National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1880-02-03

men indeed, it is the cornerstone of the
American Republic.
viii any one dare to call us Communists
when we by Congressional bill of eject
ment demand surrender of lands from In
dian tribes-tnbes with whom we make
treaties, whose right TO possess those lands
we acknowledge by treaties-whcn their
millions of acres are wanted for our people
and for those whom we invite to our shores?
mol we make the demand pursuant to the
higher law, that the earth and its lullness
was made for man. But we are Just in such
cases. We propose, exactly rs the Irish
Land League proposes, TO pay the owners of
the land reasonable price for it, We say
to the Indians, "Our people are growing in
number like the sands on the seashore.
" They must live like men-free, not slaves.
" To secure this status, we must provide n
farm of 100 acres of land for each Ameri-
can family that wants to till the soil and
" own home Any of you Indians can, if
" you please, have 100 acres of land for
= yourself and family if you choose to re-
mann VII Allt lfllNA anu ollVit llt NuAltN stllh
privileges of American citizenship with
Our own people; but we must have the
" land which you now claim rs yours, be-
cause the wants of our people who have
no land, and who are multitude, estab
lish natural and divine right in our Gov
eminent to provide them with farms, even
if it has to disposscss you, who are few,
of the millions Of acres which are now
yours and which are in excess of your
proper share or just needs. Therefore, you
must surrender your lands for the public
good. We are not unjust in our demand,
as we will pay you reasonable compen-
"saton."
Our land system is founded on this policy.
Every person who enters homestead is q
tenant of the Government for five years
without rent at the end of that Limited
"number of years" every tenant can be-
"cOme the owner of his holding" by "pay-
ing fair price for ii: one dollar and
quarter an acre.
Now for the life of us we cannot see any
greater breach Of equity in requiring an
Irish landlord 10 surrender his land at
fair valuation for the public good, than ex-
lists in our well established policy of requir-
ing Indian sachems aud Indian tribes (who
have as honest title to their lands as any
English, Irish, Scotch or other lord has 10
hiss TO surrender their lands ut a fair valu-
alton for the public good If the British
government had granted all our public do
main to few great lords when we were
subjects of it, does any one imagine that
the American people would not have re-
qured n surrender of such grants at fair
valuation, if the grantees and their heirs
refused to sell at a reasonable price, or in
creased the rent year after year in full
ratio of the improvements made by the
tenants and of the steadily increasing
value of the farms in proportion to
increase of population? How long would
the American people submit to he turned
out Of house and home to beg or starye by
the wayside, when famine or other cause
made it impossible for them to comply with
the rapacity of landlords for paym ent of
eXtortionate rents, or even reasonable rents {?
This is the true way to look at the Irish
land question.
GEORGE w. CURTIS and the Journal of
Civilization" are good advocates and rep
resentatives Of the peculiar civilization
which favors extortion and wrong, and
which answers the appeals of million of
furnishing women and children, victims Of
famine and the cruelest oppression, with
false statements, and with monstrous, dis
gushing vilification that aims to dry up the
springs ofcharity, and jeers at starving chill
dren in a caricature of the image of God in
man. The history of American journalism
contains only one such gross instance of a
horribly brutal contempt for oppressed,
wronged, suffering, outraged humanity,
and that instance was the old-time APP
proven of negro slavery, and is the now
approver of the white slavery in Ireland
undisguised by any of its usual hypocritical
cant-Hmpers Weekly, in whose columns
that martyrto anoble inspiration of liberty,
JOHN BROWN, was caricatured on his way
to the scaffold
To our Irish friends and fellow-citizens
we would say that the journalistic out
RACES of Hdtper's Weekly have been as fire.
quent and bitter toward General GRANT as
toward themselves, although in a more
covert way, and mostly confined TO its
editorial columns 1t in no sense belongs
to the Republican press. 1t merely repre-
seuts small bgoted coterie, who voted
with the Democratic party of New York
last year, and who will do so again this
year when the American people are electing
General GRANT, the man of equal rights for
all, as President Of the United States. We
envy not the mind or the spirit which would
stay the generosity of our people with the
envenomed pen Of falsehood OF the poi
soned etchngs of prostituted art, when God
aud our common humanity are urging them
to feed the hungry, helpless women and
little children Of Ireland, and to give n
word of good cheer to the gaunt, emaciated
white slaves of that land, in their efforts to
strike the shaclSes from their limbs.
THE class who have to bear the burdens Of
District expenses whether Democrats or Re-
publicans white or COlOred are pretty gencr-