Muscatine weekly journal. [volume] (Muscatine, Iowa) 185?-1890, 1859-06-03
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We hear much of sections now -a-days, and
much of their respective sins. We hear OF
tho South and its great crime and blunder,
slavery; and we see and feel the effects OF
that wrong. But we of the West are to day,
and have been for two years, seeing and feel
ing and writhing under the consequences of
great wrong done in our own section, and
by our own hands. 1t has not been the sin
of class, or of fraction Of our communi-
ties, but of the great mass-of the whole.
AS is usually the case, the first note of alarm
of this evil, the first clear statement of its
wrong, the first proposal for its remedy, has
come from distant quarter, and as is still
more usual, the warning and the remedy
have been rejected by those most interested
the people of the West The most appar-
ent and sensible effect of this evil-the one
most felt by us and by others interested-is
the fact that so large proportion of the rich
lands of this State to-day lie idle and waste,
and another large portion rests in the hands
of nonresident proprictors. The very thing
the only thing-that Iowa wants to-day,
to restore visor to her finances, confidence to
her people and her foreign creditors, trade
and commerce to her owns and cities, and
prosperity to her industrial interests the
only thing thing wanting to give her all this
in greater measure than ever before, is fifty
thousand more farmers to take up in small
farms her idle lands out of the hands of land
dealers and spectators and non resident pro-
prietors. Every acre of land today in Iowa,
in the West, that is lying in the hands of
spectators, is where it never was intended
to be, where it does not belong, where no
money paid for it gives a right to it, and
where so long as it stays, it will prove
curse instead of blessing to the State and
to the owners. The wrong of which the
West has been guilty, and for which her Ian
gushing trade, her idle lands, her deserted
streets, mourn to-day, is the great crime of
Land Monopoly. \ traveller through Hin
ois says that less than one-tenh of her soil has
yet been broken. Iowa must have a still
smaller proportion. And yet in both States
there are hundreds of renters and day labor
ers willing, but not able to own and cultivate
a foot of these millions of acres, which lie |
waiting for the plow, and whose riches are
now so sorcly needed by our State. In these
new Western ) ates there are hundreds of !
such people. But # you look back to the
older States, what sight! Thousands
yes, tens of thousands honest, brave hearts
and willing, strong arms are struggling for
bread, without comfort to themselves ormuch |
profit to others, who, if tie chance were
given them, would gladly transfer their labor
to these idle lands, where home for them
selves and wealth to the State would be the
reward Of their industry.
What prevents them? What separates
starving labor and idle lands by an unnatural
and criminal divorce? What renders o-day
nine tenths of these rich lands waste and
fruitless? What has sapped Iowa of her
and left her almost paralyzed and
withered forever? What has turned the
stream of emigration northward and south
ward of her, while she lies in the middle,
peerless in climate, soil and position, among
her sisters, and with e-tenths of her
lands
-'sihs fai'est
That Ger the sun shone on"