Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1916-02-18
MORE SETTLERS WANTED|
By Frederic ]. Haskin.

lN--
The United States has an emigration
problem. All our national life we have
been worried over the immigrant,
whether to admit him, what to do with
him. Apparently everybody wanted to
get in and nobody wanted to get out.
Now the opposite issue arises
In the last ten years almost O. mil
Jon Americans have emigrated to the
Dominion of Canada. Their space can
not be filled by any million of the i'm
migrants that Europe sends us so lib
orally. They are no problem for
Canada. Practically all Of them are
young native-born farmers and their
families. the best kind of Americans
The present Congress is considering
a number of different bills calculated
to keep the American at home. They
are all land bills, for the question is
a land question. Canada has millions
of acres of land open to entry, and
she has the most liberal kind of land
laws.
Contrary to the current impression,
the United States also has an i'm
mense amount of public land unpre-
empted. In the eleven farthest west
out of 2so.oO0,000 acres of land Four
hfths of Nevada is still subject to set
Element and entry. So is wo-thirds
of Utah. half of Arizona and Wyoming,
and one-flfth to one-third of Oregon,
Idaho. Montana. Colorado, California
and New Mexico. Uncle Sam is still
in the land office business, but his
trade is falling off.
Now it is desirable that as much of
our public lands as possible should be
n lint Of
100000 acres open to entry. it Is doubt
full whether more than half can ever
be put under cultivation, but 1870, OOO.-
900 acres of land is still a good-sized
millions of people: Yet those who
might take 1t up as the homestead
er's phrase goes, are moving across
the border. largely, according to the
statesmen OF the border states, because
of the more liberal land laws they find
there. In Canada every homesteader
must be a British citizen, born or
naturalized. SO our emigrants are lost
to US for good.
One of the bills before Congress pro-
vides for homestead twice as big as
the so-called
Provides 64O-Acre desert claim,
Grazing Homestead. nor,, : ,a " ,oo .a
ed, and four times the size of the old
1e0-acre homestead that made the mid
die west. The new size is the 640-acre
grazing homestead. 1t must be located
on land designated by the Secretary of
the Interior as grazing land, and the
object of the men behind the bill is to
utilize sections which are too broken
and barren for farming. by combining
stock raising and the growing of a
few odd crops in the level or watered
corners. In this way $40 acres may
support a family
That has been the underlying prin-
ciple of all our land legislation for
the last hundred years-to divide it
into the smallest tracts necessary for
the support OF a single family But
the character of the public land is
changing. A hundred and sixty acres
in Illinois or Kansas can support sew
too little in some of the dry. rocky
states Moreover the land that is
open to entry today has been picked
over. 1t Is what every earlier settler
rejected when he came to look at the
country. So the man who homesteads
nowadays needs. and is entitled to.
bigger piece Of land.
II the 640-acre bill passes Congress
II VIII make great difference in GER
tain fundamental conditions in the
west. All the immense tracts of pub
lie land are not lying idle there. They
are being used for the grazing of cat
tie and sheep. Hence the large cattle
and sheep owners have their own ideas
as to how the situation should be
handled. Many of them do not believe
that the arid lands still open to entry
can support farmer. Six hundred
and forty acres of such land will only
run about forty OF fifty cattle, and
that is not enough for family to live
on. even In this day Of high beef prices
So some stockmen hold that settlers
should not be encouraged to take up
any great part of the land now avail
able.
The National Wool Growers Associa-
ton recommends that the Interior De-
partment classify
Wool Growers all the land left
Offer Solution. e,as.es-thst s rmo
able for agriculture, and that suitable
for grazing. Then the former should
be parceled out in whatever size units
are necessary to support homesteaders,
and the latter withdrawn from entry
entirely. to be leased for grazing pur-
poses. Such a proceeding would sta
Billie the stock business as at present