The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1903-01-07
argument against public enterprise in

the same field.
Irrigation is always a paying invest
ment from the standpoint of social
and economic gains. With private cap
ital, large and early dividends are
the chief consideration but the pri-
mary object of the investment of pub
lie capital is to increase the general
prosperity. This is accomplished when
the opportunity for home making is
opened for thousands; when the
amount of taxable property is increas-
ed; when business is created for mer-
chants, manufacturers and railroads.
With these benefits to be scored on,
the credit side of it's ledger, the gov
eminent may well afford to wait a
long time for direct returns from it's
irrigation investments, but private cap
ital is in no such position.
The Settler and the Spectator.
The misfortunes which settlers have
suffered in dealing with speculative
irrigation companies furnish several
important counts of the peoples indict-
ment cf the desert land law.
Large irrigation undertakings have
frequently been started by men whose
means were entirely inadequate to the
enterprise. Very often they have in
vited settlement before they had them
selves done anything except to make
IA surveys. 1HGX nave OF
fered water rights for sale which had
no existence except in their magma
ton. Strangely enough settlers have
often made haste to purchase such pa
per rights and thus to furnish the
promoters with capital to be used in
the exploitation of those who supplied
it. If settlers had thereby obtained
water for their land, even upon these
unfair terms, the case would not have
been so bad. But usually they did not
get water for their lands. The amount
of money which could be obtained from
settlers in advance of the construction
of works was seldom sufficient for the
purpose. Thus neither the settler nor
the promoter had anything to show for
their investment and labor. In this
way thousands of people dissipated
their savings and lost valuable time.
The Western states are strewn with
irrigation wrecks of this sort.
Disasters Traceable to Our Land Laws.
All the heart breaking evils which
the settlers of our arid public domain
have suffered are due to bad land laws,
chiefly to the desert land law and to
the communication clause of the home
stead act. These laws are totally I'M
suited for the conditions to which they
have been applied. They are a dis
grace to the government and dis
81 ace W IIl0 american people,
They nave enabled wealthy individ-
uals and corporations to carve lordly
private estates from the public do
main.
They have permitted a few men to
acquire and hold out of use for selfish
and speculative purposes, lands which
are needed to make homes for the
masses of our people.
They have encouraged private en-
t6rnr1SPS tn enter q fold xzrhn -,
nature of things, it could not be sue
cessful, but could only involve it's own
capital in hazardous adventure and
thereby do great injury to the irriga-
uon industry and to the West
They have furnished the means by
which settlers We're deluded into in
vest1ng their capital and their labor
in dangerous and often disastrous at
tempts at home making
They even now stand in the way of
progress by blocking the path of ma
tional irrigation and permitting specu-
1ators and adventures to take up lands
which will be required in the operation
of the new national policy.
Should Be Repealed.
From this day forth the government
should not offer a single acre for set
tlement until 1t is fit for settlement.
Repeating the laws by which land is
now acquired in large tracts, and with
out actual residence and improvement.
the government should proceed to
withdraw from entry all lands where
there is any thought of applying the
national policy. This done, 1t should
go forward as rapidly as possible with
actual reclamation. 1t should bring
under thorough and reliable irrigation
every acre which it purposes hereafter
to open to settlement
What should this policy mean to the
people of the United States? First of
all, 1t would mean "a home for every
man who wants one" It would mean
that we had stopped looting the peo-
pies estate and begun saving the peo-
pies estate. 1t would mean that we
had reached the end of the wild orgy
OF speculation in the natural resources
of the West and entered upon a period
of sound and sober industrialism. It
would mean that when a settler got
ready to claim his share of the national
heritage he would obtain not only fer
tile soil, but the water necessary to
make it a self-sustaining home and
that that water right was guaranteed
by the government of the United
States.
This is, beyond all comparison. the
greatest thing ever attempted by the
American people. Let it be done. and
let it be done right. The first step in
this great and inspiring drama of the
future is tc stop the stealing of the
public domain by repeating the pres
ent vicious and inexcusable land laws.