That Mr. LEE. In this area we figure about the same as Mr. Stacher did. between 30 and 40 acres to a cow and about 7 sheep to the cow. But we do not figure like he does. He said a lot of that land is waste land-20 per cent, I believe. We figure that in the 40 acres. is why the acreage is so very high. We just figure as it comes. Mr. SCATTERGOOD. Have you had occasion to know about the work of the chapter organizations among the Indians? Mr. LEE. Very little. We have one chapter over our way, at Sand Springs, by the trading store, and I think it is doing very good work. Mr. SCATTERGOOD. I had hoped you might have some suggestions which we might avail ourselves of to make them more effective along lines we have been talking. Mr. LEE. I had quite a few cattle a few years ago that is, our company did. We were grazing over on the lands of the Indians and the Indians had a lot of worthless horses that were grazing in on us, causing a lot of trouble. I went to Mr. Stacher and told him there was no need for this trouble; I would furnish the wire if he would have his Indians put up the posts and the fence and we would fence it and we would play in our yard and they would play in their yard. Mr. Stacher said that was fine. I put the wire on the posts and the Indians put up the fence, and that is the end of it. We have been playing inside our back yard and they have been playing in theirs. Mr. SCATTERGOOD. Have you ever met Mr. Zeh, who has been making a survey of the grazing conditions in this reservation? Mr. LEE. I have not; I met Mr. Hagerman relative to the situation many times, and I have talked to Mr. Stacher a good many times about it. Senator FRAZIER. What do you think about the situation in the higher lands where the superintendent said there was so much snow all winter that the sheep up there froze? Mr. LEE. We believe this, Senator. Sheep can only be run economically in units. You have to have a range unit in order to operate economically. Senator FRAZIER. What do you mean by a range unit? Mr. LEE. It is a range arranged to give summer range and winter range; that the sheep could be moved in the winters and in the summer. There should be some arrangements made to divide and fence the lands. During the different grazing seasons the water should be developed so they could trail back and forth the same as the white stockmen do. I think this would overcome a lot of difficulty. Senator FRAZIER. Anything further? Mr. LEE. This map shows the allotments scattered. For instance. we own five townships of this checkerboard area here which we bought from the railroad company. A good many of my neighbors are here. I am more or less spokesman for them. They have either bought or leased this land from the railroads or are buying it and paying for it, and in those townships you will see there are allotments. As Mr. Stacher has said, and it is well known to every Indian here, a man can not run on 160 acres and make a living. It means he has to take from the other fellow. It puts one family in the middle of that patch. It causes friction. It would not make any difference whether it was an Indian or another white man in there the friction would be there. The system is wrong. We believe there should be no further allotments, at least until this question is settled, and we further believe, as does Mr. Stacher, that there should be no further homesteading either, that we should block up this land along through the reservation here by consolidation and properly take care of the white ranges. I want to make a point I thing Mr. Stacher left out. That is, that the white ranchers in here have also been here a long time. They have spent a good deal of many developing their ranches, wells, homes, and so forth, and when this thing is done they have to be protected too. They are citizens; they are taxpayers; and they are doing the right thing just as well as the Indian is trying to do the right thing, and we believe that the only thing to do is to block up the allotments along that border of two townships and to protect the white stockmen who are in there now, either by exchanging with him or buying his equipment at its fair value. Senator WHEELER. There is not any disposition on the part of this committee to be unfair to the white stockmen who are in there. What we want to do if we possibly can is to work out a solution of the problem that will be fair both to the Indians and to the white people down here. That is our only interest in the matter. Mr. LEE. That is what we realize, and that is why we are here to-day. There are some 20 or 25 stockmen here that are vitally interested in this matter. Mr. SCATTERGOOD. May I ask in reference to your suggestion as to the withdrawal of lands first made by Mr. Stacher: Do I understand then, you people would not object to the President withdrawing that land for the time being? Mr. LEE. We would go further. We think the land should be entirely withdrawn from homesteading. It should be returned back to the States who owned it and go into our own State. That is how we feel about it. We feel it is an outrage and a crime for the Government to bring a man out here and try to have him make a living on 160 acres when there are thousands of people who have tried it. The Indians have tried it. Senator WHEELER. And if the Indians can not do it the white man can not. Mr. LEE. Certainly, he can not. Senator WHEELER. Let me ask you this: You have a livestock organization here in New Mexico. Can you get them to cooperate with the Government, with the view of working out a solution of this problem on the Navajo Reservation, such as suggesting to the Indians how to handle the grazing so as to get the most feed from the range? Mr. LEE. We could, and we have. Governor Hagerman is the first man we have met along with Doctor Snyder, that we have been able to work with and suggest to you that we feel we have made headway by getting these new dipping vats in. If we could only get a little reseeding of the ranges and a whole lot of wells drilled Senator WHEELER. You are talking to the man who can give that to you, Mr. Scattergood, the assistant commissioner. Mr. SCATTERGOOD. We will get that done just as soon as we can get the money from the other fellows. 26465-32-PT 18- 49 Senator WHEELER. The department can get the money from us if they recommend it. In fact, we think we gave them more than they wanted for some things. Mr. LEE. A cow or a sheep can go a long way on a whole lot of water and very little grass, but if you have a whole lot of grass and very little water, why it is no good. The cow or sheep, neither one, will do it. Water is a very important thing in here. For instance, this winter went 109 days without going to water; but in the summer Senator FRAZIER. They had plenty of snow? Mr. LEE. Just a little scattering snow, enough to carry them along, but in the summer time we will need water every day. Wherever you take your sheep more than 3 miles to water you cut out your grass and destroy it and the new range does not cure it. You have got to care for what you need. We have found that to be true and I think that they will find it out. We did find it out. Mr. SCATTERGOOD. Would your association be willing to pass a resolution urging the President to withdraw these lands? Mr. LEE. We have already done that. Mr. SCATTERGOOD. You have done that? Mr. LEE. Yes, sir. Mr. SCATTERGOOD. You have put yourselves on record to that effect! Mr. LEE. Yes, sir. Mr. SCATTERGOOD. Do you know whether copies have been sent to the Secretary of the Interior? Mr. LEE. And the President of the United States. Mr. SCATTERGOOD. When was that done? Mr. LEE. That was done in our convention in February. Senator FRAZIER. We would be glad to have a copy of that for our record. Mr. LEE. We will have our secretary forward it to you. The scattering of the allotments only spreads out the contagious disease among the sheep and cattle. They are training back and forth all the time. Where you block them up and get them in a unit it stops it. For instance, on the east side of our State in Chaves County and around there, where have the ranges blocked up now, there have not been any scabies down there for about 10 years. Our whole source of trouble is in the western side of the State. We have made headway in reference to that in the last two years with the cooperation of the Indian Department. Senator WHEELER. What about these goats on these reservations? Mr. LEE. What do you mean? Senator WHEELER. Should they not be eliminated to a large extent? Mr. LEE. We find that it does not pay to raise goats. I might state this: I am chairman of the advisory committee to the Farm Board on wool and mohair. I have been to Washington where we had this mohair question up. That is troubling Texas. Texas grows about 90 per cent of all the mohair in the United States. Senator FRAZIER. There is some grown in this State? Mr. LEE. Yes, sir; a million and a half pounds. Senator WHEELER. I had in mind these scrub goats that we have got here. Mr. LEE. The point I was trying to bring out is this: Within the past 10 or 15 years experience leads us to believe that we can not see any outlook even for the Angora goat, because we have got a year's supply of mohair on hand now. The National Wool Marketing Corporation has 15,000,000 pounds of mohair on hand now, and a new clip is coming in with no demand. We used to make mohair plush for the automobiles. The ladies wear silk dresses now and this mohair sticks through it, and they will not buy a car that has got mohair plush in it; so the automobile manufacturers will not use it. The change in the ladies' dress has ruined the mohair business. Senator WHEELER. You do not want the ladies to quit wearing silk, do you? Mr. LEE. It is all right with me. That is actually what happened to it, and I do not see any chance for change in ladies' style for a while, and unless there is a new outlet found for mohair, I do not think the goats are going to be worth anything. There is some excuse for the scrub goats, as you call them, because they use the milk a great deal. They make cheese out of their milk and they use the milk to drink. It is quite a source of food. Senator FRAZIER. And they also use the meat? Mr. LEE. They also use the meat. A certain number of goats are a good thing. There is no doubt about that. However, they are destructive in connection with forage, and too many goats will practically ruin anything. The forestry service will not allow them on the forest range at all. Senator WHEELER. Somebody told me the goats run the legs off the sheep; is that true? Mr. LEE. That is true, to a certain extent. In our herds you will find very few goats because the sheep are heavy Senator FRAZIER. Are the goats any protection to the sheep? Mr. LEE. No protection. Senator FRAZIER. Are they any protection from coyotes? Mr. LEE. No; a coyote may not like the smell of them; that is all. Senator FRAZIER. Will not goats fight coyotes? Mr. LEE. Oh, yes; they will fight them. Senator FRAZIER. I think they would be some protection then. I have heard that claim made a good many times. Mr. LEE. That may be so, but not to my knowledge. There is only one other question: You gentlemen have heard it time and time again, and that is the further taking out of taxation of land is opposed by the lovestock interest. Senator WHEELER. What proportion of this country is nontaxable land? Mr. LEE. One of the county commissioners is sitting right here. Offhand, I would say nearly 90 per cent. You can get the county line here. It takes in the whole Navajo Reservation. The county line is right over there [indicating] down to here. You have the Indian reservation here as well as the Fort Wingate Reservation. All the taxable property you have is the city of Gallup, the railroad that runs through here a small ways, and little ranch lands in there; that is all. Mr. SCATTERGOOD. Can you tell us for the record what that grazing land is assessed at? Mr. LEE. It is assessed at various prices, running from $1 to $2. Most of it, I think, averages $1 an acre. It averages about 3 cents an acre, is what they have to pay. The tax rate is about 3 cents, but that makes about $1 an acre. Senator BRATTON. I think 43 per cent of the entire area of the State is owned by the Government in some form, either as Indian reservations, public domain, forest reserves, or in some other form, so that about 57 per cent of the land within the State is subject to taxation. Mr. LEE. McKinley County takes in the Zuni Indian reservation, the Fort Wingate Military Reservation, the Manzano Forest and the Zuni Forest, and, besides, all these other Indian lands that are going out and it has come to be that the burden of keeping up McKinley County is one lying on a few of us at the present time. Senator BRATTON. As I understand you, the solution of the livestock business is to put it on a more scientific basis rather than to enlarge it? Mr. LEE. I think so; absolutely. It should not be enlarged. It should be put on a scientific basis. Senator BRATTON. Leaving the taxation question entirely out of it, you think the remedy is to intensify the industry and make it more scientific? Mr. LEE. Yes, sir; that is our opinion. We can see no other way out. Senator FRAZIER. We thank you, Mr. Lee. Mr. LEE. I thank you gentlemen for your kindness. There are other livestock men here, if you care to hear them. Senator FRAZIER. We have to hear some of the Indians. (Witness excused.) Senator BRATTON. I understand that Mr. Kelleher has a list of some persons present who agree in substance with the statement made by Mr. Lee and that Mr. Kelleher will place those names in the record at this time. Mr. WILLIAM H. KELLEHER. I would like to read into the record at this time the names of some of the most substantial sheep and cattlemen who live in this vicinity and who are affected by this proceeding. We have conferred and substantially agree with the statement made by Mr. C. W. Lee, president of the New Mexico Wool Growers Association, and we concur in that statement. I will read these names off. They are as follows: Silvestre Mirabal, of San Rafael; W. A. Berryhill, Thoreau, 10,000 acres; H. T. Pruitt, Thoreau; Robert Pruitt, Thoreau; Kelsey Presley, Crownpoint, 12,000 acres, 350 cattle; I. K. Westbrook, 3 T. W. P., 700 head cattle; Floyd Burnham, Indian trader, 500 head cattle; J. T. Branson, Thoreau; Marmon Jacobs, 6,000 acres, 250 cattle, sections 2, 16, 32, 36, public domain-in each township; Frank Lovelady, 300 head cattle, 8,000 acres; Lou Kirk, 300 head cattle; C. A. Brown, Farmington, vice president Colorado Wool Growers Association; E. L. Moulton, vice president New Mexico Wool Growers Association; W. F. Pitt, 3 T. W. Ps., 700 cattle; Smith Bros., 1 T. W. P., 750 cattle. Senator FRAZIER. How much land does Mr. Pruitt own? Mr. KELLEHER. How much land do you control? Mr. PRUITT. I own 7,000 acres. Senator FRAZIER. Seven thousand acres. Mr. KELLEHER. How many sheep do you run? |