All the revenue from the sale of public lands (less five per cent, which goes to the States) goes into a fund for the building of irrigation works to reclaim the desert. Over a hundred million dollars have been so spent, which is, however, no more than a loan to the farmers. Before attempting the governmental construction of such work the Federal Government said to the States, “If you will irrigate the lands of your State, or if there are private individuals who will do this work, we will give you whatever land you desire up to 1,000,000 acres each, and set it apart for ten years while you try the experiment.” Was there ever a more generous method taken of populating and developing a new land? Those that took its lands were not asked for even so much as the cost of their administration.
In doing all this with so lavish a hand the Government has been expressing the generous instinct of the people and their absorbing determination to “go forth and find.” For a hundred years and more this quest has been the drama of our national life. It has given color to our civilization and buoyancy to the hearts of the people. It has been a century of revelation, and as yet we have only the most superficial knowledge of what this land is, of what it will yield to research, and how it may be best used.
But in all our giving we have been guided by a purpose—the land that we gave was to be converted from wilderness into homes, or from rock into metal. We gave to the homesteader, with a condition—the land was to be used. We gave our swamp lands, but to be reclaimed. We found our coal lands going as farms and we put a price upon them. We saw our forests being swept clean or monopolized and we held them out for the mass. Use! Use by as many as possible! The superior use! These were the things we wished and these gave form to our legislation. The homesteader may have 320 acres if it is dry farming or grazing land. But he cannot have it as a speculation. It must be made a home and brought into the body of the world’s producing area by cultivation. The Government was generous, but it had no intention of being a spendthrift.
Lands and resources are at the full service of the people. And yet the romantic enterprise of revealing America is not done. To get from our resources their fullest use—this is our goal. And this is nothing less than a challenge to the capacity of democracy.
Abstract from Report of the Secretary of the Interior.
THE MENTOR
A New Volume in the Mentor Library
It gives us great pleasure to advise our friends that the sixth volume of The Mentor Library is now ready for distribution. It contains issues one hundred twenty-one to one hundred forty-four inclusive, and is, in every particular, uniform with the volumes previously issued.
One of the great advantages of owning The Mentor Library is that it grows in value from year to year—giving an endless supply of instructive and wonderfully illustrated material that would be impossible to obtain elsewhere. It constitutes one of the most valuable educational sets that you could possibly own, and, each year, the set is enlarged by one volume at a very small additional cost.