Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-01-31


About the year 1885 the celebrated Ed
mund Burke brought a bill into the Brit
ish house of commons for the sale of the
crown lands, in which he laid down 2rin-
cipIes in political economy in relation to
such property, profoundly sagacious in
themselves, applicable to all sovereign
landed possessions, whether of kings or
republics-applicable in all countries
and
NOWHERE MORE APPLICABLE
and less known and observed than in the
United States In the course of the
speech IN support Of his bilS he said:
Lands sell at the current rate and nothing can
sell for more. But be the price what 1t may, a
great object is always answered whenever
any property is transferred from hands which
are not it for that property to those tnat are
The buyer and the seller must naturally proht
by such q bargain; and, what rarely happens in
matters of revenue, the relief OF the sub
jeete will 60 hand in hand with the the
revenue to be derived from the sale Of the forest
lands viii not be so considerable as many have
imagined, and I conceive it would be u49wise TO
screw it up to the utmost, or even to suffer bid
ders to enhance, according TO their eagerness,
the purchase of objects, wherein the expense OF
that purchase may weaken the capital TO be en-
ploved in their cultivation. The princi-
pal revenue which propose to draw from these
uncultivated wastes IS 10 spring from the
IMPROVEMENT AND POPULATION
OF the kingdom; events infinitely more advan-
tageous to the revenues Of the crown than the
rents Of the best landed estate which it can hold.
= y 1t is thus would dispose Of the unprofit-
able landed estates of the crown: Throw them
into the mass OF private property by which they
viii become, through the course of circulation
and through the political secretions of the state
into well-regulated revenue. Thus
would fall an expensive agency with all the lniu-
cnce which attends II.
do not know how old, or rather how
young, l was when l first took up the
notion that sales of land by govern
ment to its own citizens, and to the
highest bidder, was false policy; and
that gratuitOus grants to actual settlers
was
THE TRUE POLICY,
and their labor the true way of extract
ing national wealth and strength from
the soil. 1t might have been in child
hood. when reading the Bible and seeing
the division of the promised land among
the children of Israel; it might have been
later, and in learning the operation of
the feudaI system in giving lands to those
who would defend them; it might have,
been in early life IN Tennessee, in seeing
the fortunes and responsibility of many
families derived from the 640-acre head
rights which the state of North
Carolina had bestowed upon the
first settlers. 1t was certainly before
] had read the speech of Burke from
which the extract above is taken; for l
did not see that speech until 1926; and
seventeen years before that time, when
very young member of the general as
sembly Of Tennessee, 1 was fully imbued
with the doctrine of
DONATIONS TO SETTLERS,
and acted upon the principle that was in
me, as far as the case admitted, in advo-
eating the presumption claims of the set
tiers on Big and Little Pigeon, French
Broad and NOlichuclly. And when L
came to the then territory of Missouri in
1915 and saw land exposed to sale to the
highest bidder and lead mines and salt
springs reserved from sale, and rented
out for the profit of the Federal treasury,
/ felt Tepugnance to the whole system,
and determined TO make war upon it
whenever should have tn power. The
time came round with my election to the
senate Of the United States in 1920; and
the years 1924, 1926 and 1928 found me
doing battle for an ameliorated system
OF dispOsing of our public lands; and
with some success. The presumption
system was established, though at first
the presumption claimant was stigmat-
lied as treSpasser and
REFUSED AS A CRIMINAL.
The reserved lead mines and salt
springs, in the state Of Missouri, were
brought into market, like other lands;
iron ore lands, intended to have been
withheld from sale, were rescued from
that fate and brought into market. Still
the two Tepulsive features of the Federal
land system-sales to the highest bidder,
and donations TO no One-with an arbi-
tTary minimum price which placed the
cost of all lands, good and bad, at the
same uniform rate (after the auctions
were over) at 81 .25 Pc acre. I resolved
to move against the whole system, and
in favor Of graduated prices,
and donations to actual and destitute
settlers. I did so i'll a bill, renewed an
nually for long time; and in speeches |
which had more effect upon the public |
mind than upon the Federal legislation
counteracted as my plan was by schemes |
of dividing the public lands, or the money |
arising from their sale, among the |
states. 1t was in support of one !
of these bills that I produced the |
authority of Burke in the extract quoted; |
and no one took its spirit and letter more |
promptly and entirely than
PRESIDENT JACKSON.
He adopted the principle fully, and in |
one of his annual messages to congress
that as soon as the public |
revolutionary debt should be discharged |
Ito the payment of which the lands ceded |
by the states were pledged) that they |
should cease to be Il subject of revenue, |
and be disposed Of chiefly with view TO
settlement and cultivation. His terms of
service expired soon after the extinction
OF the debt, so that he had not an op-
poTtuuity to carry out his wise and
beueficeut design.
Mr.. Burke considered the revenue de-
rived from the sale of crown lands as a
,riiie and of no account, compared TO the
amount of revenue deriyable from the
same lands through their settlement aud
He was profoundly right
and provably so, both upon reason and
experience.
THE SALE OF TIE LAND
IS single operation. Some money is
received and the cultivation is disabled to
that extent from its improvement and
cultivation. The cultivation is peren-
lial, and the improved condition of the
farmer enables him TO pay taxes and
IL, III,