1890.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 175 



a large scale that they knew of. But now, and especially in 

 this country, the most wealthy men are not large land owners, 

 and have not made their money from land. 



In all the productive industries other than agriculture 

 there is a marked tendency for the concentration of capital. 

 Establishments on a large scale can be managed more profit- 

 ably than on a small scale. In manufactories the product is 

 cheapened and made more uniform. All this tends to con- 

 centration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands ; and this very 

 concentration, which separates more and more the interests 

 of the rich and the poor, is an element of weakness. 



The antidote for this, as a factor of national strength, is in 

 maintaining the present character of our farming population. 

 The hope of a wide distribution of wealth and the political 

 power it brings, now, more than ever, rests on the farmers. 



The outcome of the system of land tenure in this country 

 has been to create a larger proportion of property holders, — 

 a larger proportion of men who own their own homes than 

 in any other country of the world. This has been a fact 

 from its early settlement, and was a fact of prime impor- 

 tance in the time of the Revolutionary War. This was a war 

 of farmers for their homes. Putnam left his plough in the 

 furrow when he started for Bunker Hill ; Washington went 

 from his farm to lead the armies of the struijorling colonies, 

 he was recalled from his farm to l)e our first president. 

 When this service ended, he set the example of retiring, not 

 to a pensioned palace, but back to his form. There he lived, 

 honored as well as beloved by his country, there died, and 

 there his bones rest. The Declaration of Independence and 

 the Constitution of the United States were written by a 

 farmer, who, when he finished his official work for the nation, 

 returned to his farm, where he spent his declining years, 

 where he died, and where he is buried. This is not the 

 story of a landlord class. 



During our whole colonial period and during the first cen- 

 tury of the republic the great majority of our statesmen came 

 from farms. I once took much pains to look up the history 

 of the childhood of all the presidents of this republic. Of a 

 few I could get no information ; but at least sixteen out of 

 the twenty-three presidents of the United States have been 



