OCR Text |
Show Your Man In Washington By U.S. Senator Orrin G. Hatch the dollars spent would be between $10,000 to $20,000 a year. With the economic benefits in mind, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Globe-Democrat, a newspaper with a daily circulation of 270,000 asks "Would anyone in his right mind really put up this much money to earn up to $20,000 when he could make as much or more working as an employee in a business or industry? And without a huge money gamble?" The newspaper answers that question in the following language: "There is no way Andrus is going to turn back the clock with this arbitrary action. Congress should step in to change the law so that Andrus can't carry out this bizarre scheme." At least, enforcement of this law should be delayed for a time so alternatives can be developed to replace the existing antique. 160-Acre Limitation An Antiquated Law aeventy-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 j 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 giving up family farms in Utah, and across the nation, na-tion, because they cannot obtain an adequate reimbursement reim-bursement for their toil and investment. To purchase the 160-acre 160-acre plots at a suggested price of $2,000 an acre would put the cost of the land alone at $320,000. Add to this a minimum of $50,000 worth of equipment equip-ment and $50,000 for living quarters, storage facilities, equipment shops, and livestock pens and barns. The total cost is in the neighborhood of $420,000. To the investor the maximum return on - 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 1902 should be enforced for the first time in decades. The White 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 |