3. It gives the general public-the people who own the public lands-a voice in saying what shall be done with the wilderness areas. This voice would be exercised in two ways-at public hearings, and through their elected representatives in Congress.

Senator Humphrey told the Senate that under the proposed national wilderness preservation system, there would be "ample provision for watershed protection, recreation, scientific research, and other uses of the wilderness areas that are consistent with wilderness preservation, with fishing and big-game hunting permissible in most of the areas (hunting is excluded by law in national parks and certain wildlife refuges), as well as pack trips, hiking, nature study, and camping."

He emphasized that no new wilderness areas would be created by the passage of the legislation, but that orderly procedures would be set up for the future both to add and delete specific areas of wilderness only after public notice, public hearings when requested, and subject to congressional review.

The Minnesotan said that the wilderness areas now being administered by the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, and other agencies of the Federal Government would continue to be administered as before, but under general standards and procedures for the guidance of the agencies.

He pointed out that the Secretary of Agriculture would still be able to take measures necessary for the control of forest insects and disease in the wilderness area, while the bill specifically authorizes the President to open any national forest wilderness area to prospecting and mining, or to permit reservoir construction if it is "in the national interest."

The bill would establish a National Wilderness Preservation Council composed of the Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture, the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution to serve ex officio, and three citizens to be appointed by the President to serve without pay.

"Such a Council," Senator Humphrey explained, "is intended to bring to a focus our various wilderness interests and to be an information center-not an administrative agency."

He said that the bill had been revised extensively since the introduction of a previous bill in the 85th Congress, to reassure and give guarantees to those who feared that the bill would add extensively to the wilderness areas now set aside and who also had feared that established practices now permitted in existing wilderness areas would be prohibited.

Specifically written into the bill is a provision that no lands on Indian reservations may be set aside in the future as wilderness areas without the specific consent of the Indians concerned, Senator Humphrey pointed out.

Senator Humphrey emphasized that the existing areas of wilderness and primitive areas set aside by previous congressional or administrative action make up only about 5 percent of the total federally owned lands, and that all the "primitive, wilderness, wild, and roadless areas" in the national forests make up only 8 percent of the total national forest lands. "Most of these areas," he added, "are in high or steep mountain country where logging, grazing, and mining must be restricted anyway to protect the watersheds."

Mr. ZAHNISER. On the same day the Daily Sentinel of Grand Junction, Colo., carried a news report of the organization of a Western Resources Conservation Council that professed to undertake opposition against a powerful combination of people who were trying to boot the cattlemen and sportsmen out of the West. We were accused by that group of sponsoring a measure antirecreational, anticonservationist, of being Indian land grabbers and serious threats to regional water and power development.

At the same time, the Washington Post in an editorial has commended this proposal. The Post referred to the lumber and cattle interests as professing to see something sinister in this effort, yet quoted Senator Murray who said on the floor of the Senate that he had fought for 25 years to aid every industry now opposing the wilderness bill and still he had decided to support the wilderness bill although continuing to aid these industries. Senator Murray said his decision was not a difficult one to make for the facts show the wilderness bill is a good measure, and its enactment will not injure anyone.

(The Daily Sentinel article and the Washington Post editorial are as follows:)

[From the Grand Junction, Colo., Daily Sentinel, Mar. 1, 1959]

ANTIWILDERNESS FIGHTERS BEGIN BATTLE

(By Charles Judson, Sentinel farm editor)

While western sportsmen and stockmen have been busily engaged with their several differences, a powerful combination of contrary influences is well along with an organized campaign to boot both these warring parties and most everyone else off and out of much of the West.

The eviction notice on vast regions of the economic base of Western United States is contained in the so-called wilderness bill, S. 4028, a measure described yesterday in Grand Junction as an anticonservation measure, antirecreation legislation, an Indian land grab, and a serious threat to regional water and power development.

David Wood, retired U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regional director, described these implications and more to 75 interested westerners at an all-day meeting at the junior high school.

Out of the meeting a new organization was born, the Western Resources Conservation Council, a broad association of users of the public domain seeking its fullest development in the interests of recreation, food production, timber harvest, wildlife management, ore body discovery and water and power development.

In mating these varied and important interests, the Western Resources Conservation Council hopes to become an important agency toward ending the cold war between sportsmen and stockmen in this region, while seeking to bring the real story behind current national wilderness and similar legislation to the people in large metropolitan centers of the east and west coast.

Wood recently authored a significant article in the Sentinel in which he skillfully disassembled the wilderness bill into its number of crazy parts, exposing it as a measure which would close some of the most desirable regions of the West to hunting and fishing and appreciation, except to the very few with the money and hardihood to reach such areas.

Wood had been invited to repeat and extend his analysis of the wilderness bill at the meeting yesterday called by C. M. Hathaway, Kannah Creek rancher, and chairman of a group of Western Slope citizens concerned with the implications of the measure to the region's economy.

Last December the group had met with Congressman Wayne Aspinall seeking his views and help in this matter.

At the time, Congressman Aspinall, now chairman of the House Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, warned the westerners that the real fight against this measure must be waged in the East and in California.

Accordingly, Hathaway had summoned representatives of the Denver public relations firm of William Kostka & Associates to tell how their services might be applied to this enormous job.

William Price and Gordon P. Tompkins, Jr., from the Kostka firm denied the problem of obtaining attention for the western cause in the big cities and in the face of the highly organized and fully experienced forces now at work in saddling the wilderness measure on regions of the West almost as extensive as the State of Colorado.

"I am just a little awed by the character of our opposition," Price admitted. Wood had explained that such opposition is made up for the most part of sincere and highly dedicated people, but uninformed as to the real nature of the wilderness bill and totally without knowledge of the real western story and vital western interests at stake.

To get the interest show on the road along the Western Slope the Western Resources Conservation Council was formed forthwith.

The following committeemen and officers were then elected: C. M. Hathaway, rancher, president; J. D. Dillard, public land consultant, Grand Junction, vice president; Elbert Harris, sheepman, Montrose, treasurer; Keith Clark, rancher, secretary, Grand Junction; committeemen, Frank Wommer, Bayfield; Emmet Elizondo, Freuita; Arthur Hudspeth, Steamboat Springs, and Sylvan Gray, Montrose.

The officers and committee of the council will attempt to provide immediate funds for a general conference in Denver with friends of this effort from all

Western States involved and with some of the best minds in the public relations field from the region in which the campaign will need to be waged, east of the Mississippi.

The committee called its next meeting for March 10 at the Hathaway Ranch on Kannah Creek by which time the new Western Resources Conservation Council hopes to be fully in business in behalf of the full and broad best interests of the West.

[From the Washington Post, Feb. 22, 1959]

LAND FOREVER WILD

The wilderness bill now reintroduced in Congress would achieve results beyond price with only a negligible cost to the taxpayer. This measure creating a national wilderness preservation system would in the words of its sponsor, Senator Humphrey, "preserve the remnants of unspoiled wilderness lands still remaining in our national forests, parks and wildlife refuges." Surely there can be little debate on the need to take action now to safeguard some corners of our land from the ineradicable imprints of civilization. It is noteworthy that 15 Senators of both parties have joined in sponsoring this legislation, while an identical bill has equally wide support in the House.

Present land

The bill's provisions are as straightforward as its objectives. agency jurisdictions would be maintained and no new bureau would be created. The bill would merely set aside certain areas in perpetuity as nationally protected tracts of virgin wild, with ample safeguards for the lumber and cattle grazers who use Federal lands. Extensive hearings have been held and every effort has been made to accommodate commercial objections. Still, some lumber and cattle interests profess to see something sinister in this effort to conserve what could never be replaced.

The reassurances of Senator Murray of Montana are very much to the point: "I have fought for the economic development of the West and of the Nation for 25 years. I have supported measures to aid every industry now opposing the wilderness bill *** its enactment will not actually injure those who are expressing the greatest fear of it." It would be unthinkable for Congress to yield to phantoms and fail to pass this legislation by the overwhelming vote it deserves.

Mr. ZAHNISER. In Mr. Halseth's letter-I was given a copy of his letter that he had written and copy of correspondence with you, Senator Goldwater, in which he suggested the protection of these areas of wilderness would be a good move, even if the lands are to be transferred to the State of Arizona, and he showed me a letter that he had published in the Phoenix newspapers-in Mr. Halseth's letters he explained this measure in a favorable way from a western point of view.

So I should like to emphasize again in conclusion that this bill is not a regional proposal, nor is the interest in wilderness. The members of The Wilderness Society, State by State, vary in number, pretty much as does the total population. The sponsors of the wilderness bill in the Senate and House include a bipartisan group, coast to coast, from Republican Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine to Democrats Neuberger and Morse in Oregon. The entire delegation from Montana-both Senators Murray and Mansfield and Representatives Metcalf and Anderson-are sponsors of the wilderness bill. It is a national proposal and in my opinion deserves support throughout the Nation in the national interest. I am very happy to have the pleasure of being here in Phoenix, Ariz., to emphasize this as an "easterner" and to urge enactment of this measure as soon as possible.

I am submitting complete copies for the record of all these documents from which I have quoted.

Thank you very much.

Senator GOLDWATER. Thank you. I don't think you will find, on perusing the testimony today, that there is a violent feeling to preserve areas of this country where those of us like to be alone, to walk or ride. I think it is rather the westerners understandably, naturally distrust that which imposes more Federal regulation on our lands. I can easily understand the disinterest of the easterner, that he would be for this in the absence of any reasons to be against it by virtue of the fact that they have never been opposed to our problems.

I think you will find most of the testimony, if not all of it, has been directed to the fear of Federal encroachment.

For example, in all of the States east of the Rocky Mountains, there are 2 million less acres. It isn't the fact that any of us in the West object to any of the East coming out here, but it is a fear, and a very understandably deep-seated fear, of another Federal agency imposing restrictions on our land when we feel honestly that the desire of your group can be met under existing laws.

I said earlier I don't think there is anybody living who loves the outdoors as much as I do, but I think that our present Federal bureaus and laws provide adequate protection for these lands for the purposes that you and I are interested in.

Mr. ZAHNISER. The proposal is not one of adding lands, acquiring private lands, it is a proposal to provide a policy and program for areas that are already in the custody of these agencies and in the custody, basically, of the Congress of the United States.

In the East, the Federal Government does not own extensive areas except the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, and a couple of other areas. In the East, the land is largely privately owned. We heard this morning about New York State's establishment of a similar program where 212 million acres of wilderness are preserved, and that was supported at the polls by 1,500,000 to 600,000. Whenever there are lands, we are cognizant of this same interest, but the most earnest proponents of this legislation, and since a decade ago in trying for it, are westerners. They are people who reside in the West. I have heard more earnest pleas for this program here in Phoenix than I possibly could muster in Pittsburgh or Erie or Philadelphia. The interest in preservation of wilderness is a national interest, but I think it is most intense right here. The management of these areas is not a different management. The only thing that would be added to the program would be the privilege of the Congress to review decisions that have been made, decisions one way or the other. So I think that our proposal is essentially the sort of thing that you are endorsing, Senator Goldwater.

Senator GOLDWATER. There are certain very important differences. First, I recognize that this proposal doesn't take in any lands that are not already protected by the Forest Service or Park Service or Indian Service or B.L.M., but in the bill is the authority to acquire privately owned lands.

Mr. ZAHNISER. Within those boundaries.

Senator GOLDWATER. Let me point out a situation I am in right today that illustrates the point. I have a bill to recognize Fort Bowie, to recognize it as a historic site. I thought 160 acres would take care of all the grounds that were used. Now, the suggestion has come that they take nine sections of land. Frankly, I told the De

partment of Interior I would withdraw it. To take nine sections under the possibility grazing will not be allowed-I assure you, it is not a feeling against you or your organization or of the intent, it is a fear that has been born properly in all of us westerners about the Federal Government, whether they are taking our rights under the land or taking our rights under running our schools. We don't trust those people back in Washington.

Mr. ZAHNISER. There is no such intention as you describe, with reference to your proposal, involved in this legislation. This legislation is concerned only with the management of a small portion of land that is already under our Federal custody.

Senator GOLDWATER. We don't have much left, that is our trouble. Mr. ZAHNISER. I am a western Pennsylvanian. You are an Arizona man. We both are the people in Washington.

Senator GOLDWATER. And I have to assume some responsibilities, as I think you do, for the lack of trust that the rest of the people, particularly in the Rocky Mountain area, maybe we've been a little derelict in our duties. The constitutional processes, shall we say, preserving of States rights. Now, if we were a State like Texas, which is the biggest State without a glacier, if we were Texas, it showed very remarkable foresight when they became a State by not allowing any Federal land.

Mr. ZAHNISER. I hope that I never do or say anything to add to that distrust. I hope I can ally it and help you in carrying out national programs.

Senator GOLDWATER. Let's take a recess.

(Short recess taken.)

Senator GOLDWATER. Ladies and gentlemen, may we reconvene, please?

We have two people that have expressed a desire to get away, and looking at the remainder of the program, these people are all from Arizona except one, and he is-no, this gentleman is from Oregon; well, Oregon is a nice place to get back to.

Mr. John McKee of Fremont Mining Co. of Forest Grove, Oreg. Mr. McKee. Well, he is probably upstairs.

Mrs. Ernest Miller of the Elkhorn Ranch representing the Dude Ranchers Association.

STATEMENT OF MRS. ERNEST MILLER, REPRESENTING THE DUDE RANCHERS ASSOCIATION

Mrs. MILLER. Senator Goldwater, you mentioned me as a representative of the Dude Ranchers Association which I really am as I have been in the Dude Ranchers Association since its beginning in 1925, but I am not going to go into that except this one point.

The dude ranchers in their convention last fall approved of the basic principles in which the wilderness areas have been set aside, but they are feeling a little disturbed in section 3, the article in which I think they use the term "commercial enterprises." The dude ranchers feel there is some confusion about the bill, and needs to have more study.

I am also representing the Wilderness Association of which I have been a member for some time, and also a member of the Cattle Growers' Association here in Arizona.