Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1890-11-14

o"eney millions of acres, and which ara
H WV being increased. Attention
was ealled to the immense government
grants to railroad corporations. to 70 tha y
a ,nd' tracts s owned by private spectators
na purchased as investments by the
tlowihg class of millionaires; to the ex-
n'.se cattle ranges of the far west
nn a w Tue rapid increase of grain farms
~ thousands of acres each. 50
' 0nas ehe time can not be far distant
Wneh the whole of the great public do
main Will have passed into the hands Of
limited number, who will he yirtna7lv
lords of the land.
Already one seeking a homestead on
.he public lands must go nearly two
thousand miles from the seaboard in
searcfi OF 1t, and perhaps then seek in
VA VAN LOT a desirable spot. Even under
inc shadow of the Colorado mountains
ail land capable of cultivation has been
absorbed, while in that portion where
irrigation is needed to produce crops.
'he water as we'll as the land has been
monopolized. There the unfortunate
Immigrant, after having bought right
10 earn his bread by the sweat of his
prov from the monopolist of land, finds
hlmself compelled to pay heavy tribute
yearly to the monopolists of the water.
who have seized the sources of supply.
turned tho streams from their natural
channels into artificial bitches" and
exact for their use prices so extortion-
ate as to swell the dividends of those
corporations to eighty, ninety and one
hundred per cent. annually on the cap
1tal invested. OF the millions of acres
OF public land yet remaining, large por-
lions are included in the great Amer
lean desert; in the barren allzali lands;
IN tracts too mountainous and sterile for
cultlyation;'a and comparatively little re-
mains outside Of the Indian reservations
and the tracts set aside for railroad Sc
lectlons, that is sufficiently inviting to
tempt speculative investment.
Considering this condition of the
land into which by the will of God we
nave been brought. can one turn to the
Holy Scriptures and read declaration
such as that made in the text: The
land shall not be sold forever; for the
land is mine;' or can he read that the
earth is the Lords and the fulness
thereof and that the earth hath He
given to the children of men, without
having forced on him the conviction
that the beneicent purposes of God are
being set at naught and frustrated by
the greed and selfishness of those whose
grasping avarice and lust of power
prompts them to appropriate what the
Father of all made for the equal use
and benefit of all?
"Is it possible for anyone to believe
that the merciful Creator made the
earth that greed and avarice might seize
on it's best portions, and through their
possession enable the idle to revel in
luxury on the fruits of the poor mans
toll? Has God given any generation of
men the right to disinherit their sue
cessors to the very end of time, and i'll
doing this deny that tho earth hath He
given to the children of men?' No!
What the Creator did was the reverse
Of this. His law, immutable as Him
self. is announced in my text: The
land shall not be sold forever:
it is Mine, and ye are strangers and
sojourncrs with Me- To generation
after generation, as they should come
and go, the right to the use of the land
that only-was given. while the crea-
tor of the land kept and still keeps the
ownership in His own possession. The
land is mine,' saith the Lord.
eff am told that this divine law of
land was given to the Jews only, reply
that so tho moral law Of the ten COM
mandments was given to the Jews only;
both laws, that of life and that of land
were given by the same God, and are in
| vested with equal authority. What was
good, right and just for Jew is good,
right and just for a Christian also. If l
am told, as may be, that the moral
law is binding on all men because of it's
nature, reply that the same is true OF
| Gods law of land. 1t is so eminently
wise and, in the nature of things, so
lust, as to have commanded the assent
of the clearest thinkers of the world.
Mr.. John Stuart Mill, whose reputation
as political economist is world wide,
says: The land of every country belongs
to the people Of that country Thomas
JefferSOn Sa1u: IL Is q Se14-oVlu0AOo VI VA
that the land belongs in usufruct to the
living Herbert Spencer, confessedly
among the profoundest thinkers of the
age, says: Equity does not permit pri-
vate property in land. For if one por-
ton of the earth surface may justly be-
come the property of an individual, then
all the earth's surface may be SO held.
The world, he says, lis Gods bequest
to mankind. All men are joint heirs to
it. In saying this tho first thinker Of
the age tells US that pure reason vindi-
Gates the dictum of revelation by lead
ing up to the very statement made in
our text-the land belongs to the Gre
ator, who gives the use of it to the
creatures he places on it. as in their sue
cessive generations they come and Co.
and to no generation has He given the
right, nor can they in any other way
have gained the right, to SO dispossess
the generations to succeed them as that
a limited number of mankind may claim
to own tho planet on which all must live
and from which the distressed must de-
rive food, water, raiment and shelter.
Vet he who, to-day, reading in Gods
word the declaration that the earth and
| a. ,,,lo rasourceS-iS the