U.S. At War: Fight at Jackson Hole

Last week, in the face of Congressional opposition, Franklin Roosevelt once again went to the rescue of Wyoming’s mountain-hemmed Jackson Hole. Two years ago by executive order, he made Jackson Hole a national monument after Congress had refused to make it a national park. Now he firmly vetoed a bill to abolish it as a monument.

The scene of all this contention is a beautiful, sparsely populated 222,000-acre valley, where frontier rustlers once hid out. For 50 years conservationists have been fighting to make it a park. But many a Congressman and rancher bristled. Their argument: the Federal Government already owns too much western land; Federal ownership cuts down State land taxes. In his veto the President rejoined: Wyoming is still permitted to tax private lands in the valley, and private grazing rights remain inviolate.

But the last fight over Jackson Hole has not yet been fought. As the 79th Congress convened, Wyoming’s Senator Joseph O’Mahoney readied a new bill, which would abolish the Presidential right to create national monuments by executive order.