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Show JzJ Your Man T" In Washington By U.S. Senator Orrin G. Hatch 160-Acre Limitation r. An Antiquated Law Seventy-five years ago a law was enacted which restricted ownership of land irrigated by water from federal reclamation projects. The restriction set a limit of 160 acres to any individual farmer and was designed, according to President Theodore Roosevelt, to help protect small family farmers. As the years have gone by, the population of the nation and the world has grown and the restriction has become more and more impossible to enforce. Demands for high production produc-tion from lands eventually persuaded one Interior Secretary after another to avoid and look past the law. But now a former Western Governor, Cecil Andrus of Idaho, as Secretary of the Interior has, for some unstated reason, determined the Reclamation Act of Q2 should be enforced for the first time in decades. The hite House has attempted attempt-ed to justify this newfound new-found policy of enforcement enforce-ment with the same language that accompanied ac-companied the measure when it came to Congress in Roosevelt's Administration. Administra-tion. The Andrus plan would break up more than 500,000 acres of prime farmland in the West. At the current average price per acre for the property in question, more than $1 billion worth of property would be placed on the market at a time when American farmers are giving up family farms b!,' Utah, and across thena-'.p: tion, because they cannot' obtain an adequate reim-'.j bursement for their toO' i ' and investment. ' To purchase the 160-' .:; acre plots at a suggestai price of $2,000 an" acr.i would put the cost of the' r land alone at $320,000.! " Add to this a minimum ofji' $30,000 worth of equip-jr:' ment and $50,000 forf-living forf-living quarters. storajei: facilities. equipment) --shops, --shops, and livestock pens! 1 and barns. The total cos -3 is in the neighborhood of ' r $420,000. To the imesta-;T the maximum return oofr the dollars spent would be between $10,000 to;'" $20,000 a year. With the1'1 economic benefits in mini ' the St. Louis Gk.be- L J Democrat, a newspaper' with a dailv circulation of 3: 270. 000 asks "Woulif" anyone in his right mind ' -really put up this muds'" ? money to earn up to 1 $20,000 when he could ' make as much or more'"' working as an employee in ( 1 a business or industry j"' And w ithout a huge moot) gamble?" The newspaper answers that question is ( the following languaft: "There is no way Andrus . is going to turn back tb( .. clock with this arbitrary t-action. t-action. Congress should step in to change the law v so that Andrus ran t ram out this bizarre scheme." M At least, enforcement . of this law should be delayed for a time , alternatives can b( developed to replace the J existing antique. " |