Iron County record. [volume] (Cedar City, Utah) 1893-1982, 1913-01-24

POOPCs
the proposition that we have become impractical
and fatuous in our administration of government
that the only way to protect thing is to lock it
up. They believe neither in the monopoly of
individuals nor the monopoly of the government.
They are opposed to the suspicious, conten-
tious, procrastinating method of applying con-
servation principles which is resulting in driving
the homesteader from the desert and forcing him
into bankruptcy and poverty. They look upon as
narrow, skort- sighted and brutal the indscrim-
mate suspicion placed upon every settler who
comes in touch with the public lands They have
so far been unable to see either the beauty or the
benefit of tying up two hundred million acres of
timber lands and then selling the timber under
such terms and conditions that when it reaches
the people the price paid is the same as the price
paid to the trust from whom we are Withholding
so they say. If the people do not get the benefit
of this policy, conservation will not long survive
1.-THE people Of the west do not object to the
timber lands being kept in the reserves. But
they believe it unjust and unfair and il-advised to
include in the reserves thousands and thousands
of acres of splendid agricultural land upon which
God of nature has never been able in all these
years to grow timber They think that upon these
lands homes should be built and that it does not
require regiment of spies to watch the settler
while he does it.
I'VE thank you for this word of enlightened
and practical craftsmanship. If it is carried out
YOU will not only find in your support the people
of the west. but you will have greatly advanced
the cause of real conservation itself. It will in
evtably break down unless the present theoretical
and suspicious and impractical policy has an end.
The people of the west will welcome and gladly
support you in policy which protects our natural
will expect at your hands at the same time IN
opportunity for the west to develop along legiti-
mate AMI honest lines and they would like for you
to feel that all the honest men in the United
States are neither in the bureaus at Washington
nor east of the Mississippi.
eve have vast areas of desert land in the west
now being slowly reclaimed and yet to be re-
claimed. When these lands are reclaimed they
mist valuable productive lands Unless the gov
eminent reclaims them they will lie there indefi-
nitefN, idle and 3ortnsssss S5s--=f r-cfaisn'
ing them is going to prove TOO expensive for these
men in need of homes-the very poor. There is
no blessing which the government could bestow
upon the homeless comparable to that of building,
at its own expense, the great canals necessary to
place the water within reach of these lands and
then throwing them open to homestead entry Ito
settlers who willing to go there and spend the
time and energy and endure the hardships to
reclaim them
1.-The expense of building these bitches should
be borne by the government itself. We are put
ting millions into warships which rot upon the sea
while the bienniel spasm of a Japanese war comes
and goes We are putting millions into our
rivers and harbors and no return to the treasury
is expected except that which comes from
the general growth of commerce. We are putting
millions into great canal with no specific re-
turn to the treasury, and it begins to look as if it
were apparently for the benefit and advantage of
foreign nations. Why not put these lands which
are now the property of the government in such
condition as to make them available for homes.
If this is done those can afford to take them who
have only their energy and time with which to
reclaim them. If this is not done they must in
evtably lie in idleness drift into the hands of
those who have the means with which to
speculate.
g If there is any thing above all others
FOR which we can afford to take money out of the
treasury it is for making the lands which belong
to the government hapitable and fit for home
building, for the purpose of keeping the supply
of agricultural products to the highest possible
noint This will heneft not only those individ-