John Hansen: “the great conservationist Teddy Roosevelt could see, as he went through the West, and he was very familiar with the…”

“the great conservationist Teddy Roosevelt could see, as he went through the West, and he was very familiar with the West, that there were some things that needed protection. So he asked Congress to pass a law, and that was called the Antiquities Law that was passed in 1906. It is kind of fun and interesting to go back and read the information regarding the Antiquities Law. As they stood on the floor and debated it, they said what is this really going to do? Between the gentleman from Texas and the other gentleman, they said it will protect the cave dwellers, or what they had there, and it should be called the cave dwellers bill. In this particular instance, what does it say? It amazes me, Mr. Chairman, because we have passed two previous pieces of information about this, 408 to 2 this year and one the term before, but very few people even take the time to look at the law. As Chairman John Sieberling used to say, when all else fails, read the legislation. I could not agree more with that.”