Under S. 3051 the Government would inspect only the Klamath forest and this overseer function would terminate after 75 years. It was in the Sermon on the Mount that our Lord said:

Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles?

Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit—

Either make the tree good and his fruit good or else make the tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt. For the tree is known by his fruit-Matthew 7: 16-18 and 12:33.

We have no choice but to adhere to these wise words and we cannot permit the tree to be corrupt.

If we sincerely mean to insure private sustained yield, let us really do so. First, the minimum covenant period should be the 120-year maturity growth period for ponderosa pine, the major trees in this forest.

Second, let us provide for continuation of the inspection period for as long as need be with the proviso that only after 120 years, if sustained-yield forestry has been continuously practiced on all lands owned or controlled by the purchaser, he may petition the Secretary to recommend to the Congress that the covenant be lifted or revised under such terms and conditions as the Congress may then prescribe. Third, let us provide that the Secretary of Agriculture is authorized and directed to make regular inspections to ascertain the facts as to the operation of all of the purchasers' holdings and to report them to the Congress.

Let us not delude ourselves into thinking that conservation on part of the lands the purchaser has is enough to insure it for all time on the very lands we are today seeking to protect. Let us be willing to recognize that the current management of a company can bind the future management of the company only if we provide the means today.

If we really are going to have good-faith purchasers genuinely interested in sustained yield they must be prepared to go all the way. It would be an absolute fraud on conservation if we permitted a company to buy 20,000 acres of the reservation that must be dedicated to a 75-year sustained-yield program while we permitted them to slash through 80,000 acres elsewhere while awaiting the expiration date of

covenant.

If we permit this sort of purchaser to participate we will be in for administrative difficulties, lawsuits, and a political free-for-all. Far worse, we will have failed to keep faith with our children's children. I shall rest my case on these points-price and real sustained yield. As I see S. 3051, it may create other severe problems. It may be that the present mills in Klamath Falls are unable to participate because of financial obstacles too great to overcome. Extensive private sales to firms which would transport the timber elsewhere or construct new local mills might prove disruptive to Klamath Falls by intensifying cutting on other private lands.

As I understand it, the proposed sale units will be too big for acquisition by even what we term a medium-size mill, one cutting 10 to 20 million board feet a year. I hope that you will be able to secure from the Department of the Interior a full analysis of the economic

impact that may result from their plan and the extent to which it precludes small-business participation.

In suggesting S. 3051, the Department has indicated concern for the economy of the area. Will the economy be better served by continuing the Klamath Forest under unified public management with the timber competitively available to all of the mills?

I want to assure each member of the committee of my desire to cooperate in finding the best possible solution to the grievous situation which Public Law 587 has created.

I realize that this is a national as well as a local problem. It is a human as well as an economic problem. We must proceed carefully and fairly to eventually terminate Federal supervision of our Indian people. If we are to be judged successful by our Maker, we must proceed with compassion and justice.

Senator NEUBERGER. Thank you very much, Senator Morse, for that testimony.

I would just like to ask several questions, if I may, about the points which you have raised.

Inasmuch as you discuss the price and very properly urge fairness in dealing with the Indians, are you satisfied with the price provisions in S. 2047?

Senator MORSE. I look upon it as a minimum.

Senator NEUBERGER. Would you suggest an amendment to S. 2047 to provide a higher price to the Indians?

Senator MORSE. I may very well do that after I study the whole record made at the hearings, and I tell you why, Mr. Chairman: I am trying to see this problem beyond the present. I am looking at it from this angle. We here as a nation are given the opportunity to buy a natural resource asset that may be of great value to Americans long after we are gone. If we can honestly say that we think this timber will be of much greater value to Americans 75 or 100 years from today than it is now, and if we couple to that what I consider to be the moral obligation to give the Indians the benefit of every doubt in respect to price, I am perfectly willing to say to the American people that we should pay more than the so-called present market price. I say that because I think this is a good stockpile to invest in; just as we are paying more, as I said before, for some stockpiles of strategic materials that in some instances are costing us more than we would have to pay American miners.

Senator NEUBERGER. The thing that concerns me to some degree, Senator, is this:

You and I happen to be the only two Members of the Senate who represent the State in which this entire reservation is located. We are in effect asking our colleagues to vote for an authorization of around $121 million to buy this reservation or to pay the Indians the fair market price.

If we do anything to make the price higher, is there any likelihood that it might jeopardize the willingness of our colleagues to vote this very substantial sum of money so that the unfortunate present law will not go into effect at the end of this session?

Senator MORSE. I think you are quite right. Let us be frank about it. That is what we call the parliamentary politics of it. That is why I wished the reservation were in Utah or Florida or State X, Y, or Z, because our position would be the same no matter where it was.

Such an attitude as I have expressed is true of the true conservationist. He does not care where God's gift to the American people happens to be located. He asks, what is the program that we ought to adopt to assure leaving it in a better condition that when we found it-to assure a richer heritage for the future generation of American boys and girls?

Such is the position that the two Senators from Oregon have taken on every natural-resource project in this country wherever located that has come before the Senate of the United States. I wish that this reservation were somewhere else so no one could say, that, because it is in Morse's State, he is seeking some special benefit for Oregon.

But we can demonstrate to such critics that when they have a similar resource problem some place else, our position will not change. We have already made such a record on conservation, time and time again. So I agree with you, Senator Neuberger, that what I call looking to the future interest, that I have emphasized here this morning, may not arouse very much enthusiasm in 1958 in the Congress. But somebody ought to make a record on this point because I am convinced that the people of this country are going to have to come to this conservation point of view-and in the not too distant future-on this whole matter of protecting natural resources.

Here we have a specific conservation project. We have an opportunity to do justice to our Indians. We have an opportunity to keep this reservation in public domain for future benefits. The interesting thing about it is that it will be the greatest assist to private enterprise in the Klamath Falls and if it is purchased by the Federal Government.

If we really want to strengthen the system of private enterprise in the Klamath Falls area, we will not scuttle this forest now, we will not dump this timber. We will keep this timber under governmental trustee management where private industry on a competitive bid system will have a fair break to get this timber. If we operate it on a tree-farming basis we will keep some private mills in business for a long, long time in Klamath Falls. In my judgment, however, if we follow the scuttling program it will not be so many years before those mills will be out of business.

You, Senator Neuberger, have written on it more extensively than I have spoken on it. You can demonstrate so well what has happened to private timber holdings across America.

I alluded to it in my prepared statement.

Senator NEUBERGER. The only point I am making is that you and I are confronted with a practical reality. Under the existing terms of S. 2047 and possibly S. 3051, we are confronted with the challenge to persuade our colleagues perhaps to authorize appropriation of $121 million to buy an Indian reservation in Oregon.

Do you think we might be jeopardizing even that possibility if S. 2047 were amended to increase that price to the Indians?

Senator MORSE. We will just have to follow the course of debate and see.

to

I am hopeful that we might be persuasive in getting the Congress agree that maybe it is a waste of taxpayers' money to send a jet bomber to Venezuela or some other country in South America. It would be better to save that and put the purchase price of the timber

into the Klamath Indian Reservation for the benefit of future generations.

I think it would be a better defense for America.

Senator NEUBERGER. But if we are unsuccessful in such persuasion and neither bill is passed, then the existing termination act goes into effect.

Senator MORSE. And you and I are in the doghouse.

Senator NEUBERGER. I just want to ask one other question.

Do you think it would be preferable to have S. 3051 enacted than to permit the existing termination act to run its course?

Senator MORSE. I agree with Senator Quiring; I think that if we are pushed to the point where we have to take the Department bill we ought to try to get some amendments along the line he suggested. We should take the best bill we can have. We should amend the administration bill the best way we can if we lose out on S. 2047.

I do not think it is in the interest of the Indians or in the interest of the American people to have the termination law in its present form run its course.

Senator NEUBERGER. You do think if we were confronted with that dilemma that S. 3051 would be better than to have the existing termination act?

Senator MORSE. You and I have been confronted with that dilemma so many times and you know what the course of action has always been.

Unless in the opinion of one of us there is a great sacrifice in principle we go along with the best compromise we can get.

Mr. COBURN. Senator, do you see any advantage to those Indians who elect to remain in the tribe through this device of a private trusteeship to take the place of the Federal Government's trusteeship. Senator MORSE. Not at all. I see a great many disadvantages. I do not think that the Federal Government should by law turn the economic destiny of Indians over to private trusteeships.

I think we have a public responsibility to see to it that we keep the public hand in control.

Senator NEUBERGER. Do you have any questions, Mr. Gamble? Mr. GAMBLE. None, Mr. Chairman.

Senator NEUBERGER. Mr. Wolf?

Mr. WOLF. I have no questions.

Senator NEUBERGER. Senator Morse, thank you very much for being with us today.

I see it is 2 or 3 minutes before noon. I just want to make an explanation of our schedule for tomorrow morning.

We cannot meet at 9:30 as we have been doing because the chairman of the Interior Committee has called a meeting for 10 o'clock. He does not anticipate it will be a lengthy meeting, but one never knows.

So, subject to that overriding consideration as to how long the Interior Committee meeting will last, we will take up tomorrow morning at approximately 10:30 or as soon thereafter as the Interior Committee recesses.

Our first witness tomorrow morning will be Mr. J. W. Penfold, representing the Izaak Walton League of America, and then we will hear from Indian witnesses representing the Klamath tribe and other Indian groups from that area.

We will stand in recess, then, until 10:30 or soon thereafter tomorrow morning.

(Thereupon, at 12 noon, the subcommittee was recessed, to reconvene at 10:30 a. m., Wednesday, February 5, 1958).

98089-58-pt. 2-8