Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-10-01

cheney in their respective vocations: we
not afford to have them trained otherwise,
and the nation should help the states to
achieve this end
Now, men of Iowa. I want to say just
word on a matter that concerns not the
states of the Mississippi valley itself, but
the states west of them, the states of the
great plains and the Rocky Mountains. I'm
fortunately, l am not able on this present
trip to visit those states, or should speak
TO their own people on the point to which
l now intend to allude; but after all any
thing that affects considerable number of
Americans who live under one set of con-
ditions must be of moment to all other
Americans, for never forget friends that
In the long run we shall all go up or go
down together.
The states of the high plains and of the
mountains have peculiar claim upon me.
because for a number Of years I lived and
worked in them, and / have that intima te
knowledge of their people that comes under
such conditions In those states there is
need of modification of the land laws
that have worked SO we'll in the we'll
Watered fertile regions to the eastward
such as those in which you here dwell The
one object In all our land laws should al
ways be to favor the actual settler. the
actual home maker, who comes to dwell on
the land and there to bring up his children
to inherit it after him. The government
should part with its title to the land only
to the actual home-maker-not to the profit
maker, who does not care to make a home
The land should be sold outright only in
quantities sufficient for decent homes-not
In huge areas to be held for speculative
purposes or used ranches, where those
who do the actual work are merely tenants
or hired hands. No temporary prosperity
OF any class of men could in the slightest
degree atone for failure on our part to
shape the laws SO that they may work for
the permanent good Of the home-maker
This Is fundamental. gentlemen. and is
simply carrying out the idea upon which 1
dwell in speaking to you Of your own farms
here In Iowa. Now. In states nv
the rainfall Is light 1t is simple absurdity
to expect any man to live, still less to
bring up a family. on 100 acres. Where we
are able to introduce irrigation the home
stead can be very much less in size-can
for instance. be forty acres; and there Is
nothing that Congress has done during the
past six years more important than the
enactment Of the national irrigation law.
But where irrigation is not applicable ana
the land can only be used for grazing 1t
may be that you cannot run more than one
to be much Of q mathematician in order to
see that where such Is the case a home
stead of 100 acres will not go far toward
the support Of family. In consequence of
this fact, homesteaders do not take up the
lands in the tracts in question. They are
left open for anybody to Craze upon that
wishes to. The result is that the men who
use them moderately and not with a view
to exhausting their resources are at the
mercy Of those who care nothing for the
future and simply intend to skin the land
in the present. For instance. the small
sheep farmer who has a home and who
wishes that home to pass on to his children
improved In value will naturally run his
flock SO that the land will support it, not
only today. but ten years hence; but big
absentee sheep owner, who has no home on
the land at all, but simply owns huge mi
gratory flocks of sheep, may we'll find 1t to
his profit to drive them over the small
sheep farmers range and eat 1t all out.
He can then drive his 6ocks on, whereas
the small man cannot.
Some Land Mistakes.
OF course, to permit such state of things
Is not only evil for the small man, but Is
destructive of the best interests Of the
country. Substantially the same conditions
obtain as regards cattle. The custom has
therefore grown up Of fencing great tracts
Of government land without warrant Of law.
The men who fenced this land were Some
times rich men. who, by fencing it. kept
out actual settlers and thereby worked evil
to the country. But in many cases, whether
they were large men or small men, their
object was not to keep out actual settlers,
but to protect themselves and their own in
dustry by preventing overgrazing OF the
range on the part Of reckless stock owners
who had no place in the permanent devel-
opment of the country and who were indif
ferent to everything except the profits of
the moment To permit the continuance
of this illegal fencing inevitably tended to