When an emergency comes, we may want the pure ores we are going to tie up, as they say, which will be available at a later date when necessary. The seed corn of the impoverished farmer is never eaten. He waits for a new crop to come up later. This is not an ominous bill. It is merely a bill of a philosophy of life for this Nation, and we should see to it that we get this on the record as being what this Nation wants to do, and serve notice to this world that we believe wilderness has an important part to play. Thank you. Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Tyler. (Mr. Tyler's complete statement follows:) THE NATURE CONSERVANCY, SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA CHAPTER, Sacramento, November 6, 1961. Representative WAYNE N. ASPIN ALL, HONORABLE CHAIRMAN: I am John Tyler of Santa Monica, Calif., vice chairman of the Southern California Chapter of the Nature Conservancy. At its annual meeting of the members on October 21, 1961, a unanimous resolution was passed to send a delegate to this hearing to speak in favor of speedy passage of the wilderness bill (S. 174) without any further diluting, negating, or crippling amendments or changes, and by a greater majority than the Senate's overwhelming 78 to 8 vote to show the entire world that we understand and appreciate the need for wilderness everywhere. The wilderness bill has been a long time in its formative years. Many thought too long back in 1958 when I spoke for it in San Francisco. It is certainly too long if it continues past the opening weeks of the next session of the Congress. Few good things are done quickly, but enough is enough. The constructive work is done, only the destructive work remains. As Henry Ford said, "Get the first one built, improvement can come later." The proponents and opponents are sharply divided. The proponents understand and appreciate the need for wilderness and believe it supersedes all private interests. The opponents, mainly grazing, timber, power, and mining interests, seem to appreciate it only so long as it does not interfere with their private interests. They are in it, enjoying it, but their midas touch is so overpowering that they cannot see the destruction they leave about them. The Lord God created the wilderness, all there ever shall be. He also created man and endowed him with a brain and power to appreciate and use or abuse and destroy the wilderness. Where man has been wise, he has been rewarded. Where he has abused, he has been punished by flood, fire, and famine. For a long time wilderness was taken for granted. By wanton destruction we have only 2 percent of ours left, and it is fast disappearing at an accelerating pace. Once there was plenty of wilderness, it was yours for the asking, you challenged it to survive. Now there is not enough for those of this generation who want or need it. What about those generations to follow if we don't save it now-while there is still some to be saved? The wilderness is perfect, it was made by God. The wilderness bill is not, it was made by man. Both sides are to blame for its shortcomings. Time will bring understanding and improvement but we must act now to preserve while there is still something to save. The wilderness bill is not an omnibus bill but rather a cornerstone upon which to build. Like our Constitution, it is the guide to our future actions in the preservation and utilization of our natural resources. Its purpose is to establish the principle that the wilderness is an important part of our natural resources with which we were so abundantly endowed, one which is fast disappearing because of lack of foresight of our forefathers and ourselves, which we now recognize and steadfastly resolve to preserve for ourselves and the future generations to follow. Its principles are as lofty as any of the mountain peaks within its jurisdiction, but in its formative years insidious destructive forces have been at work so that some of its necessary spelling out of scope and intent have been totally twisted about. It would appear almost a dangerous thing if a few extra acres became classified as wilderness that didn't quite rate this high honor. Ninety-eight percent of the total membership potential has been eliminated by the advance of our civilization. What right have we to prejudge what future generations will deem essential for preservation? We can preserve it now, reconsider it at our leisure when we more fully understand how vital it is to our spiritual well-being. These lesser areas may well be the training grounds for our ultimate appreciation of absolute wilderness. Wilderness needs a buffer zone for its protection, and in turn, it will replenish the exhausted buffer areas if allowed to do so. The opponents of the wilderness bill are primarily commercial interests in mining, lumbering, and grazing. Their opposition is understandable. Many companies have acquired rights, or are hoping to acquire rights to much of the resources within the boundaries of the wilderness area. They are operating on the old principle of our forefathers who 150 years ago felt they were limitless and squandered them. Those days have drawn to a close. But just as the impoverished farmer cannot afford to devour the last of his seed corn, so we cannot afford to let our remaining wilderness vanish amid muddy streams and flooded lowlands. The opponents express concern lest some valuable mineral resources be locked up, magnificent trees fall to renourish the earth from which they sprang instead of becoming buildings to become slums or paper pulp to litter our highways or fill our rubbish pits. What they really mean is that the lush pickings are about over. The virgin timber is about all harvested, the richest ores have been refined, the old grazing lands have been destroyed from abuse. Without the wilderness bill it will be true in a few years. But will this be the end of our country, our civilization? Fortunately, no. Lower grade ores will become economical, tree farms will become feasible, parched, eroded lands will become pastures. We will start repairing our senseless damage. But look at the price we will have paid for a few more years of squander-no wilderness. The wilderness bill has been a long time in becoming law. Long enough for those of high principle to become prepared for the new change in our resources picture. To the ticket scalpers no mercy. To the unfortunate dispossessed equitable adjustment and compensation via other legislation. The wilderness bill is as fair as possible to all. A recognizable areaa is removed from exploitation by all equally, without favoritism and all equally are able to appreciate the wilderness it saves. If all the individual rights were equally allowed, no single acre of this country could be saved for the enjoyment of all, and there would be much haggling over each parcel. But these rights are prematurely presumptive. The lands involved are still held in trust for all of us. Only now can the Government act in the interests of the people, soon it may be too late. Some States complain that too much of their State is in Government control and is not sharing the tax burden. There are two sides to the tax ledger. While taxes are imposed against the land, it must also be spent for the peoples on these lands. You don't get ahead fast this way. The people of Los Angeles fell for that city slicker story when they gave millions in Chavez Ravine to the Dodgers in return for the taxes. Lets not do it on a national scale. The tourist business can be big business-develop it, but don't degrade the attractions. For some reason this Government can't make money doing anything. It can't seem to make money off its land or their resources. The next fellow in the chain gets all the profits. It wouldn't be right for the Government to make money for the people. We couldn't retire our war bonds with our war surplus, but we created many millionaires. If we preserve some of these resources now owned by the people, perhaps in time we will be able to use them wisely. Thus the wilderness bill, primarily for the preservation of wilderness can prove to be the greatest benefit to man in a twofold sense, perpetual spiritual value of ever-increasing need, and better utilization of our resources and reclamation of our wanton destruction. Respectfully, JOHN TYLER, Vice chairman. Mr. JOHNSON. Our next witness is Mrs. Fern Hall of the California Alpine Club. You may proceed. STATEMENT OF MRS. FERN HALL, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF., REPRESENTING THE CALIFORNIA ALPINE CLUB Mrs. HALL. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my name is Fern Hall. I reside at 424 Jones Street, San Francisco. As past president and chairman of the conservation committee, I represent the California Alpine Club, a group of over 500 members. The club, one of the oldest in the bay area, was founded in 1913 with a purpose to enjoy, explore, and render accessible the out of doors. Members are, for the most part, business people whom you will not find in public campgrounds but in wilderness areas. The club's two lodges, one on Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, the other at Echo Summit near Desolation Valley Wilderness Area, bring several thousand people a year to the out of doors. Club activities, besides hiking and educational programs, sponsor trips into the high country of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. We are here today to show why we need the wilderness bill. Let us reflect a moment on what California will be like in the year 2000 A.D.-just 39 short years from now. Edward Dolder, deputy director of the California Department of Natural Resources, told us at the Federation of Western Out-DoorClubs' Labor Day convention that California will have 60 million people with solid, coastal metropolises. Los Angeles will extend to Santa Barbara and Antelope Valley. Housing will be wall to wall and many storied. Land will be too valuable for gardens. Schoolchildren will be taken to see things growing. Remaining land areas will be given priority for agriculture. People will work only 4 days a week and free time will become a problem. Recreational areas are rationed. You can't buy a 2 by 4, but plastic will be used instead. Today Forest Service and private tree farms are doing a wonderful work-planting hundreds of trees in a day. In 1960 California Forest Service planted 15,000 acres with 8 million seedlings. A steady supply of lumber should be maintained through improved methods of planting and sanitation and through more complete usage of the entire tree. However, if this does not prove to be true, there will be no need to massacre our wilderness forests since our ingenious chemists will miracularize a substitute. Our opponents of the mining industries, the wilderness bill does not deprive you of areas you are prospecting now. Many of the areas will be too inaccessible and too costly for you to mine. Most important nuclear power will bring about deeper mining processes which will supply new stores of minerals. With great new sources of minerals and even some substitutes you can leave areas of wilderness inviolate. Conservationists are interested in protecting the economic development and national security of their country as much as are the mining and the lumbering industries. Conservationists give of their time, money, and energy for everyone, for all time, and with no dollar signs attached. Man still has the nostalgia of the past. He lives the "Westerns" on television, and decorates his fireplace with squirrel rifles and his garden with wagon wheels. Sigurd Olson is so very right when he says, "The song of the wilderness within us is still powerful and strong." I would like to say that on TV last night I happened to stumble on a program which was called "A Way of Living." And to me it really answered our questions here about this wilderness bill. The person showed pictures of ancient Greece and the country, and, as you know, you see all of these ruins. Then he went on to say that in every case where this was found it was the result of war. I thought to myself, "Well, of course." But what he went on to say further is what really amazed me, that because these countries had allowed their natural resources, their forests, to be cut down, their water supplies were gone, and their mineral resources were gone, which was the reason we saw all of the remains. The wilderness bill must be passed and without crippling amend ments. Thank you. Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you. Are there questions? If not, Mr. Bill Hawkins, Pacific Union College is next. STATEMENT OF BILL HAWKINS, PACIFIC UNION COLLEGE Mr. HAWKINS. Honorable Members of Congress, ladies, and gentlemen, I am Bill Hawkins, a senior pre-med student at Pacific Union College. I am attending this hearing with Prof. Lloyd Eighme, professor of biology, and also with nine other members of the biological conservation class. We are definitely in favor of the wilderness bill, S. 174. I would like to mention three ways it would be beneficial: 1. Further our understanding of ecological principles. 2. Outstanding opportunities for geological, scientific, and historical value. 3. Opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation. The comparatively small amount of economic resources found in one-fiftieth of our land area which could be set off as wilderness areas, is not essential to the present economy of our Nation. S. 174 will actually protect these areas from unwise exploitation in the near future and will bring about better use of resources outside of the wilder ness areas. S. 174 does provide for multiple use of our whole Nation by providing a token portion for esthetic enjoyment and recreation. S. 174 would give the whole people a chance to speak through their Congress regarding the use of this resource. This hearing is a good example. This wilderness bill, S. 174, is absolutely necessary now. I urge you to take favorable action on this bill. Thank you. Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. JOHNSON. The gentleman from Alaska. Mr. JOHNSON. Off the record. (Discussion off the record.) Mr. HAWKINS. Mr. Chairman, may I add one paragraph that expresses the attitude of several students of Pacific Union College? Mr. JOHNSON. Without objection we will place that in the record at this point. (The statement follows:) PACIFIC UNION COLLEGE, I am the Voice of the Wilderness crying: "Save me, save me, save me." It seems that there is an echo of a voice in the wilderness crying: "Destroy me, destroy me. Use me for gain and leave me a dump of mine tailings and stump." Must I, the Voice of the Wilderness be submerged under the baptizing cries for financial gain? I admit I am a new frontier, but must this admission mean my own destruction? The voice of many a wilderness has been silenced. My voice is growing weaker. Soon all that will be heard is a lonely echo of the Voice in the Wilderness crying, crying, for he will have lost his identity as the Voice in the Wilderness. There will be no wilderness left for him to cry in. Geo. Schumacker, Mel Hayashi, F ? ? ? ? ? Jones, Galen R. Wedin, (COMMITTEE NOTE: Signatures of several students were illegible.) Mr. JOHNSON. Our next witness is Mrs. Madeline M. Sheridan, of Sacramento; then Mrs. DelMar Janson; then Robert Marshall, of Pomona, Calif. You may proceed, Mrs. Sheridan. STATEMENT OF MRS. MADELINE M. SHERIDAN, SACRAMENTO, CALIF. Mrs. SHERIDAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee, my name is Madeline M. Sheridan and I live at 3540 J Street, Sacramento, Calif. I am a retired public employee and one who has been interested in conservation for many years, and whose employers' interests come first, and who were not able to get time off to appear here today, for which I imagine you are rather grateful according to the length of your list. I appear in support of S. 174 and urge prompt and affirmative action by the House on the bill as it now stands in order that an adequate wilderness preservation system, subject of extensive public hearings over the past several years, may become a reality in 1962. The wilderness preservation proposal would establish sound national policy and program for preserving some of our rapidly vanishing primitive and virgin areas, all of which are already in Federal ownership. We must keep some of these fine examples of natural and unspoiled lands for future generations to see and enjoy, as have we, and also for their scientific and educational values. Data submitted by the U.S. Forest Service for 14 States, mostly western, to the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs on February 23, 1961, reports the allowable timber cut for forest lands, other than those now designated as wilderness, wild, or primitive, and the actual cut in 1960. The total cut was substantially below the allowable cut, showing that there is no need to log the wilderness areas covered by S. 174. |