Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 89, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 February 1920 — REVERSING ROOSEVELT [ARTICLE]

REVERSING ROOSEVELT

It was the boast of the Republican hierophants some years ago that their party was the originator and, as it were, the patentee of a program of reclamation. They never wearied of telling the public —and especially the people of the western states —of their accomplishments in this direction. Without stopping to point out that President Cleveland, a Democrat, did more for reclamation and restoration of public lands in a single executive order than his Republican successors did in the aggregate of their presidential careers, it may 'be said that if President Roosevelt was right in furthering these projects of irrigation and reclamation, then the present leadership of the Republican congress is worse than wrong in opposing them. o The Republican committees of the house of representatives have reduced from $1,000,000 to SIOO,000 the estimate for the Flathead Indian reservation project. In doing this they have not only reversed the policy of President

Roosevelt, (under whose administration >4,000,000 was voted for tfhe enterprise, but they have also worked injustice to soime 1,800 settlers who were induced to homestead the former reservation in the belief that the government’s plans for supplying them with water would be executed. Speaking the mind of ihis partisan associates, presumably. Representative Snyder of the house committee on Indian affairs declares that so far as he knows, “there has been no project completed, and so far as my belief goes, there is no intention on the part of any one ever to couniplete any of the projects.”, This policy of abandoning undertakings upon which the government has already expended millions affects very large areas and thousands of settlers in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and Utah. It is tantamount to forcing the government to break its contract with these thousands wfio in good faith paid, an average of four or five dollars am acre for land which was able only because of the express understanding that it would be irrigated.