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10 its sale, passed into the hands of non-resident owners for speculative purposes. More than thirty million acres yet remain in the hands of speculators, being enough to make one hundred and eighty seven thousand five hundred homesteads, of one hundred and sixty acres each. If these thirty millions had been sold to actual settlers, and dedicated to the raising of corn, wheat and other products, they would have been yielding, at the low estimate of ten dollars per acre, an annual profit of three hundred and fifty million dollars, while furnishing homes for the multitudes, who have been driven to the more distant frontier, and at the cost of greater privations and dangers. This policy is thus seen to be as financially stupid, as it is flagrantly unjust. "In California, two men own a frontage on the San Joaquin river of forty miles in extent, while two other speculators have bought government lands amounting to five hundred thousand acres. To realize the mischief of these monopolies it should be remembered that the tracts, thus appropriated, are to be found chiefly in the valleys, and fringing the bays and rivers, and are the choice lauds of the State."

"This monopoly has wrought upon the country, evils more fearful and enduring, than those of War, Pestilence, and Famine. And yet, through all the long years of its mad ascendency, Congress, by a simple enactment, has had the power to end it forever." "An act, declaring that no more of the Public Domain shall be sold, except as provided in the Pre-emption and Homestead laws, was all that was needed to stay the