Show THE TJINTAH LANDS The Reservation Should Be Opened for Settlers Haifa Million Acre of Utahs Choicest Land Held by a Few Hundred L Indians The results of tho recent presidential and territorial elections should be prolific with legislation favorable to the dependent territories and especially advantageous to Utah For the frt time in its history the territory terri-tory is in full accord with the national administration ad-ministration and in position to demand legislation favorable to its commercial development de-velopment With a large population of industrious yeomanry agriculture has barely kept pace with the growth of her cities and this has in a large measure been owing to the apathy of the general government to either enact measures looking to the occupancy of the public lands in the territories or to confer con-fer such powers upon the local legislatures until the dependencies are clothed with the powers of statehood and deemed competent compe-tent to manage with security the vast areas of public lands to which they are the natural inheritors The mere mention of the feasibility of opening up the Ulntah reservation to white settlers in yesterdays HEIIALD was enough to awaken a widespread discussion of that question It is a manor of immense importance im-portance in the direction of expansion of population and increase of wealth The Uintah reservation which lies on the south slope of the Uintah mountains ana includes n goodly portion of that vast territory marked on the territorial map as Uintah county is seventyeight miles from east to west and sixty miles wide from north to south I is bounded on the north by Summit county and on the east by the Ute reservation Hunters prospectors and explorers speak very highly of the fertility of the soil They usually enter the reservation reser-vation by way of Heber City and the Strawberry valley which is the contemplated contem-plated route for the Denver Short line Most of the land is a plateau and is watered by the Strawberry and Du Chesne rivers and other tributaries of the Colorado Colora-do doThere are 2000000 acres of land in the reservation and at least onethird this is very fertile and if reduced to cultivation would prove highly productive Twenty four sections have already boon surveyed and platted and this is among the richest soil of the entire tract I opened to white settlers it could be irrigated at a very small expense and easily maintain a population popu-lation of 100000 souls In its present state it is wild barren and almost unin1abitablefurnishing not oven a happy hunting ground for the 2000 Indians In-dians Who roam over its fertile valleys which are frequently broken up by disson tions und deadly encounters A recent report of the government agent gives the Indian population as follows waIvE BIVEII DIES Men over 18 years old 142 Women over 14 years old 150 Boys btwoen 6 and 1C 76 Girls between fl and l 67 Boys under 6 years old 45 Girls under 6 years old u 43 513 UINTAU urEa Men over 18 years old 141 Women over 1 years old 15J Boys between I and 1 63 Girls between I and 1 5 Boys under 6 years old u 47 Girls under 6 years old 50 Uintahs u u 508 White River Utes 513 Total lOJl As an extenuation for a coldblooded massacre in which Meeker and his family lost their lives the report says Meeker triad to compel the Indians to work These Indians continues the official government report spent most of their energy quarel lug among themselves Repeated efforts have been made to induce in-duce them to take up the arts of peace and in a few instances it has been successful At the time the report was written 243 acres out of 2000000 had been placed under cultivation One good Indian owned 475 head of horses and as good stock as there was to be found in Utah valued at 12000 But all efforts to get tne Uintahs as a tribe to till the soil have signally failed With as line a grazing and grain land as lies out of doors watered by numerous lage streams the Indians subsist onethird by farming onethird by trapping and one third by the generosity of the paternal government The scarcity of fertile land adjacent to largo rivers in Utah makes an urgent need for more land to stimulate agriculture The depression in mimnz could in a measure be overcome by opening this reservation for settlement A comparison of the population popula-tion of the Dakotas where land was thrown open to white settlers with that of tho mining states of Idaho and Montana explains the value to the territory and the notion of limiting the Indians tot to-t tho same land that a white man is entitled to take as a homestead There is a way that is eminently fair and just to treat with the aborigines and much as the people of Utah may crave the heritage herit-age of the poor Indian they will ask that they shall be paid a fair price and that each wale over 20 years of age may have 150 acres of the pick of the land The number of males over IS on the reservation res-ervation is estimated at SOL and allowing each of them 160 acres they would only take up 48001 out of the 2000000 in the reservation |