The Topeka state journal., 1919-12-03
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau
FREDERIC j. HASKIN, Director.
Washington, ID. c.
GIVING AWAY THE EARTH.

GIVING AWAY THE EARTH.
Washington, d. c.. Nov. 30.-Amer-
! leans, as a people have been reckless
ly giving away or selling for a song
their share of the surface of the earth
ever since the nation was founded.
This is the gist of an historical
study OF our public land policy which
| has been made by Leifur Magnusson
for the Labor department.
The labor department has held all
along that the land question is at the
bottom of the present industrial un-
rest in this country. and that the fail.
ure properly to utilize agricultural
lands has much to do with the high
cost of living.
1t is well known that as long as we
had a great body of fertile land in
this country there was little unrest.
to this country because of the oppor-
tunity it offered him to become a land
owner. Foreigners did not accumu-
late in cities to form centers of agi-,
tation. They went west and speedily
became American farmers. The pam
les of those days-of 1879 and before
we're ameliorated by the fact that
we still had rich public lands. Labor
ers out of work and business men who
had failed alike went west and took up
homesteads.
Now there are no good public lands
left. There are still millions of acres
of vacant lands, but nearly all of this
area IS either grazing land or down.
right desert. Expensive reclamation
is necessary before any considerable
proportion of it can be used for agri-
culture. In a word, there is no lon
ger any opportunity for the man with
little capital or no capital to engage
in agriculture. The safety valve which
kept the industrial engine from blow
ing up for so many years has been
practically closed. To reopen this
safety valve would be a way out of
our present difficulties.
This in brief is the argument OF the
labor department, and of all those who
think that the land problem is at the
bottom of our troubles. To reopen the
safety valve of easy access to the soil
''Iand-for-soldiers'' measures which
were introduced into this congress,
and were for a while so widely dis
cuSSed. These measures had a curious
dorsed in theory, but nothing adequate
has been done. Some of the western
states have passed progressive land
laws, but that Is all.
Mr.. Magnusson tells the story of our
public lands from the first. In the
beginning the national government did
not own any lands, but these were
ceded to it by the various states. 1t
began by selling these lands in large
parcels to various individuals and
companies in order to raise money to
pay off the Revolutionary war debt.
Lands now worth hundreds of dollars
an acre were sold for less than dol
lar an acre. Later the government
began selling lands to settlers on
credit-a system which resulted In
nothing but confusion. 1t also tried
selling lands for cash to settlers Then
about 1S41 it began making the great
grants of land to railroads which have
caused so much trouble and litigation
since.
Along about 1910 a situation began
to arise much like the present one. in
that there was great deal of unrest
in the country. Then, as now, many
students believed that the land Of
fered the solution Of the difficulty,
and the agitation began which finally
led to the passage of our present
homestead law. George Henry Evans,
an Englishman by birth, was a leader
in this movement and was perhaps our
first land reformer. He was backed
up by Horace Greeley with his power
full New York Tribune, and by the
labor organizations which were just
beginning to grow up with the rise of
the factory system in New England.
He was opposed by the New England
manufacturers who were afraid that
to make access to the land easier
would result in raising the wages of
labor. In other words. the lineup in
that distant day was surprisingly like
the lineup on the land question now.
except that now. perhaps, some of the
capitalists are in favor of a progress
Sive land policy as a cure for unrest.
Evans stood for the same basic
principles as the more radical of the
land reformerS today. He believed
that land should be given free to ac-
tual settlers in homesteads of equal
size, and that the settlers should not
have the right to sell these home
steads, but only to exchange them for
other homesteads. He contended that
some such provision was necessary to
prevent speculation in lands, and to
prevent large bodies of land from get
ting into the hands of single owners,
who might rent them or let them lie
idle. This idea of prohibiting a man
to sell his homestead was opposed by
the conservatives of that day on the
ground that it was an infringement
of the right of private property
The situation is much the same to-
day. The more radical measures pro-
vide that the government should re-
claim lands and give them to settlers
as fully-equipped far: 5 on some long
time payment plan. but without the
right to sell them, the title to the
lands remaining always in the govern
ment. But this principle fails to find
Lane BILL which contemplates the
selling of the farms outright, is the
only one that commands much sup
port.
1t is notable. too, that back in the
forties and fifties the farmers of the
middle west opposed this land reform
movement on the ground that It
would produce too many farmers, and
so lower the prices of farm products
And they are opposing land reform
on the same ground today. This
Sl5Sl5SlHSSl5lHSlSlHRH1
IN ~ :