334 THE .IRRIGATION AGE 



be practical by convict labor, taking them from the federal prisons, 

 clothing them in citizens' garb, and guarding them with soldiers to 

 keep them at work and guard against insurruction and escape, and to 

 pay them for their labor, while this savors nicely of a humanitarian 

 spirit, and the writer would not discourage it, could he see it to be 

 feasible, but, dear sir, after a familiar acquaintance of twenty-five 

 years with the character of convicts in our Nebraska penitentiary, we 

 are of the opinion that it would require at least two mounted and 

 armed soldiers to watch one average convict during the day and at 

 night I fear three-fourths of them would escape taking the soldiers' 

 horses with them. 



Again, dear Governor, bear in mind there are thousands of 

 loyal and good men and women, too, that have never violated the 

 laws of the land and brought down upon themselves the condemnation 

 of law, if any class are to be favored why not these honest and indus- 

 trious toilers of the West that have for years struggled against adver- 

 sity to reclaim this arid country and make for themselves homes, while 

 the convicts have stolen their horses and cattle by day and night. 

 Let these do the work for pay. 



"Prison walls are demoralizing,'' you say, to which we respond a 

 most hearty amen! So, too, Governor, are the environments of the 

 average homesteader on the plains struggling for an existence for his 

 family, and to see his crops fail year after year for want of water. 

 Your humble servant gave five years of the best of his life's efforts to 

 improving a farm of 1,500 acres in western Nebraska near twenty 

 years ago. We started a settlement twenty miles from a post-office 

 or blacksmith shop, hired money of an Eastern loan company to make 

 our improvements. In five years we had four timber claims improved, 

 300 acres nicely cultivated, 2.000 fruit trees planted and dead for 

 want of water, the best buildings in the county, a new county organ- 

 ized, Perkins, a railroad, the B. & M., running through our land, 

 a county seat town, Grant, but a half mile from our land; the 

 loan company had all our land but 320 acres (and they were insolvent), 

 and we gave up the struggle of endeavoring to succeed in agriculture 

 under a shortage or insufficiency of water; we left the premises of as 

 fertile land as the best in Illinois or Iowa, the purest and best air and 

 delightful climate with far more experience than we took there and 

 $5,000 less money a wiser, if a sadder man; and ours was the experi- 

 ence of thousands of as industrious and worthy men and women as 

 can be found anywhere. And, dear Governor, "We love that country 

 so, is why we hate her faults," lack of water only, and though we may 

 never be allowed the privilege, duty, or pleasure of another effort at 

 redeeming as we once tried by the toil of our hands and the sweat of 

 our brow, we feel with you it is a commendable enterprise in which to 



