Saint Paul weekly Minnesotian. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1858-1859, 1859-03-05

Editorial Corresp0ndence-The Home.
stead Bill. @
DeGS Minnesoti0n RESPONSIBILITIES resting
here at home after the labors of a winter, l
propose to talk occasionally with you upon
such public matters as may seem to demand
few free observations at my hand. 4 u q 4
There are two topics of q general public
nature, which occupy most prominently the
minds of the people of this quarter of the
State, and especially the minds of the farm
ers back in the interior of Dakota and Rice
county whom meet coming in to trade at
this point. These are: the Homestead Bill
now before Congress: and the probability of
Tax being levied in the next year or two, to
pay the interest on the State Railroad Bonds;
the success of the first named measure being
As ardently desired, as the last is feared and
condemned
First, as to the Homestead Bill. Every
man feels that its passage by Congress is al
most vital to our future prosperity. To be
able to offer Homes for the Homeless and
Land to the Landless, amidst the fertile
plains of Minnesota, free Of cost" without
money and without price all see must re-
vive immigration, and send in stream of PEG.
pie, bringing more or less of capital with them.
This will afford market for the surplus pro-
duce of our farmers. This will revive our
towns and cities, just in the proportion as the
country fills up with people who will require
merchandise or the work of the mechanic and
artizan, which those cities and towns derive
their only proper and legitimate growth in
furnishing. All kinds of business-every
avocation of life would be stimulated into
renewed vigor and activity.
On these general grounds, therefore, every
body is anxiously looking to Washington and
watching the proceedings of Congress, to OBJ
serve what the prospects are for the passage
Of this Homestead Bill ....
But, besides these general grounds for de-
string the adoption Of this measure by Con-
gress, there are other reasons, personal to our
own people, which make all classes, and par
ticularly Poor Men, attentively read the Con-
gressional proceedings, eagerly hoping to see
the passage Of the bill announced in them.
The class of Poor Men in Minnesota is
much larger than is apparent on the surface
Of things.
Tho OF Hyooy 1,oI
niarily thousands of merchants, mechanics
and farmers, who still, many of them, pre-
serve an outward shell of prosperity and
comparative wealth, while underneath all is
undermined, hollow, and unsubstantial. Three
and five per cent. month have done their
work pretty effectually.
To these really but not apparently poor
| men, and to those poor men who are so with
out disguise, the Homestead Law would be
boon of price indeed. 1t would send many
thousands from the ranks of professions and
| Of the mercantile and producing classes,
| to the Plough for living for themselves and
| famies-send them into business where
their main capital, the land, is furnished them
| by the generosity of the government, which
in turn reaps its reward in the redemption of
the wilderness to the uses of civilization and
in the greater aggregation thereby to the
wealth of the whole country.
Let no one think that the boon of the price
of $50 acres of land at 81 20 per acre, is not
a great one to the Actual Settler Those who
pioneer into new country are almost invari-
ably those who with small means, sever the
ties of birth and neighborhood, to better their
conditions and make their fortunes. The ex-
pense of long journey to reach Minnesota is
no small draught upon their little capital.
Then there are the expenses Of opening up
Of arm,-building their houses and barns,
fencing their elds,-purclasing farming
tools, and their team and stock cattle; with
besides their having to buy everything
the first year for subsistence. These
most generally soon exhaust all the means
they brought with them if they can
even obtain so much or do so much as we
have enumerated without running in debt.
Then pile on the top of all this, the expenses
of proving up their prescriptions and paying
for their lands, under the memorable pressure
of an impending Land Sale, and the Settlers
break down under the load and the Specula-
tor and the three-per gentry OBJ
tain the fruit of all their labors as the hardy
Pioneers Of the country for mere song, and
they must seek elsewhere support for them
selves and families!
This is no fancy picture. There are thou
sands in Minnesota who will bear witness to
its faithfulness and truth. The Land Sales
of Minnesota have been our greatest curse.
But for the Land Sale of 1s55,--brought
on by the Vaccinations of HENRY N. RICE
and of the U. S. Land Officers, Zone of whom,
w. W. PHELPS, now represents Minnesota
in the lower branch as RICE does the State in
the upper branch of Congress)-but for that
Land Sale thousands of farmers who are now
in the grasp of the money lender, would be
at this moment free from debt and their homes
safe and secure for themselves and families
None Of them would now, in sheer despera-
ton, be turning their eyes towards Pixies
Peak, to retrieve their embarrassed fortunes.
The mode Of their undoing through that land
sale of 1S55 is told in few words. The bulk
of the settlers. had been upon their lands Scarce
| ly more than year or year and half, and of
course had raised no surplus of crops, when
the Sale was advertised. The notice of sale
warned them that they must prove up and
pay up before the day Of sale or their "claims'
would be put up on purchase by the highest
| bidder along with the other lands.
4 l+l,o