Republican farmer., 1918-12-06

BER 6, 1yI5-
 of the men of our returning armies. Those who are of trained capacity, those who are skilled worKmen, lnose who have acquired familiarity with established businesses, those who are. ready and willing to go to the farms, all those whose aptitudes are known or will be sought out by employers, will find no difficulty, it is safe to say, in finding place and employment. But there will be others who will be at a loss where to gain a livelihood unless pains are taken to guide them and put them in the way of work. There will be a large floating residuum of labor which should not be left l wholly to shift for itself. It seems to me important, therefore, that the development of public works of every f sort should be promptly resumed, in order that opportunities should be created for unskilled labor in particu- lar and that plans should be made for I such developments of our unused lands and our natural resources IS we | have hitherto lacked stimulation to undertake.
 I particularly direct your attention ! to the very practical plans which the 1 Secretary of the Interior has develop l ed in his annual report and before your committees for the reclamation of arid, swamp and cut over lands, which might, if the States were will ing and able to cooperate, redeem
 some three hundred million acres of
 land for cultivation. There are said
 to be fifteen or twenty million acres
 of land in the West at present arid.
 for whose reclamation water Is avail
 able, if properly conserved. There | are about two hundred and thirty
 million acres from which the forests
 have been cut but which have never
 yet been cleared for the plough and
 which lie waste and desolate. These
 lie scattered all over the Union. And
 there are nearly eighty million acres
 of land that lie under swamps or
 subject to periodical overflow or too
 wet for anything but grazing, which
 it is perfectly feasible to drain and
 protect and redeem. The Congress
 can at once direct thousands of fha
 returning soldiers to the reclamation
 of the arid lands, which it has already undertaken, if it will but enlarge the plans and the appropriations which ii
 has entrusted to the Department of
 the Interior. It is possible in deal
 ing with our unused land to effect 9
 great rural and agricultural devel-
 opment which will afford the best sori
 of opportunity to men who want t.
 help themselves, and the Secretary
 of the Interior has thought the pos
 sible methods out in way which i;
 worthy of your most friendly atten- ton.
 Aid for France and Belgium.
 have spoken of the control
 for a long while, be exercised ovel shipping because of the priority ot
 service to which our forces overseds
 are entitled and which should alsc
 bC accorded the shipments which ari , to save recently liberated people! :, from starvation and many devast ated regions from permanent ruin
 May I not say a special word abou the needs of Belgium and northern | France? No sums of money pail by way of indemnity will serve O. , themselves to save them from hope less disa dvantage for years to come Something more must be done thai 5 merely find the money. If they hat , money and raw materials in abund ance tomorrow they could not re } sume their place in the industry o : the world tomorrow-the very i'm . portant place they held before tn flame of war swept across them . Many of their factories are razed t [ the ground. Much of their machin l cry is destroyed or has been take; s away. Their people are scattere' and many of their best workmen ar
 dead Their markets will be takel
 by others, if they are not In som D special way assisted to rebuild thei e factories and replace their lost in = struments of manufacture. The 0 should not be left to the vicissitude n of the sharp competition for mater s ials and for industrial facilitie = which is now to set in. I hope = therefore, that the Congress will no t be unwilling, if 1t should becom y necessary, to grant to some sue = agency as the War Trade Board tn n right to establish priorities of eX Il port and supply for the benefit c - these people whom, we have been s e happy to assist in saving from tn d German terror and whom we mus 5 mot now thoughtlessly leave to shif e for themselves in pitiless compet1 IT tive market.