The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1904-07-03
c I eSc &c 4, x, k i,

5 always continue TO be sellers and never
buyers.
We cannot build our social and BUSH
ness structure upon an enduring foun-
dation by Swimming the cream from the
commerce of the world. or absorbing
$ TO ourselves the accumulated wealth OF
other nations, because time will come
wnen they will apply the rule of self
preservation and demand that we shall
give as well as take, and when that
Tune comes we had far better trade
among ourselves within our own bor-
ders, and upbuild our Industries along
Wen balanced and well regulated lines
which will, so far as possible, relieve
them from the uncertainties and COM
plications or foreign trade.
The home market is the best market
for the manufacturer
And SO it is the best market for the
farmer. -
But as between the two, it is far bet
ter for this nation that the farmer
should be the exporter. : The strongest
basis upon which our foreign trade can
rest is the need for food on the part of
the peoples of other lands. The export
OF agricultural products is the class of
foreign trade least likely to be affected
by various complications which are al
ways more or less menace to our for
eign commerce.
And so the first thought of our people
I'LL VI. Jul SldlcSIIlen SQOuiQ be the
wise development of our agricultural
resources, and the opening up of oppor-
tunlt1es for profitable and productive
employment on the land for all the bows
and men who will constitute the great
volume OF surplus labor for which en-
ployment must be found.
And what an opportunity such state
as Montana offers to them -
AT the beginning, the construction of
the great irrigation works which must
be built WILL afford profitable employ-
ment at remunerative wages to a null
tltude or men. Their own labor in the
construction Of these works makes fer
Tile and productive lands hitherto arid
and desolate. AS the result of the ap-
pncatlon of this labor in the conStruc-
ton OF these great works, permanent
opportunities are created for the men
who have built the works to find oppor-
tun1t1es for building permanent homes
on the land, which first, their labor has
reclaimed, and which, second, can there
after be cultivated by their labor.
Inc picture presented to the imagin-
alton when we consider what would
happen IT the waters which now run
past the line of the state of Montana
We're utilized to irrigate it's fertile lands
is one so dazzling and difficult of COM
prehension that few can grasp it. In
that one state it would mean a popula-
ton of 100000 people instead of
100000. 1t would mean the building up
OF every great industry needed to sup
ply the wants of men. The mountains
would be honeycombed with the shafts
and tunnels through which the miner
would extract their wealth. The bound-
less and long uninhabited plains would
be mantled with green and dotted with
homes. The state would be laced and
interlaced with lines of railroad and
electric transportation. The forests on
the mountains would necessarily be
preserved as sources of water supply.
and the harvesting from year to year
of the matured timber would create a
high industry of itself, and one which
would endure through all the future
years, provided a wise system of for
estry such as prevails in Germany were
encouraged and carried into operation
year after year by the national govern
ment.
And in this single state one-tenth of
the entire increased population of
10O,000,000, which Secretary Gage said
We would have within fifty years, could
find work and homes and land
And what can be done in Montana
could be duplicated in many other sec
tons of the West. / have referred to
Montana only because of it's mag
nificent forests, it's vast plains of fertile
land, and its wealth of minerals, maxi
ing 1t striking Illustration of the pos
slpllltleS OF the development of new
communities by human labor.
Few realize that Montana is as large
as the empire of Japan, and would con-
tam as large a population if titled by
the same intensive methods.
Few realize that, with Idaho added,
the two states of Montana and Idaho
are as large as the whole empire of
Austria Hungary. And few realize, too,
tnat the magnificent possibilities of this
great state as resource and refuge
for the surplus labor of this and COM
Ing generations are being rapidly and
deliberately destroyed by the continue
ance upon the statute books of the
national government of laws which are
criminal in the destructive forces which
they inaugurate.
The forests of Montana are being To-
Gated by timber thieves and timber
spectators under the timber and stone
act. The fertile lands which should be
reserved for the home-maker are being
located by spectators and stockmen
who have no thought or purpose of
ever making a home upon them. I'm
der the desert land act the public do
main is being butchered and Quilted,
and hundreds of thousands Of acres Of
irrigable lands are being annually alb
sorDed into private ownership in the
hands Of those who will either devote
them to the raising of live stock, and
make OF them ranges for cattle and
sheep, or hold them In speculative
hands against the day when the home
builder will want the land, or when the
government will want it to reclaim 1t
for the home maker. And under the
Communication clause of the homestead
act, the hobo locator, the cowboy or
the sheep herder, who is the tool of the
big live stock outfit, the other lands are
fast being absorbed, to be fenced in
with barbed wire fences against the In
coming settler.
Again, and again, and again, year
after year, and year after year, officers
of the government of the United States
whose duty IT. is to guard the public
domain have warned congress that
these Ubiquitous laws should be wiped
out, and the forests preserved by right
use, and the lands reserved for the
home maker. But the shameful and
monstrous wrongs which are daily be-
ing committed against the welfare of
the people of the whole country by the
absorption of their patrimony into
speculative ownership which bars the
opportunities for our boys and our UNI
employed workers goes on without LET
or hindrance apparently, because tho
spectators who are profiting by it are
able to exert some hypnotic influence
which puts congress to sleep and per-
petuates the crimes.