The ranch. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1902-1914, 1907-12-15

and thereby save from spectators
what remains of the public domain;
but they have interest enough to close
the mouth of Uncle Sans money bag
and seal it hermetrical1y, against the
pleas of the west for more money for
irrigation works, if the people of the
west will not be loyal and true to their
own interests and protect the patri-
mony of the people in the public lands
from being wasted and stolen from
them under laws which have been
blot upon the statute books for more
than a decade.
The national irrigation association
stands for absolutely unlimited appro-
priations for building irrigation works,
upon two conditions only
First, that they shall be built to pro-
vide land for settlers just as fast as
actual bona fide settlers and home
makers will take the land in small
tracts and cultivate it with their own
labor for a living, and no faster than
that;
Second, that an honest public land
system, one which will in fact and re-
atty save the forests from extermina-
ton, and save what remains OF the
public lands for the bona fide settler,
shall be substituted for the infamous
and iniquitous laws under which ma
tons heritage has been wasted ana
stolen from them in huge tracts in
the past.
So long as the west allows its rep
resentatives in the senate and the
house of representatives, or any OF
them, to stand in defense of a land
policy which the people of the east
have spewed out as foul thing which
has stimulated crime, filled the Jalls
and robbed the people of their patrl-
mony, Just so long will the door OF
the treasury at Washington be closed
to any plea from the west for more
money for irrigation works than Is
provided under the present act.
If the western people will wake UP
to their own interests and the posi-
bilities of their own great future, ana
Join voice and hand in support OF the
policy advocated by the east for the
western development, there need be
no limit to the money from the ma
TONS treasury for irrigation develop
ment.
Where is the man in the west who
will not accept the national irrigation
policy as stated in the following plank
of it's platform:
''That the national government shall
build the irrigation works necessary
to bring water within reach OF settlers
on the arid lands, the cost OF such
works to be repaid to the government
by such settlers in annual Install
ments without interest, and that the
construction of the great irrigation
works necessary for the utilization OF
the water of such large rivers as the
Columbia, the Sacramento, the Colo
RADIO. the Rio Grande, and the Missouri
and their tributaries, shall proceed as
rapidly as the lands reclaimed will be
utilized in small farms by actual set
tiers and homemakers, who will repay
the government the cost OF construc-
ton of the irrigation works, aad that
the amount needed each year for con-
struction. as recommended by the sec
rotary of the interior, shall be made
available by congress as loan from
the general treasury to the reclama-
tion fund. and repaid from lands re-
claimed"
But the condition that must go with
this policy that there shall be an non
est public land system, can no more
be separated from the plea for larger
appropriations for irrigation than the
foundation of a modern skyscraper
could be excavated out from under 1t,
with the expectation that the building
could safely stand without it.
The public lands question is the
foundation upon which the whole ma
tional irrigation structure must be
built, and if the west will not demand
and insist upon an honest public lands
Il. mill ilttQrlX rlnuQlatG