Las Vegas Age

Commission For West Suggested By President

Group To Cooperate With Interior Department On Public Land; Reclamation Projects Hinted at Confab.

SALT LAKE. Utah. Aug. 26. (U.P.)-

The creation of a commission of ten members, at least five of whom would be chosen from citizens of public land states to cooperate with the department of Interior on problems of the public lands and reclamation service, was proposed in a message from President Hoover which was delivered to the Western Governors' conference by Assistant Secretary of the Interior Joseph M. Dixon today.

The message contained many tentative suggestions on subjects which would come before such a commission. These included the transfer to state governments for public school purposes the remaining unappropriated. unreserved public lands; the reorientation of the direction of reclamation service to the storage of water: simplification of the reclamation service administration and authorization of the reclamation service to join with the states and private interests for the creation of water storage for irrigation purposes.

Asserting that the western states have long passed from their swaddling clothes and are today more competent to manage their own affairs than the federal government, the message states "that we must seek every opportunity to place communities in control of their own destinies."

"That these matters may be gone into exhaustively and that I may be advised intelligently, I propose to appoint a commission of nine or ten members. five of whom should be chosen from the leading citizens of the public land states." the message said. "and I should like to secure the cooperation of the governors by submission by them of names for such a commission."

Governors Erickson of Montana, Emmerson of Wyoming. Baldridge of Idaho. Phillips of Arizona. Balzar of Nevada and Dern of Utah attended the conference personally while governors of Oregon. Colorado. California. New Mexico and Washington were represented by delegates. Assistant Secretary of Interior Joseph M. Dixon is representing President Hoover.

The call for the conference was inspired by the recent announcement of Dr. Ray Lyman Wilbur that the time was right for the states to consider taking over the surface rights to the public domain This coupled with asserted propaganda which it is claimed has been circulated in the middlewestern states against federal aid to reclamation projects, created the feeling that unified action was necessary to forestall any such possibility.