The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-08-23

new countries, must go outside OF the
continental United States l., search OF
them-many have gone to Canada and
Mexico. We use enormous quantities
of tropical products, mos OF winch
we buy at high prices; tea. coffee, to-
bacco and rubber are only few or
the better known ones. Other ma
tions are developing their tropical
possessions at a great rate England,
Germany, France and Begun are
making money out of their colonies IN
Africa They have reducod tropical
agriculture to a science, and have
mastered the difficult art of dealing
with the natives. They have produced
an immense literature about their
tropics Yet in the UniteI States only
one worth while book on t. OPTICAL agr1-
culture has been printed, and In con-
gress there is a strong sentiment IN
favor of getting rid of the Philippines,
while projects for their development
do not occupy much more space IN
the record than the improvement or
one creek in the South where there is
fairly good cat fishing, but no tratflc
except in rowbOats.
1t is no wonder that Americans have
not poured into the American tropics.
that there is a strong popular tendency
to regard them as a liability rather
than an asset The American does not
go to our tropical possessions because
he does not know, very often, what or
where they are; because he believes
them to be extremely unhealthy and
uncomfortable; and because he does
not know what he might do for
living after he got there, and cannot
find much reliable information upon
that point in his own country
The general truth is that the tropics
offer splendid opportunities for large
capital, good ones for men of technical
training in agriculture and chemistry
| especially; limited ones for men with
small capital, and almost none for
labor
With it's long growing season, the
tropical part of the world ought tc be
a poor mans paradise. He can raise
vastly more upon less land than else
where; food is easier to get, and fuel
presents no problem at all. In fact.
it is easy to live in the tropics, but
hard to make money. The great ma
jority of tropical natives in the less
crowded countries live largely off the
fruits that grow in their dooryards and
| the fish that swarm in the rivers and
| the sea. But to make any money,
| these same natives must slave ten
| hours a day for SO cents. In a word,
thruout the tropics, natural conditions
are good, but economic conditions arc
| bad. A small farmer in Porto Rico,
for example, can raise large amount
| of sugar cane on a few acres, but he
| can barely make a living because all
the profit goes to the mill to which
| he must sell his product. Only the
| corporation which has enough capital
| to own the mill as we'll as the cane
| field, or the transportation as well as
the banana plantation, can make large
| profits. Even so, many of the large
| profits made in tropical countries are
| only profits upon the exploitation of
labor. The Porto Rican peon who
| does a dollars worth of labor for 60
cents is putting 40 cents into the
| pocket OF the corporation.
The need for large capital and or
| ganization has been met by some
Americans by acting in cooperation.
| There are cooperative colonies of
American farmers in Porto Rico and
Cuba which are very prosperous But
| the thing that is needed is intelligent
study of problems of land, taxation
| and local government in all of our
tropical possessions, and in those, like
| Santo Domingo, where responsibility
for the welfare of the native people
has devolved upon us. The tropics
should afford an ideal opportunity for
the man who has a little money and
| wants to own home and productive
| land
! For many generations the real guar
antee of American freedom was our
great body of public land, from which
any man could take what he needed
! to make him a householder and an
owner of real property. Now all of
| this land has become private property.
and there remain millions who own
nothing and have little prospect of
owning anything. All of our indus
trial and social problems spring from
the existence of this appropriated
class which is constantly growing. II
| is to the interest of all classes and
parties, of capital no less than labor,
to make the United States once more
a country where every man has not
only the right to cast a vote, but a
fair chance to own real property. This
can be done in part by breaking up
great private lands which are held in
this country for speculative purposes
1t can also be done by making it pos
sible and profitable for our tropical
lands to be taken up in small tracts
1t takes hundred and sixty acres
of average land in this country to sup
port a family; but in many parts OF
the tropics ten acres have enough
productive power to do so, if only
economic conditions are made such
that the small farmer can realize a
fair return upon his labor and invest
ment-
In Porto Rico there is great need
for the heavy taxation of nonresident
ownership, and uncultivated lands
and of good laws for the homestead
ing of government lands. Santo Do
mingo can never prosper until its
whole system of land tenure is re-
vised. When it has been made posi-
BILE for small owners to gain a foot
hold, and when representative gov
ernment has been made effective in
these countries, then economic condi-
TONS will be improved by the normal
action of the will of the majority
which is supposed to rule everywhere
under our flag. but certainly does not
in any of our tropical possessions
which the writer has visited.
For all of these reasons it is i'm
portant that all intelligent Americans
should take an interest in the tropi-
cal countries that belong to the United
States. They offer a splendid oppor-
tunity for journalism and for real
constructive craftsmanship. Less than
a century ago some of the leaders in
the United States were declaring that