The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1903-11-19


being rapidly absorbed by the great
companies and wealthy individuals
who control these industries. Nor is
it seriously denied that the laws nave
been evaded and that the compensa-
ton returned has been entirely made
Quate.
AS a remedy the irrigationists pro-
pose the absolute repeal of the acts.
The grazing and lumber interests ad-
nit that there have been some slight
abuses, particularly in the admins
tration of the law" and take the po-
sition that it will remedy the evils
to have a few judicious amendments
attached to the acts. These interests
profess great solicitude as to the eff
feet of the absolute repeal of the land
laws, urging that this would cut off
all revenues from the reclamation fund
and thus put an end to the national
irrigation work.
The irrigationists reply that the
suggestions in regard to amendments
are mere subterfuges employed for
purposes of delay. They assert that
the only way to put a stop to the
land looting is to repeal the three
acts, and they meet the difficulty OF
suspended revenues by the reply that
the $4,000 900 now in hand will run
the work for three years at least, and
by that time effective legislation may
be framed.
What Roosevelt Said.
The irrigationists seem to have the
best Of the argument. They have
President Roosevelt on their side, and
to back up their contention, they quote
this from his last message to con-
gress:
So far as they are available for ag-
riculture, and to whatever extent they
may be retained under the national ir-
rigation law, the remaining public
home builder, the settler who lives on
his land and for no one else. In their
actual use the desert land law. the
timber and stone law and the cOmmu-
tatiOn clause of the homestead law
have been so perverted from the inten
ton with which they were enacted as
to permit the acquisition of large
areas of the public domain from other
than actual settlers, and the conse-
Quent preventions of settlement.
Chief Irrigationist Talks.
Speaking for the necessity of re-
peal, George H Maxwell, executive
chairman of the National Irrigation
association, who was at the White
House last week talking of the matter
to the president, says:
Everyone familiar with the work.
ings of congress and the opportunities
for creating delays in committees,
knows full we'll that if the advocates
of repeal should fall into this trap and
foregO their demand for absolute and
repeal, the opponents of re-
peal will create enough controversy
over the nature of the particular
to be enacted by congress
to delay any action at all at the COM
ing session.
The fault is not in the administra-
ton of the law. The laws themselves
are structurally and fundamentally
wrong They cannot be administered
and they cannot be amended so as to
be administered and prevent such
The desert land act especially vio-
lated the basic principle of the whole
national irrigation movement, which
is that no one shall have an acre Of
the public land who will not found
home upon it and live on it for five
stead act
There is no limit, Mr.. Maxwell said,
to the immense area that can be read
lily absorbed into one great cattle
ranch if title to the land can be OBJ
tanned without requiring the entryman
to live upon it. If the desert land
act were so amended as to require a
five years residence, it would be
equivalent to it's repeal because no
settler would ever take up land under
it and pay $1.25 an acre for the land
which he could get for nothing under
the homestead act by merely living on
it for five years.
Mr.. Maxwell said further that the
immense number of working men now
being thrown out of employment
should intensity the demand for
land policy which would reserve the
agricultural public lands
for bonafide settlers and provide for
their irrigation by government works
lust as fast as the settlers would take
the land in not more than 100 acre
tracts, found homes upon them, and
pay back to the government the cost
of the irrigation works. He said that
if this policy were put into force in a
broad way there need never be a
single man out of employment in the
United States for the next generation.
Hansbrough Opposes Repeal.
Senator Henry c. Hansbrough Of
North Dakota seems to be leader of
To Of