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WCU - Great Smoky Mountains - A Park for America

Senate Bill 5228: Senator Depew's speech

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Item 1 - Senate Bill 5228: Senator Depew's speech
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Senate Bill 5228: Senator Depew's speech

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Item 2 - Senate Bill 5228: Senator Depew's speech
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Senate Bill 5228: Senator Depew's speech

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Item 3 - Senate Bill 5228: Senator Depew's speech
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Senate Bill 5228: Senator Depew's speech

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wcu_great_smoky_mtns-14344.jpg

Senate Bill 5228: Senator Depew's speech

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Item 5 - Senate Bill 5228: Senator Depew's speech
wcu_great_smoky_mtns-14345.jpg

Senate Bill 5228: Senator Depew's speech

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Item 6 - Senate Bill 5228: Senator Depew's speech
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Senate Bill 5228: Senator Depew's speech

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Item 7 - Senate Bill 5228: Senator Depew's speech
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Senate Bill 5228: Senator Depew's speech

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Item 8 - Senate Bill 5228: Senator Depew's speech
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Senate Bill 5228: Senator Depew's speech

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Item 9 - Senate Bill 5228: Senator Depew's speech
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Senate Bill 5228: Senator Depew's speech

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  • ing of their steep mountain sides after every rainfall the soil was washed down into the valleys and ran off in the streams and that their country was likely to become a desert. They were the pioneers in this industry of industries. As early as the beginning of 1300 they had a complete system of forest preservation and control. In the six hundred years of which they have had the records they have brought their system to such perfection that the Swiss forests not only are the salvation of Swiss agriculture, both on the hillsides and in the valleys, but they yield net to the Government $8 per acre a year. It is a form of revenue which is not subject to accidents, but can be realized upon with absolute certainty under all circumstances. Forests under such conditions are a perpetual and increasing mine of wealth to the Government on the one hand and to the whole people on the other in their influence upon farms and harvests and upon industries. While 46,000,000 acres of land have been rescued to the West, there has been nothing done in the East. The country had a superb property, unique in every way, unequaled for richness and rarity and for the value of its product, in the redwood forests of the Pacific slope. Through carelessness simply Congress yielded to the shrewd representations of the speculator, who under that homestead plea, which is properly so attractive to the American, secured the enactment of laws by which any settler could secure 160 acres in these forests of priceless value. Then came the harvest of the lumbermen. Each of their employees staked out 160 acres. The sailors upon the vessels that carried off their lumber were induced to make claims for their 160 acres each, and the land was then transferred to the lumber companies, until, for a mere song, this magnificent inheritance of the people fell into the hands of different corporations who are mercilessly destroying the timber. Negligence of this kind on the part of Congress becomes almost a crime. Those wonderful woods should have been preserved, not for speculators and bogus settlers, but for the whole people of the country. They would, under scientific forest management, have been for all time to come not only self-supporting and revenue producing, they would have been more—they would have been the source of supplies of wood for all purposes for the inhabitants of the Pacific coast. They would have been additions to the rural scenery, which in every State and country, when attractive, helps culture and civilization, They would have been the home of game, where sportsmen could have found health and pleasure. But, instead, the land will become an arid waste, the streams will dry up, and the country will lose not only one of its best possessions, but there will be inflicted incalculable damage upon a vast region which otherwise would have remained always full of happy homes and cultivated farms. The Appalachian forest reserve as proposed in the pending measure is about 150 miles in length and of varying breadth. It is from 400 to 600 feet above the sea. It runs through the States of Virginia, West Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee. The slopes of these mountains are very steep, varying from 20° at the lowest to 40°. The waters which flow from the perpetual streams, fed by the perpetual springs, run on the one side to the Atlantic and on the other to the Gulf of Mexico. The streams from this mountain forest are the tributaries of these important rivers: The James, the Roanoke, the Catawba, the Savannah, the New (Kanawha), the Tennessee, the 5327
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Great Smoky Mountains - A Park for America

This digital collection was created to contribute to the public's understanding of the forces and ideas that led to the establishment of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 1934. The most vi...

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