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Show LANE HOPEFUL. Secretary Lane believes that congress will take favorable action upon his proposal pro-posal to appropriate $100,000,000 to begin be-gin work as soon as possible on the construction con-struction of soldier settlements and' provide pro-vide work for thousands of returned soldiers, sailors and marines. Bills for this purpose were favorably reported in both the house and senate in the last congress, but the La Follette-Sherman filibuster prevented action during the closing hours in the senate, while the house did not attempt to put the measure mea-sure through. As a matter of fact, no serious effort was made to enact such legislation in either branch, although its supporters were many. Representative Representa-tive Taylor of Colorado, who introduced the measure in the house, said: I can only say to the house and to the country, and to the many thousands of our splendid boys who .will be sorely disappointed by this failure of the house to pass this bill or act upon this subject, sub-ject, that I will reintroduce the bill on the opening day of the next session of congress and push the measure with all the energy I possess, and I sincerelv hope and believe that it will be speedily speed-ily enacted into law. And I also hope that, instead of the appropriation being for $100,1100,000, it may be five times that amount; because even then we will not, in proportion to our wealth and resources, re-sources, be doing nearly as much for our returning soldiers as is being done by Canada, Australia and all other Eng-lish-speakintr countries. I am not only confident that this measure will be adopted, but I firmly bebeve it will go down in history as one of the great constructive con-structive policies of our country. The plan received the indorsement of many thousands of American citizens, and quite a number of stato legislatures have appointed committees to co-operate with the federal government in this important im-portant matter, and some of them have memorialized congress. About the only protest comes from North Dakota, where the Nonpartisan league is iu control, con-trol, and it is made on selfish grounds. The farmers in that section of the United States hold that we are suffering suffer-ing from an overproduction of agricultural agri-cultural products in this country, which would, of course, be increased should any of the waste land be reclaimed. re-claimed. These men do not consider the welfare of the country's defenders, and they make no account of the fact that, owing to the rapid extension of our vast industrial enterprises, there must be an increase in our production of foodstuffs. The North Dakota view is that all would be well if the farmers could always al-ways obtain war prices for the products, even though the poorer classes undergo the most terrible privations. Such views arc un-American, un-Christian, uncharitable uncharit-able and the quintessence of sclfi dir.ess, and we do not believe the farmers in any other section of the country will back up the Nonpartisan leaguers of North Dakota. |