The Coconino sun., 1920-04-30
ENGLAND CUTTING UP GREAT ESTATES
 WE CREATE THEM

be, at this crisis, those of us who mean to fulfill our duty, ought first to live on as little as we can; and, secondly, to do all the wholesome work for it We can, and to spend all we can spare in doing all the sure good we can."
 in the eos, to the conditions in the world today!
 He says the FIRST sure good to do is "in feeding people first, then in dressing people, then in lodging peo- pie, and lastly, in rightly pleasing people,"
 We Americans are not lacking in food and clothing, but, oh, how we aye in need of lodging" as Ruskin terms tive in the U. s. A. call it hories for people.
 Let us go on further with that great English thinker in his thoughts. He says:
 Lodging people you may think should have been put first, but \ put it third, because we must feed and clothe people where we find them, and lodge them afterwards.
 Providing lodgment for them means great deal of vigorous legis- iation ,and cutting down of vested in- | terests that stand in the way" How well England foresaw years ago the absolute necessity of homes--- of Judgement for her people. Be care. ful to dwell on that portion of hh' thought which recites the cutting down of vested interests. To bring this thought of vested interests home to us, let us for an apt illustration, take up the land surface of Arizona. l travelled through it on trip to Cal ifornia recently and wish to state that during two daylight days I failed to see dozen rural homes. Think of a distance of 250 miles with scarcely any habitation. And recollect, l pass ed through a grass growing country as we'll or better turfed as any of the country between Denver, Colo, and the Kansas line. The altitude of from 5000 to 1000 feet is ideal. There is no more salubrious climate on earth. There exists an all year range, with rich chocolate sandy loam soil on which forage in abundance could be grown for stockfeeding, breeding and | finishing. There thousands of happy and prosperous homes could be main tained and perpetuated, by the driv- | ing on to each 640-acre tract of this grass land ten or twelve good grade milch cows, and surrounding the land with fence, and applying ones self to stock farming, allowing the rich duce.
 | ,N4 ,l, condition avicf on such lands? Answer-Vested in terests are entrenched. The vested interests in Arizona have been created | by the American congress. It has turned over to probably less than 100 range cattle and sheep men, under the guise of forest reservation, 20,SlO. square miles of the land surface of the state of Arizona, and 27,432 square miles to the blanket Indians. Now add these two mighty areas of the land surface together. It amounts to 4S,242 square miles of land, This is equal in extent to the whole land sur face of the state of Iowa. What has | Arizona left The melancholy spec tacle of only 9,006 square miles. In other words, six-sevenths of the state of Arizona reserved from the people and turned over to two clerks down | in Washington to administer, to gov ern, to rule. These two, officers are the commissioner of Indian affairs, who reigns over a principality as big as the republic of France; the other distinguished gentleman is the flor ester," clerk to clerk to the presi- dent.
 | Now, are we not great people? | But have we a government at all! These two clerks each having the sole and exclusive Jurisdiction of sover- eign power-each the possesor of a principality! If you or your livestock should for an instant trespass on thelr kingly domains, you and your animals are guilty of trespass. Think of the national forest act of congress. It gives the president power to carve out of the great mass of public do- main lands containing forests of val ! uable and commercial timber.
 Now, get Arizona on the boards. l want you to plant map of Arizona down on your kitchen table, particu- larly you, MT. Carl Hayden, its able representative in congress, you, Sena- tor Ashurst, and every Arizonian, and try and locate 20,810 square miles of forest land in your state. 2O,8lO square miles of Arizona land means 3,328 400 acres of forest land in Ar izona. Now this gives you the ef- ficiency of American government: l doubt if there are on the 175 million acres of land embraced in all the Ma. tional Forests in the 12 public land states that acreage of purely com mercial timber land. If you want to figure out the ef- ficiency of Uncle Sam with reference to his administration of the public do- main, start in something like this: The efficiency of Uncle Sam is in the same proportion as the real number of acres of forest lands in Arizona bears to what has been reserved as forest 1 land. It would be about 20 per cent efficient.
 So it is we have the greatest people the world has produced and we are getting awfully tired of the men whom we have selected to govern us. We are great in our obedience, and there | ;. vofb;nr rraafar in human conduct