Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1884-08-07

the habitations Of prairie dogs and
lack rabbits, while the honest tillers OF
the eoil seek homes and employment
in other quarters.
There Is scarcely an instance on rec.
ord wherein the laboring or farming
classes have been favored outside the
Democratic party and, true to It's
principles and record, our national
democracy has declared in favor Of re-
tanning the public lands for
actual settlers without placing
upon IL the vampire lease privilege
for term Of years TO be terminated by
actual settlement, and II the Texas
Democracy wishes 10 be sacred In the
bearts of her citizens, and he within
the record of this great historical party
of principles and Of the people, they
will. at Houston In convention assem-
bled. say the lease law must go, that
il must be numbered with the things
that were; the school lands must be re-
served in kind for actual settlement.
and the country return TO free grass
and progress.
This revenue dodge, invented by the
friends of the lease system, under tile
guise of an increase of the school
fund, is a ruse, because in fact the lease
system is calculated to cripple the
school fund rather than replenish 1t,
inasmuch as there are no improve
ments made on the leased premises,
which In time may become subject to
taxation. The citizens of those
sparsely settled counties where the
leased land is situated will not realize
five dollars per annum per county OF
urhnal nhtAlnan
under the lease system, because
1t Is distributed pro rata per capita
over the state, therefore the poor
"nester," who has to contend against
the inconvenience of the barbed
fence, the stubborn will of the land
monopoist and his antlered personals,
must look to some other source for a
fund to educate his children, and sadly
lament that the dear childrens
grass" did not flourish and grow for
the benefit of Northwestern children
to any very great extent, but
he can stand aghast aud
behold, in those densely populated
counties of the state where the pro
rata per capita is great, the cleaning
spires above richly adorned and i'm,
posing school edifices rejecting in the
btauuiiui SUNNI shy thS SOWibG
grandeur of magnificence as is alleged
to have been realized from proper
management of the "children's
grass Now it is true that while the
Eastern farmer may possibly re-
alize small profit by virtue
of the lease law, it is equally true that
the Northwestern "nester" realizes
comparatively nothing, but is placed
under Inconvenience innumerable by
its workings.
By way of conservative adjustment
of his differences, perhaps it would be
fair that the cattlemen pay reason
able rent on the school lands, rated by
section and the number of cattle he
runs thereon, but in no case
allow the land TO be put under
fence, so that the actual settler can
file on the lands he desires to cultivate
without being comp He'd To enter the
Enclosure of IA cattleman, thus keep
ing the entire body of school land open
at all times for actual settlement and
so provided that when the settler
enters upon his filed premises, the
cattleman's rent terminates without
further notice to the state to rescind a
contract made for a ten-year lease and
rounding the money for the time not
taken up. A DEMOCRAT.