The Placer herald., 1871-02-25
A Monster Shown Up.

We clip the following extract frem great
speech Of John Quincy Adams, delivered
in Faneuil Hall, Boston, last Fall, and COM
mend it to the careful attention Of our read
ers See the little side issue that d few men
calling themselves Democrats, wish to skulk
| LAND GRANTS.
DO you weary, my fellow citizens, of this
review Of your blessings? Bear with me
yet msment, and let me display perhaps
the most brilliant Of the whole lot. The Re-
publican party has given away tive hundred
millions Of acres Of your lands to railway
corporations and in imperial tracts. You
will find it difficult TO get an idea Of such 4
mass. Well France and Prussia are max
ing terrible noise just now, conv ulsing Eu-
rope and America with the gigantic struggle
of eighty millions of people. The whole
territory Of both j, about as large as the en-
pre that Republican Congress has given
away, not to individuals---that would be
bad enough-but to corporations, which is
far worse. The law tells us that
CORPORATIONS HAVE no SOULS,
but they do have immortality. The man
dies ard his heirs inherit him, and the land
is divided and returns gradually to the peo-
ple But the creature Of the Legislature
lives on and grasps in its dead hands these
huge masses of the public lands. If you
suppose these grants are rapidly and cheaply
sold to the people, look at one case for all.
Twenty vars ago Congress gave z, 1885,
053 acres of land to the Illinois Central Rail-
way Company. AT that time any poor set
tier could have taken up that land in home
stead lots at 81 25 an acre. Since that
time the corporation has sold land 70 the
amount of some thirty millions of dollars,
and to-day it holds more than half the whole
grant at prices ranging up to fifty dollars an
acre. Can thi. be a republican assembly
which has thus been flnging away the peo-
PIES land with such spendthrift hand :?
Why, had always been taught that the
ownership of the land by very large pro-
portion of all the people, waa the btst safe
guard of free institutions, and to thai end a
republic should furnish homesteads cheap.
The sturdy independence OH which such in
stitutions rest, and which it is their highest
function to engender mus. root in the earth.
Nothing is so conservative and nothing more
democratic than
GENERAL OWNERSHIP OF LAND
The public lands were sacred trust to fur
nish homes to the coming millions, where
each man, erect and independent, might seek
his own welfare unhainpered by an oAicious
government, and unhindered by landlords
So long us that safety-valve is open the rap
id increase of the population BODIES no i'll to
the republic. The inevitable conflict be-
tween the landed end the landless, the re-
carnations Of the hungry upon the full,
end in anarchy and authority, are irdefin-
tely postponed. Monopoly Of land goes
hand in hand with the proletariat and the
army. A wise government would have
guarded these lands as the very secret of
liberty. True, there is land enough left to
last our time, and this generation may not
have to face the recokning, but, none the
less, it will come. The aristocracy of Rome
thought it a very shrewd thing to take up all
the public lands in Italy at nominal rents,
but when Tiberius Graccus required at the
hand Of their descendants the peoples lands
for the peoples use, they found at last their
greed had cost them dear. for it cost in the
emu tUtlI lives anu lutlI HDtItltS. i Hc civil
wars and Caesar were the arrears of their
rents. In the face of such facts | merely
as an insignificant detail beneath the notice Of
a great people, that besides these
ENORMOUS LANDED ESTATES
you have given away to railroads some $64.-
OOO, 900 in cash or bonds. which you will
have to pay. Now, my fellow citizens,
these facts by themselves are serious, GER
:-:..; ...:.a; "a hey seem to show reca.ess anG
extravagant method in legislation. But if
they stood alone, and if they concealed Moth
ing behind them, they would only mean that
you must work harder and pay more taxes.
but they do not stand alone. Behind them
looms the gaunt and gigantic form of the
great railroad ring, holding your govern
ment between it's iron bands. The gentle
men who manage this combination possess
forty y-fve thousand miles of rail. worth two
thousand millions OF dollars, over which they
carry one hundred and twenty-five millions
tons Of freight, and by which they earn four
hundred million dollars yearly. In ten years
more they will have perhaps twice as much
power Certainly the size and power Of this
clique entities it to fair share Of the plund-
er which is going
"No MONOPOLY. The federal admins
tration could. if it would, much towards
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