14 PUBLIC LANDS COMMISSIOlSr. 



United States known to your Commission where such large holdings 

 are being acquired the genuine homesteader is prospering alongside 

 of them under precisely the same conditions. Wherever the laws 

 have been so enforced as to give the settler a reasonable chance he has 

 settled, prospered, built up the country, and brought about more com- 

 plete development and larger prosperity than where land monopoly 

 nourishes. Nearly everywhere the large landowner has succeeded in 

 monopolizing the best tracts, whether of timber or agricultural land. 

 There has been some outcry against this condition. Yet the lack of 

 greater protest is significant. It is to be explained by the energy, 

 shrewdness, and influence of the men to whom the continuation of the 

 present condition is desirable. 



Your Commission has had inquiries made as to how a number of 

 estates, selected haphazard, have been acquired. Almost without ex- 

 ception collusion or evasion of the letter and spirit of the land laws 

 was involved. It is not necessarily to be inferred that the present 

 owners of these estates were dishonest, but the fact remains that their 

 holdings were acquired or consolidated by practices which can not be 

 defended. 



The disastrous effect of this system upon the well-being of the 

 nation as a whole requires little comment. Under the present con- 

 ditions, speaking broadly, the large estate usually remains in a low 

 condition of cultivation, whereas under actual settlement by indi- 

 vidual home makers the same land would have supported many fami- 

 lies in comfort and would have yielded far greater returns. Agri- 

 culture is a pursuit of which it may be asserted absolutely that it 

 rarely reaches its best development under any concentrated form of 

 ownership. 



There exists and is spreading in the West a tenant or hired-labor 

 system which not only represents a relatively low industrial develop- 

 ment, but whose further extension carries with it a most serious 

 threat. Politically, socially, and economically this system is inde- 

 fensible. Had the land laws been effective and effectually enforced 

 its growth would have been impossible. 



It is often asserted in defense of large holdings that, through the 

 operation of enlightened selfishness, the land so held will eventually 

 be nut to its best use. Whatever theoretical considerations may 

 support this statement, in practice it is almost universally untrue. 

 Hired labor on the farm can not compete with the man who owns 

 and works his land, and if it could the owners of large tracts rarely 

 have the capital to develop them effectively. 



Although there is a tendency to subdivide large holdings in the 

 long run, yet the desire for such holdings is so strong and the belief 

 m their rapid increase in value so controlling and so widespread 

 that the speculative motive governs, and men go to extremes before 

 they will subdivide lands which they themselves are not able to 

 utilize. 



The fundamental fact that characterizes the present situation is 

 this : That the number of patents issued is increasing out of all pro- 

 portion to the number of new homes. 



Respectfully submitted. 



W. A. Richards. 

 F. H. Newell. 



GiFFOED PiNCHOT. 



O 



