The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1895-04-12
COME WEST.
National Irrigation Society is
Organizing Colonies.
Big Meeting in Chicago to In
duce Emigration.
HOPELESS TENANTS.
City Laborers Urged to Get Out
Of This Condition.
Millions of Acres Offered to
Them in the West.

CHICAGO, April H. - William E.
Smythe, chairman of the National Irri-
cation committee, offered three million
acres of land in Utah, Montana, and
Washington for sale at $1.25 an acre on
cash or mortgage payments, from the
platform of the First Methodist church
last night The offer was made on the
authority of congress and the governors
of the states and the territory and in the
interests of the colonization scheme
Mr.. Smythe is promoting.
There were no purchasers in the audi
ence of 800. but the meeting aroused an
enthusiasm which it is hoped may result
in the securing of land and homes for
some seventy destitute families in Pull
man, and enough more from the city to
make up good sized emigrating colony.
The meeting was called by the Home
Seekers association which is composed
largely of clergymen of the city, but
the audience showed that the labor ele-
ment was greatly interested.
Mr. Smythe is in the city for the pur-
pose of forming a local colony to join
the new Plymouth colony, now forming
in Boston under the leadership of Ed
ward Everett Hall which is expected to
move west in August to take up and ir-
rigate lands in Utah offered by the state
government.
The whole movement has been insti-
tuted as a solution to the problem of re-
lieving the increasing congestion of pop
ulation in large cities.
The Rev. j. Rusk, pastor of the Full
erton Avenue Presbyterian church, sec
retary of the Homeseekers association,
presided and introduced Mr.. Smythe.
Mr.. Smythe spoke briefly on the OBJ
jects of the colonization movement Tho
issue, he said. before the American peo-
pie today is the making of new homes on
agricultural lands. In reality it is the
creation of new civilization. In brief
he explained the Carey law by which
five of she western states have set aside
|, /, 100000 acres of arid lands each for the
purpose of irrigation and cultivation.
These lands are to be disposed of al
low rates and every inducement is offered
those who are willing to endure the brunl
of hard work for few years In irriga-
ton, Mr.. Smythe said, lies the hope oi
making these lands valuable and it is
the intention to establish colonies Those
who go from Chicago 10 the first colony
will compose the >Iony of Plymouth, in
the Payette valley Idaho, and the starr
will be made in August
Continuing, Mr. Smythe said: s'The
recent labor troubles have given thought
full men an insight into the conditions in
which the middle classes are living
There is no more startling proof o1
the slow descent of the middle
classes then than the statistics showing
that over 70 per cent of the American
people are mere tenants of the land they
occupy, less per centage than any
foreign country except Great Britain.
1--WE have reached period of stagna-
ton because our early policy of con-
tinental conquest has been abandoned
Fast of a north and south line passin G
through the center of Kansas there are
64,O00,000 people; west of it. 1000, 900
For many reasons Brigham Young
| deserves to be ranked among the
greatest of Americans. He founded I
Commonwealth rather than a church
| Irrigation was with him discovery ana
! he grasped its possibilities.
| He saw it was practical and an insur
ance policy on crops, and made possible
the raising off a single farm OF nearly
everything family needs. He founded
a state on industrialism, organized with
the best preventive of city congestion
| the farm village. The Mormons have
taken 1862, 100000 out of the soil. witt
an annual income of for each family o.
| 10000 farms of $1.355.
! Mr. Smythe made comparisons be-
tween the Mormons and the people o.
| Pullman. The former were landed pro
prietors, increased values accruing tt
them, and every man a participater il
| the banking system. The latter were
| hopeless tenants, with increased values
accruing to their employers, and com
pulsory patrons of corporation bank
| and stores.
Mr.. Smythe said $500 capital would
take family to the west, pay for the ir
rigation of forty acres and sustain then
until the first crop If the families had nj
money they might mortgage the lands il
| advance, and an effort was being mad
to secure funds for this purpose.
| The Rev. Carwardine of Pullman mad
an appeal for help for the seventy Pull
| man families who wanted to get away
| Their plan was to GO south, he said.
NJ. Il. Madden of the Typographica
| Union also spoke.