, 1915-06-10
AT q ~StandstiII."

Last week we published an able editorial entitled Sat a Stand
IsthI' from the Laramie Republican, taking as its subject the landless
as an instance upon an interview with one of our residents. That
truly portrayed conditions as to all our resources. Perhaps our re-
sources should not be developed too readily, but just the same they
should show some advancement While we have complained consider
able of the lack of interest manifested in our section of the state by
the state administration, many have thought that it was largely po-
itical, but we wish to be emphatcaly understood that it is not and
has not been, political, as our main resources have been and are be-
ing held back by either ignorance Oh the part of our officials, or else
for political reasons, and we are not inclined to charge our public
state officials, and some county officials, too, with being entirely ig-
norant of the things potent to development.
We have defed the state engineer to show why appropriations
should not be allowed for every foot of culivatable land in this val
ley; we hold the state land board strictly responsible for the condi-
tons surrounding the development of the segregahons, and with the
state engineer and the state land board working together for a COM
mon good in this valley, two years would double its population and
cultivation, and what is more we stand ready to prove it, if given an
honest chance, with all politics, and one or two other delicate matters,
lnyed aside.
AS it is. the northern end of the state seems to have a stranele-
hold on the development, and through it they have gained control of
the states officials, and III using it to advantage for their end of the
state and we do not blame them, when for years this part of the state
should have been getting its just development, but for diatory action
on the part of state officials, crowned by the death dealing blow de-
.Hvered by the Carey administration.
For years past state selection after state selection, which is legal
lied land stealing, has been made. When we happen to ride out over
the western part of the valley between here and Rawlins and west
toward the continental divide, our blood seems to simmer, and then
to boil, when We SEA what has happened through state selection, to
prevent the settler from getting a foot hold. Nearly all of the land
to the west of us, which showed any signs of being the class of land
that might be located by a settler, has been selected by a certain few
part of the state, with the result that the settler has been shut out
from thousands of fertile acres. On the other hand. the segregation
of this valley was allowed by the state without 10 much as an inquiry
as to its feasibility of the financial standing of its hackers, who many
times weres specializing schemers without a dollar. Then came the
Pathfinder, a child of the brain of the developing Uncle Sam (who
by the way has never developed one single thing with the exception
of the Panama Canal that has even held a sembance of development
of a paying nature) and instead of putting it where it belonged, at
the head oil this great valley, they put it where it has been almost a
menace to ten times the land that it is of any value to, and it has
been used and abused by political parties until it has almost killed
the possibilities of this valley.
So it has been, and SO lit will be, SO long s politics enter into the
duties of the states officials, in administering to the needs of the
state. We hope some day, and some time, to see the fool-kiler get a
few of the men who are responsible for the utter lack of official abil-
ity, and who are doing the state more harm every day in the manner
of development than if the state had never had a single resource.