To John McNaught
Washington, March 16, 1918
MY DEAR JOHN,--It is only now after a month's delay, that I have an opportunity even to acknowledge your letter of the 17th of February.
... The whole war situation seems to be so big that it overwhelms the minds of men. ... But we are grinding on and going surely in the right way. Not everything has been done that could be done, but we are getting our step. This thing will be longer than we thought. But as the President says, it is our job--our job is cut out for us, and we are going to see it through. Russia has taught us what happens to a nation that is not self-respecting. We are hard at work, every one of us, big and little. The nation never was as united, and while we do not realize just what war is, yet we will realize it more from day to day and harder will our fibre grow.
My boy is in France. He hopes to fly an aeroplane over a German submarine base, and drop a ton of dynamite on it and put it out of business.
How the world has changed since we dreamed together in the Cosmos Club! How Paris has changed since we wandered through its boulevards together! The day of the common man is at hand. Our danger will be in going too fast, and by going too fast do injustice to him. But your kind of socialism and mine is to have its fling.
I was much pleased to meet your wife, very much indeed, and I hope we may see you here one of these days. With my affectionate regards, sincerely yours,
FRANKLIN K. LANE
On May 31, 1918, Lane sent a long letter to President Wilson in relation to his plan for providing farms, from the public domain, for the returning soldiers. The letter is given at some length, because this plan was so dear to Lane's heart, and was one upon which he had put much earnest study. In addition to the phases of the subject printed here, he gave, in his signed letter to President Wilson, detailed consideration to several other aspects of the matter; such as, a comparison of his plan with land-tenure in Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, and Australia; the need for an extension of the method whereby land can be "developed in large areas, sub-divided into individual farms, then sold to actual bona fide farmers on long-time payment basis"; and also the part Alaska should be made to play in affording agricultural opportunity to our returned soldiers.
To Hon. Woodrow Wilson The White House
Washington, May 31, 1918
MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT,--I believe the time has come when we should give thought to the preparations of plans for providing opportunity for our soldiers returning from the war. Because this Department has handled similar problems I consider it my duty to bring this matter to the attention of yourself and Congress. ...
To the great number of returning soldiers, land will offer the great and fundamental opportunity. The experience of wars points out the lesson that our service men, because of army life with its openness and activity, will largely seek out-of-doors vocations and occupations. This fact is accepted by the allied European nations. That is why their programs and policies of re-locating and readjustment emphasize the opportunities on the land for the returning soldier. The question then is, "What land can be made available for farm homes for our soldiers?"
We do not have the bountiful public domain of the sixties and seventies. In a literal sense, for the use of it on a generous scale for soldier farm homes as in the sixties, "the public domain is gone." The official figures at the end of the fiscal year, June 30, 1917, show this: We have unappropriated land in the continental United States to the amount of 230,657,755 acres. It is safe to say that not one-half of this land will ever prove to be cultivable in any sense. So we have no lands in any way comparable to that in the public domain when Appomattox came--and men turned westward with army rifle and "roll blanket," to begin life anew.
While we do not have that matchless public domain of '65, we do have millions of acres of undeveloped lands that can be made available for our home-coming soldiers. We have arid lands in the West, cut-over lands in the Northwest, Lake States, and South, and also swamp lands in the Middle West and South, which can be made available through the proper development. Much of this land can be made suitable for farm homes if properly handled. But it will require that each type of land be dealt with in its own particular fashion. The arid land will require water; the cut-over land will require clearing; and the swamp land must be drained. Without any of these aids, they remain largely "No Man's Land." The solution of these problems is no new thing. In the admirable achievement of the Reclamation Service in reclamation and drainage we have abundant proof of what can be done.
Looking toward the construction of additional projects, I am glad to say that plans and investigations have been under way for some time. A survey and study has been in the course of consummation by the Reclamation Service on the Great Colorado Basin. That great project, I believe, will appeal to the new spirit of America. It would mean the conquest of an empire in the Southwest. It is believed that more than three millions of acres of arid land could be reclaimed by the completion of the Upper and Lower Colorado Basin projects. ...
What amount of land, in its natural state unfit for farm homes, can be made suitable for cultivation by drainage, only thorough surveys and studies can develop. We know that authentic figures show that more than fifteen million acres have been reclaimed for profitable farming, most of which lies in the Mississippi River Valley.
The amount of cut-over lands in the United States, of course, it is impossible even in approximation to estimate. ... A rough estimate of their number is about two hundred million acres--that is of land suitable for agricultural development. Substantially all this cut-over or logged-off land is in private ownership. The failure of this land to be developed is largely due to inadequate method of approach. Unless a new policy of development is worked out in cooperation between the Federal Government, the States, and the individual owners, a greater part of it will remain unsettled and uncultivated. ...
Any plan for the development of land for the returned soldier, will come face to face with the fact that a new policy will have to meet the new conditions. The era of free or cheap land in the United States has passed. We must meet the new conditions of developing lands in advance--security must to a degree displace speculation. ...
This is an immediate duty. It will be too late to plan for these things when the war is over. Our thought now should be given to the problem. And I therefore desire to bring to your mind the wisdom of immediately supplying the Interior Department with a sufficient fund with which to make the necessary surveys and studies. We should know by the time the war ends, not merely how much arid land can be irrigated, nor how much swamp land reclaimed, nor where the grazing land is and how many cattle it will support, nor how much cut-over land can be cleared, but we should know with definiteness where it is practicable to begin new irrigation projects, what the character of the land is, what the nature of the improvements needed will be, and what the cost will be. We should know also, not in a general way, but with particularity, what definite areas of swamp land may be reclaimed, how they can be drained, what the cost of the drainage will be, what crops they will raise. We should have in mind specific areas of grazing lands, with a knowledge of the cattle which are best adapted to them, and the practicability of supporting a family upon them. So, too, with our cut-over lands. We should know what it would cost to pull or "blow-out" stumps and to put the lands into condition for a farm home.
And all this should be done upon a definite planning basis. We should think as carefully of each one of these projects as George Washington thought of the planning of the City of Washington, We should know what it will cost to buy these lands if they are in private hands. In short, at the conclusion of the war the United States should be able to say to its returned soldiers, "If you wish to go upon a farm, here are a variety of farms of which you may take your pick, which the Government has prepared against the time of your returning." I do not mean by this to carry the implication that we should do any other work now than the work of planning. A very small sum of money put into the hands of men of thought, experience, and vision, will give us a program which will make us feel entirely confident that we are not to be submerged, industrially or otherwise, by labor which we will not be able to absorb, or that we would be in a condition where we would show a lack of respect for those who return as heroes, but who will be without means of immediate self-support.
A million or two dollars, if appropriated now, will put this work well under way.