The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1903-08-04
RENEFIcENT INTENTION OF GOV.
EMINENT DEFEATED.
NEED FOR CHANGE
Serious Obstacles Encountered to the
Legitimate Administration Of
National Irrigation Act.

Because of the advantage that is
taken by spectators and dishonest
persons who see, under the beneficent
provisions of the national irrigation
law an opportunity to grow wealthy
in a manner not intended by the franz
ers and promoters of the act, much
alarm is felt by the honest friends of
that law lest it's very object be de-
feated and subsequent legislation fol-
low to undo that which it took years
OF patient labor to accomplish. Avail
ing themselves of the existing laws
to secure possession of large tracts
that figure in the scheme of ultimate
reclamation, spectators are acquir-
ing title to lands to the exclusion of
the bona fide settler and homemaker
to an extent hardly realized by ever
the people of the states to which the
irrigation act applles. To arouse a
sentiment for revision of the laws
and compel congress to change them
| SO that fraudulent acquisition OF the
public domain shall be no longer
possible is one OF the laudable tasks
to which the National Irrigation asso-
citation has applied itself. Under the
| Speculator?" the following article has
been contributed by William A.
| Smythe, a prominent member of that
strong organization:
Shall the nations great domain OF
western arid lands. and the nations
money be used to enrich a compare
lively few greedy individuals, or shall
they be used to furnish security and
happiness for millions of men, women
and children?
Uncle Sam is still rich enough to
give us all a farm. And al irrigated
farm, at that. 1t is not a dream, but
a fact that the present population OF
the United States can be duplicated
on the arid public domain in the west.
This a be done without making new
comeptitors for those already engaged
in agricultural pursuits in the east
and in the south. On the other hand,
this wonderful act OF planting a. new
nation in what is now all but. an UNI
broken wilderness will confer enor-
nous benefits on those sections which
are already covered with farms, fac
tories and towns.
The subjugation and settlement Of
the great empire of public lands
means that every factory wheel in the
United States must whirl faster, that
every banking house must handle
more money, and that every railroad
must transport more passengers and
freight. This, in turn, meal a larger
and buster population in every eastern
and southern town, and that, of course,
will quicken and enlarge the demand
for all the products of the soil in
the older sections of the country. In
the meantime, that which is grown
from the soil to be conquered by irri-
cation in the west will go almost ok
clusively to the feeding of new home
markets to be created within the
arid region itself and to the satisfac'
tion of unlimited demands in the
orient and in the frozen north.
Congress has decreed that the great
policy of national irrigation shall be
entered upon without delay. Already
the engineers and surveyors are doing
their work and five great projects
have been reported %favorably to the
interior department. Only about ST.
00O, 900 are required to carry all five
to completion and the money is in the
treasury awaiting the call. But upon
the threshold of the greatest cor
structive policy to which this nation
has ever set it's hand, a new and ap'
palling obstacle is encountered. AL
most every acre of these lands which
the nation is about to prepare for the
| sWarming of a hOme-building pODula