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the hands of a few men, and especially in the monopoly of the soil; but while it should be prohibited by strong statutes, the real remedy for it must be sought in the removal of the causes which produce it. We must go to the root of the matter. I have spoken of California; but land monopoly in other States has become almost equally alarming. In all of them the spirit of monopoly is rampant, while the government, putting on the temper of the times, has become its representative and most powerful auxiliary. Feudalism, it is true, in its primitive form, has no existence among us; but our great and rapidly multiplying corporations threaten us with a more fearful feudalization than that which cursed England five centuries ago. It brings the laboring classes more and more within its power, creating a subdued and subordinated class of proletariats like the Chinese, or an aggressive and imbittered one like the English working people. The motives for cultivating the soil here in large tracts, and according to the principles of scientific agriculture, are quite as strong as in any other country, while the effort to capitalize our lands as naturally involves the spirit of association, through which a few men of administrative talent constantly enlarge their estates, and drive the poorer and less provident classes to the wall.

The effect of labor-saving machinery and steam upon the increase of production and the concentration of capital must be quite as potent here as in the countries of Europe in subjecting the laboring masses to the cunning and cupidity of the "captains of industry," as they are sometimes styled, who control our railroads, telegraphs, banking institutions, and land grants, being the monopolizers of transportation and controllers of credit and exchange. These men are not only the captains of industry, but, as I have shown, the captains of legislation also; and their dominating idea is legislation for property primarily, and for man secondarily. They dictate our laws from the lobby, suborn the judiciary into their service, and poison the fountains of public opinion. Under their sway wealth is more and more centralized, and the very life of our free system of government is threatened.

The remedy for these evils, Mr. Speaker, is to be found in the thorough reconstruction of our land policy. This is the question of questions. It underlies every other, and no party deserves to live that will not face it. The questions of the tariff, of finance, of internal taxation, of civil service reform, and of national education are simply side issues. The just solution of all of them will be comparatively easy, if aided by a wise settlement of the

land question. The labor movement itself will prove an unmeaning wrangle, if it does not plant itself upon this as its central idea, and press its demands for other reforms through its adjustment. In pointing out the evils of our present policy I have indicated some of the reforms which these evils make immediately necessary; but we have gone so far in the direction of feudalism, and are still drifting toward it at so fearful a rate, that the right of private property in land may itself ere long have to be reconsidered. This right, in its unlimited sense, is disowned by three fourths of the human race, including the ablest thinkers of the present generation. It is at war with the great primal truths of the Declaration of Independence, and can no more be defended than the absolute right of private property in the sunlight and the air. I do not propose, or even suggest, any scheme of agrarianism; but that this asserted right, according to some just method yet to be applied, should be subordinated to the rights of man and the public good is as true as any of our fundamental political maxims.

Sir, this question reaches down to the very bed-rock of democracy; for if a few individuals or chartered corporations may absolutely own millions of acres, they may own the whole of a State, or a continent, and thus practically enslave its people. The unrestricted monopoly of the soil thus logically justifies a land-owning despotism, and is just as repugnant to republican government as slavery is to freedom. The landholders of a country govern it, and therefore the struggle for equal rights, whether in this country or in Europe, must resolutely uphold the natural right of the people to an inheritance in the soil. Thus only can they most certainly work out the overthrow of every form of aristocratic and dynastic rule, and institute a real democracy in their stead. Every household is a little commonwealth, and the aggregate of these makes the nation. The family is the peculiar institution of the race, the most blessed creation of God; and nations are prosperous and strong in the exact proportion in which it is protected and cherished. It is the foundation of society, the parent and master of the State. The home embodies all that is best in our civilization, all that is most precious and sacred in the idea of country, of liberty, and of life. To guard and foster it should be the grand purpose of our laws; and to fail in this duty, or to throw obstacles in the way of the multiplication and security of well-ordered homes, is to strike at the life of free institutions.

The land question then, I repeat, is the great living issue and overshadowing question of American politics. No other problem

goes down so deep, or lies so near the heart of the people. Even the grand cause of woman's enfranchisement is fairly included in it, in so far as the ballot is powerless to save in the hands of landless citizens; while that cause must find its chief support in the laboring masses whose battle-cry is "Homes for all," and who will welcome the heart and brain of woman as their natural and most powerful allies.

THE RAILWAY POWER.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, FEBRUARY 21, 1871.1

[The views here presented of the Railway as a political power, will be found suggestive, while the cry of danger is sounded none too soon. It is to be hoped the people will heed it in season.]

MR. SPEAKER, -The action of this House on the South Pacific Railway Bill is quite remarkable, and fitly exemplifies the spirit and policy of what may properly be called the railway power of the United States. For some time past the opinion seems to have been gaining ground, both in Congress and out, that our land grant policy has been very decidedly checked, if not finally overthrown. The indications of this have been thought palpable enough. The huge pile of Senate bills on the Speaker's table has been allowed to slumber, and the House has manifested a sort of instinctive dread of the motion to take them up, on account of the immense quantities of land which they propose to hand over to mon polies.

This body, at the last session, unanimously passed a reolution condemning all further grants of land in aid of railroads, and the Republican party, recognizing the popular hostility to thes grants, paraded this resolution in a campaign document last year as evidence of its soundness on the question of friendliness to or pioneer settlers. This House also, again and again, has declard that if further grants are to be made, the lands granted should be sold only to actual settlers, in quantities not greater than ne quarter section to a single purchaser, and for such reasonable price as to bring them within the reach of those who actually ned them for homes, thus accepting the obvious principle that th building of the road and the settlement and tillage of the land abng its border are mutual helps to each other.

The President, in his last annual message, favors his policy, and gives us his opinion against the expediency or necesity of further grants of lands for railroad purposes, and in favor of reserving the whole of our remaining public domain for actual sttlers under the preemption and homestead laws. To these tokns of a healthy

1 On the Bill to incorporate the Texas Pacific Raroad.

1

reaction in favor of the rights of the people and against the further squandering of their great domain, may be added numerous resolves and instructions of State Legislatures, and of the people of all parties in their conventions within the past year.

But these signs of the times, Mr. Speaker, have not been unmistakable. The railway power has had no dream of surrender, and has been more tireless and sleepless than ever before in the prosecution of its purposes. This was fully made manifest a week or two ago, on the motion of the gentleman from New York [Mr. WHEELER], to refer this South Pacific Bill to the Committee on the Pacific Railroad, with leave to report at any time. This motion was overwhelmingly carried; thus showing how completely the railway interest in the House had been organized, and how perfectly it held this body in its power. No such favor had been accorded to any proposition during this session affecting the public lands. Under the leave thus given the bill is reported back in an amended form, but without any restrictions whatever guarding the rights of settlers. Some eighteen million acres of the public domain are handed over by it to one great corporation, in utter disregard of the policy so earnestly urged by the President, in contempt of the people's wishes as expressed in such manifold forms, and, as I have shown, in mockery of the record of this House made at the last session without division, and made repeatedly for years past, in favor of guarding these grants in the interest of the landless poor. What is the result? The Chairman of the Pacific Railroad Committee, in reporting his amended bill, moves the previous question, thus cutting off all debate, and all amendments save as permitted by himself. Knowing that a South Pacific road ought to be built, under a properly guarded bill, knowing how popular is the idea of its necessity, and holding the power to compel members to vote against the bill, or else to vote for it with all its imperfections, he demands a vote at once. What does he care for the rights of settlers? What did he care a year ago, when the Northern Pacific Bill was carried in the same way, surrendering to one corporation fifty-eight million acres of the people's patrimony? What did he care if this South Pacific Bill allowed the corporation, along a portion of its line, to go any distance from the road on one side of it in grasping the public domain, because there was a deficiency on the other?

The chairman of the committee represented the spirit and tactics of the peculiar institution known as the railway, and was the chosen man to do its work; and I award him the credit of doing it

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