El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1911-09-06
Greatest Opportunities are now
Offered Homeseekers Where
Uncle Sam Has Given Protection
By R. BEDICHEK, DEFINING, N. M.

4 The war department of the United
| stations located in the southwest en-
| list as many men IN the service as the
stations located in towns of the same
size in other portions of the United
States The reason for this is clear.
The service in the army appeals chief
| ly to the unemployed. Where wages
are high: where other opportunities in
other fields are good, recruits are
I scarce. In the eastern and northern
parts Of the country. where land Is high
and wages are low (two conditions
problem of the unemployed" In the
newer sections OF the country. where
there is still government land to be
had. opportunities for profitable en-
moderate means Is enabled to employ
himself. Hence he does not look upon
enlisting. in the army with any degree
of favors
In the older sections of the country,
where opportunities are monopolized,
where all the land having passed long
since into private hands and Is held for
a price 10 times above Its earning val
lie, the man of moderate means who
loses his job, the skilled and unskilled
workmen who go out on strike, are
glad to get under the governments
wing and receive their monthly pit
lance. So we may say that the un-
prosperous localities make the best
as the thrifty and growing communi-
ties of the west and southwest yield
very few recruits to the service.
Everybody Prosperous.
To take a single instance of this, the
recruiting station situated at Deming
for the last five months has not en-
listed enough men to justifyaits con-
tinuance, the number being under
communities the size, of Deming IN
other portions of the United States en-
list four and five times the number.
The explanation of this lies in the fact
that land is cheap and in the corollary
of this truth, viz, that wages are high.
Easy, access to the land, that is. cheap
land, takes the surplus labor off the
market very rapidly. To illustrate:
Here is man with, say, $4,000. In
town in Illinois, and the land sur
$3.50 per acre. 1t takes SO or 100 acres
of this land to support a family, so that
with the money which he has, he does
not see his way clear to investing in
himself and family. The result is that
he works for someone else His labor
goes to glut the labor market. He can
not with his small capital employ him
self The man in the same financial
condition in the Mimbres valley finds
an entirely different situation. With
his $4,000 capital he can apply his la
Dor directly to the land, employ HIM
self, so to speak. and make good
Hence, he is out of the labor market
Thus it is invariably the case, that
where land is cheap, labor is high, and
vice versa.
Protection BY Government.
The lands of such valleys as that
of the Mimbres would, however long
ago have been monopolized; and would
now be selling for something like the
earning power of the land had 1T not
been for the beneficent laws adopted
by the government controlling the
manner of acquiring this land Most
land of the Mimbres valley is acquired
through the homestead and desert
acts. The homestead entries arc limit
ed in size to $50 acres. and title comes
only when 1t is shown that the home
steader has made the land his home.