Grant County Herald

Land Grants,

The Detroit Tribune comes out strongly in favor of appropriations of public lands to aid in the construction of railroads, and ventures the assertion that there is no difference of opinion, as regards this subject, in the West—that is they all favor such appropriations, or rather mis-appropriations of the public domain. If the Tribune includes Wisconsin in "the West," it certainly is very ignorant of the prevailing sentiment here; for the people of this State are almost universally opposed to the policy of making donations of public lands to corporations for any purpose whatever, and we believe the same is true of the press throughout the State. Wisconsin has already experienced some of the evils resulting from the appropriations of huge portions of her soil to companies, and prays to be delivered from having to suffer a repetition of these evils, which are so ruinous to her general prosperity, and detrimental to the rapid increase of wealth and population. No! appropriate the public lands of Wisconsin, in limited quantities, to the landless, who wish to till the soil—to those who have no spot on God's green earth that they can call their home, and we will ask no aid from the Government in the construction of our railroads, or in the prosecution of other public improvements; and we will guaranty, if this be done, that Wisconsin will construct railroads and improve her rivers as fast as the wants of the people demand them. Then, too, her public improvements will not all be in the hands of the few, nor will her soil be monopolized by knavish politicians and greedy speculators, the end of whose existence is to get rich, and who care not how or at whose expense they obtain it.—[Mil. Free Dem.