discussed in terms of their own immediate situation.

We needed herd laws and a hundred other laws; we needed new land
rulings. We needed schools, bridges across draws and dry creeks. We
needed roads. In fact, there was nothing which we did not need--and most
of all we needed a sense of close-knit cooperation. Aside from these
matters of general interest, relating to their common welfare, the paper
attempted to acquaint the settlers with one another, to inform them of
the activities going on about them, to keep them advised of frontier
conditions. To assist those who knew nothing of farming conditions in
the West, and often enough those who had never farmed before, I
reprinted articles on western soil and crops, and on the conservation of
moisture.

Every week there were noticeable strides in that incredible country
toward civilization, changes and improvements. These were printed as
quickly as I learned of them, not only because of the encouragement this
record of tangible results might bring the homesteaders, but also as a
means of information for people in the East who still did not know what
we were doing and who did not see the possibilities of the land.

And already, in depicting the homestead movement, I had begun to realize
that the Lower Brule was only a fraction of what was to come, and I
reached out in panoramic scope to other parts of the frontier.

And already, though but dimly, I had begun to see that the system of
cooperation which was being attempted--cautiously and on a small
scale--was the logical solution for the farmer's problems, not alone in
this homesteading area, not alone on the Lower Brule; but that like a
pebble thrown into a quiet stream it must make ever-widening circles
until it encompassed the farmers throughout the West, perhaps--

Naturally public issues sprang up which neither Ida Mary nor I knew how
to handle. We knew nothing about politics, nothing at all about the
proper way to go about setting things right. But we were a jump ahead of
the Lower Brule settlers in homesteading experience, and there were many
local issues with which to make a start.

One of the first public issues the paper took up was an attack on the
railroad company in regard to the old bridge spanning the Missouri River
at Chamberlain. "Every time a shower comes up, that bridge goes out,"
declared _The Wand_, and it wasn't much of an exaggeration. The
homesteaders were dependent on the bridge to get immigrant