A Stake in the Land

by Peter A. Speek

In the field investigation for this study, land dealing was considered to be an important phase of the problem of Americanization in rural districts. Based upon the experiences and facts collected, the picture may be drawn as follows:

According to their methods, private land dealers may be classified as follows:

(1) Land "sharks," divided between those acting outside the law and those acting within the law; (2) the ordinary real-estate dealer—of two types—the lower, selfish, narrow-minded, the higher, public-spirited; (3) "realtors"; (4) land-colonizing companies.

LAND SHARKS

Land sharks are of two distinct varieties. One type is composed of men of a criminal character. The words "lawful" and "unlawful" have no meaning for them. They often sell land as their own which they do not own, or sell land other than they have promised or even shown to the buyer. Their only aim is to cheat the latter out of his money and to escape the penalty of the law.

These pirates injure both land seekers and legitimate real-estate men. They hang about the trains, railroad stations, and all points where there is a chance of attracting the land seekers. They are sometimes able to entice those who are being brought in by reputable land men. Often the pirates are of the same nationality as the immigrants and by clever emphasis on this common bond and by skillful manipulation of truth and lies they steal the men away to look at land which they call their own. The land pirates do not advertise, but live on the advertising that the reputable land men do. As a result the latter curtail their advertising and do a comparatively small amount of it, since they are prevented from realizing the full profits due on the investment. This is a situation that forces the land men to realize the need of a licensed real-estate profession.

The president of a land company in Wisconsin gives this description of the operations of the land sharks and of the effects of their activity:

Relative to the land pirates, it is hard to estimate how much land they sell, but we find that for every customer they do sell to they queer deals for this country of from ten to twenty-four which the other land men might have landed.... I estimate that within the last two years the city of ---- has lost from fifty to one hundred customers for land though these pirates, who infest the depot and meet all trains.... Their first act is to find that the man is looking for land and to find out whom he is expecting to see, for they usually come up with some definite proposition to look over. The pirate then proceeds to throw cold water on the locality that he is to look over, and very often challenges the integrity of the party whom he is going to see. He does this preparatory to starting in to taking the man off and showing him something of his own. Frequently these men do not own a foot of land, but have a few pieces for sale on commission. They are usually irresponsible men and often put through some rocky deals, and it is through them more than anything else that the real-estate men have often got very bad names for the way they have handled customers who come up to buy land. When the customer's mind has been poisoned against the party whom he was coming to see, and against the particular piece of land or locality where he had formerly planned to buy, he is often ready to quit and go back, and it is very hard for anyone thereafter to deal with him, because his confidence has been shaken in the people and the country.

The other type of land shark is composed of men who act within the law, but, for their own gain, apply methods which are mildly called "sharp" or "unethical." They either misrepresent the qualities of the land they offer, or charge a higher price than the land is worth, or make in the contract such stipulations as will afterward ruin the settler. They profit by the settlers' failures, for each settler adds something to the improvement of the land before the conditions of the land-purchase contract which he is unable to meet compel him to leave the land. The land shark sells the land to a new settler for a still higher price, capitalizing the improvements made by the former settler. With the new settler the process is repeated, and so it goes, like an endless chain. It is similar to the method of splitting fees practiced by private employment offices and foremen who keep men coming and going.

There are no data collected to show the actual extent of the activities of the land sharks, but, judging by the stories told by the immigrants, by records of court proceedings, by suspicious land advertisements in newspapers, especially in the smaller, less reliable foreign-language papers, and by the number of cases brought to the attention of the state immigration commissioners, it is safe to state that the immigrants suffer very greatly from the land-shark evil.