Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 January 1909 — PUBLIC LANDS FOR GIRLS. [ARTICLE]

PUBLIC LANDS FOR GIRLS.

There are several million young .women working their way into the business world, and whose future is a mere chance. It may end successfully, but more often disastrously. A young woman may be ever so competent, but her salary is not increased to such an extent she can provide for the future. It is either marriage or retirement from actual duties at the expense of others after she has burned out the candle of her usefulness. To provide a competence for such young working girls a plan is suggested by W. R. Draper, of Kansas City, Mo., by which the government can be of great help and assurance to the working girls. There are at present seven hundred million acres of public land in the United States, of which approximately two hundred million acres is irrigable. This land is now. and will be for a number of years, open to public entry at fifty cents to |1.25 an acre. Water can be delivered to the land at a net cost of six to twenty dollars an acre and is being sold at such prices. Under the present reclamation laws it is necessary to reside fourteen months on the land, build a house and improve the land and pay the government $1.25 an acre for it. Then a water right costs additional, but is handled in ten or more annual payments which almost any farmer can meet However the residence clause effects the laboring class. Before water is brought to their land the soil will produce next to nothing and a man or woman without capital cannot make the land pay them any returns whatever. In fact, not until six months to a year after water is brought to the land will it commences to bring in returns to the worker. For this reason it is next to impossible for a working person to file on government irrigable land. The residence clause was placed there to prevent speculation in government land, but it seems to work Just opposite. The poor farmer, or the laboring woman, cannot take up' this land because they cannot “stick it out.” The man of wealth employs a number of young men to file on the land and later when they have proved up he buys it, or has already bought ft in advance, giving them a grub stake, as it were. The result is now apparent in many western irrigated land districts and land is being brought under individual control in an astounding manner. The plan proposed—that of donating forty acres to each working girl over twenty years of age who has earned her living for the past eighteen months —is as follows: To donate the land free of all cost, to make the water right at exact cost to be paid at the rate: of one dollar an acre per annum until fully paid, and to allow them to file on the land without living on it. Restrictions would tie: The women thus Benefited could' not he permitted to sell or mortgage the land for five years, and then for not leks than thirty dollars an: acre. She must not permit the title to pass from; her possession for less than five years unless, meantime she should di»; then the* claim reverts to her nearest female relative. This permits young women working in cities and elsewhere to take up government land rfhd rent it out or hold it and thus acquire a competence for their future, but it does not permit them to take ft up and hold it at short time- and sell it. The plan is one that can be abused, but not easily. While working girls, especially those in. cities, do not have much enthusiasm over irrigated public lands, if they will look into the subject their enthusiasm will rapidly increase. . For instance: Irrigated lands entered a few year® ago at Tuma, Ariz., are now worth SSOO an acre, cost with water right about $25 an acre; irrigated lands in the Yakima Valley in Washington are selling- at SI,OOO an acre, entered a few years ago at the usual price of $1.25 an acre with water rights at S3O an acre, payable in ten years. In fact, there are numerous public land districts where these irrigated public lands have jumped from almost nothing to three, five and even ten hundred dollars an aare In the last five years.