THE POPULIST MOVEMENT 677 



of territory was not acquired in a single year, but by skilful nego- 

 tiations and careful treaties extending over a period of seventy- 

 five years, the Gadsden Purchase of 1850 being the last. At an 

 early date the government granted a considerable number of acres 

 in the Ohio valley to the soldiers of the Revolution as a reward 

 for their services, and allowed them afterwards to purchase land 

 at a small price. Then came the idea that the sale of the public 

 lands would relieve the people of an equal amount of taxes. So 

 land was disposed of by public and private sale until 1848, when 

 the policy of sales was changed. The soldiers of the Mexican 

 War were allowed one hundred and sixty acres each. Under the 

 pre-emption system, first inaugurated in 1838, the lands were sold 

 for cash to settlers who could occupy, improve, and cultivate them 

 for a number of years ; but the Homestead Act provided for the 

 gift of land to the actual settler. The Homestead Act was passed 

 in 1862, although the agitation for it began some ten years earlier. 

 By these two acts the early idea of sales for revenue was abandoned, 

 and a plan for the disposition of homes substituted, which was 

 more in line with the general policy of the government. 



Out of the original 1,821,700,922 acres of public lands, (399,- 

 755,118 acres of this are said to be mountainous) there remained 

 in 1890, vacant and unoccupied, 586,216,861 acres, or less than 

 one-third of the original domain. Up to 1890 the United States 

 had granted to corporations and states, for canals, railroads, river 

 improvements, and wagon roads, 337,740,081 acres, leaving some 

 430,948,710 acres to be accounted for by the Pre-emption and 

 Homestead acts, military bounties, and lands held by railroads but 

 not patented up to June 30, 1890. This makes a grand total of 

 768,688,991 acres that have passed out of the possession of the 

 United States during the last hundred years. Of the 586,216,867 

 acres now in the hands of the government, only 1,700,000 are 

 suitable for agriculture, the remainder consisting of grazing, coal, 

 and mineral lands. 



The tendency at first was to regard the public lands as a means 

 of revenue, and large quantities of land were sold to capitalists and 

 speculators ; but the income received did not come up to expec- 

 tations, and the continual clamor of the people that the Public 



