Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1892-03-26
ARID LANDS.
Proposed to Give Them to the
States.

Proposed to Give Them to the
States.
WASHINGTON, d. c., March 17.-If the bill
for the reclamation of the arid lands of the
United States, which has been recommended
for passage by tho committee on arid lands
and is regarded in the house with SO much
favor, becomes a law, $4,000 acres of semi
arid lands in western Kansas, which have
never been claimed by settlers, will be coded
to the state of Kansas. Many bills, memo
rails and petitions have been presented to
congress in the past two months relating to
the subject of irrigation and the proper dis
position of arid lands, and it is claimed by
the committee which recommends this bill,
that the general trend of these have been
favorable to the proposition of RELOCATING
these lands and the problems involved to
state and territorial control.
The committee on arid lands argues that
the United States must not enter upon the
work of irrigation as, once begun, the de-
mapd for the work will reach billions.
The CONCLUSION of the committee is that
the only solution of the question will be
found in ceding these lands to the states and
territories, and that this policy will ultimate
~ prevail they confidently predict. The
lands will not be forced upon the states; it
will be left to them, in their own sovereign
capacity to determine for themselves wheth-
or they will receive the grant from the gov
eminent. The committee expresses conf
dence in the ability of the states to deal with
the problem more satisfactorily than could
the government; they are presumed to be in
timately conversant with their own immedi-
ate necessities and conditions, and conf.
dence must be reposed in the virtue and in
tslligence of their people.
Simpson and Belts, members of the COM
mittee, make a minority report which says
that after the cessiou is made and accepted
by the several states, the government has no
further control over the land and cannot pre-
vent the sale of every acre of land to one
man. Heretofore congress has been induced
by arguments no more plausible than those
presented now, to make large grants of swamp
lands to several states, and yet no sooner
were the grants made, says the minority,
than without single exception, these land
grants passed into the hands of the ever
present land grabber, and by all manner of
frauds these men made themselves rich at
the expense of the very persons intended to
be benefited by the grants. 1t is q fact, also
says the minority, that even our school lands
did not escape the greed of the land grabber.
These lands, the minority says, are now be-
ing rapidly reclaimed by irrigation; the peo-
pie of all the other states and territories have
purchased their lands and paid many hum
dreds of millions of dollars into the United
States treasury, and have a right now to de-
mand that the same policy shall be pursued
with reference to the remainder of our pub
DC lands, instead of giving to some of the
states and territories one-half of our remain
in0 public domain for no other consideration
than the mere asking for it.
Kansans who are here in the interest of the
problem of irrigation, lead by Judge Gregory,
Of Garden City, are working against the plan
- cede these lands to the states.