The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1891-03-18
HOW THE LAND HAS GONE.
JUDGE HOLMAN ON THE SITUATION.
He Thinks the Time VIII Soon Come When
the Governments WI BE Asked To Buy
Lands for Am ericans-Direct Tax
alton Coming.

WASHINGTON. March 15.-[Special.1 j
''In your time, young man, you are likely
to see the American government urged to
buy up land it has so largely given away
in order to provide its landless citizens
with some means OF getting living" said
| Congressman Holman of Indiana to me,
| speaking with all the experience of many
years service on the public lands COM
mittee of the house of representatives.
When Judge Holman entered the house
in 1859, at the beginning of the Thirty
second congress, the public domain of the
United States seemed as boundless as the
ocean, and the feeling of that time was re-
fected in the popular song of the day:
Come along, come al ng, make no delay,
Come from every nation. come by every way;
Our lands they are broad enough, so have alarm,
And Uncle sam is rich enough TO give you all farm.
| Yet in his own time and under his eyes
the Indiana congressman has beheld this
vast empire so squandered that within
measurable distance he sees demands like
those of evicted Irish peasants pressing
and echoing in the Washington capitol
| and his gloomy forebodings of ''the pree-
sure among us Of great mass of landless
people who will terribly strain our institu-
tons" recall to those who have needed
them the contrast which Thomas Jeffer-
son, writing to Madison from Paris, drew
between the conditions of America and
those of Europe. $50 long as there is in
our country plenty of free land to be had"
said Jefferson, ''our people will remain
virtuous and happy, but should the time
come when they become piled up in great
cities as they are here in Europe, then
they will go to eating enc another as they
do here"
Judge Holman said that in his opinion
it would have been far better in the end
if the western railroads, and particularly
the transcontinental railroads, had not
been built for FIVE or six generations later,
for then settlement would have pushed
westward more slowly, keeping more in
pace with the natural, healthy grow tn of
population. AS it was, the building of
the railroads over the western country
flung the door wide open to vicious grasp
ing and speculation, and, indeed, the very
manner of stimulating the building of
these roads, through the donation OF i'm
mense land grants, put premium on
speculation. and quickened the work of
squandering the public domain. So well
has this work of waste and dissipation
been accomplished in the hardly more
than thirty years since it began that there
now remains but very small portionof land
available to the settler yet in the control of
the United States. There still remains some
good public land, says Judge Holman;
there is some in western Nebraska, some
scattered elsewhere, and there still remain
the Indian reservations. But all this is
little to what has gone, and the tendency to
its disappearance still continues. In the
meantime the essential social conditions
which to Thomas jefferson seemed to pre-
SAGE the dangers of the revolution which
was soon to deluge France with blood are
unquestionably growing up here. Not
merely do American cities OF our day
dwarf the Londons and Parises that TO
jefferson seemed so monstrous, but the
rackrented tenant has become an Amer1-
can institution. 1t is no wonder that men
like Judge Holman look to the time they
see approaching as rife with the grea test
dangers to the stability of American in
situations.
Feelings such as those expressed by
Judge Holman led to the passage in the
first session of the recent congress of the
act restricting to 800 acres the amount of
land which any one person could obtain
under the existing land acts. But as all
such restrictions heretofore have failed TO
set bounds to the greed of spectators so
is it likely to be with this one. And am
told by men who are well acquainted with
the working of the land laws that it is
probable that a breach through which a
stage coach may he driven has been left
in the last restriction act.
In the last hours of the session Just con-
Guided an act was passed revising the land
laws OF the United States in conformity
with the act restricting to 800 acres what
one person could obtain. In sec. is this
passage:
And in the states of Colorado. Montana,
Idaho, North Dakota and South Dakota, Wy
oming and In the district OF Alaska and the
gold and silver regions of Nevada, and the ter
ritory of Utah, in any criminal prosecution or
civil action. by the United States for trespass
on such public timber lands or to recover tim
| Der or lumber cut thereon, il shall be defense
| IL the defendant shall show that the said tim
Der was so cut or removed from the timber
| lands for use in such state territory by q
resident thereof, for agriculture. mining, man.
ufacturing or domestic purposes, and has not
| been transported out of the same.
There is q further declaration that
"nothing herein contained shall apply to
operate to enlarge the rights of any rail-
road company to cut timber on the public
| domain" But my informants fear that
anybody else may under this provision go
in and practically do what they please,
since there are many WAYS in which tim
Der may be got out of the state or terri
tory after it has been cut, so there is moth
! ing to prevent gang saws being set up and
all the timber on the public domain being
sawed up. Judge Payson, chairman OF
| the house committee on public lands in
the recent congress, does not, however,
take this view. He says, and in this
Judge Holman concurs, that even If this
| grabbing of timber were possible under
the above quoted passage, it can be pre-
vented by virtue of a short supplementary
net providing that the law shall be sub
! jet in its operation to such rules and
regulations as tine secretary of the interior
may see fit 10 make. This free timber
| provision be saws further, was inserted
| for the benefit of the settler. In Cali
fornia, Oregon, Washington and Nevada
there exists special timber land law,
passed in 1878, making it possible for a set
| tier to obtain as much as a quarter section
| at 81 so an acre. But this law extends