ization he represents to deprive other interests of the use of our natural resources, but to permit everyone to obtain the maximum use of them. Would you subscribe to that theory and philosophy?

Mr. HILLIARD. I do not think everyone obtaining the maximum use is practical for any given area. The multiple-use concept itself devotes certain areas, which obviously are mining or timbering, to that purpose. They are, in effect, single uses for a particular area. In fact, the multiple-use bill recognized wilderness as one of the uses.

It seems to me it is just as legitimate to have certain areas set aside as wilderness as the other areas that are predominantly other uses. Mr. CHENOWETH. You see, you run into trouble when one group tries to push all the others aside and seeks to obtain exclusive jurisdiction and use of that area. That is one of the difficulties in this whole wilderness legislation. You have to live and let live. That is what we are trying to work out in this bill.

Mr. HILLIARD. But these same arguments, I believe, were used against the national parks, and yet they are fast becoming inadequate. I think we are really making a decision here comparable to what the park people did 50 years ago, roughly.

Mr. CHENOWETH. That is all. Thank you.

Mrs. Prost. The gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Dominick.

Mr. DOMINICK. Ed, I liked your presentation, but I must take exception to your remarks on the mining, because it seems apparent to me there can be any number of materials, either known to be valuable now, or to become valuable in the future, that could easily be located within 14 million acres. You could go no more than 200 yards away from an existing mining situation now and find that it plays out. So I think there is the possibility and almost the necessity of exploring for this, which should be considered.

Mrs. ProST. Thank you, Mr. Hilliard.

Mr. HILLIARD. Thank you.

Mrs. ProST. Mr. M. E. Whitener, chairman of the board, Rio Blanco County Fish & Wildlife Association, Colorado, is next. Then Mr. Emil O. Kiehne of Reserve, N. Mex.; and Dr. Robert W. Viehe, Glenwood Medical Association of Glenwood Springs, Colo.

Since the first two called apparently are not here, you may proceed, Dr. Viehe.

STATEMENT OF ROBERT W. VIEHE, M.D., GLENWOOD MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, GLENWOOD SPRINGS, COLO.

Dr. VIEHE. Thank you, Madam Chairman.

I am a general surgeon in Glenwood Springs, Colo., and have been in wilderness areas, and wish to express my own personal opinion.

In my opinion there is urgent need for legislative establishment of a national wilderness preservation policy and congressional sanction of a wilderness preservation system to stabilize and insure perpetuation of the national forest wilderness system developed as an administrative policy which is generally accepted as being in the public interest.

The use of wilderness is truly multiple use. Not all uses are established on any one area but use as prime watershed, use as scientific study area, use as wildlife habitat, use as healthy enjoyment in the har

vesting of game and fish, use of scenic value, and use for recreational value are all part of wilderness use. Add mining, lumbering, dambuilding, roadbuilding, grazing, and oil and gas exploration and one loses much of the value of wilderness land.

The proper uses of wilderness can all coexist in happy union. Add any of the latter uses and part of the wilderness purpose and ideal is lost. Wilderness is like a rare piece of china; once broken, it is destroyed forever.

Opponents of this measure all fight it because of basic economic reasoning. The miner of minerals, the grazer of stock, the producer of timber, the producer of oil and gas all do not want to lose their chance for monetary gain from public land. They speak from their pocketbook and not from the mind or heart.

The opponents have turned to many untrue allegations in testimony previously heard in Senate hearings, such as "Wilderness use is for the rich only."

I have been in wilderness area with filling station attendants, schoolteachers, high school students and individuals from many many other occupations and walks of life, none of whom were wealthy people. They have saved their money for these visits because they realize that a wilderness experience is worth a sacrifice and is infinitely more physically and spiritually rewarding and probably less expensive than a trip to a plush hotel or motel in many of the neon recreational centers of the country such as Las Vegas, Nev., Palm Springs, Calif., or Colorado Springs, Colo.

Arguing that wilderness areas are for the privileged few-and for that reason can be abolished-might be considered analogous to churchgoing. Churches are open to everyone, but more people stay away than attend. In spite of that, churches have a pretty sure tenure.-Ernest Swift, Conservation News, September 15, 1959.

From the same source:

Probably not more than one-tenth of 1 percent of our population is dedicated or hearty enough to take advantage of this type of recreation. Leaving out the dedicated, if only one-tenth of 1 percent of the citizens of the United States are hearty enough to bear up physically under wilderness outing, then God help this Nation.

A conservationist is said to be blind to progress; I say, "Not so." A conservationist is opposed to blind progress. We have eroded, overused, burned, abused, polluted, and ruined a lot of these United States in the name of progress in the last 200 years.

Wise use and preservation when the wilderness legislation becomes law of the land will be most appreciated by coming generations.

Multiple use can be limited or extended in accordance with human experience. Multiple uses can be tailored to take care of present needs of man and as a guardian for what he may vitally need in some distant time to come. When men will get up and testify that there is no justification to preserve wilderness, they are putting words in the mouths of the unborn. That is assuming a grave responsibility.-Ernest Swift, Conservation News, September 1, 1959.

Since the proposed wilderness system would encompass only 8 percent of our national forest and slightly over 1 percent of the total land mass of the United States, I feel it is a duty for us to hold on to this last small amount for the uses listed above. We should bend our efforts to more wise use of our land rather than try to commercially exploit the last 8 percent of the national forest and to use the last 1

percent of the land for commercial endeavor. If we are in such dire straits for survival, then I do not feel that this additional 1 percent of our land will change the outcome for this Nation.

Many things that have been done in the past in the name of progress violate the 11th commandment as written by Mr. W. C. Loudermilk in "Conquest of the Land Through 7,000 Years."

I wish to close my testimony by quoting this belief of the first director of the Soil Conservation Service:

Thou shalt inherit the holy earth as a faithful steward, conserving its resources and productivity from generation to generation. Thou shalt safeguard thy fields from soil erosion, the living waters from pollution and drying up, thy forests from desolation, and protect thy hills from overgrazing by thy herds, that thy descendants may have abundance forever. If any shall fail in this, thy stewardship of the land, thy fruitful fields shall become sterile, stony ground and wasting gullies, and thy descendants shall decrease and live in poverty or perish from the fact of the earth.

Thank you, Madam Chairman.

Mrs. Prost. Thank you, Dr. Viehe.

(The following supplemental statement was subsequently received from Dr. Viehe:)

Re wilderness legislation.

GLENWOOD SPRINGS, COLO., November 3, 1961.

COMMITTEE ON INTERIOR AND INSULAR AFFAIRS,

New House Office Building,

Washington, D.C.

GENTLEMEN: I wish to thank the committee for the privilege of appearing before your subcommittee in Montrose, Colo., on November 1, 1961, and to congratulate the gentleman and the lady for conducting a very dignified and instructive meeting.

I wish to supplement my statement which is in the hands of your committee with the following remarks and observations.

Many witnesses spoke in their concern with the limitation of mining in wilderness area. It occurred to me that if there is any relaxation of the mining permits in wilderness it should not be done under the mining laws of 1870 as this gives an absolute property right to the individual who files a patent, even if there is no production forthcoming. This would be completely antagonistic to the multiple-use principle in that it would give one person absolute right over an area in wilderness in which he could go so far as to construct a hamburger stand or a cabin, I presume. Oil and gas people, according to the laws of the early 1930's, must produce on natural forest land and they have no property interest, if they do not produce they pay a certain penalty. I would also like to see some sort of wording that if mining exploration was done and the material found was not necessary in the national interest, then the operator would be responsible to restore the area to a more esthetic condition such as planting grasses on the tailings, bulldozing tailings back into holes, and reforesting roads that were constructed. Two witnesses spoke in Montrose concerning mining, one with an iron mine near the Snowmass-Maroon Bells wilderness area in Colorado and another who had opened up an old coal mine and was now producing copper. I feel this is perfectly justified in national forest land but I do not feel that extending such mines into wilderness area would be in the national interest to produce more copper and more iron at this time.

A few comments concerning the opposition of the ranchers and the water interests and then I will close. I feel sure that most of the ranchers are completely confused as to the intent and purpose of this bill and from listening to their testimony and seeing one after another repeat the same fears, it seems that they almost feel that this bill will remove grazing from national forest land. Of course, this is not the case and, of course, it is not the intent because grazing on national forest land is an adequate and necessary and good use of national forest land. There are very few grazing permits that are available in any of the high altitude alpine wilderness country and would not be affected unless there was evidence of overuse of the land and this should be curtailed whether it is wilderness area or whether it is national forest land. Many of

the ranchers profess much interest in conservation, and yet when they do overuse the land and the Forest Service reduces their number of animals on the land they are very violent in their opposition to the Forest Service. I do not feel that they practice as good a conservation as they say they do in various meetings.

I wish I had been able to express my feelings concerning the esthetic value of wilderness more adequately. I feel sure there these people who have grown up in this wide open part of the country have no conception of what they would feel if they were not able to see and live in this part of the country. I would wager that if they were required to spend 5 years residing in such a town as Washington or Baltimore and New York and then were returned to their ranch or into the West, the first place they would go would be into the high country on horseback or on foot alone to get away from the asphalt jungle and the smell of monoxide fumes. They often have never experienced the necessity of not being able to ride in the open country or to visualize vast vistas from their ranches and they really don't have any conception of how so many million people in this country live and these people are actually just as much owners of national forest land as the ranchers whose ranch happens to lie right on the edge of public domain. It is for this reason that we wish to preserve wilderness so that those people who do not own a ranch or have never visited or lived in this part of the country are able to visit it and enjoy their part of the U.S. public domain.

Folks concerned about the limitation of dam building in wilderness area might be pacified and it might be in the national interest to use some of this land for high altitude small dams. I have always been in favor of multiple high altitude small dams rather than the large structures that have been built in the past which is known will be silted in and their value greatly diminished in 40 or 50 years. I would suggest that high altitude dams the size and about the altitude level of beaver dams would be intelligent construction, that is about the altitude of the aspen. The aspen in this country grows around 9,500 feet and most of the beaver dams are at that level. Very few beaver dams are seen above 10,000 feet and yet much of the high altitude alpine wilderness country that is such a value for its esthetic use and for the wilderness recreation use is actually above this level. This might be a compatible compromise on the building of dams in wilderness. If they were limited to one or two surface acres I think they would do a lot to hold the water in the high country and still not spoil the esthetic value of wilderness.

I hope the committee will report a bill favorable to the House so that there can be a conference committee set up and that some constructive wilderness legislation will be forthcoming from the Congress in the next session.

Sincerely yours,

Mrs. ProST. Are there questions?

Mr. CHENOWETH. Madam Chairman?

Mrs. PrOST. The gentleman from Colorado.

ROBERT W. VIENE, M.D.

Mr. CHENOWETH. Doctor, I would like to just ask a question or two. You are contending before this committee that we ought to promote more use of wilderness areas and less use of established places of recreational value, such as Las Vegas, Palm Springs, and Colorado Springs.

I happen to represent the city of Colorado Springs, so I am somewhat concerned over this.

Dr. VIEHE. No.

Mr. CHENOWETH. And you suggest these people should be out in the wilderness areas rather than in Colorado Springs. I must protest against any such position as that.

Dr. VIEHE. I believe there is room for both, if you may let me answer it. There is room for both, but I am sure many people in Colorado Springs hate to see it going the way it is now, compared to the way it used to be 15 or 20 years ago. There are many uses.

The people of this country should engage in more physical activity, because we would be a much healthier Nation if we would. I think,

as President Kennedy has shown, physical activity is important, and he encourages more use of it. One fine use is wilderness use.

Mr. CHENOWETH. Do you know of any person in this country who is anxious to explore wilderness areas, or visit our scenic spots and places of great beauty in this country that is now deprived of that privilege? Are there not plenty of such places to visit if they want to? Dr. VIEHE. Yes, there are now, and we hope we can preserve them; and we think this bill will help preserve them.

Mr. CHENOWETH. Do you think they will be there for some years to come?

Dr. VIEHE. I do not think so, because we just lost 48,000 acres taken out of the wilderness for timber. Sooner or later, maybe not in my lifetime but in my children's lifetime, this area will not be wilderness any more, and there will be roads through it. Then this wilderness experience will not be available for their children or my children, because it will be gone.

Mr. CHENOWETH. Do you not think that people who go to national parks and national forests have ample opportunity to explore the type of area you are describing?

Dr. VIEHE. NO. They may have opportunities, but I have been to many national parks, and you have, too, and they will drive rapidly through, stop and see Old Faithful for 5 minutes, then Rocky Mountain National Park, and then Grand Canyon.

When you are in a wilderness setting

Mr. CHENOWETH. You are talking about a different type of people now. The average tourist is not the wilderness type. They are not going to spend much time in one place. They want to see as many places as they can. Time is short; they only have a couple of weeks' vacation, perhaps.

Dr. VIEHE. I think that is one of the things wrong with our whole moral approach to recreation-we are trying to do too much, and not sitting back, as easterners do, and contemplate seeing the setting of the sun.

Mr. CHENOWETH. I do not want to engage in a controversy with you, but I think there are plenty of places in this country today for anyone who wants to enjoy any type of recreation he desires. He can find that in this country today.

Dr. VIEHE. As Mr. Hilliard made the point, we feel that 50 years from now, unless something is done now, there will not be that land available at that time.

Mr. CHENOWETH. I, for one, may not want to spend a week in the same place you prefer. Perhaps I would rather spend it in Colorado Springs.

Dr. VIEHE. I should have the opportunity, if I desire to.

Mr. CHENOWETH. Our desires are not all alike.

Dr. VIEHE. Of course not.

Mr. CHENOWETH. We cannot legislate for every group that wants to make some special use of our natural resources. That is why multiple use is important. It gives every person a chance to enjoy these resources in his own way.

Dr. VIEHE. If it is not available, he cannot go.

Mr. CHENOWETH. My point is that it is available and will be for some time to come.