Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1893-03-22
THE LAND QUESTION.

Our So-Caned Statesmen VIII One Day
Awake to the Fact That They Are In the
Rear of the Procession.
The other day Senator George G.
Vest, of Missouri, in the course of his
remarks upon the Cherokee strip bill
said:
Another word Mr.. President and shall have
done with what little have to say about the
Indian question to which the people OF Mis-
souri, are intensely interested There is one
consideration important with me as to the
opening up of this Cherokee outlet and which
does not appear upon the face of this legisa.
ton am greatly in hope. in fact l am san.
guine, that the result in this case with refer
ence TO this Cherokee outlet will teach the In
dians and half breed Indians of that country
what must be the inevitable result of the ques-
ton which is nov awaiting solution in the near
future as TO their system of tenure in common.
II they cannot learn from this additional Illus
tration the absolute and Irresistible tendencies
OF attrition between the two races If they
cannot learn that they must accept the newt
able, and upon just and equitable terms remove
the exceptional conditions that now exist in
their country with relation to the people of the
United States, then their case is absolutely
hopeless. The time is upon us-not coming.
but upon us-when the people of the western
states for their own self preservation cannot
tolerate without attacking it the system that
now prevails in the Indian territory. We have
determined by all just and lawful means to re-
move those conditions.
Mr. Vest is reckoning without his host
and, as in the case of the anti-option
bill, misrepresents the sentiments of
his constituency and speaks without
the sanction of due authority. He is
woefully ignorant of the trend of eco
nomic thought and does not discern
the signs of the times. But a few
months ago ~, 900 voters of Mr.. Vests
own state voted for a platform which
demanded that tax, equal to the full
rental value be levied upon all unused
and unoccupied lands Henry George,
| not long ago, received 6S, 900 votes in
the city of New York upon the same
platform. In many states both demo-
Gratis and republicans unite in de-
manding the abolition of alien
land ownership, while in Texas, the
legislature, which is overwhelmingly
democratic, has passed law limiting
the ownership of land by domestic or
alien corporations to such a quantity
as is absolutely necessary for the trans
action of their business. In November
| 1892, there were more than a million
| voters who entertained the views ex-
| pressed by Congressman John Davis, of
| Kansas, in a recent number of the Ad-
| vocate, as follows:
We must free the lands of the country from
| capture BY the purse of the monopolists. The
| homes of our people and the heritages of our
children must not be exposed 10 the depreda-
| uons and spoliations of the money power of the
world Land must not be treated as a common
article Of traffic in the worlds commerce We
must move in the direction OF that happy day
when the poorest man will have and hold his
small home free from the invasions of the sher-
and 6xCho ~
and use' will be recognized as necessary in
| gradients in title to land.
| The ownership of the lands of the
| people, in common by the people, use
and occupancy being the only valid
| claim to title, is the most imperative
| step in the direction of freeing the
masses from abject servitude to the few.
In his message recently delivered before
the Cherokee council Chief Harris had
the following to say in regard to allot-
| ment and intruder questions:
To the Indian the holding of land in severalty
| is "a new system hut il is urged upon him as the
| one necessary step to his highest individual
| prosperity and his civilization as a race. This
| is the system of the people of the United States
| where it has been practiced for more than a
| hundred years. Under this system their people
| have entered as homesteads or at a nominal
| price hundreds of millions of acres Of public
4
| and enterprising people an earthly paradise,
| where every man. at least every farmer, en-
| joyed himself under his own wine and tig tree"
| Do we find it so? Far from it More than half
Of the people of the United States engaged in
| agricultural pursuits are laniless, and their
] constant cry is for more land for the home
| less The source of the supply to meet
! the growing demand. the extingnishment
| of the Indians title is .A6s, exhausted
and the people OF the aEed States
| entering the al Of
| period when the aggregation Of The lands in the
hands of the rich through mortgages will be
| greatly accelerated and the countless number
OF the homeless be enormously increased. In
| the light of recent statistics this system has
| proved failure so far as providing homes for
| the majority of the people of the United States
| is concerned, and its wisdom is being seriously
questioned by some of the best thinkers of the
times. The people Of the United States have
no year OF jubilee 10 look forward 10, when
there will be a redistribution Of the lands but
when the lands shall be accumulated in the
| hands of the rich, when the rentals shall be
increased until the laborer can exc out only
miserable xfstence, and when the burden can
be borne no longer, the system will he wiped
out In revolution.
Fhe Cherokee system breeds no millionalres
no land syndicates, no mortgage sharks Land
is not degraded to the level OF speculation
Every citizen, however poor or humble, with
| little energy and by little physical labor can
have home OF his own to shelter wife and
children He is not ever looking for a place TO
rest and TO exist 1t is to be deplored that
some of our people. deluded by their fear of
change in our government, or actuated tn their
| greed, wish to change their land tenure
and adopt that of lands in severalty
This experiment is now on trial among
the Indians to the west of US, in the new terri
| tory OF Oklahoma, where one Indian is sand
wiched on a quarter section between two white
men, and he is to be civilized into a brother and
citizen by contact The result is easily fore.
seen; his white neighbors will eventually own
his lands, and his children viii be outcasts in
| the country their fathers once owned Prudence
| dictates that We await The trial OF this expert
! ment and profit by their experience
To nv mind, the wisest provisions made by
| our fathers for their posterity was the dedica-
ton of the use only of the lands and the inter
est on the invested funds 10 each succeeding
/ generation Tney were not set apart for our
! benefit only. but have been given TO US in trust
| 10 use and enjoy and to transmit unimpaired TO
/ those who may cope after US. The ownership
/ OF our lands IN common is the foundation upon
which our natural existence rests destroy this
| common ownership ana the bond that holds US
! together as a nation is destroyed. The fee sim
| pie title in the nation, based upon an act of
| congress, as it is, has proven the bulwark OF
| the national citadel and has successfully with
! stood the assaults OF our enemies within and
| without IL rests upon the same basis as does
| the private lands of citizens everywhere in the
United States and cannot be destroyed by leg
| islation in congress without doing violence to
vested rights and unsettling the tenure py
which private lands everywhere in the states
are held
Senator Vest should wake up and in
quire where he is at" There is
more likelihood of the Cherokee system
of land tenure in common being adopt
ed in the United States than there is of
the Cherokees accepting the system
which has resulted in accommodating the
wealth of the nation in few hands
Gold is a robher money because by
its scarcity It does not permit the pro-
ducers of wealth (the toilers) to get
even an approximately fair share of
that which they produce. San Fran
cisco Press
Curiosfties About snow.