The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1912-06-10
FIFTY YEARS OF HoMEsTEADs

Fifty years of free homesteads in the
United States were completed on May
p, 1912. We find in the st. Louis
retrospect of the
passage of the homestead bill and the
signing of it on May 27, 1862, by Presi.
dent Lincoln That act made new de-
parture among nations in land allot-
ment among its people; and not only
was this land allotment made for the
citizens of the United States, it was
made in effect TO the Industrious, we'll.
meaning, and energetic people of all
the world Immigrants from the nortn
OF Europe came in by the millions, espe.
cially after the war, and settled the old
Northwest with a rapidIty, surcnesS
and civilizing capacity for progress,
order, and law that had never before
been seen among mankind
The result Of that great homestead
act, which was first proposed by Rep
resentative Galusha A. Grow of Penn
sylvania, has been momentous in the
development Of this country. Mr..
Grow had been devoted to the principle
OF the homestead bill for many years,
and for ten years at the beginning of
each session of Congress, he introduced
IN the House free homestead bill, fin
ally succeeding in 1862. Mr.. Grow was
Speaker Of the Thirty-seventh Congress,
which met on July 4. 1861. After 1862
he was out of Congress for a good many
hpt rp.nlnnfsl 30 h.
ninth Congress in November, 1896, by
a plurality of 297 7,446, this being the
largest plurality ever given in any
State Of the Union to any candidate for
any office. He was elected to the
F1fty-sixth Congress in 1898, and re-
elected to the Fifty.seventh Congress
In November, 1900. His service in
Congress extended intermittently for
period of more than fifty wears, He
died IN 1907 at the great age of eighty.
six.
His memory deserves to be preserved
among those of the very greatest men
of the Republic, for there is no doubt
but that his homestead bill had the
paramount effect in rapidly settling
the old Northwest and the great central
region of the Republic. Since that bill
passed, the States of Nevada, Nebras.
ka, Colorado, North Dakota, South Da.
kota, Montana, Washington, Idaho,
Wyoming, Utah, Oklahoma, New Mex
lco, and Arizona, thirteen States, have
been added to the Union These States,
as the Globe Democrat remarks. ara as
many as were comprised in the colonies
which united in opposition to the Brit
lsh exactions in 1776, these represent.
ing the original States.
Such glorious results followed from
the passage of that homestead bill. that
we are all the more humiliated to see a
sentiment grow up in our later times
that not only would have prevented the
passage of that bill, but would have
consigned all that took advantage Of it
to prison, and would have left the coun-
try In its original state of nature, so
that some indefinite future generation
might have got the benefit of opening
1T. But if the modern conservation had
persisted to that future generation, then
1t would also have been stood off in be-
half of some generation yet to come.
Conservation is the direct antithesis OF
the homestead law, and very naturally
we find the conservationists in deadly
enmity with the homesteaders. Every
thing that restrictive conservation, ev-
erything that mean and annoying es-
pionage can do to thwart the home
steader, Is done in these latter times,
and while the homestead law still re-
mains upon the books, it is IL large de-
gree nullified by the action Of the con-
servation officials, who act upon the
presumption that any one who under.
takes to go upon the public land and
make a home for himself thereon is
necessarily periurer and thief, The
change of sentiment marks the differ
ence between the broad-minded, con-
structive statesmanship of the past and
the narrow.minded, selfish, arbitrary
policies Of the conservatlonists Of our
own time