The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1905-02-04
RAID ON PUBLIC LANDS
BACKED BY SETTLERS
/ South Dakota and Colorado
Congressman Claim 100
Acres is insufficient.
: Farmers and St0clmen Cannot
Make a Living On Less
Than a. Section Of
Land.
Washington, D. c., Feb. 2.-Labor
World Correspondence,

A wholesale raid is in evidence at
Washington designed upon the remain
ing western public lands. Already
this session two bills have been in
troduced by Representatives Martin
and Brooks allowing man to take up
a square mile Of government land in
South Dakota and in Colorado re-
spectively and permitting those who
may have already made 160-acre
homestead entry to make an additional
entry Of 4s0 acres.
The claim has been persistently
made by western land men that a man
can not make a home and living on
$50 acres anywhere in the West, and
so this square-mile home plan is
brought forward as a means Of getting
the public domain into private owner
ship as rapidly as possible. The ques-
tion Is, even assuming that $40 acres
is not too large farm for the govern
nlent to give citizen, to whom will
this land go?
The bills above mentioned are mod
eled after the Kinkaid law, which Slip
ped 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 1GO-acre entry. or a mere filing
on $50 acres, he shall have the pref
erence right to enter an adjoining 480
acres, and in Nebraska the cattlemen
are alleged to have "entered." through
their employees, their choice of the
lands, so that as soon as the law pas
sed they simply had to apply in each
case for the contiguous 48O acres. It
takes but few such entries-they can
he made half mile wide and two miles
long--to control a vast territory Of
country.
It was foreseen that similar bills to
the Kinkiad Nebraska law would be
Immediately introduced at this session
and it is understood that a number
more such measures will follow to in
clude other states. If Congress is to
act further in this matter,, the issue
must be- met squarely and frankly
presens ead dnft f6f' the en-
tire country, instead Of the present 100
acres.
Safeguards Only in Name.
Apparent safeguards are provided in
these bills. authorizing the Secretary
OF che Interior to Immediately with
draw any such lands as he may deem
fit for irrigation under the national
irrigation law. Some such lands have,
of course, been withdrawn, and they
have been and are constantly being
withdrawn. under the irrigation law it.
self. from speculative entry oy use of
the desert land law and the commuta-
t1on clause Of the homestead law.
These withdrawals are being made
from time to time but only after in
Vestlgation and survey to determine
which may be irrigable lands. Active
a. the Geological Survey has heen in
Its western Investigations it is more
criminal than absurd to assume that
the government is in possession Of suf-
ficient accurate information regarding
the billion or so acres composing the
entire western half of the United
States which would enable it to INTEL
11gently withdraw what may later prove
to be irrigable lands. With the utmost
activity and the most energetic sur
veys it must be ten If not fifteen years
before the government can possibly
know what are all it's irrigable lands.
In the meantime, under the proposed
plan every acre will have been taken
up In these $40 acre tract, and as pro-
vided in the Brooks bill for Colorado,
comInuted, after the farce of fourteen
months residence has been gone
through with, and then transferred to
0yndicates Or corporations in single
0acts as large and monopolistic as
desired.
This entry on the public domain of
64O acre homesteads with the privilege
of committing is even a more bold
faced fraud than was the old desert
land law with it's $40 acre provision.
which later was with great flourish
Of reform trumpets, cut down to 800
acres. To legally comply with the
communication clause, all that is neces-
sary is for a stock herder, for instance,
to file on a homestead In the fall. say
October. He need not visit his claim
for six months. Then in March he can
put up SIS shack and purport to live
in it during the following eight months,
while he is herding his stock in the
neighborhood, sleeping in it once a
month or less. At the end Of eight
months he can prove up and get his
title to the land from the government
anu 1uTAllCuAS1lSly II dIoACI IL " Ills EN-.
ployer, receiving probably as bonus
$50 for the use of this land privilege.
He has fully complied with the law,
and his position cannot be largely at
tackled.
The Blight Of Western Nebraska.
AS applied to even 100 acres, the
communication clause has been an out
rage. Utilizing it for $40 acres filings
would more than quadruple it's evil
for it wec:4 cast off practically all re-
straint from those interests which are
every day rapidly acquiring enormous
land holdings, running up into the hun
1reds of thousands of acres. Nebraska
was foolish enough to blight the future
Of the western half Of the state by al
lowing the passage Of the Kinkaid law.
Statesmen representing interests which
control the policies of. other western
states are apparently desirous of max
ing this plan applicable to their states.