Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1890-02-27

When the charter was granted 20 tn8k
company it contained a clause provid-
ing that where its line ran through
States the corporation was to receives
from the Government each alternate
section for twenty miles on both sides
of the roadway, but that where the line
line ran through a Territory. the Gov
eminent grant should be doubled. The
result was that which might have been
expected. The Northern Pacific built
no road through State where, by any
possibility. it could manage to build
through Territory. Some of these
Territories have since become States,
Montana among them. but the new
sovereignty with which they are en-
dowed does not enable them to recover
the enormous belt of their soil given by
this extravaganza grant to the Northern
Pacific road. The company still owns
the most of the tremendous belt of land
that was once estimated at forty-two
millions of acres, and the value OF
which at the present time runs into
hundreds of millions.
Nevertheless. each alternate strip in
that great belt belongs to the people,
which, according to the logic of the
great railway corporation, is equivalent
to saying that it belongs 10 nobody.
This is a.condition of affairs that the
land grabber abhors as it used to be
said nature abhors vacuum. But the
Northern Pacific people are leaving no
stone unturned to put an end to this
condition. even if they find that they
must themselves assume the burden of
owning strip of land eighty miles wide
and running almost entirely through
the new State of Montana. All of the
existing influence in the Federal Gov
eminent is on the side of the land grab.
Der, and Montana, State though she
now is, stands practically defenseless
while great corporation, backed by
all of the power of the Federal Govern
ment, is preparing to rob her people of
their heritage.
One thing. however, Montana can do.
with which The Federal Government has
no power to interfere. and that is to
tax, and to tax, and TO continue to tax,
the growing land value of that great
belt, until the Northern Pacific shall
either pour into her treasury all of its
profits from the grab, or else release
the land TO settlers who are willing
to pay the people of Montana for its
use, in order that they may establish
upon it homes for themselves and FAM
lilies. MI. Kennedy sees clearly the
solution. and the only solution, of Mon
tana's difficulty, and happily he is
man capable of making others to see
with him. 1t was he who. rs a single
tax member of the Legislature, intro
duced the Australian bill which has
since become law, and it was to his
zeal, vigilance and energy that the
measure owed its success. Now let
him carry on the fight. and the land
grabbing propensities of the Northern
Pacific and the aquiescent attitude Of
the cormorant administration at WASH
ington may pave way for enabling
Montana to lead in the application of
the single taX.-NesO York Standard. -.
TO all well-wishers of the farmer and
of the laborer we recommend the above
article from the New York Standard.
1t deserves their careful thought. 1t
points the road out of the mire into
which alien and nonresident land
ownership has put us. In every county
of the West there are great bodies of
land held for speculative purposes, and
the problem of freeing the farmer from
debt resolves itself into this other
question "How can we open these
lands now held for speculation, so that
the farmer who wants to improve land
can get at it ?" The Single Tax will
do this.