The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1904-08-09
!, a menace to our foreign COM

less a menace to our foreign com
And SO the first thought OF OUR peo-
pie and of our statesmen should be
the wise development of our agricul-
tural resources, and the opening up :
opportunities for p%rontable and pro-
ductive employment ON the land for
all the boys and lei who will con-
stitute the great volume of surplus
labor for which employment must be
found.
And what an opportunity such a
state aus Montana offers to them.
At the beginning, the construction
of the great irrigation works which
must be built will afford profitable
employment at remunerative wages. to
a multitude Of men. Their W labor
in the construction of these works
will make fertile and productive
lands hitherto arid and desolate. AS
a result Of the application of this
labor in the construction of these great
works, permanent opportunities are
created for the men who have built
the works to find opportunities for
building permanent homes on the
land. which first, their labor has re-
claimed, and which, second, can
thereafter be cultivated by their
labor.
The picture presented to- the imag-
ination when we consider what would
happen if the waters which now run
past the line of the state of Montana
were utilized to irrigate its fertile
lands is one so dazzling and difficult
Of comprehension that few can grasp
Lit. In that one state it would mean
a population of 10000, 900 people in
stead of 100000. It would mean the
building up of every great industry
needed to supply the wants of men.
The mountains would be honeycombed
with the shafts and tunnels Through
which the miner would extract their
wealth. The boundless and long I'M
inhabited plains would be mantled
with green and dotted with homes.
The state would be laced and inter-
laced with lines of railroad and cleo
trio transportation. The forests on
the mountains would necessarily have
to be preserved as sources of water
supply, and the harvesting from year
to year of the matured timber would
create a huge industry OF itself, AND
one which would endure through all
the future years, provided a wise sys
TEN of forestry such as prevails ir
Germany were carried into operation
year after year by the national gov
eminent.
And in this single state one-tenth o
the entire increased population of 100,
600, 900, which Secretary Gage said W.
would have within so years, could flint
work and homes and land.
What can be done, in Montan
could be duplicated by many othe
sections of the west. / have referre
to Montana only because of it's mas
Iniicent forests, it's vast plains of fel
tile land, and its wealth of mineral:
making it a striking illustration of tn
possibilities of the development {
= new communities by human labor.
Few realize that Montana is as larg
!, as the empire of Japan, and woul
!. contain as large a population if tile
by the same intensive methods.
al Few realize that, with Idaho a.
}. ded, the two states of Montana ar
a Idaho are as large as the whole Ell
pire of Austria-Hungary And fe
~realize,too, that the magnificent poss
$ bilities of this great state as =
a source and refuge for the surplus lab
II of this and coming generations a
being rapidly and deliberately destro
ey by the continuance upon the ST.
~ ute books of the national governme
re- of laws which are nothing short
criminal in the destructive fore
NJ which they inaugurate.
10 The forests of Montana are bel
10 located by timber thieves and timt
re- spectators under the timber a
"A stone act. The fertile lands viii
he should be reserved for the home-maA
r.. are being located by the speculate
at and stockmen who have no Thought
at purpose Of ever making a home UP
he them. Under the desert land act 4
public domain is being ~butchered a
nd Quilted, and hundreds Of thousa1
ne of acres of irrigable lands are be-
I'm annually absorbed into private own
ar ship in the hands of those who '
at. either devote them to the raising