Sacramento Daily Record Union

SOME LAND MONOPOLY FIGURES.

In the year 1882 the Land Office of the United States sold 17,000,000 acres of land. The largest sales ever made in the country to that time in a single year amounted to but 8,000,000 acres. The reflection that these many acres in many hands would bring to the nation more of material strength, and add vastly more to all that goes to make up stable communities, is itself conviction of the evil of any system which would place such great tracts of land in the hands of the few. Last year there were sold in Dakota 8,000,000 acres, and the year preceding 4,000,000 acres. In the year 1882 no less than 59,000 immigrants settled in that Territory. But suppose the acreage disposed of to have been monopolized by a few men, what would have been the gain to Dakota in population? But these 59,000 immigrants have gone into the Territory to remain. The mass of them have land in small holdings. These holdings encourage the disposition in these people to surround themselves with the best moral influences, and all physical comforts possible to be enjoyed by them. The ability to secure and hold lands changed these immigrants into a fixed people. The migratory habit or disposition was eliminated, and the communities took on, or are assuming the form and character of those composed of non-migratory people in the older sections. States are made up of men and women, and those with homes and home interests contribute a thousand fold more to the advancement and material benefit of a State than those without. Small farming is productive of homes; but vast land holdings, with a tenancy or without, tends to give control, social and political, into the hands of the moneyed classes, and lay the foundations of an aristocracy. If for a moment we suppose the 8,000,000 acres of land disposed of in Dakota in 1882 to be held and farmed by 80 men, it would give Dakota 80 Glenn ranches of 100,000 acres each; or, in other words, 80 landed masters, with probably 1,000 dependents under each, whose continuation in that condition would, in time, become the servility of slavery. But if the 8,000,000 acres is held in even as large tracts as 500 acres each, by distinct owners, Dakota has 16,000 citizens anchored to her soil, identified with her interests, and made kings in their own right.