People's Pilot, Volume 2, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 February 1893 — AN INTERESTING STUDY. [ARTICLE]

AN INTERESTING STUDY.

The Land Question Reduced to a Cold Mathematical Proposition. It is better to be right titan to hold an office. A true evangelist of the gospel of humanity will oontinue to cry aloud against the present system of land tenure, and denounce landlordism and land speculation, though every land owning populist becomes his enemy. One cannot have a great deal of faith in those who denpnnce all evils except the evil they are addicted to themselves. Land owners, who defend the present system because they are landlords, have not yet become enthused with the spirit of the crusade of the nineteenth century. A simple table will suffice to prove to all doubters that the present system must finally result in the building up of an aristocracy of monopolistic landlords Assume that each man in each generation rears to manhood tw<s sons. Start with only one hundred men in a county containing two hundred and fifty thousand acres of land, and see how many generations it will require to exhaust the supply of land. Acre* Vatu* Men. each per act*. 100 ;.2.b03 I 5.00 200 1,253 12.50 400 625 31 25 800 312 78.18 1,800 156 10583 8,200 78 488.83 It will be noticed that in the foregoing table I have assumed that in each and every case the fathers died by the time the sons became of age. Starting with one hundred men, in a country about twenty miles square, I assumed that at the end of every thirty years the demand for land was doubled and I figured the increase in the value of land at five per cent compounded every thirty years. At the end of five generations of thirty years each, (one hundred and fifty years) the re is but seventyeight acres of land for each man and the value of the land is M 88.38 per acre. If we start with one thousand men in the same county, we shall find that at the expiration of slaty years there is but sixty-two and one-half acres of land each, worth $31.25 per acre. Now apply these figures and assumptions not to a theory but the condition that confronts us. Take the state of Texas, with its 170,099,200 acres of land. Reliable statistics inform us that foreign corporations own one-fourth of all these acres, while domestic corporations have a title one-half, leaving every fourth acre in the Hands of the people of the state who are bona fide residents upon the land. Now, assume that the land in the state averages at the present time a value of 15 per acre. In sixty years, without the aid of immigration, every acre of the land will be occupied by an owner or a tenant. If by owners, then the corporations now owning it will have realized a profit of $2,550,037,500. If the land is occupied by tenants, then the corporations who ownjk will be receiving from such tenants the enormous annual tribute of $199,835,000 as rent Figuratively speaking,men sometimes “eat dirt" A mania said to eat dirt when forced to retract statements he has made. But in practice a man eats ho dirt except that certain quantity which it is said to be the lot of all men to eat with their daily food. An individual occupying a home does not live by consuming the land upon which it is located and when he moves he cannot lake the land with him. He simply occupies and uses it The inauguration then of a system under which “use and dtecupancy” was the only valid title to land, would rob no one of the right or opportunity of acquiring and holding a home, but would Bimply prevent him or her from selling the land when changing locations But under such a system no one could hold, out of use, land they did not occupy as a home or for businessfjjprposes, and thus become wealthy by the absorption of an unearned increment arising from the advance in the selling price of land. The man who really occupied and used land would have no hardship entailed upon him, but the land speculator would be destroyed from the face of the earth. The present uprising of the people is Simply the manifestation of a social evolution, which will never cease until humanity stands upon a higher and better plane. Society finds itself confronted by the question asked by Cain: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” and, utterly unable to avoid the issue, will evolve a civilization which will demand from all, services according to their ability and render to all, ministrations according to their need. Christianity cannot much longer preach the fatherhood of God without giving practical recognition to the universal brotherhood of man. The conditions which breed millionaires and paupers must give way to the ideal Christian commune where, as it is written, “He that had gathered much had nothing over; and he that had gathered little had no lack. ” Civilization is a failure so long as the masses of humanity must ceaselessly toil and drudge, in order that a few may live in luxurious idleness Interest, accursed of God and the curse of humanity, must be destroyed, and the earth, man’s heritage, must be restored to a common humanity, to whom the Lord freely gave it

GEORGE C. WARD.