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erSjfor purposes other than of actual personal occupation oujjjlit 

 not to be tolerated. A large part of the public domain, not 

 }:et put into the market, is unfit for agricultural purposes. 



When the public lands suitable for cultivation are held by 

 corporations and capitalists, they will not sell them without 

 prices which it will be impossible for the people to pay, and 

 then will begin a system of colonization where the occupant 

 will not be the owner, cannot be the owner of the land he tills, 

 but must hold as a tenant upon the most severe terms the 

 landlord can impose and still have his lands occupied. And 



servile labor will be introduced to cultivate the lands, and the 

 occupants will become the slaves of the owners. This picture 

 is not overdrawn. Capital is exercised now to find avenues 

 for either safe or profitable investment. Twenty-five years ago 

 the great want of the country was capital to develop its re- 

 sources, now the want is opportunity for investing capital — 

 opportunities to employ it in profitable enterprises. Railroads 

 are constructed beyond the present wants of the country, 

 factories beyond the needs of the people or the demands of 

 any ottered market, and the most inviting avenue left open for 

 profitable or safe investment is the public lands. And as I 

 have already said, capital is seeking these with zeal and will 

 soon absorb them all. When the public lands are thus dis- 

 posed of it will buy up the farms occupied and tilled by the own- 

 ers thereof, and the independent farmers tilling their own 

 soil will be growing rapidly less and less. We must check 

 the progress of this destructive order of things by wise and 

 efficient measures, if we will have our liberties secure. This 

 certainly is a subject fit to engross the attention of the whole 

 people, and upon its disposition will, to a very large extent, 

 depend the destiny of the Republic. 



