Conservation Through Engineering / Extract from the Annual Report of the Secretary of the Interior

by Franklin K. Lane

The crowning consideration is the fact that, because of all these advantages, the work of reclamation would actually be accomplished, while to-day it is not being done except in the far West, and accomplished without the aid of Government appropriations.

SOLDIER-SETTLEMENT LEGISLATION.

In the foregoing, attention has been called to those things which may be accomplished by the exercise of the Government's powers of supervision and direction with the smallest outlay of money. In all this I have been speaking of reclamation for the sake of reclamation.

The proposed soldier-settlement legislation stands on an entirely different footing. The primary object is not to reclaim land but to reward our returned soldiers with the opportunity to obtain employment and larger interest in the proprietorship of the country. The policy is based on a sense of gratitude for heroic service, not on economic considerations. This is the answer to those who have criticized it as class legislation or the proposal to grant special privileges to one element of our citizenship or as a plunge into 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 reclamation and community settlement brought forward by this department in the spring of 1918.

The measure has been much misunderstood and sometimes deliberately 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 engaged 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 employment 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 certain 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 be practicable only in localities where a sufficient number of farms, even if not contiguous, could be had to make possible the necessary supervision and instruction, together with cooperative organization for the purchase of supplies and sale of products. Without these advantages the plan of soldier settlement would fail in many instances. My information is that these conditions could be met. Not only so, but it is urged that existing farm communities would be inspired by the presence of soldier settlers and benefited by the presence of soldier settlers by their cooperative buying and selling agencies.

Another criticism of the pending measure is directed to the amount of the first payment the soldier settler is required to make. As the bill now stands it calls for 5 per cent on the land, 25 per cent on improvements and live stock, and 40 per cent on implements and other equipment. It has been urged by some friends of soldier settlement that no first payment should be required, but that the Government should make advances of 100 per cent in view of the soldiers' peculiar claim upon national consideration. It might be feasible to do this in the case of community settlements. But it could not be done in the case of scattered and individual farms, at least without abandoning the principles of sound business.