The American Government has given of its resources as no nation ever
did before or ever can again. To thirteen Western States alone over a
hundred million acres have been given. The peoples of the world have
been called in and tendered homes. Now, out of an area within the
United States of a billion and a half acres of public domain, we have
left as public lands subject to disposal as homesteads and otherwise
less than 280,000,000 acres, not one-half of which, it may safely be
said, will ever prove to be cultivable. In one year the Department
of the Interior issued over 60,000 patents to land--donations from
the nation to the courageous pioneer. Any man who finds gold, silver,
copper or other minerals on his grant has them for the asking--a prize
for discovery.
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.