76 LAND AND LABOR. 



food factories, whose productions are brought into 

 direct competition with the small farmer, as were the 

 cotton and woolen factories fifty years ago brought 

 into competition with the household spinning wheels 

 and looms of our mothers, and with the same result. 

 The small farmer is also being crushed out. He is 

 becoming a mere laborer to run the machines of the 

 bonanza farms, or as a tramp to be reviled and cursed 

 of all men. 



Thus are tens of thousands of square miles of our 

 best agricultural lands seized upon by the power of 

 capital and monopoly, in the hands of individuals, 

 companies, and corporations, upon which no one is 

 permitted the right of making a home, or in any way 

 obtaining an assured subsistence. But whilst these 

 things are developing in one part of our country, in 

 other sections are also square miles of territory upon 

 each of which are crowded and packed from fifty to 

 more than one hundred thousand souls, living in a 

 state of wretchedness that beggars description. In 

 New York City five contiguous square miles of terri- 

 tory may be found upon which are crammed not less 

 than six hundred thousand human beings, sweltering 

 and rotting in their misery, and sprouting the germs 

 of anarchy and destruction. New York is by no means 

 the only city thus afflicted ; it is simply preeminent. 



There arc the people who should be occupying and 

 holding those great tracts in small homesteads, build- 

 ing up a mighty people rich in all the comforts of life, 

 and expending upon the soil and in the section that 

 supports them the means which they obtain by its 

 cultivation and development, instead of being foun 1 



