The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1903-01-02
EFFORT TO REPEAL DESERT
LAND LAW.
DESERT
ARE NOW ACTIVE
Big Companies Absorbing Millions Of
Acres Of Best Remaining
Lands.

Washington, Dec. 29.-The great
work which the national government
is just embarking upon of the sub
jugation Of arid America is being dis
cussed by the entire western half of
the United States, and was brought
into particular prominence by the re-
cent national irrigation congress held
at Colorado Springs.
The west has so long striven for
some assistance from the government
that it's people can hardly realize that
congress actually did make an appro-
priation of about $6,000,O 900 for con-
structing irrigation reservoirs and pro-
viding. further. that the proceeds from
the sales of all western public lands,
as received year by year, shall be
used for such development. Even
western senators and congressman
who, it might be thought, would have
known the temper of congress on this
subject, have expressed the greatest
establishment that such a bill should
have really received the votes of a
majority of congress. They had not
reckoned, however, upon the change
of sentiment in the east las the ques-
ton became better understood, and
the support which eastern men have
been giving the irrigation movement
the past few years since the captains
of the great manufacturing centers
have considered the possibilities Of
arid America and have actively for
warded the proposed plan to reclaim
the western deserts and thus create
new home markets for the sale of
their goods.
The eastern agricultural opposition,
too, it seems, has largely disappeared
since it is seer that irrigated products
will not come east to compete with
eastern farm products, but will find a
market in the Orient, and that when
the eastern manufacturer sells addi-
tional goods in the west he will have
to employ more factory hands, and
that western agriculture will be slim
ulated to feed them. Trade is the life
of the land, and the motto suggested
by speakers at the recent irrigation
congress that trade follows the irri-
cation flag" is appropriate and
automatic.
Now the great question is to save
those irrigable lands from spectators.
While the people of the country are
complacently sitting back, waiting for
the national irrigation act to go into
operation and populate the deserts,
the land grabbers and spectators
are absorbing, by fair means or foul,
and as rapidly as possible, every acre
of good land which there is any pos.
sibility of irrigating.
The national irrigation act is as
we'll guarded against speculation as
it was possible to frame a law under
the existing circumstances; but the
men who have had the interests of
the west and the nation at heart point
ed out at the time of the passage of
the act that to safeguard the public
domain and insure it's reservation for
actual settlers the desert land law and
the communication clause of the home
stead law must be repealed. The &C.
~tivities of the land sharks since the
passage of the irrigation law show the
necessity for their repeal forthwith.
Under these laws millions of acres
of the nations best remaining lands
have been, during the past year alb
sorbed by big stock concerns and
fraudulently acquired, at that.
A strong effort will be made at the
present session of congress to secure
the repeal of these laws. Several bills
looking to such an end have been in
troduced, and they will be urged.
Needless to say, too, they will be
urgently opposed by those interests
which wish no interference with their
schemes for gaining control of as
much land and water in the west as
possible.