The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1923-06-14

and In November were suffering. II
December they had used up the
meager supply of hay they had cut
based on what would be needed In
the Swiss valleys, and were making
their way out. Cut on by deep
SHOWS, the cattle and the rear guard
OF the men, left trail of carcasses
and skeletons pointing toward the
nearest settlements, mute testimony
of the folly of disregarding a few
settled facts. The press of the
country published sensational stories
Of the failure, starvation, murder
and suicide, that made Idaho loom
large as q place to stay away from
These people were chiefly responsible
for their own failures, and no moral
responsibility rested with the public
for letting them drift to destruction
but it was the first hard blow to
Idaho, and furnished the first EN-.
phatic chapter in a series of TRACE.
dies to colonists.
The Mackay Dam and the projects
under 1t made damaging history
The Powell tract of eighty thousand
acres wSs checkered with canals and
laterals, and large amount of 1t
was sold to well-to-do people who
came upon the land with enough
capital to carry them thru to success
under ordinary conditions of settle
ment, and they all lost everything
| they put into it. 1t was a Carey
project with state authority, and
settlers dealt partly with the state.
State officials at the land opening
told the audience that the state was
behind this project and the. settlers
were secured, when in fact there was
no security for anybody. Land sales
men not even entitled to be called
real estate men, fellows who could
not write a letter that was legible
and Ineligible or make out a deed
could take party of hoomeseekers
out over the tract and tell them a
lot of bunk and fleece them for their
money. Such men made hundreds
of dollars a day, folded their cur
rency in their pockets and went their
way. and in the years that followed,
the taxpayers and sympathetic peo-
pie who witnessed the distress of the
settlers. made sacrifices in their be-
half, not as refund Of their losses
but as charity to the destitute. II
there had been more experienced
men and more integrity in charge
of engineering and colonizing, the
tragedy would have been averted,
for the resources were present for
making a pronounced success on a
somewhat smaller scale.
The history of the Dubois project
is not yet written, but it has the
resources and has had its miseries
and its tragedies. 1t may take a
generation to finish the train of
events to decide the merits of the
way it is handled.
Dry farming has had it's run and
its fling. What happened to the
''sooners' of the great plains states
has happened and is happening to
the dry, farmers of large areas of i
the Intermountain country and the
story is not yet completed Certain
it is that the stockmen were right I
when they objected to having parts
Of the range plowed up, the watering
places homesteaded crops sowed
where they never reaped, and the
country turned back to them in later
years, blanketed with weeds. void of
much of it's timber, rodents bred up
In multiplied millions, barbed wire
entanglements in places, and springs
,hoked with mud With an expert
ment station maintained to prove
theories for the whole public as to
he conditions of the desert, and
plenty of money available for con-
Quoting experiment stations in the
to see whether dry farm
ng or stock interests would create
he greatest returns on investments
ind best preserve the natural re-
sources, our statesmen responded to
| call and made it possible for poor
men to gobble great tracts under I
What was called the enlarged home
tead act, and aid in the ruin of a '
,reat industry and the natural re-
Ources that cannot now be replaced I
or this generation, and perhaps not
or the next. 1t was just another {
rain of foolish sacrifices committed
nder the name of progress-mis- !.
abeled and permitted under the pro- t
est of men who could foresee the I
esults. The men who were expect ]
ng to- get rich out of it are older
nd broke, and the men who sought r
i u
ources as they existed, are painfully
ebuilding what they can from the l
and paying taxes to sus-, s
ain pensions for widows and to sup t
ly groceries to the indigents.
There was a period when a good
lany people thought that, because :
ortunes had been made on town.
ITS in the Twin Falls country, that
II southern Idaho might be laid out
| town lots and sold for something
nd the buyers enabled to make a
rofit. In pursuance of that idea,
alt dozen townsites were put on
lie market in Bingham county that
ave never been profitable invest
tents for anybody, and some of
lem have been such fiat failures
lat the owners are letting titles
evert to the commonwealth, and
le country has to pay the, state tax
n them whether the county gets
nything or not. The county has
} pay the state for taxes on prop
rty withip its borders and pay it in
ash; then if it does credit bust
;x,I ;xy;I L.