The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1883-08-30
THE AMERICAN SYSTEM.
Ownership OF the Soil bY the Man
Who SrilIa If

w hO
Col. B. t. Van Horn, in his Fourth
of July address at Fort Scott, X,
said that the student, who rams back
over the records of history and marks
the mile stones of human progress
will discover that there is law UNI
DERIVING it all. He will see that
America was but the result of forces
long silently at work, and while kings,
mobiles and classes were veXing the
social movements of mankind there
was del p and controlling under-cur-
rent gradually lifting up humanity as
1t drifted through the centuries, until
at last the higher plans of its future
action and progress was reached
in The establishment of the
new order of government in
America. And he will see that for a
hundred years this new force has been
tswork; one new state after another
dropped of the old, until at last we
have Kansas freed from these old dis
abilities in larger degree than any of
her slsters-a new, a virgin soil, pre-
pared for the highest experiments yet
tried in human society. That is by
the grace of God and the embodiment
of human progress, the mission you
have before you. And as it has taken
centuries to make a Kansas possible,
it teaches you the lesson that you
must devise your own forms and
your own laws. 1t will not do to
borrow ideas from those who
do not understand the civilization
that has made you what you are
In other words, the ideas Of reform
that are now 81 common in agitations
in the old world must net be adopted,
for they are born of conditions which,
you know nothing of. Communism
socialism. agrarianism, are all the SIM
pie opposites of monarchy, classes and
special privilege. You have neither,
except as you part with the original
powers you hold by the right of the
preamble referred to. And remedies
for all these diseases are not applica
bic where there is only political
health.
All these | refer to are eXotics, but
the essential one is the agrarian idea.
The question of land ownership does
not belong to our system of economy
or our social organization. In time it
may be necessary to restrict the area
of land that any one own; but even
that is far in the future and beyond
the duties of this generation. But our
civilization rests on ownership of the
soil by the man who tills it. The
American system of land-holding is
the exception to all history, and farm
houses, with all their independence.
comfort and devotion to soil and
country, is unknown elsewhere in all
the world. 1t is the basis, the corner
stone, the very ark of our stability.
prosperity and freedom as
people, and will be for all
time. And come what may in
the changes of the future, it must be
guarded as the fundamental fact in our
civilization. When this is gone our
liberties are the poSsion of power and
craft, and at sea forever afterward.
This condition is not the result of
chance or of one of the consequences
of mere governmental ideas, but from
the organic development of society
under law, and above and beyond the
purposes or aims of mere administers
ton. 1t is the organic relation of man
and the soil-the basis of all social or
der and political stability. The reverse
ides belong to another civilization en-
tirely, and while demanded, perhaps,
by conditions to be destroyed, can
only be effective in destruction, and
must be superseded when society
there comes to be reconstructed. How
this is to be regulated hereafter when
populations crowd this continent as
they do in the old world must be left
to the people and the craftsmanship
of that day-it does not belong to us
for we cannot understand the needs
of an age yet to come. Sufficient unto
the day is the evil thereof, is only
another way of saying that sufficient
unto the wisdom of man is the time
and circumstances for its exercise.