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Show Federal Landlordism I AST December, at the close of the hearings 'of the United States senate committee on public lands, Secretary of the Interior Lane submitted sub-mitted a paper on, "Water Power," which opens with this question: "Should the government allow its dam and reservoir sites and other lands valuable for power development to pass from its hands forever?" Mr. S. A. Bailey of this city takes up that question and answers it in a way that does not leave1 Mr. Secretary Lane a peg to hang his pajamas pa-jamas on. Mr. Bailey reminds the secretary that he is but a sorry imitator of the theories of one Pinchot, who long ago expressed the belief that: "Under whatever law it any part of the national na-tional forest is taken up the land and all its resources re-sources pass out of the hands of the people forever." for-ever." Mr. Bailey reminds the secretary that should the mere temporary proprietary interest of the government, as he construes it, be carried to its logical conclusion, the result would not only be the retention by the federal government for all time of all the lands and resources of the state and the ultimate obliteration of all personal ownership. own-ership. l Mr. Bailey points out that it is only when the title to public lands passes into private hands that the people have any interest in it or control con-trol over it. Further, that it Is not true that the government, govern-ment, either state or national, conveys its proprietary pro-prietary powers when it conveys a title to an individual. in-dividual. It still holds the property and the individual indi-vidual himself subject to whatever duties and obligations are due to the sovereign power of the state or nation. The pamphlet of Mr. Bailey discusses the question from every legal and historical standpoint, stand-point, and his argument is unanswerable, save under the law of might, the same that, in another way, is pleaded by the hold-up when he takes the unarmed citizen's watch and purso. This whole oppression has come' from the brains of such men as have never earned an honest hon-est dollar, who not only know nothing about the hardships of the poor, or how the world's work , in, carrlffd nn, but wbn would, if thy rnulfl add-to add-to the burdens of the poor by making, at the people's peo-ple's expense, soft places for that class which has never earned an honest dollar in their lives. The late Senator J. P. Jones once said to a distinguished dis-tinguished brother senator who is likewise a distinguished dis-tinguished scholar and author: "I have heard your speeches, senator, and greatly admired them; I have read your books and greatly enjoyed them; but, senator, you don't know a d d thing in the world of how a poor man goes to work to make a living." The same words would apply to Mr. Pinchot and his clasB of poachers, except that their speeches are not enjoyable nor their books to be admired. Of course the government is the general proprietor pro-prietor of the country and all the property and. lives within it, ibut its ownership is but a trust-to trust-to be administered in- a way not to interfere with, the individual rights of a free peopio. The goyernment has the sovereign ownership-of ownership-of navigable rivers, but what would be thought ,J were its agents to declare that no citizen nor private pri-vate company should place steamboats on a navigable nav-igable river, lest the government "should lose control, of Its power?" That would bo just as. wise and logical as is Mr. Lane's proposition, about water powers. The wealth and greatness of this republic have not been created by the government, but by the people working in a private or corporate capacity and this claim that of the country's resources alL the people should have each his pro-rata is as. foolish as it is illegal and unwise. It is simply whether it is best for the pioneeV with his necessities to meet and bis industry and. ? initiative' to urge him on, as was the rule from, the first settlement on the shore of the Atlantic, or to take from him every valuable resource that he may discover, and place it in tho hands of an army of government leaches to be developed by that army through the use of the money which the-people the-people pay into the national treasury. To believe the last would not only be wicked and dishonest,, but a shameful perversion of the principles on which the government was founded. |