676 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



arrived immigrant was seldom on the very extreme of the frontier. 

 Without important exceptions the first settlers were poor. Few 

 people who possessed even a few thousand dollars left their old homes 

 to make new ones hi the wilderness. Often such people followed 

 along a few years later and bought out for a few hundred dollars the 

 farms of the frontiersmen who in turn moved on and repeated the 

 program of settlement of new land. 



The United States can hardly be said to have had or to have a 

 land policy. The great share of the public domain has passed into 

 private hands. It is idle to expend much energy in speculating on 

 what might have been done in a better way. In a rather blind manner 

 Congress throughout a hundred years of time was trying to get the 

 public domain into the hands of settlers. During the first third or 

 more of that period it was hoped that incidentally a goodly revenue 

 would be derived from it. During two-thirds of the period there was 

 a strong feeling that the amount of land was inexhaustible. At times 

 there was fraud and graft, but this was the exception so far as Con- 

 gress itself was concerned. That fraud was practiced upon the govern- 

 ment many times is beyond doubt. 



The lack of a policy is the most conspicuous occasion for criticism 

 of the acts of Congress relating to the federal domain. Politics often 

 played the major r6le. At present what is needed is a plan by which 

 the government may administer the affairs of land yet in its hands 

 hi such a manner as to result in putting it into the hands of people 

 who will use it for production instead of exploitation. Likewise the 

 state governments need land policies both with respect to land which 

 they still possess and land which in private hands is being used with 

 a view to speculative gains to the present owner, resulting in hardship 

 to the man who actually undertakes to turn a portion of it into a farm. 



216. OUR LAND POLICY AS It IS AND AS IT SHOULD BE 1 

 BY HENRY GEORGE 



The best commentary upon our national land policy is the fact, 

 stated by Senator Stewart, that of the 447,000,000 acres disposed of 

 by the government, not 100,000,000 have passed directly into the 

 hands of cultivators. If we add to this amount the lands which have 

 been granted, but not delivered, we have an aggregate of 650,000,000 



'Adapted from Our Land and Land Policy, pp. n, 89, 92, 98-102. (Pub- 

 lished by Doubleday, Page & Co.) 



