Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1850-1854, 1850-08-02
SpceeYl of NEr Durfee on the Land EsouI-
fv

Mr.. Durkee, like a true Land Reformer, vo
ted against the bill to cover some fifty millions
of acres of the pubic lands with land warrants
to be bought up by spectators at mere nomi
nal price, and thus benefit the few at the expense
of the many. He gives the reasons Of his oppo
sltion to the bill in the following 'five minutes
speech
Mr.. Chairman: am not opposed to making
Just compensation to soldiers who have served
in defence of their country. But am opposed
to this bill, which, if it become a law, will
have the effect to transfer from the government
the control of eighty millions of acres of our pub
lie domain to nd-obbers and spectators. Sir,
the public lanGs are placed under our care for
high and noble purposes; our career of profit
| gacy has been carried far enough in our mis-
| cradle bounty system, connected with the Mex
lean war; | am aware that some of our western
friends think this measure will operate favorably
for the new states, in reducing the price of la nd.
But this fear, blinds them to the real difficult
| ty with which this measure is fraught---that is,
the control it gives the spectators in select
ing all the finest locations. Why, sir, give me
capital enough, and under the operations of
such law as you propose in the passage of this
bill, could purchase all the choice public lands
in Wisconsin, give away one fourth of them to
actual settlers, and make a thousand per cent on
ist is already so great, THAI large investments
have been made in the State where reside
An English nobleman has purchased forty thous-
and acres in one of our western countries. A
firm in the city Of New York has purchased some
forty thousand acres in the county of Sheboygan,
besides something like fifty or sixty thousand
acres in other counties. There are other extern
sive operators baying and selling lard warrants,
who have made their hundreds Of thousand Of
dollars, in Wisconsin. Sir, the only true policy
for this Government, in relation to public lands is
the adoption of the measures recommended by
the advocates ofand reform-that is, to grant the
land to the actual landless settlers in limited guam
ties. This, sir, is the way for the country to
realize the greatest pecuniary advantage to main
tain our Democratic institutions, by making the
great mass of the people independent, with their
own.homes thereby preventing the establishment
OF an overgrown overbearing, landed arstoc-
racy. Look, sir, at Great Britain, the soil on
which resides twenty-five millions of people,
owned by thirty thousand freeholders
Sir, we should be alarmed at this startling
fact, and provide for the arrest of an evil that has
proved SO disastrous in the Old World, by a de-
cree that all public lands hereafter shall be dis
posed of to none but actual settlers. The gen
tleman from Kentucky complains, that if we de-
feat this measure, that the poor of our cities and
the vicious will occupy the public domain. Sir,
this is the grand desideratum for which we should
look--the removal Of the poor and dependent and
even the vicious, made SO, many of them, by star
Walton and want in our great commercial cities
| consider the discharge of this the exercise of
one of the highest prerogative of good govern
ment Pass this bill, sir, and bring into market
thousands ofcompetors in the sale of land war
rants, covering area enough for twelve or fifteen
States as large either of the New England States,
and you will not only have great increase of the
poor and unfortunate Of which the gentleman
from Kentucky speaks in your cities, but you
will have, at no very distant period, 4 miserable
enantry throughout the country.
The reduction ofprce in the public lands will
increase, rather than diminish speculation, as
have already remarked, in enabling the specula-
tor to make choice selection at a trifing cost
Mr.. Wadsworlh, who died few years since
in western New York, leaving an estate worth
ten millions of dollars, made an immense pur-
chase of the Holland Land Company at six cents
per acre Sir, for these reasons shall vote a.
gainst this BILL with the hope that it will not pa S.
wish this eighty millions ofacres of lands to be
retained, TO come under the new system of
land measures, more wise, and for which the
whole country is now ripe. If our soldiers have
not been sufficiently paid, let gentlemen bring in
bill for their relief, payable in money, and
will vote for ii.