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Show Land-hungry hordes have taken up free farms in this our century. Their total acreage would make several states the size of Utah or Wyoming. Father was roused to join the 20th century frontier movement by a new federal law. The 1909 Congress saw that the first Free Farm of 160 acres- Lincoln signed the bill in 1862-was too small. The lawmakers doubled the size. A few yetegs later they redoubled it to offer a full square mile of land free. Those laws triggered land rushes to a thousand parts of the West. The New Frontiersmen were just as joyous as any in the westward march. Sadly, though, they were just as lacking in experience and limited in money-and they had harder conditions to fight. I might make a case for Father as a Doctor of Medicine pioneering the desert for health. That would be dishonest. He did not see the vision that inspired those wonder-workers who turned the sands of Phoenix or Palm Springs into gold and diamonds. True, Father regained his health in the Escalante. But he did not visualize the desert blooming with, romantic resorts, hospitals, places for ailing or old persons to recover health or youth. He never, as a matter of fact, recognized the Escalante as a desert at all. Always he saw it as he dreamed it that first wet, green spring, a Land of Promise with happy people, bountiful fields and orchards, towns with, schools and church spires rising above masses of shade trees. So my hope is that you see Father as representing a significant era in our national history. Please see my story as typifying 20th century arid and semi-arid frontiers which covered nearly half the nation. We pioneers of this age made mistakes and suffered failures. But out of a thousand booms and busts grew a good many helpful developments, good for health and money-making. Near the end I'll produce proof that Father did suceed in two ways, despite the "bust" that Nada in general turned out to be. He managed-in his |