The Douglas independent. [volume] (Roseburg, Or.) 187?-1885, 1880-11-20
a cIoud In the SKY.

The United States as Nation is
booming. Every department of in
dustry is prospering wonderfully;
from farm, workshop, mine-.every-
where, the report comes that, as a
people, the inhabitants of the
United States are prospering exceed
ingly. There is bu t one cloud in th
sky, one thing which threatens the
future peace and integrity of the
country. Swiftly, more swiftly than
the people generally realize, the
wealth OF the country is being gath
cred into corporations, and the lands
are being absorbed in great estates.
When man owns more land than
he can cultivate, then wrong is be.
ing perpetrated upon every poor man
who needs, but has not, garden,
and the tendency of aggregated cap
ital is like that OF accumulated snow.
1t may melt quietly, and with its
distribution make harvest for the
poor in the valleys below, or it may
take on the attributes Of the ava.
lanche and sweep everything before
it. The particular corporations
which are becoming terror to the
country are railroad corporations. In
fifty years they have become so ter
rible power thas now one can
count on ones fingers the men who
are almost moro potent than the Gov
ernment itself. They are SO con-
nected with mons everyday business
that to patronize them is an absolute
necessity. Railroads are the imper-
alive needs of the modern world
One can pursue neither business nor
pleasure without them, and hence il
is not strange that they absorb the
bulk of the profits of the country
In fifty years thcy have become such
menace 10 free government that in
a little while more it will be neces.
sary for the Government in sheer
self-defense to appraise and condemn
the great trunk lines. But the dan
ger from land monopoly is even
more insidious than that from rail
road monopoly. An outraged COM
munity can rise up and build an op
position railroad, but when q few
men have secured the titles to all
! the land, what can be done theni
The respective conditions of ireland
and France to day reveal the differ
ence which comes between a people
tilIing their own soil and paying
rent to landlords for forbidden acres
/ The wrong existed in France unit
the unspeakable sorrows of the
people eliminated in a fearful revo'
| luton. When the dreadful bath o.
blood which followed washed the
mists from the eyes of the people
they Lassed law that made wills
and testaments of real property of nc
effect. The result is that one-fourth
of the population of France are
owners of real estate, and France has
the most prosperous, patriotic ant
happy people in Europe. 1t ii
natural that it should be SO. There
is nothing that makes the heart oI
men SO cling to a country as to fee
that their little children are at play
under the trees which they-tht
fathers-planted. This country cal
be made the same way. 1t can bt
done peaceably il the remedy ii
applied soon; if, in our carelessness
the matter is left to drift on anothe
fifty years, it will require blood baths
here, as it did in France, to clea
mems visions. The remedy shoul,
come in the form of law, whicl
should give men and companies al
tho land that they could cultivate
and dividing the remainder among
the Americans who still want homes