FIGURE 8.-A Mexican arrastra.-Simple home-made mill used in isolated areas to grind rock containing free milling gold ore for amalgamation with quicksilver.

bearing ore that had been dumped into the arrasta until the ore is ground fine enough to release the gold which can then be washed and amalgamated.

It is reported that by the use of these primitive methods, Louie Larson took out over $50,000 in gold in working this claim over the years, while his neighbors, with their claims staked on big veins of low-grade, refractory gold ore had to content themselves with holding their claims and doing their annual assessment work year after year, earning money for their subsistence as best they could, waiting for the country to open up and capital to come in to develop their big, lowgrade mining properties.

While Louie Larson has been growing old and making some money by his mining operations, these other old gray heads have been dropping off, one by one, and are buried over on the hillside in the little cemetery at Dixie, and Louie out of compassion takes his worn-out arrasta stones and chisels their names to mark their graves-"Buried hopes and buried opportunities," because the country is locked up and neglected by the Forest Service. You couldn't get a road in there to save your soul. I know because I have tried it. An old friend of mine, a lumberman, took me back to see the Thunder Mountain country and told me this story, of the trials and efforts of the prospectors in this vast mountain region to interest their Government and the Forest Service in opening up the country for development. We went as far as we could in automobiles to the end of the road, and had to finish the trip by riding on horseback the last 10 miles to the Thunder Mountain country and the surrounding low-grade gold mines.

We were told that the Washington office of the Forest Service some years before had allocated the money to build the road down to the Sunnyside mine, a famous early day mining property on Thunder Mountain. It seems that the owner had been a little critical of the dilatory tactics of the Forest Service, and the supervisor in charge of the area in retaliation for the criticism, used the money to construct the road into the country to the top of the Divide and then turned off to a dead end miles off in the other direction where it did no good to anyone, leaving the miners and their property isolated and without any access except by pack train.

Observations and experiences of this kind have something to do with the sort of questions I have been asking these gentlemen.

Over on the Snake River we have in the Seven Devils district admittedly one of the richest copper areas in the Northwest. Could I get a road into that country? Ever since I have been in Congress I have been trying to get access roads built into that country, but the Seven Devils region is as primitive and isolated today as it was when Teddy Roosevelt withdrew all that country and put it under the control of the Forest Service. There is a real man's job for your Congressman in Washington, and I have been trying to fill it. Thank

you.

Mr. GOLDY. Thank you very much, Congressman White. I just want to make one comment, Congressman: You never saw a man conduct an ambush with a brass band, and if we were trying to put some fancy footwork over on anybody and trying to close the door of opportunity that's been open since 1872, we certainly wouldn't do it by

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calling a big public meeting and inviting everybody in. I don't think there's any better evidence of our intentions than the fact the Department of the Interior has not attempted to submit a bill to Congress, the Bureau of Land Management has not attempted to arrive at any final conclusions about what ought to be in the bill, and doesn't intend to until it's had an opportunity to consult with everyone concerned, until it's given everyone an opportunity to thrash the problem out in meetings of this type. I think whatever you may think of the bureaucrats, whether they're in Washington or out here, and incidentally, I don't know what the life expectancy of bureaucrats is exactly, but my guess is the life expectancy of some of those miner friends of yours is a little longer than some of the bureaucrats I've been associated with, whatever you think of them, they're certainly not attempting to write laws based on academic theories without going to the horse's mouth to find out how it would apply. That's exactly what this meeting is here for today, and that's why we have had other meetings before with the Idaho Mining Association and other groups. Right now I want to call on Mr. P. Evan Oscarson.

FROM THE FLOOR. Wouldn't it be fair in this meeting to let the mining have one say, and you not make an immediate rebuttal?

Mr. GOLDY. I wasn't aware, sir, that I was making any rebuttal. FROM THE FLOOR. You're breaking down his statement by a rebuttal of the statement he has made.

Mr. GOLDY. Well, sir, that was not my intention. I thought the Congressman's statement was an excellent one, and it was not my intention at all to break it down. I'd like now to call on Mr. P. Evan Oscarson.

STATEMENT OF P. EVAN OSCARSON, CHAIRMAN OF THE PUBLIC LANDS COMMITTEE OF THE NORTHWEST MINING ASSOCIATION

Mr. OSCARSON. To follow either Donald Callahan or Congressman White leaves practically nothing to say, and when they're both on ahead of me there really is nothing, so I will be very brief in what I have to state here.

This is a meeting of people of varied interest in the multiple use of Federal lands, to express opinions as to the needs for revision in the mining laws for the benefit of the public interests of each represented. Among the others, the mineral industry has a special interest in their need to have available to our national economy the hidden reserve of minerals on the Federal lands. The mineral industry recognizes that other interests have a right, but do not agree that such rights are paramount in controversial issues. The right of the mineral industry stems from the very decks of Congress, the principal one of which is the law of 1872. This law was quite brief and lacked the necessary detail to fit the variations of geological phenomena and the difference in human behavior. Over the intervening period of 77 years a vast amount of litigation has added definition until we now are quite certain of the law in most instances, and changes would cause great confusion for years until the new law had been defined.

The expression of other interests in the multiple use of Federal lands has culminated in the proposal of the Bureau of Land Management for a new mining law. The mining industry contends that

the abuse stems principally from two sources: Congress each year for many years has authorized moratoria on annual assessment work, permitting the holding of claims without work; and the second, the Government agencies have not been as alert in protecting the public lands from private uses as a private individual has to be to protect his private lands.

We contend therefore that the law does not need revision, but instead, Congress needs to be convinced the moratoria are now more harmful than beneficial, and Government agencies charged with administration of the Federal lands concerned need to be more alert in the protection of such lands against fraudulent occupancy and use. Mr. GOLDY. Thank you. I'd like to call now on Mr. Everett Hougland, of the Northwest Mining Association; is he here? I don't believe he's here. May I call now on Mr. A. H. Shoemaker, president, I believe, of the Idaho Mining Association, and general manager of the Triumph Mining Co., Triumph, Idaho.

STATEMENT OF A. H. SHOEMAKER, PRESIDENT OF THE IDAHO

MINING ASSOCIATION

Mr. SHOEMAKER. Mr. Chairman, gentlemen; I didn't come here to speak, I came to listen, but it seems that from listening particularly to the papers and comments given this morning that the main complaint so far has been the abuse by a small fringe group of the mining laws, particularly in holding land for other uses than the particular bureaus would wish them to be held. I don't think any serious damage has been proved.

I think the things are largely of nuisance value, and I believe that a vigorous administration of the present processes that are available would see that the public interest is not harmed or injured.

Now, I believe further that our law should be supplemented, and that supplement brings in a rather broad range of technical changes which are almost impossible to discuss at this time and in such a short period. I'm hoping that tomorrow we can get down to brass tacks on some of those things which require a technical approach, but I feel very strongly that a vigorous administration of the present laws that are in effect right now would prevent all of the abuses that these gentlemen are screaming about. You can take a very classic case which is in your list there of Senator Cameron, in Arizona, who attempted to close the Bright Angel Trail, and the proof that the public is not sleeping is he didn't get away with it, and none of these others would be getting away with it with a very vigorous attack and use of the present laws now in effect.

Mr. GOLDY. In deference to this gentleman's wishes that I not appear to say anything that sounds like rebuttal, I'll save my remarks until the general discussion. I think that one of the things that ought to be covered thoroughly in general discussion is this question of whether or not existing authority now lies in the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service to handle administratively some of these problems.

I'd like now to call on Mr. McConnell.