Raftsman's journal. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1854-1948, 1854-07-15
Free Homes

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They say the Senate is likely to pass the
Homestead bill, and, though we receive the IL
dings with much distrust, we shall very gladly
be brought to believe them. Often in the
worlds history the worst rulers or legislators
have decreed or enacted the most wholesome
measures-sometimes on the heel OF their
most Objectionable deeds. And surely the
Senate ought to realize that some act OF spe-
cial benefcence and popularity on its part
could never be more timely than now.
Next to the Main Law, weregard the Home
stead bill as the great legislative antidote To
the fearful tendency of our time to deluge OF
Pauperism. AS Population Increases, lands
rise in market or cash value, and hence, while
Products are enhanced in price, the producer
finds his employment and his wages diminish,
while his rent and food grow dearer.
Hence the weak and ineffcienz find the battle
for subsistence growing continually harder and
harder with them; their seasons of unavoidable
idleness grow longer and longer; their savings
in better times, scanty at best, dwindle to IN
Significance ;and Society, i'll the midst of its
helpless and bankrupt members continu ally
increasing in number; gaunt Famine crouch
lug and skuking among warehouses bursting
with Grain and Meat, and rags and nakedness
huddling and shivering among the factories
which are glutting the markets OF the world
with Cloth.
Now the Homestead bill will not Of itself
fully counteract this tendency of our age to
Social paradox; but it will be a great step in
the right direction. 1t viii not give flrm
and an independent home to every city vagrant
or village loafer; but it will diminish these
classes by drawing off to the new lands the
more active, energetic, hopeful class VINO now
stand between these and employment. Those
whose need is greatest will never go to Min
esota or Nebraska and there hew out for
themselves farms from the unsubdued prairie
or forest; but many Of our present woodsaW-
yers, cartmen and laborers, whohnd the
ways of the City too hard for them, will
be allured by Free Lands to the West, and
give place here to those who need places as
we'll as almost everything else. Even though
the Free Homes were but forty acres each, in
stead of one hundred and sixty, they would
draw away many who can somehow reach the
West and get living when there, but who can
not conveniently pay even fifty dollars for "a
place whereon to stand
But more even than this do we prize the
Homestead bill as i discouragement to Land
Speculation Lots, and water-fronts, and mill
privileges, may still be clutched; but it can
hardly be profitable to buy up thousands Of
acres of merely tillable prairie or forest in or
der to extract large price for it from settlers,
when each of those settlers have quar-
ter-section of unocupied land for nothing
True, this act should and does prohibit the
the sale of Public Lands to any but actual set
tiers, and even to these but reasonable area
for each should be allowed; but we shall be
very glad to obtain half-measure from this
Congress. Give Us what this bill comedies,
and we can use it to secure more hereafter
We trust-nay, we are surc-that the earnest
champions of the Homestead bill in the Senate
will spare no effort to secure its passage during
the present Session Tribune.