Fire alone is not the only reason that I oppose this bill. Bug infestation is an ever constant and increasing threat to our forests. When timber matures, it has to be harvested in the same way as wheat, or it dies and dries and falls down, making it an easy victim of both fires and bugs. When the bugs get too numerous, they attack the healthy trees and can kill thousands of trees unless man can get to them and control them by chemicals or take out all the infected timber. They had to do this just a few years ago in western Montana when the Engleman spruce was attacked by the spruce beetle. The only effective way of combating it was clearing out all the mature spruce and other spruce trees that were in the area.

This could happen right here unless the Forest Service is allowed to build roads for fire control, infection elimination, or other emergencies. I believe the Forest Service is doing a good job now in controlling its 186 million acres of national forest lands. If this bill passes, it will take away the powers of trained forestry men and throw it before a lot of bureaucratic redtape back in Washington, D.C.

I have asked many people in my hometown of Coeur d'Alene their opinions the past few weeks, and at least 80 percent were against this wilderness bill as presently written.

I am convinced that we need a wilderness area of some type but not the vast area of over 3 million acres as presently written.

Having spent one term in the State Legislature of Idaho, I am well aware of its financial condition. I have read the papers that if this bill passes, one county will lose $2 million annually. This will mean a great loss to Idaho's tax revenue. Over 60 percent of all land in Idaho is nontaxable now.

Also, as a former Idaho legislator, I have the same concern about the constitutionality of S. 174 as Senator Thomas J. Dodd, (Democrat of Connecticut), who feels the power of disposing of Federal territory by the executive branch violates the traditional powers of Congress. Further. I am in accord with Senator Dodd's statement that he is not opposed to wilderness as such.

They say that it will be a playground for the rich, and that the average workingman cannot afford to hire a pack string and guide to hunt the vast interior of the wilderness area, thus benefiting only a select few.

My main objections to this bill are these: If the primitive area is changed into the Federal wilderness area, it will take away the powers of trained forestry personnel and will put the power into the hands of Congress, which is not qualified to understand it thoroughly. I do not believe Representatives and Senators from all of the United States should be able to tell us how to manage our national forests. The areas will benefit only a very few, and control of fires, bugs, and other menaces will be impossible.

May I say in conclusion that I hope that the wilderness bill does not become a political issue. It should be decided upon its merits alone.

I have a petition here, Madam Chairman, of several hundred people in north Idaho of several pages, and I would like to submit it to this committee. I was more or less a spokesman for them. To save the taxpayers of the United States, I would not like to put it on the record, but give it to you for the committee's use.

Mrs. ProST. Without objection, it will be placed in the file. Mr. CARLSON. When I came down to McCall, Idaho, I had a little adventure on a side road. I was going to take a short cut down to Orofino and come up by Kooskia. I saw one sign, "Boise." I swung there, and all of a sudden I got in the wilderness area. I kept going until I thought I must be coming into Grangefille, or somewhere, Idaho. I had no idea how far it was. I had traveled 40 or 50 miles and finally saw three hunters. I said, "At last." I stopped and asked them if they knew how to get to Boise, and one of them scratched his head and said, "You go down to Missoula and back down to Twin Falls, and you come up that way."

Another said, "No. Go up to Missoula and turn left and go back to Coeur d'Alene."

And the other guy scratched his head and said, "I don't think you can get there from here."

Stressing the point, if the wilderness area is established, there are going to be a lot of people that probably capitalize on this area. They are probably going to come in here and get lost, and the Federal Government is probably going to have to get St. Bernard dogs to send out with rescue parties to hunt for the lost people.

You have heard a lot of testimony so far about how much it is. going to increase the budget for the Government coming down here. I listened to Drew Pearson and he said the United States would be $6 billion in the hole this year. And here we go spending more money, putting more bureaucratic redtape in the administration of

the areas.

I believe the Congress has the foresightedness to believe the majority of the people in the United States are willing for a wilderness area, but I am confident that the people of Idaho are not, because it is practically our bread and butter in Idaho.

I have come in contact with several people in north Idaho, people I have talked to, and at least 80 percent are against this bill. I doubt if 20 percent of the people at this hearing have actually read the bill in its entirety.

Thank you.

Mrs. PFOST. Our next witness is Mr. Yarwood, president of the Washington State Sportsmen's Council.

STATEMENT OF E. C. YARWOOD, PRESIDENT, WASHINGTON STATE SPORTSMEN'S COUNCIL, SPOKANE, WASH.

Mr. YARWOOD. Hon. Chairman Pfost, and committee members, I am E. C. Yarwood, president of the Washington State Sportsmen's Council. I reside at Spokane, Wash. The Washington Sportsmen's Council represents 164 local clubs and a combined membership of more than 25,000 sportsmen throughout the State of Washington.

I am here as a representative of the Washington State Sportsmen's Council to observe these hearings and to place the council on record as endorsing the concept of wilderness preservation that was encompassed in the bill being considered by the committee here today. Our council is on record as favoring programs that will encourage the use and enjoyment of wilderness by sportsmen and the general public. Provisions of legislation that encourage and provide for good

systems of access trails and "at the edge" of wilderness camping and other facilities for use of outdoor-minded persons is supported by our council.

That part of the national forests within wilderness, wild and primitive areas, is of particular importance to sportsmen because of the exceptional quality of hunting, fishing, and outdoor living which these areas afford.

We wish to encourage this committee in its studies.
Thank you for the privilege of appearing here today.
Mrs. Prost. Thank you, Mr. Yarwood.

Is Mrs. Grace McRae here?

Apparently not. We have her statement and, without objection, it will be placed in the record at this point.

(The statement follows:)

STATEMENT OF MRS. DAN MCRAE

This is a voice crying not in the wilderness area but about the wilderness

area.

For 20 summers and 4 winters the McRae family lived in the Thunder Mountain district, at 8,000-foot elevation, and worked a gold mine with a 10-stamp mill. This is now in the primitive area.

We rode into the mine horseback and had a packer with 20 head of packhorses. For the first 8 or 9 years, everyone who came out way had to walk or ride horseback. There had been a road during the Thunder Mountain boom, but it was sadly in need of repair.

During these years I could count on my fingers the people who walked or came by packhorse just to see and be in this high mountainous country. These folks were more interested in seeing our machinery run, the gold collecting on the plates, and a good home dinner than the scenery.

We were a long time getting a wagon road; we could not afford to do it alone, and the Forest Service, though anxious for quicker and easier transportation to their lookouts, did not have road money.

The

All efforts seemed in vain until Senator Pope of Boise and Representative Compton I. White of North Idaho came to McCall, and Senator Carl Brown of Valley County brought them into the back country to the end of our road. situation was discussed and they agreed-the country needed a good wagon road. It was through their efforts that $1,000 was allotted to Mr. Shenk, our Forest supervisor, for the Thunder Mountain road-if the mine put up the same amount. This was done; our mine crew and family worked with forestry men, and at last this section had a wagon road. Later it was improved so pickups and trucks could bring men and supplies from Yellow Pine and Stibnite.

Some time after this, war was declared. All ocean shipping was at a standstill. Our Government needed tungsten. Geological engineers who had surveyed our country remembered that the Bradley Mining Co., had found tungsten while drilling on their gold mine 10 miles from us. This company quickly changed their mill and with Government help, a crash program was put in action. We all went to work there in Stibnite, mining tungsten. This mine supplied 65 percent of all tungsten used by the Government in the war. Later antimony was found and a special antimony brick was made for the Army. Now, Stibnite is a ghost town. Why all this past history? Just to show how important mining can be. Please remember that mines pay heavy taxes and give employment.

Senator Church has said there are no mines in the 13 million acres that the Senate has voted to put into a wildnerness area. This might have been said of nearly all of Idaho.

Today anyone would be very foolish to spend money and time, on mining when gold, silver, tungsten, and quick-silver are so low in price-due to our imports from abroad.

Do the Senators who voted for the wilderness bill realize that Idaho now has about 20 forest reserves, all under Government supervision?

In these forests there are miles and miles of empty spaces and inspiring scenery where eastern people may come walking or driving and stay as long as

they wish to commune with nature. Why do we need to take away 13 million extra acres from production?

Another point against creating the wilderness is that these sections of land are mostly in the high mountain region, altitudes ranging from 7,000 to 12,000 feet; only people who are natives of high altitudes can walk very far or ride with comfort at high elevations. When in Thunder Mountain, we have had to give stimulants to and help travelers to a lower elevation.

This is why there have been so many heart attacks in the hunting season. The eastern folks need not fear that the "back county" (as we natives call it) will be ruined. Except for forest stations, two or three emergency air landing strips and a few more miles of dirt roads, this area, except during hunting season, is as quiet and primitive as it was 40 years ago.

It is for these reasons and because I love Idaho that I felt moved to let you know that many of us feel this bill should not become a law.

Mrs. ProST. Is Mr. Leslie Holman of the Spirit Lake Sportsmen's Association here?

You may proceed, Mr. Holman.

STATEMENT OF LESLIE HOLMAN, SPIRIT LAKE SPORTSMEN'S ASSOCIATION, SPIRIT LAKE, IDAHO

Mr. HOLMAN. Madam Chairman and Congressman Olsen, we, the Spirit Lake Sportsmen's Association, wish to go on record as being in favor of the wilderness bill, S. 174, with no amendments. We are faced practically every day in our newspapers by a barrage of propaganda by the mining associations, the stockmen and rancher interests, and by the mining interests, mostly calling for the death of S. 174. We believe a closer study of mine news in the same papers would be edifying. The same writers during this summer of 1961 have asked countless times for higher tariffs and subsidies to bring relief to a lagging industry.

One statement in particular is, "The mines in the Coeur d'Alenes have declined from more than 100 in the late forties to about 10 at present due to surplus foreign production and relatively free access to domestic markets."

This mining group seems to assume that if allowed to file on or cause to be filed on, hundreds of mining claims, to be controlled by them that, to use their propaganda, "the economy of the State would improve, industry would boom," the exploitation-pardon me—the development of the country would advance; of course there would be forgotten such things as higher tariffs, subsidies, competition with other countries, and the idea of adding additional millions of dollars of wealth to huge corporations would have no bearing at all on the demand for the death of S. 174.

There are proven resources of copper in Montana and Arizona to last for many decades. While the mining association lobbies for the last remaining areas not under their control now, one can travel over hundreds of miles of trails in Montana and Idaho, often find traces of ore, probably well worth filing upon and developing, but it belongs to some mining corporation whose base of operation is hundreds of miles distant.

By what special dispensation have these claims lain idle for so many years without assessment work or development? And by what mental process do these mining associations arrive at the conclusion they are entitled to control still more? Not more than three of our West

ern States can produce far more copper, tungsten, and molybdenum than can be consumed in our economy, but these rich veins and ledges are idle, they are, many of them, very accessible to roads and railroads, but imports and low prices are the cause alone for their lack of development, not lack of ore.

The stockmen having grazing access to millions of acres of public land; the Taylor Act removed hundreds of millions of acres of land by law open to the filing of homesteads where a family could, by its own efforts, hopes, and prayers develop a home, and place it in the hands of a management for the benefit of stockmen, the majority of them extremely wealthy.

What more do they expect to gain by the death of S. 174. The lumber interests represent the wishes of corporations with countless millions of dollars. The wealth of the operators could almost pay the U.S. national debt. Statistics from reliable sources and many from the lumber interests show we are cutting and marketing less timber now than the annual growth. Tree planting is increasing annually; we are growing forests for future generations where forests never grew before.

Mr. Teske, according to an article in a local paper, says, and I quote:

A wilderness society brochure lists the cost of a 12-day trip through the Idaho Primitive Area at $310 per person which would add up to $1,550 for a family of five.

End of quote.

This is one of the most fantastic statements we have heard, yet several members of our association are familiar with most of this primitive area, and have had some very enjoyable trips there at less than one-fourth this amount.

This area is most emphatically not for a favored few, but for millions of real Americans and we are quite sure, in the years ahead, thousands of people of other lands, to visit and delight in and say with most of us, we of the West who know these magnificent mountains and streams and trees: "The grandest thing the Creator gave us.' In 1907 Teddy Roosevelt set aside timberlands for additional forests. He had the same opposition from the same groups as S. 174 today, land sharks, timber barons, and mining corporations. These forest reserves have been a lifesaver for all three of these groups; S. 174 does not restrict mining, grazing, or logging where they are operating now. It merely safeguards lands they hope to, but do not now control.

Madam Chairman, in answer to Mr. Dovel, the wilderness bill, if enacted, does not require the purchase and acquisition of private lands within our Idaho primitive areas-packers and outfitters are important in bringing people into the wilderness. Sponsors of S. 174 and the Forest Service are aware of their importance to our economy and in providing us opportunity for people to use and enjoy wild areas. The wilderness bill does not require acquisition of these private areas within the wilderness.

Thank you.

Mrs. ProST. Thank you.

Without objection, the statement of Mr. Gridley D. Rowles, who is not going to be able to appear this morning, will be placed in the record at this point.