The Fight for Western Autonomy
Spokane conservationists organize to challenge federal control over forests, water, and mining rights.
A general convention of state conservation advocates is to be held in Spokane this winter. At that meeting, delegates from every section of the west will be invited and the fight organized to put the saving of forests, water power, coal, and mining districts in the hands of the different states instead of under control of the national government. A call for a preliminary meeting has been issued by a special committee of the Spokane branch of the American Mining Congress, which states: 'The residents of the western states have been asked to surrender their forests, not alone to federal control, but all revenue therefrom to the federal treasury, and now pay grazing charges on public lands which have been free for the use of the pioneer heretofore from the foundation of our government. Without consulting the interests or wishes of the residents of these states, it is now proposed to withdraw the water powers and to raise the price on coal lands.'
“The residents of the western states have been asked to surrender their forests, not alone to federal control, but all revenue therefrom to the federal treasury.”
This 1909 push for 'states' rights' over public lands mirrors contemporary debates in the American West regarding federal land management and the tension between local resource extraction and national conservation policies.
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