CHAPTER I 



DIGGING TO THE BOOTS OF A DYING TREE 



IT was generally assumed that the world would 

 never be the same after the Great War, and that 

 among the results of the mighty upheaval would 

 be new forms of life on the land. In some countries, 

 it was plain, this transformation would chiefly relate 

 to ownership and distribution of the soil ; in others, to 

 the manner of its use ; but it was generally anticipated 

 that everywhere the influence of the cataclysm would 

 be registered upon the land — in the character of its 

 homes and institutions — quite as clearly as in any 

 other department of civilization. 



British statesmanship took stock of these possibili- 

 ties while the War was still at its height, and began 

 to brace itself against the impact of conditions that 

 must assuredly follow the ending of the conflict. Not 

 only in the Mother Country, but in the oversea colonies 

 — in Canada, in Australia, in New Zealand, in South 

 Africa — expert minds gave careful forethought to pre- 

 paredness for peace. They believed their weary peoples 

 would turn to the land, as to the shadow of a great 

 rock. 



In the United States there were men who sensed the 

 same situation. Long before the Battle of Chateau 

 Thierry, Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior, 



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