SALES AND ASSESSMENTS. 303 



bodies of unimproved lands have been put down at mere nomi 

 nal rates, while the farmer who plows, sows and reaps his two 

 or three hundred acres sees assessments raised upon his labors 

 at the rate of three or four hundred per cent. Enormous quan 

 tities of lands owned by the monopolists are assessed at one 

 half or even one fourth the value at which they are being sold. 

 &quot;W. 0. Ealston s lands were assessed at $2 00 per acre in 1871; 

 Miller & Lux s at from $1 00 to $1 50 per acre; Isaac Fried- 

 lander s land was assessed in 1871 at $2 00 per acre, while he 

 sold the same year to Chapman & Montgomery 28,850 acres for 

 $115,145; $4 00 per acre. 



Experience has proved that the laws of competition and en 

 lightened self-interest have not been a sufficient check upon the 

 tendency towards railroad monopoly through concentration; and 

 we shall find that our laws of inheritance and the natural fluctu 

 ations of property will not abate the evils, and prove a sufficient 

 check upon land monopoly. A general feeling prevails that 

 land investments are the safest as well as the most profitable, 

 when obtained as so many of ours have been with a trifling out 

 lay of capital. The tendency to concentration is the natural 

 one as the value of land increases; and it is especially danger 

 ous where the processes of machine culture can be carried on as 

 advantageously as in California. &quot;We are not only putting 

 large bodies of our lands into the hands of a few persons, but 

 we are doing our best to keep them there. Our whole past 

 policy is of a piece tending with irresistible force to make us 

 a nation of landlords and tenants, of great capitalists and pov 

 erty-stricken employes.&quot; The remedy is to be found in chang 

 ing the mode of taxation, and in a revision and honest adminis 

 tration of our laws in the interest of the whole people. 



