The Lexington intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1901-1949, 1905-01-21
Raid On Public Lands.

Washington designed upon the remain
ing western public lands. Already
this session two bills have been INTRO
duced by Representatives Martin and
Brooks allowing q man TO take up a
square mile of government land in
South Dakota and in Colorado re-
spectively and permitting those who
nay have already made a l60-acre
homestead entry to make an additional
entry of 480 acres.
The claim has been persistently
made by western land men that q man
can not make a home ant living on
100 acres anywhere in the west, and
so this acknowledgements is
brought forward as a means of getting
the public domain into private owner
ship as rapid as possible. The question
is, even assuming that GAO acres is not
too large a farm for the government to
give a citizen, to whom will this land
goP
The bills above mentioned are
modelled after the Kinkaid law. which
applies the $40 acre unit to western
Nebraska and was slipped through
Congress at the tail end of last session.
Yet it was not thirty days before it
was charged that under this law
the Nebraska cattlemen had secured
about all they wanted in Nebraska.
The Kinkaid law and the above bills
provide that where a man has a 100
acre entry, or a mere filing on 100
acres, he shall have the preference
right to enter an adjourning 48O acres,
\ and in Nebraska the cattlemen are
4 alleged to have "entered, " through
their employees, their choice of the
lands, so that as soon as the law pass
ed, they simply had to apply IN each
case for the contiguous 480 acres.
1t takes but a few such entries they
can be made half a mile wide and two
miles long-to control a vast territory
Of country.
1t was foreseen that similar bills &c
the Kinkaid Nebraska law would bt
,fihimmediately introduced at this session
> and it is understood that a number
more such measures will follow to liz
clude other states. II Congress Is tt
act further IN this matter, the issu,
must be met squarely and frankly, thu
present homestead law overturned anC
q square mile made the Homestead
unit for the entire country, instead q
tbe present 100 acres.
II Apparent safeguards are provided il
these bills, authorizing the secretary 0
q Interior to Immediately with draw
any such lands as be may deem fit 70
irrigation under the national irrigatiJi
law. Some such lands have, of course
been Withdrawn, and they have bee
and are constantly being withdrawn
ander the irrigation law itself, iror
speculative entry by use of the desc.
land law and the Communication claus
o. the homestead law. These with
sNrawals are beng made from time t
4 Ame but only after investigation an
survey &c determine which may b
irrigable lands. Active as tn
Geological Survey has been IN il
western Investigations, 1t is MOI
criminal than absurd to assume tht
the government is in possession
sufficient accurate information REGARD
ing the billion or so acres composin
The entire western half of the Unite
States which would enable it to il
diligently withdraw what may lat,
prove to be irrigable lands. With Il
utmost activity and the most energet
surveys it must be ten if not ifteC
years before the government CT
possibly know what are all its irrigab
lands.
In the meantime, under the propose
plan every acre will have been take
up in these GAO acre tracts, and
provided in the Brooks bill for Colorad
eommuted, sfter the farce OF a fourte,
months residence has been gol
through with, and then transferred
syndicates or corporations in sing
tracts as large and monopolistic
desired.
This entry on the public domain
$40 acre homesteads with the prlvileI
Of committing IS even a more DO
faced fraud than was the old desc