The provision of garden homes for millions of city workers will
contribute largely to the Nation's food supply and become in time a most
effective influence in reducing excessive cost of living for many of
our people. It will not, of course, solve the problem of increasing the
number of farms and the area of cultivation to meet the needs of growing
population. Neither will it enable us to expand our home market rapidly
and largely enough to keep the country on an even keel of prosperity.
We must go forward with the development of natural resources as we have
done for the past three centuries. And we must recognize at the outset
that conditions have changed with the depletion of the public domain to
the point where it offers comparatively little in the way of cultivable
lands.
We have now to deal principally with lands in private ownership. This
calls for a new point of view and for the application of a somewhat
different principle than that which has governed our reclamation policy
heretofore. Moreover, reclamation is no longer an affair of one section
of the United States. The day has come when it must be nationalized and
extended to all parts of the Republic.
To the deserts of the West we have brought the creative touch of water,
and we must find a way to go on with this work. But it is of equal
importance that we should liberate rich areas now held in bondage by the
swamp, convert millions of acres of idle cut-over lands to profitable
use, and raise from the dead the once vigorous agricultural life of our
abandoned farms.
One more fundamental consideration--we have outlived our day of small
things. Whether we would or not, we are compelled by the inexorable law
of necessity arising out of existing physical conditions to cooperate,
to work together, and to employ large-scale operations, and on this
principle we should move: Not what the Government can do for the people,
but what the people can do for themselves under the intelligent and
kindly leadership of the Government.
We have an instrument at hand in the Reclamation Service which has dealt
with every phase of the problem which now confronts us, and with such
high average success as to command the entire confidence of Congress and
the country. It has turned rivers out of their natural beds, reared the
highest dams in existence, transported water long distances by every
form of canal, conduit, and tunnel, installed electric power plants,
cleared land, provided drainage systems, constructed highways and even
railroads, platted townsites, and erected buildings of various sorts. In
this experience, obtained under a variety of physical and climatic
conditions, it has developed a body of trained men equal to any
constructive task which may be assigned to it in connection with
reclamation and settlement in any part of the country.
True economic reclamation is a process of converting liabilities into
assets--of transforming dormant natural resources into agencies of
living production. When such a process is intelligently applied it
should be able to pay its own bills without placing fresh burdens on the
national treasury. It is in the confident belief that such is actually
the case that I suggest the policy of reclamation by means of local
districts, financed on the basis of their own credit but with the
fullest measure of encouragement and moral support of the Government,
practically expressed through the Reclamation Service.
In this connection it seems worth while to recall that with a net
expenditure of $119,000,000 the Reclamation Service has created taxable
values of $500,000,000 in the States where it has operated. The ratio is
better than three to one, and that is a wider margin of security than is
usually demanded by the most conservative banking methods. There is no
reason to doubt that the overflow lands of the South, the cut-over areas
of the Northwest, and the abandoned farm districts of New England and
New York and other States would do quite as well as the deserts of the
West if handled by such an organization.
What is the legitimate function of the Government in connection with
reclamation districts to be financed entirely upon their own credits
without the aid of national appropriations? I should say that the
Government, with great advantage to the investor, the landowner, the
future settler, and the general public, might do these things:
1. Employ its trained, experienced engineers, attorneys, and economists
in making a thorough investigation of all the factors involved in a
given situation, to be followed by a thorough official report upon the
district proposed to be formed.
2. Offer the district securities for public subscription in the open
market. This, of course, would follow the actual organization of the
district and the approval of its proceedings by the Government's legal
experts.
3. Construct the works of reclamation with proceeds of district bond
sales, and administer the system until it becomes a "going concern,"
when it may be safely confided to its local officers.
The most obvious advantage of Government cooperation is the fact that it
would assure the service of a body of engineers, builders, and
administrators trained in the actual work of reclamation. This
advantage, as compared with the management that might be had in a
sparsely settled local district, would often make all the difference
between success and failure. Unquestionably it would materially reduce
the interest rate on district bonds and greatly facilitate their sale in
the open market.
There are other advantages less obvious but really more important.
Experience has shown that great enterprises can best be handled under
centralized control. This control, to be effective, must extend from the
initiation to the completion of the project. There can be no assurance
of this when the management is left to the electorate of a local
district, and without such assurance it is difficult to command the
support, first, of the landowners whose consent is essential to the
formation of the district; next, of the investors who must supply the
money; finally, of the settlers who must purchase and develop the land
in order that the object of the enterprise may be realized. The
Government can give the assurance of precisely that quality of unified,
centralized, permanent, and responsible control that is required to
command the confidence of all the factors in the situation.
There is another advantage of Government cooperation that will inure
greatly to the benefit of the settler. The Government may readily apply
the policy it now uses in connection with privately owned lands within
reclamation projects. It requires the owners to enter into a contract by
which they agree to accept a certain maximum price for their land if
sold within a given period of years. This price is based upon the value
of the land before reclamation. There are many instances, particularly
of swamp and cut-over areas, where land that may be bought for $10 an
acre and reclaimed at a cost of $25 to $50 per acre, has an actual
market value of $100 to $200 per acre the moment it is put into shape
for cultivation. If the Government, by means of a contract with the
local district, undertakes the work of reclamation and settlement and
does this work at actual cost, the settler will generally save enough to
pay for all his improvements and equipment.
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.