Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-02-05
wORCE 8 TER:
TO ADyERTIsERs,
FREE HOMES FOR THE PEOPLE.

The national House of Representatives has
nestly hope, will pass the Senate, by the pro-
visions of which the General Government will
donate, from any unoccupied lands of the ma
tional domain, one hundred and sixty acres to
any citizen of the United States, or any alien
resident, who has declared his intention to be-
come citizen, in the usual form.
The only condition attached to this grant is,
that the recipient of the Governments bounty
shall be the head of family, and shall himself
occupy and improve the land.
We can conceive of no measure that the pres
ent Congress could pass, that would do so
much to atone for its sins, both of omission and
commission, as the passage through both
Houses, of liberal and comprehensive home
stead bill, by which the poorest man in the ma
ton should have a valid title to a suf1iciency of
good land, to enable him to support himself
and family from the product of his and their
toll.
Such sheets as the New York Herald may
rail as much as they please against the meas
ure, and argue, that it is robbing the treasury
of the country to the extent of the value of
every acre of land thus donated but the clear
est and best established principles of political
economy have settled the wisdom and policy of
such grants, in pecuniary point of view, to
the nation, and demonstrated that the occupa-
ton of such lands, by those who will develop
their productive capacity, is permanent source
of income to the national revenues, in compare
son with which the paltry sum which would
go into the treasury from the sale ofthose lands
is as a mere drop in the bucket. If land and
labor are the prime elements of national pros
perity, and who can doubt that they are, what
can be palmer than, that the more extensively
these two elements can be brought into har-
monious conjunction, SO much greater will be
the results of labor, and so much larger the
productions of the SOIL
sound, healthy, intelligent European or
American man, with his two hands, be they
ever SO hard, without tools with which to work,
is rather helpless sort of being, after ALL
But give him an axe, and say to him, "Enter
thou into this forest, which, since the birth of
time, has been unclaimed and uncared for, and
help thou thyself to whatever grows and what
ever thou canst make to grow there, and how
soon does the cheerful light of heaven dispel
the misty shadows that have hung over it, and
the deeper shadows of poverty and restitution
that have shrouded his own soul. How soon
does the desert, under such influences, be-
gin to blossom like the rose, and how soon do
communities, towns, cities, natonalities, feel
the benefcent results of such simple but eff
fectual agencies, when thus combined.
In the United States of America, where all
the great cities and towns are flooded with
stalwart men, who, for greater or less period
of time every year seek in vain for the liberty
to toll, and where there are millions of acres
of virgin soil capable of rewarding the labors
of the husbandman with the most bountiful
returns, there ought to be no question as
to the propriety and policy of such a DISPOSE
tion of portion of it as is contemplated by
this bill; and we cannot but hope that meas
ure SO fraught with prospective blessings to
the laboring poor, and which by the impetus
it will give to the development Of our natural
resources, will increase the wealth of the ma
ton, may become a law. If the Senate which
has given its sanction to so much of evil in
the legislation of the past two years, which,
with Democratic majority, has SO often tram
pied upon the painest and best understood
principles of a truly Democratic form of gov
eminent, will now cooperate with the House
in this great and benefcent measure, it will in
some degree have atoned for the evils of its
legislation, and afford to future generations one
bright page in the dark, shameful record of
Mr.. Buchanans administration.