The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1886-05-28
Away with Alien LandIOrdismI

The people will watch closely the ac-
Jion of the House of Representatives
on the bill to prevent aliens from acquir-
ing real estate in the Territories. The
evil which this measure is intended to
arrest should have been dealt with long
ago; but the absorption of our public
lands by foreign capitalists, corporate OF
individual was carried on so crafty and
quietly that the abuse of the plain pur-
pose of our laws and defiance Of the
spirit of American Institutions for some
time escaped notice. Now our eyes are
opened, and We learn with disgust and
resentment that vast tracts in The most
fertile sections of the national patri-
mony have been grabbed by British dig
archs who foresee that their own coun-
try will shortly be too hot to hold them,
and who are planning to transfer to our
free soil the system of absentee and allen
landlOrdism about to be stamped out of
Ireland
The extent TO which this odious eva
sion of our homestead laws has gone is
even yet imperfectly appreciated, but
the partial list of allen landowners laid
before the House of Representatives has
alarmed the public mind and full state
ment of the facts is now imperatively
called for The poor man for whom and
for whose children the public lands were
held in trusC will look to Secretary
LaImar for a detailed and exhaustive
disclosure of allen depredations on their
rights, and they will require Attorney
General Garland to explore and casti-
gate the frauds by which alone the nox-
ious incubus of foreign landlUrdism has
been fastened on ouI country.
Even in the incomplete enumeration
I'm had Nv ha { y hai of a H0nQn
Committee on Territories there are some
astounding items. What do our hard
working fellow citizens, for whose fu-
ture homes our public land were sup
posed to have been set apart, think OF
the announcement that by trick and de-
vice single British nObleman, the
Marques of Tweeddale, has managed to
gobble up more than million and
half of acres in the most valuable poT-
tiOn Of our Mississippi territory?
Do the victims of this robbery grasp the
meaning of such figures2 Do they un-
derstnnd that an area Of American soil
twice as large as the State of Rhode
Island has fallen into the clutches of
single European landlord, who has never
dreamed Of becoming an American citi-
zen, but who means to spend abroad the
revenues of his Western principality as
the incomes wTung from starving labor
ers are spent by Irish absentees2
The land grab of Lord T@eedale Is
not by any means unique. The Duke Of
Sutherland, the Duke of Hamilton,
Lord Dunraven, and Sir William Whal-
ley are each credited with the acquire
ment of huge tracts of Western land,
amounting, in some instances, to many
hundred thousands acres. Besides the
individual piutOcrats operating on their
own account, British corporations or
land companies have engaged in the eva
sion of our homestead legislation on a
gigantic scale. The motives prompting
such investors may be foIcibly illustrat-
ed by the case of the Duke of Suther-
land. Here is a man whose estate in
! the Highlands, spanning the whole
breadth of Scotland from sea to sea, Is
the fruit of a notorious crime against
justice and humanity. 1t is but little
more than a century since the wide lands
| of which the Duke of Sutherland now
calls himself proprietor were owned in
common by the clansmen of his family.
| Through the harsh enforcement of i'm
ported laws the humble tenants of the
soil were elected and reduced to choose
between exile and starvation.
But the day of retIibution is at hand
in Scotland as we'll as Ireland. The
men made opulent and mighty by the
desOlatiOn of the Highlands are fleeing
from the wrath to come. In foolish
hour they counted on playing the same
game with safety upon our far Western
plains. But they will find out that i'm
punity will not outlast publicity an hour.
We will brook no anaTchism here, and
we look on alien landlordism as even
more detestable and deadly. We will
not suffer foreign countries to dump
their criminals and outcasts on our
shores, and we will endure as little the
migration of ideas and practices which
the conscience of awakened England
has condemned as public crimes. If
man like the Duke of Sutherland wishes
TO be the lawful owner of homestead
in our Western Territories, let him take,
like ether emigrants, the proper steps to
get his naturalization papers, but let
him leave at home the hateful ambitions
Of the British landowner.-N Y. Sun.