28 CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING. 



socialism. Frankly, we avow our purpose to do for the soldier 

 what we would not think of doing for anybody else and what 

 would not be justified solely as a matter of reclamation. 



Many measures of soldier legislation have been introduced into 

 Congress. Only one of these has been favorably reported. This 

 was introduced by Representative Mondell. of Wyoming, on the 

 first day of the present special session, embodying the plan of recla- 

 mation and community settlement brought forward by this depart- 

 ment in the spring of 1918. 



The measure has been much misunderstood and sometimes deliber- 

 ately misrepresented. In the first place, it was not put forward as 

 the complete solution of the soldier problem. It was at no time 

 supposed or expected that all of the 4,800,000 men and women en- 

 gaged in the war with Germany would or could take advantage of 

 its provisions. It fortunately happens that the vast majority 

 quickly found their places in the national life. Of the remainder, a 

 very large proportion may be classified as " city minded." They 

 have no taste for farm life but would be better served by vocational 

 training and opportunities to enter upon remunerative trades or 

 professions. There is an element of " country minded," and of 

 these some 150,000 have made application for opportunities of em- 

 ployment and home-making under the terms of this bill. Largely 

 they are men who have had agricultural experience but who can not 

 obtain farms of their own without very considerable cash advances 

 and other assistance which the Government could render. It is for 

 this element that the policy is designed. 



It has often been said that the plan would be applied only in 

 the West and South. The truth is that it has been the purpose 

 from the first to extend it to every State where feasible projects 

 could be found, and that our preliminary investigations lead us 

 to believe this will include every State in the Union. 



The wide discussion of the measure has been highly educational to 

 the country, and some of the criticism is of constructive character. 

 For example, attention has been sharply called to the fact that in cer- 

 tain localities there are individual farms well suited to our purpose 

 which may often be had at a price representing rather less than the 

 value of their improvements. These are the so-called " abandoned 

 farms " so numerous in the Northeastern States. In some cases they 

 are interspersed with land now cultivated, so situated that it is not 

 possible to bring together a large number of contiguous farms as the 

 basis of a Government project. 



In New England and elsewhere public sentiment strongly favors a 

 modification of the pending measure which will enable the purchase 

 of individual farms rather than community settlement. This would 



