On all news-stands July 17. Fifteen cents!

Looking down upon the Salmon River irrigation dam, Twin Falls project.

IN

FRAUDS STATES By Randall R.

IN the fall of 1908 a physician living in Decatur, Ill., decided to abandon his medical practice and to migrate to the irrigated west. His profession provided a good living, but he had become intensely interested in an Idaho Carey Act project, and he and his wife believed that they had found country freedom and financial independence, a life opportunity. They had implicit faith in Idaho irrigated lands And why not-since the promoters, in their de luxe booklets, reiterated what Dr. K. and his wife already knew: that this Carey Act project was a State project. The Idaho State Land Board had investigated it, had guaranteed its water supply, and had fixed its waterright charges. The promoters were merely construction, financial, and colonization agents for the State.

So Dr K gave up his medical practice, and in October filed on forty acres of Southern Idaho Carey Act land.

Last summer, near the end of his third year, Dr. K. could summarize his condition as follows: He had not yet raised a dollar's worth of produce on his "irrigated" ranch. And for a very good reason. He had had no water. Because of the total failure in crops, he and his wife had used up all their surplus capital. They could not leave their State-guaranteed Carey Act farm on which they had staked all their capital and three years of their life. Besides, they couldn't pay their grocery bill. So Dr. K. was doing odd jobs for his neighbors; his wife was courageously helping to keep the wolf from the door by taking in washing.

Another typical resident on the same Idaho project is a young man who

Howard

came several years ago
from the East. He was buoy-
ant and vigorous, and he may
have been a little over-ambi-
tious. However, he seemed
to be playing safe when he
made first payments on a
large block of Carey Act
land. He contracted to pur-
chase and to make proof on
more land than he really in-
tended to keep, because the
promoters had fanned the
young Easterner's speculative
instincts by reciting many ex-

amples of the recent mad jumping in
irrigated land values. Also, the promot-
ers had reminded him that the project
was under strict State supervision; and
they promised that his ditches would soon
be full of water. So the young man made
first payments, and put all his surplus
money in substantial land improvements.
He planted his crops-then waited month
after month for water. No water came.

His crops withered and died. He was compelled to haul water for domestic use and for his stock. He obstinately hung on season after season-for three years -but still no water. His second and third annual land payments became due. but he could not pay, because he had raised no crops. He was in danger of losing his land. He could not sell.

One could recount dozens of like examples-homeseekers stranded on the desert awaiting the completion of Idaho Carey Act projects. A few of the projects are practically in a wrecked condition, due to the financial failure of the promoting companies. On others there.