Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1910-10-21
CONSERVE THE PEOPLES RIGHT!
AND THE OYSTER INTERESTS.
lDanviile Regiater.

lDanviile Register.
1t is peculiarly unfortunate that the
leading Democratic newspaper of the
State should be out of sympathy with
public sentiment in the matter of the
States handling of the perpetual oyster
problem. It is worse than unfortunate
that such paper should use its influence
to create a sentiment hostile to the long
established and well fixed policy of the
State in dealing with valuable portion
of its public domain and that it should
develop such bias that it is assailing the
Fish Commissioner and his work in exc
cutting the laws of the commonwealth
Still it is not an inconsistent policy for
a newspaper which advocated the sale
of the municipal gas plant in its home
city TO syndicate that it should now
be openly urging the repeal of the con-
stitutional provision which holds in
trust for the people the States valuable
oyster interests and should urge the
surrender of these public properties to
syndicates and spectators for con-
sideration.
The argument of the contemporary
referred to. if it may be dignified by
being so called, is purely CONNER
cialistie one. 1t sums up the revenue
which the State now derives from the
oyster tongers. the great mass of peo-
pie who earn livelihood by taking oys-
ters from the waters of the State, and
suggests that vastly more revenue
might be derived by the commonwealth
if it opened the public property to lease
by oyster planters and permitted them
to monopolize the product and grow
rich by extortion from the consumers
of oysters in the State and by the i'm
poverishment of the thousands of poor
tongers who make living by taking a
few oysters. Are the interests of the
people at large and those of this large
class of Independent laborers of no con-
cern that it is proposed thus to reverse
the settled policy of the State? 1t is
easy to criticise the public acts of a
public official who is striving TO do his
duty fully and faithfully, and the more
ignorant newspaper is of the oyster
question the easier it is to criticise those
familiar with the subject.
The newspaper TO which we refer
censured Commissioner Lee for his con-
ciliatory intervention to prevent a seri-
Gus clash between planters and tongers
and inclined to the view that it was
trucking to the tongers and their num-
bers to forbid further taking of oysters
until the lines of the planters holdings
had been accurately defined. The tong
ers claimed that the planters were ex-
ceeding their lawfully defined bounds in
their claims of private holdings. A
telegram from Newport News on We'd
nesday conveys the information that
the survey claimed by the planters was
incorrect in at least one place and that
the planters profited by the error.
This oyster problem is difficult and
intricate one, and should be approached
only with an open and judicial mind and
not in a partisan spirit by newspaper
which frankly avows it's hostility to the
interests of the masses and in effect ap-
plies to them the language currently
attributed to one of the elder Wander
bilts when he cried ''The public be d."
The State has other interests and con-
cern in the management of its oyster
properties than the sordid desire to
secure as much revenue as possible,
regardless of the creation of monopoly
and of favored class and the imposi-
tion of hardship on thousands. The
ablest and most experienced Legislators
who have ever served the State have
realized after life study of the problem
that the solution of the oyster question
is one requiring thought and informa-
tion and the utmost care in safeguard
ing public rights and at the same time
conserving the oyster interests in wisely
handling it. 1t is rather presumptuous,
therefore, when a newspaper without
wide information on the subject under
takes to dictate revolutionary policy
at utter variance with that prevailing
for decades.