WHEN THE SOLDIERS RETURN
When The Soldiers Return Millions Of Acres Of Land Still In Government Hands Make Future Farms And Homes for War-Worn Fighters from France WHAT shall be done with our soldiers when they return...
...The farms should not be turned over as the prairies were—unbroken, un,-fenced, without accommodations for men or animals...
...We should know what it will cost to buy *hese lands if they are in private hands...
...A very small sum of money put into the hands of men of thought, experience, aad vision will give us a program which will make us feel entirely confident that we are not to be submerged industrially or otherwise by labor which we will not be able to absorb, or that we would be in a condition where we would show a lack of respect for those who retur s as heroes, but who will be without means of immediate self-support...
...At the close of the Civil War America faced a somewhat similar situation...
...Without any of these aids, they remain largely 'No Man's Land.' The solution of these problems is no new thing...
...What amount of land in its natural state unfit for farm homes can be made suitable for cultivation by drainage, only thorough surveys and studies can develop...
...It will mean the conquest of an empire in the Southwest...
...The dam or the irrigation project should be built by him, the canals, the ditches, the breaking of the land and the building of the houses, should, under proper direction, be his occupation...
...The adoption by the United States of new policies in its land development plans for returning veterans will also contribute to the amelioration of these two dangers to American life...
...Franklin K. Lane, discussing this problem has sent a letter to members of Congress which was placed in the Congressional Record by Congressman Cooper, of Wisconsin, and which is in part as follows: "Every country has found itself face to face with this situation at the close of a great war...
...It is believed that more than three millions of acres of arid land could be reclaimed by the completion of the Upper and Lower Colorado Basin Projects...
...One of the new features of this plan is that holders are aided in improving and cultivating the farm...
...Practically all of it has passed into private ownership...
...He is not to be given a bounty...
...have bought and urged more labor-saving maWhen Soldiers Return (Continued from page 7.) chinery on the farms and in the houses...
...So we have no land in any way comparable to that in the public domain when Appomattox came— and men turned westward with army rifle and roll blanket' to begin life anew...
...In the admirable achievment of the Reclamation Service in reclamation and drainage we have abundant proof of what can be done...
...have bought and kept better livestock...
...Second, the drift to urban life...
...The question then is "What land can be made available for farm homes for oar soldiers...
...Plans Are Under Way...
...Throughout the country a higher and better civilization is gradually being evolved...
...THE work that is to be done, other than the planning should be done by the soldier himself...
...In short, at the conclusion of the war the United States should be able to say to its returned soldiers: "If you wish to go upon a farm, here are a variety of farms of which you may take your pick, which the Government has prepared against the time of your returning...
...They keep more sheep and pigs and have so largely increased the revenue from their farms that they are able to meet the payments on the mortgages and to adopt a higher standard of living, and a better one...
...The amount of cut-over lands in the United States, of course it is impossible even in approximation to estimate...
...Because nothing was done, these heroic but uninformed souls were bedeviled by the winds, cold, drouth, and insect pests...
...There are certain tendencies which we ought to face frankly in our consideration of a policy for land for the home-coming soldier...
...and also swamp lands in the Middle West and South, which can be made available through the proper development Much of this land can be made suitable for farm homes if properly handled...
...The undeveloped cut-over lands lie chiefly in the Pacific Northwest (particularly in Washington and Oregon), in the Lake States (Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin), and in the South Atlantic and Gulf Coastal States (Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas...
...In a literal sense, for the use of it on a generous scale for soldier farm homes as in the sixties, 'the public domain is gone.' The official figures at the end of the fiscal year, June SO, 1917, show this: We have unappropriated land in the continental United States to the amount of 230,657,755 acres...
...At the census of 1910, 46.3 per cent resided in cities and 53.7 per cent remained in the country...
...Of course, Alaska will still offer opportunities for a pioneer life...
...But fortunately at that time the public domain offered opportunity to the home returning soldiers...
...The experience of wars points out the lesson that our service men, because of army life with its openness and activity, will largely seek out-of-doors vocations and occupations...
...Unless a new policy of development is worked out in cooperation between the Federal Government, the States, and the individual owners, a greater part of it will remain unsettled and uncultivated...
...The growth of tenancy in America shows an increase of 32 per cent for the twenty years between 1890 and 1910...
...We should know what it would cost to pull or 'blowout' stumps and to put the lands into condition for a farm home...
...Meet New Conditions...
...A million or two dollars if appropriated now, will put this work well under way...
...T'O THE great number of returning soldiers * land will offer the great and fundamental opportunity...
...The plan is simple...
...When The Soldiers Return Millions Of Acres Of Land Still In Government Hands Make Future Farms And Homes for War-Worn Fighters from France WHAT shall be done with our soldiers when they return from the war...
...This plan does not contemplate anything lite charity to the soldier...
...As I have indicated, thu is not a mere Utopian vision...
...The arid land will require water—the cut-over land will require clearing, and the swamp land must be drained...
...He is not to be made to feel that he is a dependent...
...Just how much there is has never been determined with any degree of accuracy...
...They wasted their efforts, lost their hopes and ambitions, and a tragic percentage left, impoverished and embittered...
...The Immediate Duty...
...This fact is accepted by the allied European nations...
...It may be said that this country outside of Alaska has no frontier today...
...Hon...
...Th's work should not be postponed...
...I will undertake to present to the Congress definite projects for the development of this country through the use of the returned soldier by which the United States, lending its credit, may increase its resources and its population and the happiness of its people with a cost to itself of not more than the few hundred thousand dollars that it will take to study this problem throught competent men...
...So that the soldier on his return would have an opportunity to make a home for himself, to build a home with money which we would advance and which he would repay, and for the repayment we would have an abundant security...
...Substantially all thi* cut-over or logged off land is in privat* ownership...
...This is the great remaining storehouse of Government land for reclamation...
...In Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, aod the Australian Commonwealth it has completely changed the land situation...
...And of course Alaska likewise has yet unknown remarkable agricultural possibilities, but unless we make possible the development of this land by the men who desire their life in that field, we will lose a great national opportunity...
...The failure of this land to b* developed is largely-due to inadequate method of approach...
...It has been estimated that the total area of swamp and overflowed lands in the United States is between seventy and eighty million acres...
...I do not mean by this to carry the implication that we should do any other work now than the work of planning...
...Land An Opportunity...
...In 1880 of the total population of the United States 29.5 per cent of our people resided in cities, and 70.5 per cent in the country...
...Under .what policy and program millions of these acres could be reclaim-,ed for future farms and homes, remains for legislation to determine...
...The great part the veterans of that war played in developing the West is one of our epics...
...the young men and women who are growing up are happy and contented to remain at home on the farm and find ample time and opportunity for recreation and entertainment of a kind more wholesome and elevating than can be obtained in the cities...
...The amount of swamp and cut-over land3 in the United States that can be made available for farming is extensive...
...A rough estimate of their number is about two hundred million acres—that is of land suitable for agri...
...It is evident that since the war in Europe, there has been a decided increase in the trend toward the city because of industrial conditions...
...Instead of destroying our enemies he is to develop our resources...
...While we do not have that matchless publie domain of '65 we do have millions of acres of undeveloped lands that can be made available for our home-coming soldiers...
...This same policy can be carried out as to the other classes of land...
...It has proved a distinct success...
...Elwood Mead in these words: "Science (should) have gone hand in hand with the settlement of the arid and semi-arid country, and all that science could give would have been utilized, first in the creation of the conditions of settlement and then in aiding the settlers in difficult tasks...
...The era of free or cheap land in the United States has passed...
...We do not have the bountiful public domain of the sixties and seventies...
...We should know by the time the war ends, not merely how much arid land can be irrigated, nor how much swamp land reclaimed, nor where the grazing land is and how many cattle it will support, nor how much cut-over land can be cleared, but we should know with definiteness where it is practicable to begin new irrigation projects, what the character of the land is, what the nature of the improvements needed will be, and what the cost will be...
...For that reason in considering Its use, it would be necessary to work out a policy between the private owners and the Government unless the land was purchased...
...On the contrary, he is to continue in a sense in the service of the Government...
...That great project, I believe, wit] appeal to the new spirit of America...
...That is why their programs and policies of relocating and readjustment emphasize the opportunities on the land for the returning soldier...
...LOOKING forward to the construction of additional projects, I am glad to say that plans and investigations have been under way for some time...
...When the war is over they must be absorbed into the economic life" of the country...
...And all this should be done with a definite planning basis...
...From Rome under Caesar to France under Napoleon down even to our own Civil War, the problem arose as to what could be done with the soldiers to be mustered out of military service...
...He should be allowed to make hi* own home, cared for while he is doing it, ar...
...i given an interest in the land for which he ca:i pay through a long period of years, perhaps thirty or forty years...
...We should think as carefully of each one of these projects as George Washington thought of the planning of the City of Washington...
...Is Not A Vision...
...We should have in mjnd specific areas of grazing lands with a knowledge of the cattle which are best adapted to them, and the practicability of supporting a family upon them...
...cultural development...
...It is safe to say that not one-half of this land will ever prove to be cultivable in any sense...
...Some of the defects in our old system have been described by Dr...
...cut-over lands in the Northwest, Lake States, and South...
...We have arid lands in the West...
...It will be too late to plan for these things when the war is over...
...It was likewise the period of rapid, yet broad and full, development •f towns and communities and States...
...And I therefore desire to bring to your mind the wisdom of immediately supplying the Interior Department with a sufficient fund with which to make the necessary surveys and studies...
...We know that authentic figures show that more than fifteen milSon acres have been reclaimed for profitable farming, most of which lies in the Mississippi River Valley...
...The tragic part of this history is that nearly all this suffering and loss could have been avoided under a carefully thought-out-plan of development...
...First, the drift to farm tenancy...
...We should know also, not in a general way, but with particularity, what definite area of swamp land may be reclaimed, how they can be drained, what the cost of the drainage will be, what crops they will raise...
...A plan of land development, whereby land is developed in large areas, sub-divided into individual farms, then sold to actual bona-fide farmers on a long time payment basis, has been in fores not only in the United States under the Reclamation Act, but also in many other countries for several years...
...THIS is an immediate duty...
...They should be prepared homes, all of which can be constructed by the men therasclfes and paid for by them under a system of simple devising by which modern methods of finance will be applied to their needs...
...The undeveloped swamp lands lie chiefly in Florida, in the States along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, in the Mississippi Delta, and in Missouri, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and California...
...In a word, there is organized community development...
...The experience of the world shows without question that the happiest people, the best farms, and the soundest political conditions are found where the farmer owns the home and the farm lands...
...These lands, however, lie largely in the South Atlantic and Gulf States, the Lake States and the Northwestern States...
...It has been officially estimated that more than fifteen millions of acres of irrigable land now remain in the Government's hands...
...We must meet the new conditions of developing lands in advance—security must to a degree displace speculation...
...It was also the era of transcontinental railway construction...
...ANY plan for the development of land for thg returning soldier will come face to face with the fact that a new policy will have to meet the new conditions...
...So too with our cut-over lands...
...This is already agitating the minds of those who are giving thought to the problem which was raised by taking millions of men out of industry and temporarily transforming them into soldiers...
...Its beneficial results have been well described by the Canadian Commission which was appointed to investigate its results in New Zealand in these words: "***** the farmers have built better bouses or remodeled their old ODes, brought, a larger acreage of land under cultivation that would otherwise be lying idle...
...Of this amount it is stated that about "sixty million acres can be reclaimed and made profitable for agriculture...
...But it will require that each type of land be dealt with in its own particular fashion...
...Our thoughts now should be given to the problem...
...It is, with slight variations, a policy which other countries are pursuing successfully...
...A survey and study has been in the course j»f consummation by the Reclamation Service on the Great Colorado Basin...
...The homestead law had been signed by Lincoln in the second year of the War, so that out of our wealth in lands we had farms to offer the millions* of veterans...
Vol. 10 • July 1918 • No. 7
