The Washington times., 1921-08-08
Today
The Deserts Need Water.
5000, 900 Mon Are Idle.
What 10 Real News7
It Depends on the Reader.
BY ARTHUR g3RrSBANR
Copyright. 1884.

OoPossuo VII S'o Noooos
by ARTHUR g3RlSBANEJ
Copyright. 1881.
Looking at this moment from
the window of the Union
Pacific Overland" you ses vast
stretches Of desert land on the
western border Of Utah. Water
would change this desert to fertile
land, homes for millions.
Water is plentiful and human
labor would bring it to this thirsty
ground. AND THERE ARE
100000 IDLE MEN IN THE
UNITED STATES. Those idle
men must eat. They might as well
eat and earn wages, at least few
hundred thousand, working at irri-
cation out here. Suppose farmer
had unfinished work that, IL ac-
complished, would double the value
Of his farm. Suppose he had idle
horses and idle men and said:
Il do rot seem to know how to
get at it."
You would say: you're not q
farmer. You are fool"
What is the matter with Gov
ernment that does not seem to
know how to get at it, when five
millions are idle, deserts need irri-
eating, swamps need draining,
roads need building, and every dol
lar thus spent efficiently would
return ten or a hundred dollars in
value?
II President Harding would
send for William Boyoe Thomp-
son, who next to Hays did the
hardest work in his campaign,
Thompson, with q staff OF engi-
neers and the necessary credits,
would soon find the water and the
way to reclaim millions Of acres
Of valuable land and give work to
q great army Of men row idle.
There would be no trouble enlist
ing men in such an army If you
gave reasonable wages, even the
necessary minimum, with a suffi-
cient plot of reclaimed land for
q homestead, at the fiEish.
The Romans sent armies to con-
uuer others and steal their land.
then gave a piece of land to each
soldier. How much better II a
modern republic would conquer
nature, steal land from deserts
and swamps, and give that con-
quered land to the workmen?
Such a column as this, how
ever, standing out in front, ought
to put the news first. since, pos
sessing the facts, people can do
their own thinking. But what is
real news? At Rupert, Iowa,
buyers are gathering in the po-
tato crop ahead of time for 81
cents per hundred pounds. Eat
ers will be fortunate if they get
the potatoes for SO a hundred
pounds. That is news for mothers.
The French and English are
nroHing more and more bitter in
their relations. England says
France wants everything and
imagines herself once more the
France of Napoleon's early days,
with the right to dictate to Europe.
France says England forgets that
she was saved by France when
the war began and England had
no army. 1t looks like a serious
break not far off. That is i'm
portant, serious news to the whole
world, especially to Germany.
Photographs are sent across the
ocean by wireless. American chill
dren have books showing scenes
in Egypt, Africa, Italy. Children
of the future will have bound
volumes showing scenes along the
canals of Mars, landscapes from
Saturn, where the wind probably
blows q thousand miles an hour,
views of all the plaEets. Mars
will send us wireless pictures when
we are ready to receive them and
get ours in return. Forty million
wears older than we are. the Mar
tians undoubtedly have long since
harnessed the power Of the sun.
That is news for those that think
ahead.
In the Russian Mariopol dis
trict toward the south they are
hanging rich peasants for refus-
ing to deliver boarded food to
managers of the Bolshevik Gov
ernment. Lenin foreshadowed
such a possibility in his speech
to the tenth Pan-Russian Con-
gress last spring. That is the
days news for those who thought
a new and perfect government,
ending all evil, could be invented
and applied overnight. Russia,
that recently spurned all western
capitalism" now says to the
United States: "Give ss food and
we will do what you like" Famine
is a master that knows no
theories.
This Is, to one at least, the
most interesting news: Govern
ment analyzes gold bars by a
spectroscopic method and can de-
tect more accurately than one
part in million" any base metal.
That would surprise Archimedes,
who hoped out Of his bath and
ran naked in his excitement when
he hit on q plan for testing the