The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1933-10-19
zoo IDLE MINERS FAMILIES
TO TRY HOMESTEAD PLAN
West Virginia Tract Picked by
Government for Demonstration
Area of Farms and Factory
SCHOOL WILL BE PROVIDED

IlOIl ny private COLSSIHo anu Will III
clude a factory where the exact OPP
Grafton of the project will be available
for study.
To Make Postal Equipment
In the absence of a private industry
Immediately available for transfer to
the area, it has been arranged that
the factory shall produce special
equipment required by the Postoffice
Department. In addition, handicraft
industries will be developed in the
community.
1t will be financed out of a fund of
$25,000,000 set aside by Congress in
the public works section of the Ma
tional Recovery Act. Development of
the homestead section of the project
will be under the immediate super
vision of NJ. L. Wilson, director of the
subsistence homestead division of the
Department of the Interior. Other
projects are being worked out in CO.
operation with private industry wher-
ever possible to provide demonstra-
tons of the same principle in other
regions.
The settlers are to be selected from
miners within radius of twenty miles
of the farm. The factory will be sit
uated at a point not more than two
miles from any of the homesteads.
Some of the settlers will be employed
in constructing the project. Most of
them are expected to perform unskill-
ed labor in connection with the build
ing of their homes including the eXca-
walton of Easements with storage
space for canned fruits and vegeta-
bes. Electric current will be availa
BILE for the homes.
"This project is in many ways one
of the most significant in this period"
Mr.. Ickes said. at will serve as a
means of measuring the possibilities
of decentralizing industry in this
country where the evils of over-ur-
DdIllZdIlOu nave UeCOIIiS Oil COO CfiuSh1
in this depression.
No Longer Needed in Mines
at will undertake to return to use
fitness, security and to high de-
gree of self-sufficiency group of men
and their families who are victims
of the period of planlessness and he'll
ter-skelter development and misuse of
natural resources which hope we are
leaving behind. There are reliable es-
Inmates that 100000 or more men who
list their occupation as coal mining,
now unemployed, are no longer needed
in the industry.
"This group of 200 families is but
small portion, but application of the
subsistence plan to this segment may
provide the encouragement opening
the way to new life for many 9th
ers. And coal mining is but one of
the groups where the unemployment
problem is more than temporary,
where rational resettlement and better
land use combine to form one answer.
Many Left Farming
"Many of the men who will be Sc
lected as settlers left farming to en-
ter mining. Others are descendants of
generations of miners. Now the mines
where they once worked are closed or
operations have been cut drastically.
These men have latent skill, the po-
tentialities of useful members of So
ciety and certainly the capacity of
providing their own food instead OF de-
pending on relief Of they are given
chance.
"To have them become farmers
would be crowding field already ov-
ercrowded. There is no room for them
in cities. They are now problems OF
relief. This plan will make it possible
for them to stay in the section in
which they have lived and to attain
the security Of home and subsis-
tence and all that goes with that
without putting them into commercial
farming.
"Now many of them live in shacks.
Their families have little enough of
nourishment not to speak of lack of
adequate shelter, clothing and bare
necessities. They are living on land in
capable of producing gardens in many
cases, along mountain sides near the
mouths of mines.
To Be Homes in Real Sense
"The land for this project has been
carefully selected to assure its pro-
ductivity. The homes will be comfor-
table not without ostentation. They
will be homes in the real sense for the
settlers will own them. They will have
a chance for Standardization. There
success will be in the nations inter-
est"
The settlement site is known as the
Arthur Dale farm and is situated near
the postoffice of Reedsville, w. Va.
1t lies in a mountain valley and was
once the property of Col. John Fair
FAX and, according to legend, was sur