200 Bl'ukau or Faumeus' Institutes. 



opment of their own Slatt-s and Territories at the expense of the 

 great body of the nation, the piople of the far west are raising 

 in increasing volume, year by year, a demand for the irrigation of 

 the immense area of arid hinds now the property of the United 

 States, that at least a hundred million acres more may be brought 

 into the market to compete with your property and postpone to 

 the indefinite future the time when the possessor of a good farm 

 shall be, as he ought to be, an object of general envy. The demand 

 for this outrageous robber^' of the people takes two forms. The 

 plot at first was to induce Congress to irrigate this vast area at 

 the national expense — at your cost and mine— that it might be 

 rendered attractive to new competitors in our own industry and 

 divided among them. This scheme of open robbery, however, was 

 a little too barefaced to be very dangerous. Nobody could help 

 seeing that it was just like asking Congress to build factories 

 and give them to any impecunious but enterprising applicant that 

 came along — imagine what our manufacturers now in business 

 would say to that! This plan therefore is not, just at present, 

 prtssed very actively, though still rearing its horrid front, in 

 Bome form, during every session. 



But another scheme has been devised, to which it is hoped there 

 will be less objection. It is simply for the national government 

 to give, give out and out, all our arid lands to the States and 

 Territories in which they happen to lie, in order that the local 

 authorities may do the irrigating themselves. Just think of it. 

 These lands are the property of all the people, just as much the 

 property of the farmer in the northeast corner of Maine or at the 

 extremity of the Florida peninsula, as of the people who live 

 around them; five-sixths of all our population are east of the 

 Mississippi and Missouri; and yet it is seriously proposed — yes, 

 vehemently urged — that their ownership in the lands referred to 

 be taken from them by force and given to the handful of people 

 in the newer regions, these people themselves being chiefly the 

 beneficiaries of the previous injustice of the government under 

 that miserable old homestead law, that the property may be used 

 directly and actively to the injury of the present owners. It is 

 difiScult to speak with patience of a proposed iniquity like that. 

 If some of our Montana friends who are doing their best to bring 

 It about were owners of valuable lots in Boston, which they pre- 



