The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1883-03-31
The People Want Homes.
Bill Arp" in the Atlanta Constitution.


"Bill Arp" in the Atlanta Constitution,
What the people want and ought
to have are homes and chance
homes and living chance. Give
family a home of ther own and it is
the best safeguard for the perpetuity
of government and the happiness of
a people. / was always sorry for
family who had no home. but had to
dodge about from house to house and
place to place--no orchard to improve,
no flowers to love and nurse, no sa-
cred spot, no castle, as Blackstone
calls 1T. 1 don't know how other peO
pie prize it, but my home is the dear
est spot on earth to me and to my
family. There is no place like home
not a rented home, forever wanting
repairs, but a home to live and die in,
which the boys who have found work
afar off can look back to- with affec-
ton and revisit with pure delight,
and where the good wife and daugh-
ter can plant the vine and rosebush
and sow the flower seed, and the
orchard and the gyapevines bring
their fruit in due season. 1t won't
do to say that the poor are too lazy to
work and buy land and have home.
They haven't been tried. They don't
get enough for their labor to lay UP
anything. They are not encouraged.
Vanderbilt and company get all they
make over and above poor living,
and Vanderbilt must be protected.
The trouble is our people have got
hardened to fixing minimum price
upon labor, just enough to feed and
cLothe the family stingily, with no
n7Trgan for old age or sickness, much
less house. What does all this mean
that three syndicates are buying up
all the land of the great west, 700, 200
acres and SOC, 100000 acres in Texas,
and large tracts in Arkansas Why
don't the United States government
buy it up and save it for homes for
our people? The government gave
away 100 600, 900 of acres in Texas at
one time to a wealthy corporation to
hire 'em to build a railroad-more
land than is obtainable i'm any four
States in the Union except Texas, and
our stat esmen made no protest. The
money is all going into the hands of
a few, and SO is the land. There is a
way to stop all this, but when it is
agitated the rich and powerful cry
out agrarianism and robbery, and
hire the press and bride the big men
and scare off the little ones, and so it
goes. What we need are statesmen,
not hirelings. We want fearless men
who can't be tempered with. Let all
this surplus wealth, these bloated for
tunes, be taxed to support the gov
eminent. After man has accumu-
lated Sl00. 900 begin to tax the excess,
and the more he aecumuIates the
iCofiOA ohO AotS anu "iiOh hO SCto
it up to million take all the excess,
jf necessary, to equalize in some
measure the bardens and the COM
forts of life, and provide homes
humble homes-for tire people. A
man with ten acres anda house of his
own is good citizen in peace and
tower of strength to his government
in time of war. A million of dollars
is enough for any one man. He ought
not to hunger and thirst for more, for
he can't need it, and il makes dog
of him to- hoard it up. Who has any
respect for such men as Vanderbilt,
or Gould, or Senator Sharon, or even
for the memory of Stephen Girard or
A. T. Stewart? Nobody.
,IOhn RandOlnh.