106 FARMERS' UNION AND FEDERATION 



" LOUSIVILLE, KY., Nov. 6. There is at least 225,000 acres of good 

 land now going to waste in Kentucky, or sufficient to furnish an eighty- 

 acre homestead to each of 2,800 returning soldiers at the end of the war, 

 according to a report submitted to H. P. Griffith, special agent of the 

 Department of the Interior by the Louisville Board of Trade. The land 

 with which the report deals comprises only large tracts easily suscepti- 

 ble to reclamation. There are six tracts described in the report, the 

 smallest 10,000 acres and the largest 75,000 acres. The report is made 

 in connection with preliminary plans of the Department of the Interior 

 to place returning soldiers on the land on such terms that they can pay 

 for their farms in small payments, extending over a long period. Nego- 

 tiations for making the Kentucky tracts available for government pur- 

 chase when Congress shall later have provided funds have gone far 

 enough in only one case that the details can be divulged. It is in what 

 is known as the Panther Creek section of Kentucky. Here 50,000 

 acres in one tract can be purchased at $5 an acre, and by putting in 

 drain tile it can be made ready for use. According to Mr. Griffith, the 

 tentative plans laid by the Department of the Interior contemplates 

 placing returned soldiers on the soil in every State of the Union and 

 also using them when armies are disbanded in making the land upon 

 which they will go ready for occupancy. To make any of these plans 

 effective Congress will have to enact the necessary legislation." 



Were the federation of farmers' unions now organized, it 

 could perform a great service to the soldiers by appointing 

 committees to warn them to pass up the homestead propo- 

 sition where nothing but privation and disappointment 

 awaits them, and aid in finding jobs for them in cities where 

 they could get big wages and aid in bringing down the high 

 cost of all supplies needed by the farmers. . 



Ever Advancing Union Labor Wages. 



"WASHINGTON, May 26. General pay increases for nearly 2,000,000 

 railway employes were announced today by Director General McAdoo, 

 effective next Saturday, and retroactive to last January, carrying out 

 substantially the recommendations of the Railroad Wage Commission. 

 The aggregate of the increases probably will be more than $300,000,000 

 a year, half of which will be distributed within a few weeks as back 

 pay in lump sums ranging from about $100 to nearly $200 each. In 

 addition to the ordinary scale of increase, day laborers, employed mainly 

 on track work, are to get at least 2% cents an hour more than they re- 



