The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1917-05-31
Value of a Home
EDITOR THE TINES.

when you want to hit an limo
cent man, throw a bombshell in
to a crowd" 1t appears that in
my letter some weeks ago re.
garding army post matters the
reference made to the land to be
condemned for army post pur-
poses has been taken by one OF
your readers (perhaps rightfully
so, as the article was written in
general way and strictly speak
ing could be only so construed
to refer to the improved as well
as the unimproved land within
the tract.
The writer hates to backtrack
on even part of statement, yet
there was no thought in my mind,
at the time, of doing what even
the supreme court of the United
States has refused to do-place
monetary value on a home.
That the writer did not have
improved land in view can be at
tested by the fact that he has per-
sonally often visited the rich
garden and fruit-growing sec
lions in the vicinity of Stella
COON, the valuable homes near
Spanaway, the fertile valley
south of Roy, as well as the
heavily-wooded tracts to the
southwest of Roy, and he knows
now and knew then that there
were spots in this tract, even as
there are GASES in the desert of
Sahara, on which green things
would grow without constant
cultivation and irrigation.
On these tracts, as we'll as on
the spots where Woodworking
settlers have made homes, hum
BILE or otherwise, at the price of
great denial and hardships, a
rightful valuation of the land,
as well as liberal bonuses for
taking their homes from them,
should be made in justice to
those who have toiled with their
heads and hands, industriously
and honestly, to make themselves
and their homes a part of this
great commonwealth, and to this,
I believe, there will be no objec-
ton raised.
AS to homes, the writer has
seen the side of hill in New Eng
land, where the tiller of the soil
had to cut clover hay with a
scythe to work around the hug
boulders-and yet the occupants
of that land when offered a 16O-
acre homestead absolutely free in
the most fertile section of Ne
braska, refused to leave, on ac-
count of the fond recollections
connected with the making of a
home. A cowman, looking out
over 100000 acres of sagebrush
land, said that there was no place
like the arid wastes of Arizona
for a home. A Norwegian, shiv-
ering while a 40-mile-an-hour and
40 degree below zero blizzard
howled around his sod house in
North Dakota, stated with pride
that the Old Country had no
charm like his humble dwelling
on the plains. A settler in Kan
sas, during the early sos, who
worked with one eye on the pillow
and the other on the watch for
the funnel-shaped clouds peculiar
to that section, claimed that
there was no place that equaled
that state for a home.
No one, to our knowledge, has
ever attempted to place a none
tary value far aside from that
placed by the possessor of the
home himself, on the humble habi-
tation that John Howard Payne
immortalized in the sweetest of
songs. Far be 1t from the writer
hereof to establish a precedent.
But II was the piles of sand
and IL our Spanaway friend has
any considerable acquaintance
with the great bulk of the land
to be condemned for army post
purposes, he will not deny that
there are many of them-that
we're bought many years ago and
held for speculative purposes,
much of 1t having been bought un-
der tax title, to which our article
referred.
II is all right to be patriotic and
say that the land is to be devoted
to the uses of Uncle Sam, anyway,
but II is to be remembered that
the taxpayers OF Pierce county are
to pay for this land through q