The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1860-07-26


result from speculation and land monopoly
in your public domain. For it is not denied
that Congress has the power to make any
regulations for the disposal of these lands,
not Injurious to the general welfare. Now,
when new tract is surveyed, and you open
your land Office and expose it sale, the man
with the most money is the largest pur-
chaser. The most desirable and available
locations are seized upon by the capitalists
of the country, who seek that kind OF in
vestment. Your settler who chances not to
have a presumption right, or to be there at
the time of sale, when he comes TO seek a
home for himself and his family, must pay
the Spectator three or four hundred per
cent on his investment, or encounter the
trials and hardships of still more remote
border life. And thus, under the operation
of laws that you call equal and just, you
take from the settler three or four dollars
per acre, aud put it in the pocket OF the
speculator-thus, by the operation OF your
law, abstractiug so much of his hard earn
ings for the benefit of capital for not an
hours labor has been applied to the land
since it was sold by the Government, nor is
it more valuable to the settler. Has not
the laborer q right to complain of legisla-
ton that comPels him TO endure greater
tolls and hardships or to contribute por-
ton of his earnings for the benefit of the
capitalist But not upon the capitalist or
the speculator is it proper that the blame
should fall Man must seek livelihood
and do business under the laws of the couu-
try and whatever rights he may acquire
under the laws, though they may be wrong,
yet the well being of society requires that
they be respected and faithfully observed.
If person engage in business legalized
ana regulated by the laws, and uses no fraud
or deception in its pursuit. and evils result
to the community, let them apply the RENE
dy to the proper source-that is, to the laws
making power. The laws and the law
makers are responsible for whatever evils
necessarily grow out of their enactments.
| What justice can there be in the legislation
of country by which the earnings of its
labor are distracted for any purpose with
out returning an equivalent2
In order to secure to labor its earnings
to far as is possible, by legislative action,
and 10 strengthen the elements of national
greatness and power, why shorld not the
legislation of the country be so changed as
to prevent for the future the evils of land
monopoly, by setting apart the vast and
unoccupied Territories of the Union, and
consecrating them forever in free homes for
| free men?
Mr. MAYNARD May be allowed to ask
my friend from Pennsylvania question?
| Mr.. GROW. Certainly.
Mr. MAYNARD. 1t is this: whether he is
in favor, or otherwise, of allowing the old
| soldier or his assignee to locate his land war
! rant on the public domain
I Mr.. GROW. ! always answer questions
that are pertinent to the point under discus
! sion, not otherwise. am not arguing any
question about land warrants, hut about the
nrOnar diSnOSitinn Tn ba made of tba puilIic
lands. do not see the applicability of the
genteman's question, and mist therefore
pass it by as do not wish to be diverted
! from my argument.
Mr.. MAYNARD. The gentleman is mista-
ken about the object of my question.
! Mr.. GROW. would provide in our land
! policy for securing hcmesteads to actual
| settlers, and whatever bountes the Govern
ment should grant to the old soldiers
would have made in money, and not in
land warrants, which are bought in most
cases by the Spectator, as an easier and
cheaper mode of acquiring the public lands.
| So they only facilitate land monopoly. The
men who go forth at the call of their coun-
try, to uphold its standard and vindicate its
honor, are deserving, it is true, of more
substantial reward than tears to the dead
and thanks TO the living; but there are SOL
diers Of peace as well as of war, and though
no waving plume beckons them on to glory
| or to death, theiI dying scene is oft Grim
son one. They fall leading the van of civil
! ization along untrodden paths, and are buri-
| ed in the dust of its advancing columns
No monument marks the scene of deadly
! strife no stono their resting place the
winds signing through the branches of the
forest alone sing their requiem. Yet they
are the meritorious men of the Republic
Al - - I
| glory in peace The achievements of your
pioneer army, from the day they first drove
back the Indian tribes from the Atlantic sea-
board to the present hour, have been
| achievements of science and civilization
over the elements the wilderness, and the
savage.
If rewards or bounties are to be granted
for true heroism in the progress Of the race,
none is more deserving than the pioneer who
expels the savage and the wild beast, and
opens in the wilderness home for science
and pathway for civilization.
''Peace hath her victories
No less renov ned than war"
The paths of glory no longer lead over
smoking towns and crimsoned fields, but
along the lanes and by-ways of human mis-
cry and VICE. where the bones and sinews of
men are struggling with the elements, with
tue unrelenting obstacles of nature, and the
not less unmercitul obstacles of a false civil
ization. The noblest achievement in this
worlds pilgrimage is to raise the fallen from
their degradation, soothe the broken heart
ed, dry the tears of woe, and alleviate the
suIferings of the unfortunate in their path
way to the tomb.
'sGo say to the raging sea, be still
Bid the wild, lawess winds obey thy will:
Preach to the storm, aud reason with despair;
. But tell not misery's that life is fair.
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