Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1917-11-20

w war is over, and an army of somewhere
W between two million and five million is dis
charged, what will be done with these men?
The who is new leaving his job to go to
war may be told with assurance that when
he comes back his government will do it's best to
help him make living and that in all probability
he will be offered opportunity to get piece OF
land and become farmer. At any rate, the de-
partment of agriculture is unofficially known to
be studying the problem of how to put the re-
turned soldiers upon the land.
Fifty and even twenty-five years ago the prob
lem would have been easy; for the American peo-
pie owned immense body of public land, most
of which was arabic. There is law which pro-
vdes that if a soldier takes up a homestead, the
time which he serves in the army counts as time
of occupancy toward giving him ownership OF the
land, provided he lives on the land year. That
law will be of little benefit to the who have
been drafted for this The only public lands
remaining are few arid tracts in the far west The
free land, which for many generations did more
than anything else to make the American citizen
free man, is thing of the past.
The government for long time, has been un-
able to give land to its citizens because 1t has had no
good land to give. Now it is faced with the prob
lem of providing occupation for several mil
lion men which it has wrenched out of their usual
occupations for the, purpose, of making war, 1t
cannot shirk the problem. 40 let these men &C
cumuate in the big cities would be obvious mis-
take they could not possibly all find places. Fur
thermore it is known that soldiers do not take
kindly to routine indoor employment. Many thou
sands who left desks and counters with reluctance
will go back to them still more reluctantly. Ex-
perience shows that who has once tested
fresh air and action, even in so hard calling as
war, is untitled for the grind of industrial life.
The government, therefore, wants to find way
to provide its soldier citizens with land, even
though it has left to give. There is already
a large class of people in this country who
real property-who have real share in the nation
This, of course, is not desirable condition. A
man has certain inherent right to place in
the SUM- whether he is strong and cunning enough
to take it from others not.
If then, these millions of ex-soldiers cannot be
placed on the land the appropriated class will be
Increased considerably, and will the social dis
content which arises from this class. If, on the
other hand each of these men can be provided with
bit of land, the appropriated class and the discon
tent will be correspondingly diminished.
The scientific experts in the employ of the
government, who commonly retain their places
while administrations come and go, have the
growing Importance of the land question for some
years, and have gathered some facts and figures
as to the amount and ownership of land in the
United States This data now has new signif-
and interest
There is a widespread popular belief that a
land MONOPOLY exists in the United States. 1t is
notable that the breaking of this monopoly is
plank in the platform of new political party, more
radical than either of the dominant ones,
which was recently organized in Chicago. a..
The figures which have been gathered show
that such monopoly does not exist in the sense
that is probably often computed to it, in that
that there are few large bodies of land held for
speculative purposes and not adequately cultivated
But there is a monopoly in the sense that nearly
all of the arabic land in this country is in pr
vate ownership, and is therefore to be purchased
only at competitive prices, (which are generally
high. You can buy piece Of land in almost any
part of the country, but you will have to pay
price which is based upon a speculation as to what
the land will be worth in the future, as we'll as
upon what it will produce, and you will have to
take such tract you get, with such i'm
provements chance to be upon it, rather than a
tract of the size you want and able to pay for
In word, you. must be something of capitalist
to become farmer. This means that the classes
of people which have most need for land cannot
get it. 49,
The land area of the United States is about
,903, 900, 900 acres. OF this, $40 100000 is in
farms, and 47S,00O 900 of the amount in farms is
improved according to census figures of go. An
estimate of the actually in crops at about the
same time placed this area at 31S,516. 900 acres.
OF the area which was in farms but not in crops,
about 291 ,000,0 900 in pasture, including both
woodland and grassland.
There remained, it will be seen, large areas in
farms that were not improved and large areas that
not included in farms at all. OF course, much
of this land is not arable bit it is estimated that
in 1910 there were P457 900, 900 of arabic
land which had not been improved.
The existence of this large is the basis of
the charge that there is a land monopoly-that
with the country facing shortage of foodstuffs
millions Of acres held uncultvated for spec
ulative or other reasons. But afurther analysis
shows that 10000 900 acres of irrigable land had
not been placed under irrigation, that SOOOO,OOO
acres of drainable land had not been drained that
127,OOO,OO0 acres of the arabic land were to be
classified "dry-farming" lands, the cultivation of
which is somewhat uncertain venture, and that
35 ,00O0 acres Of this land, is included in cities
and villages. -.