I think that inasmuch as you have done this, you ought to put on the record why your organization has never testified personally on S. 3051, a bill that you have been working behind the scenes with all your might and main either to defeat or drastically amend and revise.

Mr. NELSON. Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a statement on that right now if you care to have me. Otherwise I could prepare it and put it in the record.

Senator NEUBERGER. We would like to have it from you now. I would assume you would know why nobody from your organization ever testified on Klamath hearings. We have held so many of them. Mr. NELSON. I think, Mr. Chairman, with particular reference to that matter, we have by correspondence and by notice to members of the Senate committee staff indicated the reasons behind the actions we have taken.

With particular reference to the hearings which I think were held in October last year

Senator NEUBERGER. Early in October.

Mr. NELSON. Yes.

Senator NEUBERGER. In Oregon.

Mr. NELSON. We had hoped to be able to appear and testify. However, the matter under consideration was a most complicated one. The problems of a trade association are great. We have a great many members, and in our case we represent 16 federated associations all over the country.

We have a board of directors comprising some 90 individuals. We have a dozen or more committees, operating committee, policy committee, including forest policies.

You, of course, will realize, Mr. Chairman, that a statement of policy on an important matter such as the Klamath situation could not come about overnight.

We had hoped to testify at your hearings in Portland and also in Eugene, at least in Portland, as I indicated.

Our statement of policy was not ready by that time. Therefore, we could not testify. That is the fact in the case.

Would you care to have me elaborate further on the matter? If you do, I will be glad to do so with regard to your other hearing which was held here in Washington.

Senator NEUBERGER. This is what I do not understand: S. 2047, the Klamath bill, was introduced on May 9. You were not ready to testify on it, according to your own spoken words right here, by October. Mr. NELSON. That is right.

Senator NEUBERGER. Is that not correct?

Mr. NELSON. That is right.

Senator NEUBERGER. Yet S. 4028, the bill before us now, was introduced on June 18. You are testifying against that on July 23, 1 month later. In other words, your organization either works slowly or rapidly, according to the way which you want it to operate, evidently, because here is a bill, the Klamath bill, which was introduced early in May, and you were not ready to testify on it by October, which is 5 months later, if my calculation is right-maybe 6 months. But here you are testifying on this bill 1 month after it has been introduced.

Mr. NELSON. Our first policy statement, sir, with regard to this legislation was prepared and sent to Congress in 1956. That was

based upon a long and very careful consideration primarily by two of our committees. One was the forestry advisory committee.

I will be very glad to give you the names of the people of that committee.

Senator NEUBERGER. That is not necessary.

Mr. NELSON. And in turn by the committee on forest management of our association.

So, as I say, our first statement to Congress on the wilderness legislation was in 1956. That had plenty of time behind it.

Now, the second statement we made to Congress on the wilderness legislation was in 1957, when we testified before the House Interior Committee and submitted a statement to this committee at approximately the same time.

Here again we had committee meetings. We had plenty of opportunity to undertake a carefully worked out policy on that matter.

I think that it is understandable that the circumstances I have cited would indicate some distinction in the matter. However, the Klamath matter was a most complex one, even within our organization. We had to have committee hearings. We had to have a great deal of attention given to the careful wording of our statements.

All of that took a great deal of time. We did not have a meeting of our committee on forest maangement, sir, on Klamath, which worked out a policy for consideration by the board, until August— almost the 1st of September of 1957.

Senator NEUBERGER. But the hearings were held in October 1957. Mr. NELSON. That is right.

Senator NEUBERGER. It was a month later.

Mr. NELSON. That is right, sir. And we worked immediately after our committee made recommendations to the board with all of the board members. We worked with our president. We worked again with our committee on forest management. We tried to work out a statement in time so that we could appear.

I even asked for time to appear at your hearing in Portland. And it was not possible to work it out on that basis.

I would like to say this, sir: There have been statements concerning our association which appeared in the Oregon press with such words as "cowardly" and "reprehensible" having been used in our

I would like to say that our organization goes back to the year 1902. We have been a Christian organization. We have been an organization which has always prided itself on high ethical standards and moral principles.

We have attempted to the best of our ability to advise the Congress regarding our views on all matters of interest to our association, including Klamath.

I cannot believe, sir, that you or anyone else in Congress would say to us that "we would rather not have anything from you than a written statement if you cannot appear in oral testimony." We did the best we could in the circumstances.

Senator NEUBERGER. Why did you not testify in February on the hearings held on the administration bill which I introduced?

Mr. NELSON. For almost exactly the same reason. S. 3051 was a completely new bill. It had a completely new basis behind it. In other words

Senator NEUBERGER. It was no more new bill than S. 4028 is from the earlier wilderness bill. You said you were all ready to testify on the wilderness bill now only after a month because it was a revised version of an earlier bill. But when we put in a different version on the Klamath bill you were not ready to testify. Yet, always after the hearings have concluded, both in the field in Oregon and here in Washington, D. C., your organization has been ready with all kinds of telegrams and wires and statements and all sorts of other material or propaganda, I might say, for the Members of the Senate and the House.

You are always ready with material after the hearings close.

Mr. NELSON. I would like to state this in answer to that statement: We have naturally advised the Congress by telegrams. We advised this committee with regard to our Klamath position by telegram.

Senator NEUBERGER. You were not ready to come and testify in the hearings.

Mr. NELSON. No, sir; we were not. I am telling you the truth, sir, when I said it was not possible for us to get our statement prepared.

Here is another consideration that I think Congress often overlooks. When you consider the fact, sir, that a lot of these questions are most difficult to answer on the basis of interrogation-when I stand up here and testify for the lumber industry, as I am doing today, I am responsible for every single word I say on behalf of the lumber industry.

The board of directors is not sitting here. The executive committee is not sitting here. Our policy committee is not sitting here; our forest-management committee is not here. I am here representing the association and all of the committees and the board.

Now, when we have a very difficult problem it is obvious that it is much better at times, sometimes, it is very infrequent, that a written statement more clearly expresses the view because it is a most carefully considered statement, it has made the rounds. The board, the president, the regional vice president, and so on, have seen it.

But when I come here as I am doing today in oral testimonySenator NEUBERGER. You submitted a written statement today. It has been accepted.

Mr. NELSON. That is right.

Senator NEUBERGER. It will be in the record in full. Why didn't you do the same thing on the Klamath issue? If you had brought a written statement, as you later sent voluminous written letters to virtually all the Members that I know of in the Senate, why did you not come in and submit a written statement on the Klamath issue and then submit yourself to questions?

I think it was that your organization did not care to submit to questioning by members of the Senate committee and of the staff on your views on the Klamath question, because there is no other possible conclusion to be drawn from the performance of the National Lumber Manufacturers Association on the Klamath Reservation purchase bills, either S. 2047, which was my bill, or S. 3051, the bill which I introduced at the request of the Secretary of the Interior. You have never submitted yourself to questioning on that, despite your objection to both bills.

Mr. NELSON. Mr. Chairman, I know of your interest in the Klamath matter. I know how sincere you have been in trying to come to a solution of that problem. I submit to you that we were just as close as your telephone on any questioning that you wished to make of us. Senator NEUBERGER. Would you think that a Senator should phone somebody who has an interest in legislation before his committee, rather than giving them an opportunity to appear before a subcommittee in open hearing on an issue on which they are circulating a vast amount of material behind the scenes?

Mr. NELSON. I say this, Mr. Chairman: That, if a particular Senator has a special interest in a piece of legislation, and he thinks that a certain organization has a special interest in that same piece of legislation, he has questions as to the position of the organization, I see no reason why, particularly if it is a Washington, D. C., organization, he cannot call up that organization and get his answers to the questions.

Senator NEUBERGER. Mr. Gamble, the chief clerk of the Indian Affairs Subcommittee of this Interior Committee, informs me that we wired you invitations to appear before our hearings. Is that correct?

Mr. GAMBLE. That is correct, Mr. Chairman. In January, a day or two before the hearings commenced, you sent a telegram to general counsel of the National Lumber Manufacturers Association in the city, specifically inviting him, as a followup to an earlier invitation, to please appear before the committee.

Mr. NELSON. Yes; I recall that.

Senator NEUBERGER. I have no questions to ask you on your testimony here today, except, as I say, stemming from your suggestion that hearings be held. All I can think of is an old saying that they have in the Pacific Northwest. "Never mention a rope in the house of a man who has been hanged."

I have no questions.

Do you have any questions, Mr. Wood?

Mr.WOOD. No.

Senator NEURBERGER. Any questions, Mr. Stong?

Mr. STONG. No.

Senator NEUBERGER. Thank you very much.

The next witness is Mr. W. D. Hagenstein, executive vice president, Industrial Forestry Association, Portland, Oreg.

We are glad to have you here, Mr. Hagenstein.

STATEMENT OF W. D. HAGENSTEIN, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, INDUSTRIAL FORESTRY ASSOCIATION, PORTLAND, OREG.

Mr. HAGENSTEIN. I believe I am the first witness from your own State, Mr. Chairman. I was honored by the presence of your good wife а while ago. I am sorry they left before I was able to appear. Senator NEUBERGER. Yes; my wife and your wife are good friends. Mr. HAGENSTEIN. They are, indeed.

I have a very brief statement, Mr. Chairman. I would like to read most of it, if I may. I can read fast, as you know.

Senator NEUBERGER. You may, as I say, do anything you choose. Mr. HAGENSTEIN. Thank you very much. I am a professional forester and a registered professional engineer in the States of Wash

ington and Oregon. I am executive vice president of the Industrial Forestry Association, which has been promoting constructive forest management throughout the Douglas-fir region of western Oregon and western Washington for 25 years.

The Industrial Forestry Association consists of 58 companies engaged in the business of growing and harvesting timber and manufacturing lumber, pulp and paper, plywood, shingles, hard and soft boards, and other forest products. Our members own and manage more than 7 million acres of forest land. They operate nearly 250 wood-using plants which employ more than 63,000 people and have an annual payroll of more than $300 million.

The Industrial Forestry Association founded the now nationwide tree-farm program in 1941 and, to date, has certified more than 5.5 million acres of privately owned forests as tree farms in our region. We operate one of the West's largest forest-tree nurseries as a nonprofit enterprise to provide seedling trees for keeping forest land productive on our members' tree farms.

Our nursery has shipped more than 93 million trees since it was established, and has 25 million trees growing in it at present.

We are also developing better trees through application of the principles of genetics in a substantial research program financed entirely by our membership.

We come before you today to make the plea that, before any action is taken on S. 4028, this committee hold hearings throughout the West to acquaint westerners with the provisions of the measure and to get their views.

Because the proposal was only introduced in June of this year, it has had little circulation as yet and its provisions are not known nor understood by the people most affected. As you all realize, more than 90 percent of the lands involved are in the West.

In the West, where we have lots of it, land is our basic resource. Without it, man couldn't exist, for with the exception of the relatively small proportion of our total diet which comes from the sea, everything we eat, wear, and consume is a product of the land.

When I speak of the West, I refer to the 11 Western States. In this great area, we have three-quarters of a billion acres of land or two-fifths of the total area of the United States. We have only 23 million people, or 14 percent of our country's total. More than half our people are in California. In only three other States do we have more than million.

A third of our land is forest, less than half of which is now considered to have commercial timber-growing possibilities. We have 59 million acres of cropland, 400 million acres of grazing land, and nearly 50 million acres occupied by cities and towns and rights-of-way for highways, railroads, power lines, pipelines, canals, aqueducts, and other means of transporting products of the land to the consumer.

Obviously, land is the basis of our western economy. The annual value of all farm products is nearly $5 billion. Minerals produce $3.3 billion, forest products $34 billion, and our tourists are reckoned to spend $2 billion.

These land-based industries produce the basic income for all westerners. People who live in our cities and towns are apt to overlook this if they work in supermarkets, department stores, drugstores, service stations, banks, hospitals, garages, insurance offices, theaters, or