Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1916-09-21
Fencing Uncle Sans Pasture
BY Frederic J. Haskin

Washington, d. c., Sept. IS. The
passing of the unfenced range, togeth-
err with the free and romantic life Of
the early west, has been the subject
Of much sentimental language. The
discovery that beefsteak was at the
same time passing out of reach Of all
but the wealthy gave the subject a
much more pressing and personal ap-
peal. 1t makes the question Of how
| that range Is going to be fenced one
| Of US.
AS congressional Investigations and
magazine articles have abundantly
shown, the reason there is no longer
enough beef to 60 around is that the
| western range is no longer big enough
to raise the necessary number OF cat
! tie. Much has been said about the i'm
portance of raising cattle in the south,
eating fish and peanuts instead OF
meat, raising poultry in the back yard
and otherwise taking the burden of
the range. But the fact remains that
the range lands of the west are the
biggest cattle producing part Of the
country, and must be our main reli.
! ance for supply of beef. Further
more, they are entirely capable Of pro-
! ducing much more beef than they now
produce, provided they are fully and
rightly used. They are also capable
of supporting more people.
These facts have been realized by
| western ranchmen and western con.
gressmen' for a long time and they
have been steadily working at the
, problem, but the general public in The
east, at least, does not seem to have
heard much about 1t.
There are two principal schools Of
thought on the matter. Each of them
knows what it wants and thinks It
ought to get it, and each has some con.
gressmen and senators on it's side.
The first of these parties Is made Of
the small ranchers, who raise a few
cattle and live on their own ranches.
They want a grazing homestead law"
which means a law allowing any free
citizen of the United States twenty
one years old to take up SO many acres
of grazing land, and to own it after he
has lived there a certain number >of
years and made certain improvements
The present homestead law allows \
man only 160 acres of agricultural
land or 800 acres of arid" land. Now
the 100 acre farm homestead Is all
right; but man can not raise many
cattle on 800 acres. On the other hand
If he had $40 acres or full section, he
could raise quite herd 49,
The other side of the question is rep
resented by the large cattle men-the
corporations who own great tracts of
land and own herds that number
thousands and tens Of thousands. They
want law which will permit them to
lease from the government great areas
of the public lands upon which they
can Craze their herds to the exclusion
of all others.
Now the theoretical merits of these
two propositions are so obvious as to
need no emphasis. If the grazing
homestead bill becomes a law any and
all of us can go out west and take up
little ranch. The land will support
Just as many people and as many cat
tie as it possibly can provided it is
possible to make a living on a square
mile Of range at ALL a... KILL
If the leasing bill goes through, in
stead of home on every square mile,
there will be perhaps home on every
fifty square miles; while the men who
nave ledseu tHe range, having plenty
of it, will not be at such pains to pro-
duce all the cattle they possibly can
In other words the grazing homestead
hit proves practicable at all. will give
everybody chance, make homes for
the greatest number of people and pro-
duce the greatest number of cattle for
the country at large.
Which of these bills becomes law,
depends primarily on the people that