The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1902-12-30
PRICE BAKING POWDER Co.
CHICAGO,
FENCING PUBLIC DOMAIN,

IullduClpuld It0COIu. ftculOVd OIL
fences from public lands in the west,
say the cattle and range magnates,
would blight the prosperity of the
communities without securing any
commensurate public advantage by
way of compensation. This, however,
is by no means the view of the land
Office authorities. The fences are
there only by right of seizure, while
the vast public domains which they
inclose are eagerly coveted by home
seekers. Farms or cattle ranges; di-
versifed agriculture or nomadic pas
turage; a thriving and increasing pop
ulation OF vast herds ranging yer
silent and far-extended plains of buff
falO grass-such is the choice that
must be made when the issue between
be pressed sharply home in the coun-
ellis of national administration. Mil
lions of acres have been. illegally in
closed, rights of settlers ignored and
regulations Of the public land Office
defied in order that cheap grazing
grounds might be maintained for pri-
vate profit at the public expense. II
this practice is to be continued and
legaliZed, what is to become of the
army of peaceful invaders whose mis-
sion it is to make western wilder
resses blossom as the rose?
The struggle between conflicting in
terests in. districts where cattle
ranchers have been heretofore domi-
nant has reached an acute stage in
Nebraska and South Dakota. BY ev.
cry available device of lease or pub
lie entry, ingeniously designed to alb
sorb vast areas of land, the cattle
men have been enabled to reduce to
practical possessiontwhole townships
and counties. Operating without
check for many years, they have been
enabled to set up effective barbed
wire barriers to the growth of budding
communities. Their holdings of graz
ing lands-cheap, we'll grassed and
convenient to great lines of trans
pOrtatiCn-constitute an asset of i'm
mense value, and. whether rightfully
held or not, will not be surrendered.
without desperate resistance. United
in a compact community of self-inter-
est, with abundant financial resources
and earnest advocates in both
branches of congress-, the grazers
should enjoy marked advantages in
preliminary legislative skirmishes for
land and yet more land.
There is no scarcity of acres-not
even a remote possibility of it-but
only a tangle of conflicting interests,
due largely to disregard or violation
of the public land laws. 1t would be
quite possible, no doubt, to meet the
current demands of homesteaders
and of the state il Nebraska without
disturbing any legally acquired rights
of the cattlemen. But this would by
no means content the latter. The
government is to be asked to confirm
them in possession of great tracts of
land to which their effective title is
i'll wire fences and the ready weapons
of a mobile mass of cowboys. Failing
In this, temporary sanction for such
e~ncroachments is to be sought in
modification by law of the existing
lease system, with a view, of course,
to eventual and permanent control of
lands now held in defiance of statu-
tory inhibitions. 1t is not easy to see,
under such conditions, where intend
ing settlers are to find due considera-
ton, save in a rigid enforcement of
existing land laws, even at the cost