A Stake in the Land Part 10

STATE LEGISLATION TO PROMOTE LAND SETTLEMENT FOR SOLDIERS UP TO JUNE, 1919[11]

---------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | Amount of State | Bill Number| Date Approved |Appropriation --------------+------------+---------------------+-------------+ Arizona | Senate 89|March 26, 1919[10]|$ 100,000 | | | California |{Senate 246|April, 1919 | 10,000,000 |{Senate 221|April, 1919[10]| 1,000,000 Colorado | Senate 262|April 9, 1919[10]| Delaware | House 182|April 2, 1919 | 25,000 Florida | Senate 21|December 7, 1918[10]| Idaho | House 100|March 7, 1919[10]| 100,000 Maine | Chapter 89|April 4, 1919[10]| | | | Missouri |{Senate 355|April, 1919[10]| 10,000 |{Senate 15|April, 1919[10]| 1,000,000 Montana |{House 130|March 11, 1919[10]| 50,000 |{House 170|March 4, 1919[10]| 200,000 Nevada | House 219|March 28, 1919 | 1,000,000 New Jersey | Senate 5|March 26, 1919 | New Mexico | House 204|March, 1919[10]| 30,000 North Carolina| Chapter 266|March 10, 1919[10]| North Dakota | House 128|March 6, 1919 | | | | Oklahoma | Number 249|March 28, 1919 | 250,000 Oregon | Senate 147|March 4, 1919[10]| 50,000 South Dakota | Senate 255|March, 1919[10]| 100,000 | | | 1,000,000 Tennessee | House 447|April 16, 1919[10]| Texas | |May 24, 1919 | Utah |{Senate 79|March 17, 1919[10]| 25,000 |{Senate 80|March 17, 1919[10]| 1,000,000 Vermont | Number 15|March 26, 1919 | Washington |{House 200|March 18, 1919 | 1,050,000 |{Senate 184|March 20, 1919[10]| 160,000 Wisconsin | Senate 8|February 23, 1919[10]| Wyoming | Senate 70|February 28, 1919[10]| 5,000 | | | 200,000 ---------------------------------------------------------------+

TABLE II--Continued

STATE LEGISLATION TO PROMOTE LAND SETTLEMENT FOR SOLDIERS UP TO JUNE, 1919[11]

------------------------------------------------------------ | State | Special Note --------------+--------------------------------------------- Arizona |To aid Federal Reclamation Service in this | state.

California |Referendum on bond issue.

| Colorado |No appropriation indicated.

Delaware | Florida |Appropriating state lands.

Idaho |Conditional upon similar Federal legislation.

Maine |Necessary amount out of remainder of | reserve land fund.

Missouri | |Revolving fund submitted to popular vote.

Montana | |To be drawn upon if necessary.

Nevada |By bond sale.

New Jersey |Appropriation for placement work.

New Mexico |Plus half of certain state rentals and sales.

North Carolina|Commission appointed to report.

North Dakota |Twenty-five dollars per soldier per month | in service.

Oklahoma |For loans to land settlers.

Oregon | South Dakota | |Bond issue.

Tennessee |No appropriation indicated.

Texas |State credit for land settlers.

Utah | |Bond issue.

Vermont | Washington |Revolving fund for state Reclamation Act.

|For land settlement.

Wisconsin |Commission appointed to report.

Wyoming | |For loans to land settlers.

In more than half the states the laws refer to Federal legislation, in a few cases specifying that the appropriation shall be contingent upon a national appropriation. Several states signify their approval of co-operation with Federal provision, but make no appropriation for the work. The largest appropriation in the form of a bond issue for popular approval of $10,000,000 was pa.s.sed by the California legislature.

Similar provision was made by Missouri, South Dakota, and Utah to the amount of $1,000,000. Nevada arranged for the borrowing of $1,000,000 for "reclamation, improvement, and equipment of lands ... for soldiers, sailors, marines, and other loyal citizens." Washington appropriated a revolving fund beginning with $1,050,000 and eventually reaching $3,000,000 to create a state Reclamation Service.

In spite of this evidence of awakened interest in soldier settlements, many such projects have died before any real attempt could be made to put them into practical operation. This is to be explained as follows.

The projects in a number of cases were products rather of sentiment than of logic based upon experience. War-time patriotism created a desire to give some sort of reward to men fighting for the country's cause. "Let us give to each returning soldier a farm--a ready-made farm!" was heard throughout the country. Whether we had enough land, or economically available land, for millions of farms was not always asked. Many of the project-makers turned to our swamps, deserts, and cut-over lands filled with stumps and debris.

The easy-flowing imagination of these people, especially of the city type, made out of these lands new farms, flourishing gardens, meadows and fields burdened with crops waving in the winds. How much it would cost, whence would come the money and energy to create such a miracle, and how much time the prosecution of the plan would require was not asked. Would not our returned soldiers, who already are matured men, be in their graves before their desert and swamp farms gave a living to their cultivators? Still more strange was the common notion that all soldiers, even the crippled, were eager to settle on land--that all wanted land and all were fit to be farmers!

As the product of mere fancy, such sweeping soldiers' settlement projects were bound to die a natural death. And yet they have not been without value. They created lively discussion, and called attention to our land problems, especially to the reclamation and colonization of unused lands by the people who want land and are fit to be farmers and to do hard land-pioneering work, be they returned soldiers, native farmers, or newly arrived immigrants.

THE RECLAMATION ACT

The Federal Reclamation Service was established by an act of June 17, 1902, ch. 1093, 32 Stat., 388.[12] This act provides that the moneys received from the sale of public lands in the Western states, with the exception of the 5 per centum reserved by law for educational and other purposes, shall be set aside in the Treasury as a _reclamation fund_ to be used for the construction and maintenance of irrigation works for the purpose of reclaiming arid and semiarid lands in these states.

Authority to conduct the reclamation work is placed in the hands of the Secretary of the Interior. He is given authority to withdraw from public entry the lands required for irrigation works and to restore the withdrawn lands to public entry when their use for such purpose is over.

Under the authority conferred upon him by the act (Section 4, and Opinion a.s.sistant Attorney General, April 16, 1906, 34 L. D., 567) he may enter into contracts for the construction of irrigation works or construct such works by labor employed and operated under the superintendence and direction of government officials.

The Secretary is authorized to give public notice of the lands irrigable under such project, and limit of area per entry, which limit shall represent the acreage which, in the opinion of the Secretary, may be reasonably required for the support of a family upon the reclaimed lands; and of the charges which shall be made per acre upon the entries, and upon lands in private ownership which may be irrigated by the waters of the irrigation works. The charges shall be determined with a view to returning to the reclamation fund the cost of construction and shall be apportioned equitably.

It is provided that in all construction work eight hours shall const.i.tute a day's work and no Mongolian labor shall be employed (32 Stat., 389). No right to the use of water for land in private ownership shall be sold for a tract exceeding 160 acres to any one landowner. It is provided that the reclamation fund shall be used for the operation and maintenance of irrigation works and that when the payments required by the act are made for the major portion of the lands irrigated the management of these works shall pa.s.s to the landowners.

The Secretary of the Interior is authorized to acquire any rights or property for reclamation purposes by purchase or by condemnation under judicial process, and to pay from the reclamation fund sums needed for that purpose. Within thirty days, upon application of the Secretary of the Interior, the Attorney General of the United States shall inst.i.tute condemnation proceedings. The Secretary of the Interior is authorized to make rules and regulations for carrying the provisions of the act into full force and effect.

In the seventeen years since the pa.s.sage of the Reclamation Act the surveys, examinations, and construction authorized by it have proceeded, and to-day, according to the report of the Secretary of the Interior for 1919,[13]

the service is in a position to deliver water to about 1,600,000 acres of irrigable land, covered by crop census, of which about 1,120,000 acres are now being irrigated. Besides this storage water is delivered from permanent reservoirs under special contracts to about 950,000 acres more. The projects that have been undertaken have been planned to provide for an area of about 3,200,000 acres.

A number of bills have been proposed for enlarging and extending this work.

PROPOSED FEDERAL LEGISLATION

The Department of the Interior has prepared a draft of a bill providing rural homes for returning soldiers. Copies of the bill were sent to the Governors for consideration by various state legislatures.

The bill is based on the principle of co-operation, according to which (1) the state provides land, acquiring it by purchase or by agreement with the present landowners whereby the latter turn their holdings over to the state for a reasonable price gradually paid to them out of the returns from the settlers, and (2) the Federal government advances money for reclamation through irrigation, drainage, and clearing, and for preparation of the land for immediate farming through the providing of buildings, implements, seeds, live stock, etc. The total cost of the land and improvements, with interest at 4 per cent on capital invested, will be repaid by the settlers during the course of, approximately, forty years by an annual payment of 5 per cent of the total cost.

A bill was introduced in Congress by Senator Myers (S. 4947, 65th Congress, 2d Session) in October, 1918, and backed by the Department of the Interior, which provided for a survey and cla.s.sification by this department of all unentered public lands and all privately owned unused lands for the purpose of finding out what lands can be reclaimed and put to productive use by returning soldiers who would like to settle on land and engage in agriculture. After such an investigation the Secretary of the Interior was required to report to Congress and to propose a plan for the settlement and cultivation of such lands.

There were two bills (S. 5397 and H. 15672) introduced by Senator W. S.

Kenyon of Iowa and Representative M. Clyde Kelly of Pennsylvania, respectively, which, among other features, made possible development of rural districts. Although differing in details, the bills both appropriated $100,000,000 to be expended in providing employment primarily for returning soldiers. This was to be done through the authorized public construction work, or through the organization and extension of useful public works, in the development of natural resources. Only in localities where the Secretary of Labor reports extraordinary unemployment to exist shall public works be carried on from this fund.

The House bill provided for the building of new post roads; for the transfer of war material no longer needed by the army, the same to be used for the construction, improvement, and maintenance of the post roads; for supplementing the public school equipment where public school buildings are or shall be designated as postal stations, for the use of the construction service; and for other purposes. The bill provides for the establishment of motor transport and postal routes; for the organization of a system of marketing facilities for the collection and delivery, through the postal service and public school buildings, of farm products from producer to consumer; and for the construction of any authorized public work.

In addition to these more indirect ways of opening up the country the bill carried specific provision for promoting and conducting land-settlement colonies, as well as provision for logging or milling operations, contingent upon a continuous yield of timber, so that the forest communities would be permanent. The provisions of the bill were to be carried out by an interdepartmental National Board of Public Construction, which would organize a body of workers, known as the United States Construction Service.

Since the bill carried the reclamation and technical land-improvement work, the only question might be, is there any need for this to be carried on by a special Construction Service? Would it not be a duplication of the work of the already existing Reclamation Service of the Department of the Interior? Would it not be economical and otherwise proper to increase the staff and other working forces of the Reclamation Service to the extent of the proposed reclamation duties of the Construction Service?

Representative E. T. Taylor of Colorado introduced in the House, February 15, 1919, a bill (H. R. 15993) providing for employment and the securing of rural homes for returned soldiers and for the promotion of the reclamation of land for cultivation under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior. Short-term loans to settlers were provided for. This bill contains a good land-development plan, except that the Reclamation Service, Department of the Interior, ought not to be burdened with colonization work and with loans to settlers. Colonization work ought to be the duty of a separate body, and the extension of credit to settlers naturally belongs to the Farm Loan Board, Department of the Treasury.

Representative Mondell of Wyoming introduced in the House, May 19, 1919, a bill (H. R. 487) providing employment and rural homes for returned soldiers through the reclamation of lands under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior, who may, for this purpose, acquire by gift, purchase, deed in trust, or otherwise, the necessary lands for soldier settlement projects and, for the same purpose, may withdraw, utilize, and dispose of by contract and deed suitable public lands. An appropriation of $500,000 is proposed.

The plan in this bill for the acquisition and reclamation of unused land is a strong one. Equally commendable is the provision for safeguarding the settlers' holdings against speculation, for the selling, leasing, or mortgaging of the land by settlers requires the approval of the Secretary of the Interior. The bill requires that the Interior Department, through its Reclamation Service, acquire and improve lands, colonize them, and make loans to settlers. It would seem a more efficient plan to make a division of these various duties. The Reclamation Service should acquire and improve lands for settlement, while the colonization work and the extension of loans to settlers would be made the duties of other public authorities, as pointed out below.

House Bill No. 3274, introduced by Representative Knutson, May 27, 1919, proposes to create, in the Treasury Department, a National Colonization Board with local colonization commissions, for the purpose of providing capital for the development by land colonization of the agricultural resources of the nation, affording certain privileges to soldier settlers. The commissions approve and charter private colonization companies and recommend applications for loans after seeing all the provisions of the act have been complied with. The commissions are to include the directors of the district land bank.

The main aim of the bill is to standardize private land colonization companies to a certain degree, to facilitate the extension of credit to them, and to make loans to soldier settlers. The Knutson bill in meeting these needs is a comprehensive one. It deserves the closest attention of Congress. Would it not be advisable, however, to attach the administrative machinery for credit extension outlined in the bill to a division to be created in the Farm Loan Board, with separate colonization credit funds, and to leave the regulation and licensing of the private colonization companies to a separate body as outlined below?

Senator Thomas J. Walsh of Montana introduced in the Senate, August 20, 1917, a bill (S. 2812) which was pa.s.sed by both Houses and reported from conference for pa.s.sage in February, 1919. The bill provides for the sale or lease of coal, oil, and other mineral lands on the public domain. The leasing clause of the bill is weakened by the provision, "unless previously entered under Section 2 of this act." The public coal lands would be "entered," sold into private ownership, which means the loss of public control over these lands and the methods of their exploitation. However, the bill if pa.s.sed would be a step forward in the sense that it would increase opportunities for investment of capital and employment of labor, which would result in the increase of the coal output so much needed.

The only step so far undertaken by Congress in the direction of land colonization is the appropriation of $200,000 for an investigation by the Reclamation Service, Department of the Interior, of lands outside of the existing reclamation projects. The measures needed are waiting for action.

In regard to the available land for acquisition, reclamation, and colonization, several projects are proposed by the above-quoted bills and by various Federal departments. The princ.i.p.al projects are as follows:

1. Agricultural:

a. Logged-off lands in the North Middle Western and Northwestern states.