STRICKEN STATES

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 94, 22 April 1935, Page 7

STRICKEN STATES

THE TEXAS PANHANDLE

BREAK IN THE DROUGHT

UTTEE DESOLATION

United Press Association— By Electric TelO'

crapli—Copyrlelit.

CHICAGO, April 19.

. Heavy rains today broke the drought and settled the dust' in the Texas "Panhandle." Downpours were reported throughout most of the State with the rain extending through southwestern Oklahoma and light rains and mist as far west as Albuquerque (New Mexico). The Oklahoma "Panhandle," however, reported only clouds. SEXTI/ERS "MOTORQADE." Reports from Livingston (Montana) state-that, driven from their homes by dust storms, a "motorcade" of North Dakota farmers—men, women, and children—were heading west today seeking new homes "where the dust does not blow." They hope to find work and home sites in Western Montana or Idaho. One hundred and twenty-five persons were in the caravan. They stated that they will be followed by others from their community. Merchants and tradesmen said that the decision to make the trek came after three continuous and particularly virulent days of gale and driven grime in which life was both unsafe arid unbearable. A competent observer who has just returned to Oklahoma City, following a 1000-mile journey through the dustdesolated areas of Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, and New Mexico, declares: "Inhabitants of the sector mostly fear the coming summer. One great ranch owner said: 'This country will be a living hell when the hot winds of summer come. The hot blasts of July and August and this eternally blowing sand will drive us out if it does not kill us.' MILLIONS OF ACRES AFFECTED. "Residents of the sector are moving out by scores and hundreds of others are expected to follow in the next two months. The hardy pioneer spirit that brought them to the high plains country and kept them there during years of bitter struggle has finally been broken. People pray for rain and grass, yet heavy rains would make bad lands' out of. the plains. Few have any faith in the ' Government's attempts to control dust. Two years of propitious weather might see the grass started again, although in some places even the alpha grass, which is considered the hardiest, has beenkilled by root exposure. Another rainless and windy summer will depopulate the dust country. ' •.

"Millions on millions of acres are drifted with sand. What I saw was utter, desolation from horizon to horizon." •