TUE PEOPLE AND THE LAND 



the extortions of the commission system. Tens of thou- 

 sands of people failed in their efforts to make homes in 

 the semi-arid regions of the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, 

 and Texas because of having neither rain nor irrigation 

 facilities to moisten their fields. The isolation of farm- 

 life, and the lack of the enjoyments and refinements 

 available even to the poor in the older States, have been 

 fruitful causes of heart-sickness. 



The chief reasons, then, why the surplus people do not 

 go to the surplus lands are that they have not the capital 

 to do so ; that they do not know where to go ; that they 

 do not know how to organize their industry in order to 

 prosper ; that they fear the lack of good society and the 

 refinement which this should furnish to them and their 

 children. The plan of domestic colonization which shall 

 be of broad and enduring effect, and so give to the nation 

 the incalculable gains which may be won from the devel- 

 opment and use of its waste resources, must solve all 

 these problems. Nothing short of this will meet the de- 

 mand and open the gates of the West to the vast mul- 

 titude who would gladly enter at this wide portal if they 

 could believe that economic independence lay beyond. 



