The
revealing story of a rancher
and the
national debt
Special Report By David
Morgan, The Asheville Tribune
Case History: Hage v. United
States
After years of successfully
ranching in California, Wayne & Jean Hage
(she is now deceased) purchased
a large cattle ranch in Nevada, Pine
Creek Ranch, in the spring
of 1978. The acreage involved is approximately
752,000 acres. However,
as it is mostly desert land, the land's ability to
support cattle is far less
than might be supposed from its size.
Located in the high desert
mountains of central Nevada, the remote
operation seemed an unlikely
place for a war that would rock the very
foundation of federal land
management agencies. Wayne purchased the
operation from the well-respected
Arcularius Brothers who sold the ranch
because the regulatory pressure
by the U.S. Forest Service had become
unbearable. Since Wayne
had always been able to work with the agency, he
believed he could resolve
problems that might occur. Wayne soon learned
the only way he could satisfy
the Forest Service was to allow them to
confiscate his property.
One of the first incidents
that drew the line between Wayne and the Forest
Service revolved around
a critical spring that Wayne owned. Situated close
to the Forest Service Ranger
Station in Meadow Canyon, the district ranger
decided they would pipe
the water from the spring, through a newly installed
$50,000 water purification
facility, into their cabin. Wayne learned of this
after the project was complete,
and rightfully objected. He explained that if
they needed his water, they
could make appropriate arrangements. They
refused to cooperate and
would not acknowledge that he owned the water
even though he held two
court decrees affirming his water right. Wayne
even held a field hearing
where the state water engineer acknowledged
Wayne's ownership and the
Forest Service's illegal confiscation. But, still
today, the Forest Service
has maintained a fence around the spring so that
cattle and wildlife cannot
drink, and the water is still being piped into the
ranger's cabin.
Retaliation
Because Wayne questioned the Forest Service's
actions, the Forest Service
began an unbelievable retaliation campaign. In a
105-day period they sent
Wayne 40 certified letters and personally
visited him 70 times, each
time citing him in violation of a
bureaucratic regulation.
Wayne had to respond in writing and take
corrective action to each
one of their allegations, no matter how trivial. In
fact, most, if not all,
were wild goose chases or violations the Forest Service
themselves had created.
Some of these charges stated
Wayne was not maintaining his drift fences.
In order to comply with
their rules, Wayne would check and mend if
necessary the fences in
question. One of these incidents involved sending a
horse and rider to the top
of Table Mountain to ride the 20-mile fence line.
After doing this, the rider
found only one problem. There was one staple
missing. The Forest Service
had dutifully marked it with a blue flag.
Also, among these charges
were 45 accounts of trespass where Wayne's
cattle were allegedly found
in the wrong location. For every one of these,
Wayne would send a crew
of riders to locate the cattle and attempt to
comply with the regulations.
Often, there were no cattle to be found, leaving
Wayne to wonder if there
ever were. Also, on several occasions there were
eyewitnesses who watched
the Forest Service employees move Wayne's
cattle into trespass areas,
and then immediately cite him for the violation.
Over the next eight years
he filed three administrative appeals, and won all
three. They cost him over
$150,000 in attorney and consultant fees, not to
mention the countless hours,
personal resources, and lost income also
expended. Twice, his pickup
was shot at while he was close by, a not
so subtle warning. His wife
and children were run off the road
personally by the District
Ranger.
Even though he won every
case, the agency would create new regulations
that would wear Wayne down,
force him to expend his time and resources
fighting their new regulations,
and eventually run him completely out of
business. The final straw
came when the Forest Service confiscated at
gunpoint over 100 head of
his cattle. Armed with semi-automatic weapons
and bulletproof vests, 30
Forest Service riders confiscated his cattle in July
of 1991.
Although they had no legal
justification for their actions, they took the cattle,
handed Wayne a bill for
their cost of gathering the cattle, transported the
cattle to a sale yard which
refused to auction the stolen cattle, and
eventually the Forest Service
held their own private sale and kept the
proceeds.
The confiscation did not
go quite as planned, however. They needed to
infuriate Wayne to the point
that he would also come armed and give them
the excuse to eliminate
Wayne altogether. Wayne came armed, but with a
35 millimeter camera. Just
more evidence for the case he knew he would
have to file.
September 26, 1991, after
being forced to sell every cow he owned in order
to comply with federal regulations,
Wayne filed a landmark takings case,
Hage v. United States, for
the regulatory and physical taking of his ranch.
Criminal Desperation
A year later, the same agency
filed two felony charges against Wayne for
clearing scrub brush from
his legally owned right-of-way. Although the
Forest Service knew he was
not in violation and admitted this on the record
later, they also knew filing
criminal charges against him might force Wayne
to drop his takings suit.
After loosing the case at jury trial, Wayne prevailed
before the Ninth Circuit,
overturning the felony charges against him.
(See a complete timeline by clicking here.)
What's It All Really About?
In a recent radio interview
on WTZY (880AM) in Asheville, NC, Hage
spoke about the true nature
of the case. What he said was that basically all
of this has to do with our
national debt.
Excerpts from WTZY interview:
"During the Civil War we
accumulated $2.8 billion worth of debt which the
North owed mainly to the
House of Erlinger in London and the House of
Rothchild in Paris, who
had financed both sides in the War. We couldn't pay
the debt, so for the first
time in our nation's history they decided to
collateralize that debt
with the mineral estate of the Western lands and
Alaska. During the late
1800's we were able to internalize that debt to
where we owed it to ourselves.
In the 1960's the general
teaching of Economics 101 was that we shouldn't
worry too much about our
national debt as we owed it to ourselves, and
hence it wouldn't have to
be paid off. Besides all that gold, silver, gas, oil
and other mineral rights
out west more than adequately collateralize it.
But during the initiation
of the Great Society and the Vietnam War we
began once again to borrow
from overseas, as we didn't want to tax
ourselves enough to pay
for what was needed. We began to "externalize"
our debt, a fatal mistake.
Well, when we began to externalize our debt
heavily, Charles deGaulle
of France said, "I don't think you fellows can
redeem your dollar debt
with gold." We said, "Oh, yes we can!" So he said
that he would rather have
gold and began to raid our Treasury. When Nixon
became President, he was
faced with this mess and had to close the gold
window; we were running
out of gold. We, in effect, were running out of
collateral.
What Nixon did next, and
what stunned a lot of folks, was to set up the
Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA), and we began to pass massive
environmental laws. And
for what real purpose? All of them have had one
effect collectively, whether
at the Federal, state or local level. The one
thing they all do is that
they effect the transfer of private property
out of the hands of private
individuals and place that property into
the hands of government.
Now what is that all about?
Well, when we ran out of
gold and, in order to keep the foreign interests
from cashing in their bonds
and notes and imploding and destroying the US
economy, we had to show
them that the resources of the US adequately
collateralized their debt.
In order for it to be properly colleralized, we had to
show them that US citizens
and US interests would not be developing,
drilling and mining those
resources. The effect of this was to
disenfranchise American
citizens of access to their resources for the
purpose of making their
resources available to the international
financial interests that
hold the debt of the US. Indeed, at the present
time, about 40% of all our
debt is held by and owed to foreign interests.
Look at the mines. Where
I live, in Nevada, we have major mines all around
us. At one time they were
all owned by US citizens. But now the only mines
here that operate are those
held by those countries that own the debt of the
U.S. If you or I discovered
a major gold deposit, neither our kids nor we
would ever live long enough
to mine one shovelfull of it. All the rules,
regulations, and laws would
drive us under. We would have to sell out for
nothing to the government
or to a foreign entity, who would find their ability
to mine it would be rather
easy. (Editor's note: The recent seizure by
President Clinton of over
$1 trillion dollars worth of high grade coal
in Utah to establish a "park"
was settled by the US government paying
the owners merely $14 million
dollars for research and development
costs of the coal. See story
on Page 28 of The Asheville Tribune, print
edition.)
Another little known but
important fact that should be remembered is that
treasury bills and debts
held by foreign interests are secured while those
held by US citizens are
not.
Little by little, our entire
form of government is being reversed. A
fundamental tenant of economics
is that all wealth comes from the
land; every bit of wealth
originates in the land. The cornerstone of a
truly free society is the
ownership of private property by the people.
In such a society the people
own the means of production. In a totalitarian
society, the opposite takes
place. There, the government owns the land, the
wealth, and the means of
production. They, in effect, rent the land to the
people.
And what this means is that
in a free society where the people own the
land, the government has
to come to the people for its operating budget - for
tax dollars in order to
operate. The government has to listen to what the
people have to say. That
is the essence of a free society.
In a totalitarian society
where the government owns the resources, they
don't have to go to the
people for funds to operate.
Our government today owns
over 40% of the resource base of the U.S.
(Shaded areas of map above.)
The corporate U.S. government has
come to have its own assets
and is having to listen less and less to
its citizens. And it is
attempting to get more and more property under the
guise of environmentalism.
If you really want to find out who is really behind
all this, follow the money
of who is behind and invests heavily in the
environmental entities.
It is big money, and comes from powerful interest
groups from all around the
world. A couple of excellent books I would
advise you to read are Trashing
the Economy and Undue Influence by Ron
Arnold if you really want
to find out who the real powers are. They can
both be obtained from Stewards
of the Range in Idaho; their phone number
is 208-336-5922.
Now, as I have said, that
if laws protecting private property can be
weakened, the value of the
property declines. As government regulations
increase, the productive
capacity of private property decreases and the
value of the property itself
is reduced. Government ownership of and
regulation of the lands
and resources of a nation have never in
history provided for a free
society, nor for a productive one. (Editor's
note: Even today in Russia,
after the recent "democratic" revolution,
the government owns all
of the land. The Russian citizens cannot own
land in Russia.) Taking
productive resources and lands away from citizens
under the guise of "protecting"
the environment is simply a method by which
the government steals power
for itself.
Karl Marx considered the
elimination of private property key to the
establishment of a socialist
government. There was good reason behind this
premise. If people had no
value left in their property that value must be in
the hands of government.
The terms property rights and property control are
synonymous. Property rights
are the ability of the individual to
exercise control over his
property. It is only through the right to
control the use of property
that the individual can make the property
produce value or wealth.
If regulation or law transfers control over one's
property to the government,
then the ability of the property to produce
wealth is also transferred
to the government. Marx was right. The
elimination of private property
is essential if socialism or
communism is to supplant
a free society."