The Chandler News. (Chandler, Okla.), Vol. 13, No. 9, Ed. 1 Thursday, November 19, 1903 Page: 13 of 20
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THE CHANDLER NEWS, THURSDAY.
KAfBER 19, 1903.
1
▼ ^ r ▼
To MaKfi Taxpayers of "Paupers
■ >£iV >
B>GDTM •
TUCKERS
VA.ST
.SALVATION-
ARMY •'
PROJECT to
(PEOPLE -
©UR K10W
ARID VA3TES' 'MW m
AFTER WMt
IRRIGATION
c5ce^7f3 0C
t* -Am/ey, Cc/ord>0oj;
cJ<?/v&t/on \A r/r?y
£0/0r?j/
Two million and a half of paupers
and their families, taken from the
slums of large cities, are to be meta-
morphosed into land owners and tax-
payers, according to the promise held
out by Commander Booth Tucker of
the Salvation Army in a gigantic
irrigation and colonization project to
be presented to Congress at the com-
ing session.
"The United Slates has 100,000,000
acres of land that by irrigation will
be the finest in the world," said the
Commander to the writer in outlining
his plan. "Now, if the government
will allow the Salvation Army to colo-
nize 100,000 acres of this land it will
be but the beginning of the coloniza-
tion of tne remainder of it. The ex-
ample set by the army will be follow-
ed by other organizations* and this
mighty, tract of arable country—a new
world in itself—will be turned into
homesteads for God's people. Do you
realize what that means?"
The Commander took a pencil and
marked silently for a moment on a
slip of paper. When he looked up his
face glowed with earnestness.
"It means," said be, "that 2,500.000
men who are now starving' paupers,
living in misery and degradation in
the overcrowded cities, will become
owners of homes, and instead of be1 ny
supported as objects; of charity bj
the government will help to support
the government. It means that their
wives and children—more than twelve
million souls—will be given the right
to live. If our nation is to be built
so that it will not decay it must be
built on the solid foundation of the
home. There are 60,000,000 people in
this great America that are entitled
to homes.
"We have mighty armies tor killing
0tuon. We send one hundred thousand
men into the field to destroy life.
Why not send one hundred thousand
—yes, one million, two million, five
million—into these great arid fields of
the West to save life?
Moses took three million people
from Egypt to Canaan—three hundred
miles across the country.' We have a
tract one thousand miles each way
which is the garden spot of the world.
Will there not arise some modern
Moses to lead our millions into the
uew light, into the n«w life?"
Within the next few years the Unit-
id States will expend something like
$16,000,000 for irrigation purposes, but
irrigated laud without settlers is
valueless. It is this connection
ihat Booth Tucker has made a propo-
sition to the Secretary of State, who
in turn has promimd lo bring the mat-
ter before President Roosevelt, v.-ith
the view of having him recommend
an amendment to the present lavs, so
that the government may make loans
to the actual settlors and inhabitants,
th'us helping tbe>r. to colonize the dis-
tricts to be developed.
The whole ph.n is to keep out the
land grabbers—the speculators who.
wi*b the aid of iunirav homeseeker*.
for acting as agent and the actual cost
of finding settlers for the land will bo
nominal, as it will be conducted in
connection with other philanthropic
work performed by the vast machin-
ery of <he big organization. All that
the Salvation army desires to gain
from the project is the right to pro-
vide homes for poor persons who ha\*e
been carefully invest!,<\ted by a board
of examiners.
In going somewhat into the details
of his plan, Commander Booth Tucker
says the value of the United States
government lands in their arid state
Is $1.25 an acre. It will cost $10 an
acre to irrigate them, and when thus
delivered*to the settler they will rep-
resent an actual value of $11.25. One
hundred thousand acres, ready for
cultivation, could be turned over in
.
*"• •• *
-v •. —
\r*. •'
. fz-, '•
tvS'i,
m
obtain possession 01 thousands of
acres of choice lands and debar the
genuine settler from obtaining a farm
and home. But the head of the Salva-
tion army in America goes further
than this.
He purposes to revolutionize the
methods of colonization in the United
States. Instead of the colonists be-
ing men of some little means, Booth
Tucker purposes to give the worthy
paupers an opportunity to reach inde-
pendence and become taxpayers His
plan is this:
That the United States govennient
shall make the- Salvation army the
•• :V_
51 . 9
ti
pHf*
- -i c _
jQroon-A
['ctc-kay
colonization agent of 100.000 acres of
Irrigated land to be sold on long time
payments to worthy poor persons. In
order that these settlers may properly j study of
cultivate the soil and build homes and j lliu1 well
make livelihoods fo1- themselves and
families it is proposed that tis.tr gov- i
eminent shall lend 'o each purchaser
of forty acres $500, which, 'with the
price of the land, shall be charged*up
against him at a fair rate of interest
—say 5 per cent.
It is suggested that the land bo sold*] capital, and settling them
011 contract and, until fully paid for, ^ owners upon the land.
ihat Urn title f ha 11 remain, in tin it was argued by oinc in tin :iart
I'pited States in f e simple Tbe Sal that tho pour per .on* in the l itl^s
ration army asks for 00 remuneration would not go. that tb^y ^Duld n.f't
forty acre farms to twenty-live hun-
dred colonists, which, with a loan of
$500, would represent an advance of
$950.
Ft. is asserted by the commander,
however, that as soon as a colony is
formed and bouses and buildings are
erected, the value of the land will im-
j mediately increase to $50 an acre. He
1 shows this by figures as to the growth
i of other colonies where land that was
j bought for $20 an acre is now worth
; $100 and $125 after a period of five
years. He argues, therefore, that the
; government, holding the title in the
\ land, will be amply secured, having
I mad.' a cash advance of $1,250,000 011
! property worth $5,000,000 aiyl rapidly
1 increasing in value.
Tho question as to the ability of
| Commander Booth Tucker to carry
j tor ward such a project as he proposes
: is best answered in the statement that
he has back of him the precedent of
; three successful American colonies to
personal credit, and others in Aus-
alia, South Africa and England to
the credit of the Salvation army. Dur-
ing his twenty years' residence in In-
dia as commander of the Salvation ar-
my forces Booth Tucker made a close
irrigation that has served
in the work he has been
j since called upon to perform.
The farm colonies 01 the Salvation
army in America were organized in
1898 to prove the possibility of relie\
ing the congestion 01 the great cities
by removing worthy but poor families,
furnishing them with the necessary
us home-
stay, that they would not work and
would not pay. On the contrary they
have gone, have stayed, have worked
and have paid. They hare become
owners of their own farms and homes
and the percentages of failures has
been much smaller than was antici-
pated. In addition to this, thousands
more would have settled there if tho
necessary capital had been available.
The colonies of the Salvation Army
in America are Fort Amity, in Color-
ado, in the valley of the Arkansas
river, 011 the line of the Atchison, To-
peka and Santa Fe Railroad, 207 miles
east of Denver; Fort Remle, in the
valley of the Salinas river, near the
bay of Monterey. Cal., and Fort Her-
riclc, in Ohio, about twenty miles from
Cleveland.
Fort Amity is the principal colony.
The soil is rich and the climate is
excellent. The mining camps of Col-
orado afford a good market for prod-
uce, and another advantage is that the
I colony is 011 the highway of the prin-
cipal cattle markets of the midwestern
states. The crops raised are chiefly
cantaloupes and sugar beets.
The first colonists reached Fort
Amity in April. 1S98. They were worj;-
ingmen from the large cities, chiefly
New York. Their railroad fares were
paid and their goods shipped to them.
They were settled 011 plots of from
ten to twenty acres each, were given
a house to live 11, the necessary farm-
ing tools and implements, a horse or
two. one or two cogs, nigs and poul-
try.
In April, 1902, the first colonist dis-
charged his entire debl to the army,
lie had arrived' in Fort Amity in
March, 1899, bis entire capital, the
savings of ten or twelve years of mar-
ried life in the city, being a team of
horses and a few household goods, lie
has now twenty acres, with a nest
stone cottage, horses, cattle, pig-; and
poultry, all iree from incunibranc#.
His indebtedness to the Salvation
army was $900. In three years he hud
paid it off, besides supporting a wife
and three children and building his
house. 1 In1 history ot this colony Is
repeated by the other American col-
onies.
i he l'ort Remif colony consists of
"t'l acres divided |«.<i aero lots,
and has seventy settlers. They raise
potatoes, sugar beets, alfalfa and
vegetables. The Fort Herrlck colony,
which is located near to the childhood
home of th' late President Garfield, at
Mentor, Ohio, has 288 acres and tliir-
n-three colonist Tin owner* f the
land, Myron T. Herrick and James
I'armelee, have deeded it to tho Sal-
vation army for colonization purposes
and citizens of Cleveland and other
friends have contributed $20,000 to-
ward tie enterprise, li is the inten-
tion to make it a model institution of
the kind and to use it as a training
ground for the other colonies in the
West.
That Congress will make Important
changes of some kind in th" irrigation
and colonization law.-; this coming ses-
sion there is little reason to doubt.
On<^ thing more than all others that
has shown the necessity of some ac-
tion in this direction is the last annual
report of tho Canadian government.
In this report it is stated that the
total number of immigrants to Can-
ada in 1901 was 49,149, of whom 17 987
went from the United States, most of
them being farmers —Now York Her-
ald.
Patriotic Breton Fishermen.
A11 interesting . elieme has been
launch d with^hi \ 1 w 1 all viating
the misery caused by the failure of
the sardine fisheries off the coast of
Brittany. It consists in the emigra-
tion of the Breton flsr.rrmen to the
shores of Algiers and Tunis where
ih<' tish is ho abundant that one Si?
cilian fleet of C.• >' 1 boat - eniploy over
12.0f'0 men 'Already several hundred
Breton families have .'and! '1 in their
naities at various towns and villages;
but danger of the scheme failing lien
In the \li .orbing love of country. for
nearly all the fishermen rial e the
condition thai they snail b< brought
back pond the close • ,,n ,u
native haunts,
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Gilstrap, H. B. The Chandler News. (Chandler, Okla.), Vol. 13, No. 9, Ed. 1 Thursday, November 19, 1903, newspaper, November 19, 1903; Chandler, Oklahoma. (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc117728/m1/13/: accessed May 3, 2024), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; crediting Oklahoma Historical Society.