Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1875-08-20
From the Boston Advertiser.
COLLEGE, SCRIP "
NAME.


There has never been q more sense
less effort to arouse the prejudice or
create excitement out of nothing than
has been attempted by the Maine DEM
ocrats about the sale of the agricul-
tural college scrip which took place
nearly ten years ago. The principal
accuser seems to be one DR.. Jordan OF
Bangor, whose absurdities are eagerly
reprinted by all the democratic papers
of the State His principal charge is
that Maine sold her scrip at prices
varying from .fhy-d,ree to eighyJou
cents per acre, while other States got
seven or eight dollars per acre. The
latter statement is ridiculously false,
and perhaps the best way to prove 1t
false and at the same time to answer
all his charges at once is the following
statement, which we make with COM
petent knowledge, viz: # Name
ouned all her agricultural scrip to-day
and should advertise ii far and ,cide
ouer the achole United States, as she
really did the sale of 1866, she could not
get one dollar per acre for 1t.
Agricultural scrip was and is moth
ing in the world but land warrants,
and every one who chooses to inquire
will find that during the last ten years
the very highest price of land war
rants, sold retail in single quarter sec
tions, has been about one dollar and
fee cents per acre. Most of the time
they have been much lower at retail.
To sell large quantity at one time
would always depress the price TWEEN
ty-fve to thirty cents an acre. And
at the time the agricultural scrip was
sold in Maine there was bill pending
in Congress to give every soldier who
served in the war a quarter section OF
land, and the sale was fastened by
request of the trustees of the college,
lest the passage of the bill might ut
terly destroy all value of the scrip.
Four years after the principal sale, and
after the bounty land bill was defeated
in Congress, Governor Chamberlain
sold in 1870 the remaining sixteen
thousand acres for eighty-four cents
per acre and stated that "Mis aoas the
best possible price to be Obtained"
The wiser policy to pursue with
these agricultural lands in the different
States would probably have been to
give them to an existing institution of
learning to found an agricultural de-
partment, and allow the institution to
locate the lands and wait for rise in
IL <hn
it's friends would have been compelled
to advance the money to found the
agricultural department, and also the
cost and commissions and fees for To-
eating the scrip, and also the annual
taxes on the lands after location. If
wisely located the lands might ulti-
mately have been of considerable
value. But we have the impression
that the individual spectators who
have been engaged in just this kind of
business have not as whole realized
brilliant results. AS friend of ours
in Kansas, familiar with the whole
subject, expressed to US: ''There is a
"fair profit usually on operations of
"this kind sometimes, however, there
"are disastrous losses, and never what
"the Indian calls big money!" 1t is
said that Ezra Cornell, the founder of
Cornell University, to which New
York assigned her scrip, located it
with good judgment in Wisconsin
timber lands, and that good profits are
expected therefrom, though as yet
they are not realized.
In Maine, Governor Coburn and
Governor Cony both urged the legisla-
ture in their annual messages to give
the scrip to one of the existing insti-
buttons of the State. Professor Smythe
of Bowdoin College, in the winter of
1868, appeared before the legislature
to ask that it be given to his institu-
ton, while at the same time Mr. Blaine
appeared and made an elaborate argu-
ment in favor of giving it to Water
vile College. Mr.. Blaine predicted
that the lands, if sold, could not pos
sibiy yield a sufficient amount to en-
dow properly new and separate in
stitution, and he earnestly urged that
they be given under proper restrictions
to Waterville College. If we mistake
not, the democratic papers in Maine
opposed that proposition and urged
the policy that resulted in the sale of
the lands and the foundation of sep
arate college. The lands were very
widely advertised all over the country,
in our paper among others, for period
of nearly three months, the bidding
was free and open to every one, and
the prices obtained were just as high
as the market value Of land warrants
ruled at that time To make any
other representation of the facts is
simply dishonest and disreputable. 1t
is especially censurable and indeed re-
pugnant to every sentiment of honor
and manhood to cast aspersions on
Governor Cony for his official conduct
in a matter in which he behaved with
characteristic prudence and probity.
To bring groundless accusation against
the dead is simply execrable.
/OIJTITI[.