Born-Robbed in a Land of Plenty

William B. Northrop

[Reprinted from the Single Tax Review, 1921]

How many citizens of our glorious democracy realize that they are being robbed? When our patriotic forefathers founded our more or less glorious Republic, the country was hailed as "the land of the free and the home of the brave" and, up to a certain period of our history, the elements of freedom actually existed. This brief period was covered by the time during which the lands of the country were open to access by the people. When our lands were seized upon and monopolized by "Big Business," then the Republic disappeared and gave away to an oligarchy of the rich, and the present democracy was established. The freedom of the people passed away. Today, every child that comes into the light of day in this country is literally being robbed.

What has become of the land of our country, for which our forefathers fought and died? Where is that vast public domain about which Government officials boasted so glibly in the early seventies? In the words of a famous crook-politician, "it has gone where the woodbine twineth." Our public lands today -- with the exception of certain grants to public schools, are in the hands of railroads, oil kings, timber kings, coal barons, steel magnates and the rest of the captains of industry who go to make up our government; and whose mandates are obeyed by a sufficient number of Cabinet officers to keep the business of the country along "safe and sane" lines.

But let us get down to "brass tacks," and put our [unreadable] generalities aside for a moment. Let the Born-robbed examine this matter of their heritage which has passed away. Let Esau figure out how much more he would have had if he had stuck tight to his mess of pottage, and not considered the blandishments of his brother Jacob.

In 1870 -- only 45 years ago -- the public lands of this country, to which you, gentle reader, had a right, amounted to 1,387,732,209 acres. This, if divided up, would make 13,000,000 good sized farms; or 200,000,000 farms such as the peasants of France and Belgium are satisfied with. Counting the lands as worth only $2. an acre, this would amount to a cash value of $2,775,464,418 -- quite a tidy little sum; sufficient to give each man, woman and child in this country a little over 15 acres. Taking our farming population alone as approximately 8,000,000 persons, each farmer could have about 173 acres. Each member of the working class population -- supposing we left the farmers to be contented with the lands they had -- would have 69 acres.

Of course, everyone would not care to be a farmer, to be sure. But, at the same time, no one would refuse 69 acres of land if it were offered to him; and, furthermore, everyone would like the option of taking it or leaving it.

Today, the public domain of surveyed land has dwindled to 188,889,136 acres -- not sufficient to give our population 2 acres per capita. Our considerate Government has "disposed of" the patrimony of the people -- yours and mine -- to the extent of a thousand million acres.

To whom has it been given?

Here are some of the recipients:

• Union Pacific Railroad 41,500,000 acres
• Northern Pacific Railroad 58,000,000 acres
• Atlantic and Pacific Railroad 52,000,000 acres
• Southern Pacific Railroad 12,000,000 acres
• Total to four railroads 163,500,000 acres
• Other roads 37,000,000 acres
• Total free gifts to railroads 200,500,000

Most of the railroads paid not one cent for their lands; but "held them for a raise" and managed to obtain from settlers prices ranging from $5. to $20. per acre. Encouragement was given to these railroad companies in the early days by the Government under the delusion that it accelerated "railroad enterprise." Strange to say, however, those railroad companies that had no free grants of land, built their roads even more rapidly than roads which were given grants of land. The average grant of land to the railroads was 12,500 acres -- free from taxation, and without cost -- for every mile of track. Many of the lines got 25,000 acres per mile of track.

The railroads, in order to obtain these grants of land from an acquiescent Government, offered to carry the mails for "nothing." Let us see what this "nothing" amounted to:

In 1880, railroads holding land grants sold 14,310,204 acres, receiving therefor the neat sum of $68,905,479. The average price per acre in most cases came to about $10. This, mind you, for land for which the roads had paid nothing whatever. In certain cases, lands were sold by the roads at a nominal figure; even as low as 35c. an acre: but it was to stockholders of the respective roads; and the sales were concealed in fraudulent "expense accounts."

Carrying the mails "for nothing" worked out very prettily in many instances. Thus, the small line of road running from Chicago, I11. to Cairo, I11., -- distance of 705 miles -- received a land grant of 2,595,053 acres; of which it sold 2,215,789 acres at a cost of $10 per acre; netting $22,157,890 -- or half the total cost of the road.

The LaCrosse & Milwaukee Railroad gave 13 senators and 59 assembly-men stock valued at from $5,000 to $25,000 each to obtain land grants for the railroads which practically paid the entire cost of construction.

The Great Northern Railroad -- Jim Hill's" -- which received from a willing Government upwards of 2,000,000 acres, sold 458,000 acres for $8,242,583.

Archbishop Ireland, acting as the agent of the Winona & St. Peter Rail- road, in Minnesota, sold vast quantities of raibroad lands some years hack; netting high figures for vast tracts; the reverend gentleman actuated mainly - though not entirely, perhaps - on behalf of the encouragement of immigration. The Union Pacific grants amounted to more than 7,000,000 acres altogether. This Company sold 1,568,438 acres for $6,916,811 in 1880; and has averaged much higher prices even than these figures ever since. Railroad grants in California have well-nigh eaten up the whole of the State. The Western Pacific and Central Pacific received 12,800 acres per mile of track; and the Southern Pacific later received 25,000 acres per mile after the absorption of the first-named roads. Grants extending from 10 to 20 miles on each side of the track were freely made by the bought legislature of the State. Out of a 5,000,000 acre grant made to the Central Pacific, 295,886 acres were sold for $1,114,999 up to 1886; while up to 1897, 3,000,000 acres had been sold for more than $10,000,008.

In most of these railroad sales, the roads have flagrantly violated the terms of the grants. Recognizing this fact, some years ago, the roads began protecting themselves by changing the form of the deeds of conveyance so as to guard themselves against future Government litigation. In 1902, the Harriman lines withdrew their lands from sale to the extent of 2,000,000 acres; which was also a violation of the terms of the grants.

Summing up the whole railroad land grant position, it may be said that the lands sold or acquired by the roads have actually paid for more than the construction of the roads. Six sections of land per mile will pay for cost of construction; but our great roads have looted the people to the extent of 40 sections of land per mile in many cases. In actual cash, the roads have received for their lands nearly $500,000 per mile; whereas average cost of track per mile has only been between $40,000 and $76,000.

The average price received by the railroads has been $10. per acre. Their 200,000,000 acres for "carrying the mails" has, therefore, brought them $2,000,000,000. -- (two billions of dollars).

As long ago as 1848, there was a strong "Nationalist" movement which agitated for the building of the railroads by the people. This party pointed out that the land grants would pay for the building of the roads - as they have done in actuality - and advocated the ownership of the roads by the people who gave up their public domain lands to pay for them. But this movement was killed in its inception. The citizens of the country have been defrauded of two thousand million dollars worth of land, and the railroads are owned by private corporations.

Should a movement be started to "nationalize" the roads today, the said roads would probably raise the cry of "compensation" and wish to have returned to them the money which they (the stockholders) are alleged to have paid for construction.

But let us return to our muttons:

The patient reader will have asked: Where do I personally come in?

The answer is: are you satisfied to remain Born-robbed in a land of plenty?

But, you will say, we still have some of our public domain left; it has not all been given away to railroads.

Quite true:

The surveyed public domain, on June 30, 1911, was 188,889,136 acres.

But where is it?

Most of it is in what is known as the "arid belt" and 60,000,000 acres of it could not be used unless it was first irrigated; so the actual acreage of surveyed lands comes down to about 128,000,000 acres. This land lies between western Nebraska and the Pacific Coast and from British Columbia to the Mexican boundary. There is a lot of unsurveyed land, to be sure. Perhaps you would like some of that: Well, you will find it at the bottoms of our lakes; on the tops of the Rocky and other mountains; and in other inaccessible places where surveyors are somewhat chary of going. Go and get some. To paraphrase Mark Twain, "if you like that sort of land, that is the sort of land you will like." We prefer land that can be cultivated, fairly near to markets; with railroad facilities. Try to get some of this land without paying a steep price for it. It is simply out of the question.

This land question, by the way, seems a very complex affair; but, after all, it really is not. The land of a country naturally belongs to the people of that country; but Government -- in its usurped authority -- bartered the patrimony of the people to the railroads and the "big business" corporations. Thus it is that all our mineral, oil, coal, agricultural, gold, silver and other lands have passed away from the hands of the people. If our public domain still remained in the hands 6f the citizens of this country, our original independence would never have vanished. In money, we have been defrauded of thousands of millions of dollars worth of land since the year 1880. In that year, the public domain still remaining to the people was 1,387,732,209 acres. Much of this land has brought on an average $10 per acre when sold by rail- road companies. Counting the wealth of mineral lands -- gold, iron ore, petroleiun, coal, oil -- the average per acre would pan out at far more than $10. per acre; but, supposing, just for the sake of argument, we set the average price per acre at $10, we would have our public domain worth, in dollars, the colossal stun of $13,877,322,090.

To be conservative, suppose we admit that out of our thousand million acres of public domain, only half of it is worth $10. per acre. Dividing our thirteen thousand million dollars by 2 we would get still $6,900,000,000 belonging to the people which has been literally squandered by our National so-called Government. Every man, woman and child in the United States is entitled, by this figuring, to $70. of the public patrimony; or every family of four persons has been [unreadable] out of $280. You may not want your $280; but there are many millions of others here today who do; and if this vast wealth were divided among but 20,000,000 workers alone, each worker would have guaranteed to him, or her, a fair livelihood. If our public domain had remained in the hands of the people, and been leased to railroads, and other business corporations, the citizens of this country would be receiving per capita something in the neighborhood of $900. per annum. The State of Minnesota, for instance, reserved certain of its lands and rented them to iron-mining corporations. The lands were assigned to the public school authorities by the State Legislature; and were located in the distant Lake Superior district. The transaction was considered by politicians of the day in the nature of a joke. However, the school authorities have received more than $16,000,000 by way of revenue from these "worthless lands." Each year a very substantial return comes into the coffers of the State from ore leases alone.

Seizing the lands of the people is the time honored method of depriving them of their liberty. In the declining da3rs of Rome, the immense "latifundia" -- or broad estates -- of the senators worked by slaves sapped the strength of the Empire, and brought upon it ruin.

The method of "big business" has been along classic lines. Before systematic exploitation of the people could be possible the public lands had first to be expropriated. And this has been done. Except in the arid regions, little public domain now remains.

Of course we have our belated "Conservation Movement," which has withdrawn from exploitation all land which has not already been seized by our Democratic Government -- namely the rich oligarchy under which we now precariously exist.

But the slavery of the people of this country is complete. The birthright of the people has been bartered away. Fraud and chicanery, violence and the "statute of limitations," have transferred the lands of the people into the hands of private ownership.

Have you ever considered the actual value of these "titles" to land, which the great corporations think they have so cleverly obtained? Some of the very best legal opinion has already challenged the validity of much of this transfer; and, doubtless, when the people become strong enough to investigate the matter, they will be able to reclaim their rights to the country. Speaking of title to land, here are a few opinions on that subject which may be of interest in this connection:

Blackstone, the great legal authority, said: "Accurately and strictly speaking, there is no foundation in nature or natural law why a set of words on parchment should convey the dominion of land."

Chief Justice Coleridge, one of the greatest authorities in legal matters, in discussing the land laws, said; "These -- our land laws -- might be for the general advantage, and if they could be shown to be so, by all means they should be maintained; but, if not, does anyone, with what he is pleased to call his mind, deny that a state of laws under which such mischief could exist under which the country itself would exist, not for its people, but for a mere handful of people, should be absolutely set aside."

Another great legal authority, Justice Longfield, pronounced the following judgment:

"Property in land differs in its origin from property in any commodity produced by human labor; the product of labor naturally belongs to the laborer who produced it; but the same argument does not apply to land, which is not produced by labor, but is the gift of the Creator of the world to mankind. Every argument used to give an ethical foundation for the exclusive right of private property in land has a latent fallacy."

With these legal arguments in their favor, the people have the perfect right to demand back from the railway and other corporate cormorants, the public domain which has been filched by fraud and deception, to say nothing of other means, from the people. Ownership by the people of our public domain lands, to say nothing of the immensely valuable lands in our great cities - also obtained by very doubtful means -- would place the people above want and the fear of want.

Unfortunately, in our anxiety to obtain immediate redress of many of our social and economic evils, we are apt to overlook one of the great remedies which lie right at our door. There is no reason why the people should be Born-robbed in a land of plenty.

Is there any peaceful means of re-obtaining for the people all this wealth of land, both in town and country? Any means by which, without disturbing a single title, (except those obtained by deliberate fraud -- against which the "statute of limitations" does not act) all lands may be restored to their rightful owners? Yes, there is a means, and a very simple one. The Government, or the people, by means of their ballots, could impose a tax upon all land values which would automatically bring back to the people the lands of their birthright.

We would then be once more a prosperous people. Until that is done, our alleged prosperity is a mere figment of the imagination -- the veriest shadow.

As THE heavens were appropriated to the gods, so was the earth to the children of men. - Tacitus' Speech of Boiocalus to the Roman general, Annals XIIL. 56.

With gates of silver and bars of gold
Ye have fenced my sheep from their Father's fold;
I have heard the dropping of their tears
In heaven these eighteen years.

James Russell Lowell.