Evening star., 1937-05-22

IN IIle barr bullQlnS DellnQ door
marked. "Resettlement Administra-
ton, Assistant Administrator"
He is an unpubGcized bigWig, but
the thinkers who shuttle the New Deal
admire him as a chief prop of the
Roosevelt land theory. This month
he celebrates the anniversary OF his
start toward his title.
y Since May, 1885, the assistant ad-
ministrator, Phi. D. and LII. D., has
signed Lewis c. Gray" to hundreds
Of documents which give the Federal
Government an option on 100000
acres.
These pieces of land lie across the
whole wide stretch of America, from
the Bay of Fundy to San Diego Bay
They are equal to $4,000 square
miles.
Out of such an area could be fash
ioned SaXony, Samoa and the Fiji
Islands, or Maryland and Rhode
Island or Vermont and Connecticut.
Gray buys the land in the name of
the Resettlement Administration to
take 1t out of cultivation, and that's
where Abraham Lincoln comes in,
Lincoln ran for the presidency II
years ago on a platform promising a
gift of 100 acres to each citizen who
would set out for the Far West and
stake his claim.
For 40 years the stream of pioneers
eeeking the homestead prize-later
raised to 800 and finally to $40 acres
coursed across the continent.
But profitable farming in the Great
Plains region, where most Of the free
land lay, was impossible on the l60-
acre tracts which provided a good liv-
Ing to Lincolns Illinois neighbors.
W. 1HooohND aeioo "e4e 'i1e
minimum needed, and to make
their little holdings pay, the home
steaders overworked them until the
ground retained little value as raiser
of crops.
The grasses and the forests disap-
peared. The wind blew away the soil
and the water washed it to the sea.
The same story OF land-disappear-
ance is true in many other parts of
the United States, and Grays agents
have bought in every State in the
Union.
. The land is to be turned into parks
and forests and tourist paradises and
game preserves. Some day some OF
1t may be turned back into cultivation.
To Gray the fact that the Govern
ment actually decided to buy this
land is as thrilling as the discovery
of the lost city OF Quivira would have
been to Coronado.
For Gray has advocated the pur-
chase program since long long ago.
It is his favorite program and now it
Is coming home.
But buying piece of land for DR.,
Gray to approve isn't the easiest
thing In the world. The agents of
the doctor of philosophy in economics
have their troubles, many of which
give a laugh.
Some holders of submarginal land
are most reluctant to turn their
parched and Washed-out acres over
to the United States but not so two
old ladies in Maine. Theirs was a
different problem.
Gray wanted to buy and the ladies
wanted to sell
But" said the ladies. eve do not
know If we can sell. What do you
think OF this deed?"
The deed showed the land had come
into the possession of the family of
the present occupants several years
before the Revolution.
And what stumped the old ladies
was its stipulation that title to the
land should pass to the heirs until
there were no heirs, and then it was
to revert to the King Of England.
TODAY, of course, the King Of
England, to the citizen of Maine,
Is just another man, but before the
Revolution he was the Down Casters
sovereign lord Gray's spokesman
assured the old ladies George vi
could not touch their acres. They
, took the check the Government sent
them and happily left for new
home
The women, however, were lucky
to have deed explicit in all details.
In mountainous West Virginia deeds
are vague because the people there
live so far from town that they
rarely bother about going to the court
house 70 register title changes. Old
women who had the information
from their mothers are the fountains
OF intelligence about land-holdlngs in
such settlements.
One resettlement agent who was
born in that part Of West Virginia
almost lost his life in the service of
Gray down there last year.
The land holdings of an old noun
tain man was part Of a parcel the
Government sought. The agent
trudged up to the mans house and
on the front porch he found the old
mountaineer sitting and talking with
some neighbors.
The agent and the mountaineer
. stepped inside the house, where Gray's
man unwound his sales talk. The old
man was little deaf, and the agent,
warming to his business, began to
He stepped toward the man so his
shout.