Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1888-12-14

H.Es4T WILL BF DONE ABOUT 1T?
The San Antonio Times, replying to
THE GAZTITE s advocacy of more lib
eral Lard policy in the interest of the ac-
| tual ettler, says:
Every interest of West Texas and of the Pan
handle demand amendment of the land laws, and
mat amendment should be made by the Twenty
first legislature. The law which forfieits the
settler's purchase to the state for payment
of interest the very day IT is due Is harsh and
absurd. The state of Texas, which SO firmly
protects man in his homestead, is inconsistent
when it fails to facilitate the requirement of a
homestead. The land law should be amended.
Texas lands are SO cheap and the terms of sale
are so accommodating that, in justice to the
whole people, the state should rigidly enforce
the laws. When man is allowed forty years in
which TO pay for his home, and is charged only
low rate of interest on the purchase price and
then defaults in his payments, he will not be a
great public benefit 10 the state and ought to
give up his place to some one who is more indus
trious and enterprising. Of course there are ex-
ceptions, but the general rule should be rigid
enforcement of our land laws, and they are very
good ones, too.
Will the Times answer this: Suppose
one private citizen should buy land of
another, on long time, giving several
notes to be paid at yearly intervals; sup
pose it were condition of each of those
notes that the failure to pay interest on
all OF either of them at stated time
should, ipso facto, work n forfeiture to
the vendor of the land and all
the money paid upon it; suppose
that, after paying all of those notes but
one, the vendee should fail to make the
the interest payment upon that one ac-
cording to the terms of the contract,
does the Times believe that the vendor
could in good conscience claim the land
and retain all he had received upon it?
Does not the Times know that if such
a claim were pressed in court, the appli-
cant would be summarily kicked out with
the costs adiudged against him?
Does not the Times know that the usu-
rer who claims his unlawful interest be-
cause it is so nominated in the bond dares
not lift his head in the presence of the
law?
Can the Times point out any difference
between the financial policy of the Texas
land system and that of the Insurer which
is not favorable TO the usurer?
As moral question, winch is
the more dscreditabIe: To claim
unlawful interest or to
pocket the last farthing of an unfortu-
nate debtor who can not pay the interest
on what he owes: taking with it the
property out of which the debt arose?
If the. policy of the state toward the
men who are giving their all to its de-
velopment be not system of legallzed
theft then the ethics of individual action
and of COVE .nment are two very different
matters.
1t is not simply a theory of the system
of which the settlers complain. In
the vaults of the state at Austin to-day,
there are thousands of dollars represent
ing the utterinost resources of men with
large families to support, and the lands
upon which those moneys were paid are
now held by the state, while the pauper-
lied families who once occupied them are
struggling for apitiful exis-
tence.
They were industrious, they were en-