with the management of the public lands under their jurisdiction.

The Congress created the Forest Service as a bureau of the Department of Agriculture for the purpose of managing the forests, lands, water, and other related resources connected thereto, and have the power still to direct such administrators when and if they fail in such administration.

To my knowledge the Forest Service has met the challenge of the Congress through the Secretary of Agriculture, and have over the years of their administration, as the trends indicated, planned and directed the uses of these lands with the aid of the professional and trained personnel within their organization, with the end result of preparing ahead of time for the impact of other uses not contemplated at the time of the creation of the Bureau by the Congress.

During the many years I was privileged to be an administrator of public lands, the changes in the uses of such lands as well as their contribution to the wealth of and needs of industry were many and varied as

Use of the forage for the grazing of domestic stock and during war periods the cropping of timber;

The production of minerals other than gold for use in war materials;

The heavy use of the area for recreation of all types from skiing to outdoor camping; and

The development and storage of the waters for domestic, power, agriculture, and industrial uses; besides the constant upsurge in the cropping of the fish and game that are a byproduct of the habitat of the forests and streams.

These upsurges and demands were met by the classification of the lands and the direction of their uses although they were of a multiple

nature.

I was the forest supervisor when the so-called wild or primitive area known as Desolation Valley was instituted in the year 1931, and had to do with the setting of the boundaries of such.

This area comprises some 41,383 acres, and its use since its founding has never exceeded over 3,000 people in any one season whose sole purpose was wilderness travel.

There has been no violation of the principles of the keeping of the area in its natural state, and it was possible to do the necessary work of improvement to protect the area from damages caused by floods, erosion, fires, and diseases of the forests and other vegetation.

The administration of recreation in the State of California is and has been rather a difficult problem because of the different trends or desires of the people which they believe are the most beneficial to them. These range from the heavy nature lover push to the honkytonk variety where crowds dancing and partying are the season's top entertainment.

The needs for areas to care for all is not on forest lands and the adjoining private land resort developments, whether it be lone skiing, summer home life, camping in improved camp grounds, skiing with crowds, boating and skin diving. One year it goes one way and the next year something else.

Another difficulty is the fact that most of our recreation is of a seasonal nature and the heavy use is within a few short weeks, which at times taxes the capacity of the improvements maintained, where improvements are part of the necessities of the form of recreation indulged in.

In addition to the wealth-producing natural resources-all of which but minerals are renewable-that came from the national forest lands we had at all times a backlog of culture and plant improvement work, not of leaf raking nature, which aided our people during depression years as well as giving Government a continuing benefit for its outlay, such as: CCC, ERA, and CWA projects.

Under the policies of the Forest Service this work was applicable to the entire area under my administration. It seems strange indeed that well-meaning people would desire it otherwise, as while man may be a destroyer at times, there is in my opinion no natural resources that cannot with proper direction be aided and improved

upon.

After administering the Eldorado National Forest which comprises some 800,000 acres of public lands, under the policies still in existence I will defy anyone to find 1 acre of such land that has been misused to the extent that it cannot contribute to multiple-use benefits if so needed. So just where are the present policies of the Forest Service not protective, and why the present push for a change? In the State of California, in addition to the vast areas set aside by the Federal Government in national parks, game refuges and socalled limited-use primitive and wild areas, the State itself has State parks which include lands of all kinds from seashore to mountain and desert parks all dedicated to recreational use, also counties and counties and cities have added their contribution for the pleasure of said recreationists and are continuing such as needs arise.

It would be most interesting to me, and no doubt to you, if it were possible to secure from the thousands of people that signed petitions in favor of such proposed legislation, just how many have ever been able financially or physically to partake of and enjoy that which they have been led to believe is being denied them.