The Dickinson press., 1902-01-04
Small Stockmen
Want to Wake Up and Defeat
the Proposed Measure

Vosst ~ woke Up d00 Uetedt
the Proposed Measure
Stockgrowers Journal: Al Appropriated
by this paper a few weeks ago. the Ma
tional Live Stock convention held re-
Gently in Chicago. is attempting to bios.
som and bear fruit in congress. A bill
for the app,o p%ria,,on of The public do
main by large c tile Interests has been
Introduced in the house and will be- ser,-
ously considered, referred, reported anu
debated, let us hope, tn defeat. 10 be
sure, the bill magnanimously provides
that the appropriations shall pay Two
cents an r per year and that their
title to the land shall be humornus'y
termed a lease" but inasmuch as az
cording to the terms of the bill, there is
practically no limi. to the area that may
be leased and actually no limit to tile
time. proceeding under the bill, if it
should become a law, would amount
simply to a deed Of gift IRON the govern.
men', in recognition Of which the grantee
would pay the Insignificant sum Of two
GEMS per acre in lieu of all taxes, ma
t'onaI, state or county. Aside from the
general objections to a few men owning
the earth, there is this to be said against
the latest and worst "con munity Of in
terests." II is antagonistic to the great
project Of retaining the arid west by
large irrigation enterprises prosecuted
by the national government. which policy,
after many years of ridlculc and rebuff,
the country and congress now seem ripe
tor. Furthermore and in similar sense,
it is a%ntagonistic to the settlement Of the
great west. These men who desire to
appropriate the entire arid belt under
the cloak OF unlimited and non-expiring
leases. have NJ use for the settler and
the march of civilization that follows in
his train. They want no irrigation ex-
cept the little ditch that irrigates around
the home ranch and grows enough grain
and hay for the horse stock. Settlement
and civilization wen as limited as it still
is in the west, has interferred with their
plans and they seek now to build up a
wall against its further approach before
it is too late. But it is too late. The
country is not SO much concerned about
"cheap beef for the poor" as it is about
iree homes for the poor, and ample
scope for the growth of a citizenship
rooted in the soil endowed with the
Drawn and brain that Nature gives to her
children. Shall the new western COM
monwealths, now marching forward
shoulder to shoulder, Respondent with
the halo of a prosperous past and a glor-
ious future, be checked in their onward
movement and hidden to stand while
this new trus. occupies their broad acres
and appropriates their substance? 1t is
not in the ~ifty-seventh congress to ad-
nit this, and if it was, there,is a man in
the White House who knows the situa-
ton and is not afraid 70 act.
This may seem to be strange talk for
a newspaper published in the heart Of
the range stock country, on which com.
.bined industry the community largely
depends. but it is for the sake of the ma
jority of that interest that the talk is
made. There may be a few in this sec
tion,of the range country who would be
able to get in with the leasing; ring but
by far the greater number would not.
Small owners with a limited amount of
money or credit. have had one little taste
of how a monopoly Of this kind works, in
recent operations in forest reserve scrip.
BY this procedure it o the ~locaters
from 81 to S. an acre to obtain occu-
pancy of the land, and still many a small
owner was pushed hard against the wall.
How do you imagine it would be when it
only cost W cents an acre, and who do
you suppose would be the first to get in
on the ground floor? You little fellows
that live in the country, who get but one
or two mails a week and are perforce
some two or three weeks behind the
times, where would you get on att You
would get up some fine morning and find
the whole range up to your very door
yards. leased to some fellow you had
never heard Of before, and you reduced
to the absolute necessity of selling out
and beginning life anew. This is the
reason a newspaper published in a range
country for a community that derives its
chief subsistence from the range industry,
condemns the bill now before congress
providing for the leasing of the entire
public range to Spectators. without
limit as to area or time, and for a nom-
inal sum-.