THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



73 



THE NON-REPEAL OF^THE LAND LAWS. 



T. S. VAN DYKE. 



The report of the committee against the repeal 

 of certain land laws shows there is something in the 

 question beyond the land-grabber that is likely to 

 thwart or greatly delay future efforts at repeal ; also 

 that there is something besides boodle. 



First. Government is not going to do all the fu- 

 ture building of irrigation works, and ought not to. 

 There are too many in which there is too much un- 

 certainty and which might bring the whole thing into 

 discredit with the East if there should be some fail- 

 ures. There are also many too small, very many of 

 them too small, for Government to bother with. All 

 such are fit only for private capital that can do the 

 waiting and take the risks. 



Second. It will make too great a reduction of the 

 revenue for building irrigation works. Those who 

 think the money is going to be repaid to the Govern- 

 ment fast enough to replenish the fund would better 

 wait a bit. Several people have been badly left in 

 supposing they could get a settlement started by giv- 

 ing first settlers land at cost of water. They discovered 

 that what poor suffering humanity that can't get a 

 farm, because the land-grabbers have it all, principally 

 wants is wet land at a dry price. What for? To raise 

 alfalfa or oranges? Sometimes, yes; but quite as 

 often to raise tenderfeet. People want to show the 

 possibility of the ditch and sell the land at- the wet 

 price or very near it. Now, when the victim has 

 bought dry land at the wet price, but one thing remains 

 for him to do, and that is to get water for nothing to 

 .make it worth what he paid. Hence he will refuse -to 

 buy water just as long as he can. Excuse my posi- 

 tiveness, dear reader. I have been there and seen many 

 others hung up on the same snag. If you think they 

 would not play the same game on our respected Uncle 

 Sam, you would better go and study up a bit of hu- 

 man nature as developed under irrigation works. 



Third. To succeed, irrigation works must be 

 built out of the increased value of the land, out of the 

 increase made by the water itself, and can not be built 

 as city waterworks are in reliance on a rental that will 

 pay an interest on the amount invested. This is now 

 too well known to need any proof. Hence capital that 

 understands its business wiH not attempt to build irri- 

 gation works unless it can have the cutting of a clean 

 piece of cloth. A few old patches, here a homesteader 

 demanding money for right of way, there another de- 

 clining to buy water at any figure or else just enough 

 to enable him to stay on the land and hold the balance 

 to sell at a wet price to some tenderfoot, will spoil the 

 whole thing. Hence there must be some way that 

 capital can contrgl the situation, either by compelling 

 settlers to buy water or getting land to cultivate in 

 case it can not sell water. This also is too well known 

 to need discussion. 



During all this fuss over the repeal of the land 

 laws it seems tacitly assumed that the homesteader is 

 a gentleman and a scholar who wouldn't do such a 

 mean trick as to hold out land against his worthy 

 Uncle and try to sell it dry far the wet price, leaving 

 Uncle Sam to reimburse the best way he can. Oh, no ! 

 He will only do that against private capital. It is 

 tacitly assumed, also, that he wants to irrigate instead 

 of to sell. Of course. You wouldn't have anv town 



"clerks, real estate men or guttersnipes looking up a 

 chance to turn an honest penny by sleeping out two 

 or three nights in a year in a dry goods box or hiring 

 some one to do it. Oh, no ! 



It is amazing that any one should be ignorant of 

 the fact that the homesteader is in one way the worst 

 of land-grabbers. He can 'stick and hang to the driest 

 piece of land on which he can find or haul water enough 

 for domestic -use, while under the arid land law one 

 must do something toward making the land irrigable 

 or let go of it. 



No, there is no more opening for fraud under the 

 arid land law than under the homestead law. I have 

 lived west of the Mississippi for thirty-eight years and 

 west of the Rocky Mountains twenty-nine, have lived 

 in the country most of the time and been in it most of 

 the rest, and have seen something of fraud. The 



HON. E. H. LIBBV. 

 Clarkston, Wash. 



trouble is not in the laws, but in the fact that men 

 whose word is as good as their bond in any business 

 transaction will walk up to the land office and swear 

 that so-and-so has resided on such a piece of land for 

 five years continuously and cultivated and improved the 

 same, when it is utterly false according to the spirit 

 and intent of the homestead act. I have all my land 

 rights yet, and have been laughed at many a time for 

 not homesteading a piece of land that some city chap 

 was certain to take from under my nose in a short 

 time and make a stake out of it without living on it 

 an hour or ever intending to. My answer that I hap- 

 pened to know what constituted perjury was always 

 received with the reply: "How is it that you are so 

 very wise when everybody else is doing it?" 



Thore is but one way to check this, and that is 

 to mnk'" 1 all fraudulent patents void in the hands of 

 anv a^isnee and cancela lot of them. There is little 





