86 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



February 



repealed, have not been acted upon by 



Congress. 



These resolutions were reiterated ar 

 emphasized by this board at its follow- 

 ing annual meeting in 1903. 



The President of the United States, in 

 his message to Congress in December, 

 1902, made the following recommenda- 

 tion : 



' ' So far as they are available tor ag- 

 riculture, and to whatever extent they 

 may be reclaimed under the National 

 Irrigation Law, the remaining public 

 lands should be held rigidly for the 

 homebuilder, the settler who lives on 

 his land, and for no one else. In their 

 actual use the Desert Land Law, the 

 Timber and Stone Law, and the com- 

 mutation clause of the Homestead Law 

 have been so perverted from the inten- 

 tion with which they were enacted as to 

 permit the acquisition of large areas of 

 the public domain for others than act- 

 ual settlers, and the consequent preven- 

 tion of settlement." 



Thereafter a bill was introduced in 

 the House by Representative Powers, of 

 Massachusetts, and one in the Senate 

 by Senator Quarles, of Wisconsin, which 

 carried out the recommendations of the 

 President by providing for the repeal 

 of the objectionable laws above named. 

 The Public Lands Committee of the 

 House was unwilling to report favor- 

 ably the Powers bill, but the Public 

 Lands Committee of the Senate did re- 

 port for passage the Quarles bill, and a 

 copy of such report is attached to this 

 report of your committee, and we ask 

 that it be made a part hereof and pub- 

 lished in the proceedings of this Board. 

 The facts set forth in this report (57th 

 Cong., 2d session, Rep. 3166) show be- 

 yond all possibility of doubt that the 

 recommendations of this organization 

 and of the President of the United 

 States should be immediately carried 

 into effect by the repeal of the three 

 laws above named. 



Their repeal has been urged by the 

 Trans- Mississippi Commercial Congress 

 at its .session in Seattle, Washington, in 

 October, 1903 ; by the National Busi- 

 ness League of Chicago, the National 

 Association of Agricultural Implement 

 and Vehicle Manufacturers, the Na- 



tional Irrigation Association, the Amer- 

 ican Hardware Manufacturers' Associa- 

 tion, the National Grange, and vari- 

 ous other organizations throughout the 



country. 



The opposition to the repeal of these 

 laws comes from interests which are 

 profiting by the rapid absorption of the 

 public lands into private ownership, 

 which is going on to-day at an appalling 

 rate. 



RAPID ABSORPTION OF LANDS. 



The rapidity with which these lands 

 are being taken up is a menace to the en- 

 tire national irrigation policy and to the 

 development of the internal trade and 

 commerce of the United States, which 

 must have its source in increased popu- 

 lation in the arid region. In the last 

 two years 42,139,463 acres have disap- 

 peared from the public domain, and have 

 been acquired largely by speculators and 

 syndicates and livestock corporations, 

 with practically no corresponding in- 

 crease in the population. 



The present land policy of the United 

 States is resulting in an actual money 

 loss to the government of many millions 

 of dollars annually, and the attention of 

 our law-makers in Congress should be 

 urgently called to the fact, that, while 

 they are aiming at economy in the ex- 

 penditure of money, they are permitting 

 laws to remain upon the statute books 

 under which absolutely the most valu- 

 able asset of the government is being 

 recklessly wasted. The Commissioner 

 ' of the General Land Office, in his report, 

 is officially responsible for the statement 

 that over $130,000,000 worth of timber 

 land has been sold for $13,000,000 a 

 loss of over $100,000,000 to the gov- 

 ernment, and this loss is still continu- 

 ing at an increasing rate. 



The astounding rapidity in the in- 

 crease of the disposals of the public do- 

 main is shown by the following figures: 



Year. Acres. 



1898 8,453,896 



1899 9,i 82 >4i3 



1900. 13,453,88? 



1901 I5,562,79 6 



1902 19,488,535 



1903 22,824,299 



Total . 88,965,826 



