The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1884-08-28


people one hundred millions acres of these
lands but Republican Senate refused to
pass the bills, and thus the last chance for
cheap homes.ln the West was taken from
the laboring men of the Southi''
In the light Of the results we have emu
merated as growing out of the land grants
to railroads, there never was a more wan
ton proposition of robbery than that con-
tained in number of these bills. The
railroads had substantially complied with
their c0ntracts-the roads had been built.
the lands rescued from waste and desola-
Immigration invited, towns and
cities built up, and taxable resources Gre
ated for the governments benefit. Yet,
Mr.. Holman, a simon pure Democrat,
who was never known to advocate meas
ure of practical, progressive usefulness,
matured scheme to rob the railroads, in
some instances, of what belonged to them
by contract, and restore it to the govern
ment, after the corporation had converted
it into values, when before it was worth
less. This is a fair specimen of Demo-
cratic craftsmanship, as well as Democrat
&c justice.
1t was this land grant policy of the
Republican party that made it possible for
individual enterprise to span the continent
with railroads to give practical force to
the homestead law which the Republican
party had devised and enacted into law,
and to open up the ''West' for the use of
the ''laboring man''-to locate his home
where it could be reached and protected,
and where the products of his labor could
find an avenue to market. What did the
''laboring man" want with 100 acres of
land in the~wilderness surrounded by hos
tile Indians and wild buffalo? That was
the condition before the land grants justi-
fed private enterprises in constructing the
railroads, and that would be the condition
now had not the Republican party been III
control of the government, and legislated
so as to utilize the waste territory of the
Nation for the benefit of all the people
reserving for their use ample domain foa
generations to come.
We have an exemplifcation of the policy
Of the Democratic party in the positions
of the Vindicator we have criticised. In
capable Of inventing anything looking to
national prosperity and progress, 1T finds
solace in its sordid jealousy Of the adj
vancement of the country under Republic
can policy. 1t has not even the sagacity
to conceal It's own want of national pride,
OF the courage to recognize the Republican
craftsmanship which has brought about
such beneficent results in our national his
tory. In distorting public facts and legis-
lation in the hope Of robbing the Repub-
lican party of that which is due it, it has
not the wisdom to see its own imbecility,
and the insult it offers to public intell-
igence.
Indeed, the ''grand old parity Of fossils
seems to be just waking up to the fact
that twenty years ago the Republican
party determined on q policy of national
progress and development and national
unification, and that the land grants and
viz teAAIOttNo 1CebC1lllS3 tbClODo ullS (iGSGll
were the forerunners of this new BIRTH :
Asleep for two decades, Democracy can
not see the connection between the dona-
ton of this worthless territory and The
thriving, throbbing States and Territories
which haye sprung up, as a result, in the
homes OF the prairie dogs and the cayote.
The land grants are looked at in the alb
stract-as something new to Democracy
and not as an essential part of q grand pol
icy that involved such marvellous consum-
nations as those now before us--represent-
ing busy scenes of industry, growing,
wealthy Commonwealth, with their rep
resentatiyes on the floor of Congress
claiming equal rights and privileges with
the other States of the Union. This is a
picture too magnificent, too imperial for
the dazed Democracy to contemplate, for
these things have been accomplished
through the broad comprehension of the
Republican party while the Rip Van Win
Ne Democracy was taking its twenty
years nap.