104 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



industry, the crop of 1906, which, in the markets is 

 worth more than all the products of all the mines in 

 the Rocky mountains. Her million and a half people 

 are busy in the arts of peace. 



BY LISTENING to Mosbys and Wheelers, the Presi- 

 dent has committed a grievous wrong, and some of 

 Nebraska's splendid citizens are the victims. The dis- 

 missal of United States Attorney Baxter and United 

 States Marshal Matthews, were spontaniety born of 

 misinformation. If the unimpeachable evidence of 

 those who know them counts for anything, the President 

 could do no better deed than to apologize to them, and 

 give their traducers deserved punishment. 



I REPEAT: "Put special and secret service agents 

 on oath in their reports, and under bonds to tell the 

 truth." The people of the West have already had too 

 much annoyance from migatory, fly-by-night irresponsi- 

 ble guessers, and we want our patents when we have 

 complied with the law. If we must endure spies, give 

 us protection from blackmail and error. 



ME. PRESIDENT, some of us are of the opinion yet, 

 that you are being imposed upon by favorites of your 

 official family, and that the most of these land prosecu- 

 tions are inspired by men with sinister intentions. Men, 

 knowing your inherent and impulsive antipathy to 

 wrong, are using those very attributes to further their 

 extensive fraudulent conceptions, which you have not 

 detected. Though keen and swift is your executive in- 

 telligence, your busy mind, engrossed with mighty mis- 

 sions, has "overlooked a bet." 



PAUSE a moment and consider : Does your delib- 

 erate judgment apprehend that the alleged offenses on 

 the part of Western settlers, merits the remedies you 

 propose? Can you imagine an excuse for the Land 

 Department publishing photos of crude initial cabins 

 of claimants, and making a sweeping declaration that 

 they were fraudulent, or of charging with conspiracy 

 men whose alleged offense is a desire to acquire a few 

 sand dunes ? When was the law enacted which forbids 

 men to act as immigration agents, or forbids one man 

 to pay another's expenses, or build houses ; or exchange 

 money for the products of a claimant's homestead? Is 

 payment for pasturage any different from paying for 

 hay, corn, wheat, or any other product? Is it unlawful 

 to offer money for land an offer which claimants might 

 or might not accept, or from which the profferer him- 

 self may later recede? In event of these Sand-hillers 

 acquiring a considerable portion of this land, its value 

 is but little similar land in title will bring under the 

 hammer from fifty cents to two dollars per acre. 



and today his nearest neighbor is a mile away. The 

 lonesomeness, the isolation, the struggle of this score of 

 years has made him probably $15,000 in property. It 

 is a serious thing to accuse such as these of conspiracy. 

 A humorously (?) inclined friend asked him when he 

 expected to serve his term, and this his answer: "I 

 don't know and I don't care. You can't hurt a man 

 who has spent twenty-one years in the sand hills, by 

 putting him anywhere else on earth, or under the sod." 

 Our government, through this accursed system of spe- 

 cial agents, has crushed many such dauntless spirits, 

 and persistance is continuance of the crime. 



MR. PRESIDENT, prosecution of this class of "of- 

 fenders" serves to throw dust in the eyes of the public, 

 and while diverting attention, a "joker" in congress, 

 and a few orders emanating from our forestry depart- 

 ment creates from an obscure lumberman a rival of 

 Rockefeller. The "lieu lands" joker, which in 1897 

 was attached to a small appropriation for the forestry 

 department, was ostensibly to aid homesteaders who were 

 isolated by forest reservations to change their locations, 

 whereas, in fact it permitted land grant railways and 

 associates to enter upon a carnival of pillage. 



CONGRESSMAN James L. Miller has done well to 

 introduce his resolution calling for an investigation of 

 the lumber trust, but it should include a searching 

 inquiry of its association with our government forestry 

 department. A thousand loud-mouthed special agents 

 ferreting out petty thieves, and finding fault with hon- 

 est settlers, will not hide that gigantic crime of the last 

 decade, in which the head of our forestry service was 

 either interested or negligent. 



DESIGNEDLY or otherwise, our forest reserves had 

 previously been made to include about 4,000,000 acres 

 belonging to land grant railroads and associates lands 

 naturally destitute, or which had been stripped of their 

 timber. In lieu of these worthless tracts, magnificent 

 forests of the Northwest were selected. 



DESIGNEDLY or otherwise, the Klamath forest re- 

 serve was made to include 800,000 acres of naked road 

 grant lands, which were worth scarcely as much as the 

 grazing lands over which there is now so much ado, 

 but the lieu lands selected by the Weyerhouser interests 

 are worth millions of dollars. 



RECENTLY I met a Sand-hiller who is under indict- 

 ment. Twenty years ago he went out there full of hope, 



DESIGNEDLY or otherwise, Rainer forest reserve 

 was made to include a vast acreage of denuded lands 

 and barren rocks of the Northern Pacific land grant. 

 The lands selected in lieu thereof are in Idaho's mag- 

 nificent white pines and are worth millions. With the 

 help of our forestry department, the people of America 



