The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1919-03-28

get start in the world now, anyway,
| have been with grown men long
time now and have fought with them
and watched them die and | know
something about men. ! have had re
sponsibility and / ought to be able tc
stand up under responsibilities Of my
own now. 1t is time | was living n
mans life. What am l going to do ?"
One of the great schemes that has
been proposed, and one that has fired
the popular imagination, is that Of
taking millions of the acres Of un
cultivated land in this country and
placing it ct the disposal of these
men. Not all of them will want to
farm, of course. Not all of them
could make good at it if given a
chance. Doubtless, if the scheme is
carried through, and the men are Civ
en- the opportunity, there will BE-
many of them who will fail.
But it is planned to say to these
men: America, for whom you have
fought, offers you farm if you vii!
help in making that farm and pay
for it out of what you make out Ct it."
Farm and Other Work
OF course this will cost money but
it will be money splendidIy spent as
it will be helping to develop this great
country and making it possible for it
to become more pressing z Z 2
to become more and more prosperous.
1t will help to solve a great many of
the more pressing problems that are
facing the country with the dcmobil-
i2ation OF a great army going on.
1t will give an immediate job to
the soldier. That is one of the frs5
considerations. At the same time it
will appeal to the laboring man in ali
parts of the country for it will pro-
tect the labor market against being
swampcd with surplus Of labor at
time when jobs are not as plentiful
as they We're in the gun-making, ar
my Quitting, munitioning days of
1918.
This same plan will give many lines
of industry a chance to get going
again by furnishing large amount Of
raw materials for them. 1t will put
an end to the move toward the cities
that began a couple of generations
ago and it will spread the population.
balancing it little more evenly be-
tween the cities and the country. 1t
will be great thing to place back in
the country a great number of the
tried and true and battle tested Amer
leans.
By bringing into use millions of
nf hnt &c duo tyNfr
nothing it will add to the sum total
of the national wealth and the nation
al resources and we want always to
recall that it was the wealth and the
tremendous resources Of America
that made it possible for US to get in
to the war so quickly and so effective
ly when we finally made up our minds
that we could no longer stay out.
A Gigantic Undertaking
The Liberty Loans may be used in
part, in bringing under the control OF
the government and into the hands Of
the returning soldiers something like
200,000,000 acres of soil that is now
producing nothing worth while. Of
course it is a gigantic undertaking
and will require the most careful plan
ming and the wiscSt handling. But a
nation that has just fought war to
u successful close will be able to han
die the entire proposition and it ought
to be financed with comparative ease.
After the Civil War the Govern
mcnt made it possible for all soldiers
in the United States army to select
for themselves a homestead. There
was an enormous plenty Of raw land
left in the country at that time. 1t
was given to railroad companies to
induce them to build the great trans
continental lines. 1t was turned over
to the soldiers in great tracts. The
men who had gone through the Civil