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Background
Conservation was an integral element of Roosevelt’s Square Deal, as is evidenced here by his Secretary of the Interior:
By protecting the great public domain in the West, and punishing those who have sought and may seek to fraudulently obtain possession thereof, and by purposeful [?] and vigorous application of the Reclamation Act, where practicable, throughout the arid section of the country, the opportunity will be provided for millions of American home builders, each of whom will contribute materially to the prosperity and well being of the nation, such honest administration is, and must ever be, the duty of the Department of the Interior.
The Reclamation Act to which Hitchcock refers was passed in 1902 and was enormously popular in the West – with everyone, that is, except ranchers, mine operators, lumbermen and power companies. But the Square Deal’s irrigation projects made settlement of the West possible: that it might, as Hitchcock predicted, “contribute materially to the prosperity and well being of the nation.”
By protecting the great public domain in the West, and punishing those who have sought and may seek to fraudulently obtain possession thereof, and by purposeful [?] and vigorous application of the Reclamation Act, where practicable, throughout the arid section of the country, the opportunity will be provided for millions of American home builders, each of whom will contribute materially to the prosperity and well being of the nation, such honest administration is, and must ever be, the duty of the Department of the Interior.
The Reclamation Act to which Hitchcock refers was passed in 1902 and was enormously popular in the West – with everyone, that is, except ranchers, mine operators, lumbermen and power companies. But the Square Deal’s irrigation projects made settlement of the West possible: that it might, as Hitchcock predicted, “contribute materially to the prosperity and well being of the nation.”
Physical Description
Autograph Manuscript Signed (“E.A. Hitchcock”), as Secretary of the Interior, 2 pages, octavo, Secretary’s Office, Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C., no date.
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SECRETARY'S OFFICE,
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,
WASHINGTON, D.C.
By protecting the great public domain in the West, and punishing those who have sought and may seek to fraudulently obtain possession thereof, and by prompt and vigorous application of the Reclamation Act, where practicable, throughout the arid section of the Country, the opportunity will be provided for millions of American home builders, each of whom will contribute materially to the prosperity and well being of the Nation
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such honest administration is, and must ever be, the duty of the Department of the Interior.
E.A. HITCHCOCK.
[text is crossed out.]