OCR Text |
Show DRY FARMING AND STOCK RAISING HOMESTEADS, 1904-1934 515 1912 and 96,170 in 1913-"indicates the great demands that there is for homes and that we ought to provide some means for giving them good homes [sic]."43 Jones had no desire to have the public lands classified by the Department of Agriculture, as Congressman Kent had proposed and, in fact, did not favor any government classification, preferring to leave the decision as to whether land was fit for small grazing homesteads to entrymen.44 Despite all the accumulated evidence of the misuse of the settlement laws as shown in the reports of the two Public Land Commissions and in the Reports of the Commissioners of the General Land Office, the members of the committee were still optimistic about the future of homesteading if the size of the unit were further enlarged. Aside from William Kent there was not a member of the committee who was friendly to the stockmen's request for the extension of control over the rangelands so that their carrying capacity could be built up as that of grasslands in the national forests had been. Private ownership in small tracts of 640 acres was held to be superior to public ownership with leasing. After extensive hearings Representative Fergusson was permitted to make the report in favor of the 640-acre homestead law. Although the articulate members of the House Public Lands Committee had clearly indicated their disapproval of classification and leasing of public lands, Kent was permitted to report favorably a resolution calling upon the Department of the Interior to make an approximate classification of the unreserved public lands to indicate those not suitable for 640-acre grazing homesteads.45 In remarks included in the appendix of the same session Fergusson deplored the "plowing up and destruction of the valu- 43 Ibid., pp. 479-80. "House Reports, 63d Cong., 1st sess., Vol. 2 (Serial No. 6559) , No. 626, p. 9. "House Reports, 63d Cong., 2d sess., Vol. II (Serial No. 6559), No. 579, pp. 1-2. able native grasses" which had resulted from the homesteading of 160- and 320-acre units in the semi-arid regions, and argued that to correct such abuse of the range, 640-acre units should be granted as an aid to the "poor" settler. Misuse of the range had reduced its carrying capacity, the number of meat animals had been contracted by more than half (though one can find no statistical evidence for such a statement) and the price of meat had risen. The main object of the 640-acre bill was to "restore and promote the live-stock and meat-producing capacity of the semi-arid States, and ... to furnish homes to landless and homeless citizens of our country." Most important, said Fergusson, was the need of the western states to have the lands within their jurisdicition on the tax rolls "for land owning citizens would develop the land up to its highest possible use and value to make it easy to bear the hurden of taxes." He maintained that as much as a half billion acres of semi-arid lands were capable of being made into small stock raising homesteads.46 Fergusson was troubled that the West did not put up a united front in support of his homestead measure and though he did not want to appear unsympathetic to the livestock interests he bore down heavily on them for favoring leasing the grazing lands which would involve "a species of special legislation for a special class to the deteri-ment, if not to the destruction, of the policy of furnishing homes to our citizens."47 ieApp. to Cong. Record, 63d Cong., 2d sess., June 11, 1914, pp. 682-86. "While Fergusson was making his plea for the adoption of the stock raising homestead measure John M. Evans revived the attack upon the officials of the Land Office for their efforts to prevent misuse of the settlement laws. He may have thought it good tactics to accuse officials of having set up a "system of espionage ... as distasteful to the homeseekers as it is detrimental to the progress and development of the Western States." A large corps (Cont. on p. 516.) |