“Scully is one of the chief figures among the alien proprietors of American soil, and has introduced the meanest features of the worst forms of Irish landlordism on his estates in this country. He has acquired in the neighborhood of 90,000 acres of land in Illinois alone, at a merely nominal figure—50 cents to $1 per acre, as a rule. His career as an Irish landlord was a history of oppression and extortion, that was appropriately finished by a bloody encounter with his tenants. He was tried and acquitted on the charge of double murder, but became so unpopular that in 1850 he sold most of his Irish property, and has since devoted himself to building up a landlord system in Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, and other States. He made entries of the public domain through the medium of the land warrants issued to Mexican war soldiers, which he purchased at the rate of 50 cents per acre. In Logan County, Ill., alone, he has 40,000 to 45,000 acres. It is the almost universal testimony that Scully’s rule in that county has reduced 250 tenants and their families to a condition approaching serfdom. Furthermore, Scully pays no taxes, the tenants signing ironclad agreements to assume the same, but they are required to pay to Scully’s agents the tax money at the same time as the rentals—the 1st of January of each year; whereas, the agent need not turn over the taxes to the county treasurer until about June 10 following. It is suggested that Scully probably makes a handsome percentage on the tax money remaining in his hands for five months. It is also shown that a great deal of this alien’s land entirely escapes taxation, thus increasing the burden on other property holders; that he takes the most extraordinary precautions to secure his rent, executing a cast iron lease, with provisions that mortgage the tenant’s all, scarcely allowing his soul to escape, and making it compulsory for small grain to be sold immediately after harvest, no matter what may be the condition of the market; that grain dealers are notified not to buy of the tenants until Scully’s rent is paid; in short, that Scully has founded a land system so exacting that it is only paralleled in Ireland, and rules his tenantry so despotically that few can be induced to tell the story of their wrongs, justly feeling that it would involve ruin to them.”
Much sympathy has been excited by the reports of cruel evictions in Ireland, to gratify the merciless avarice of landlords, and for the justice of these reports we need not depend on Irish testimony alone. American travellers have told enough, and the London Standard of Jan. 18 says: “Some of this winter’s evictions have been inhuman spectacles, fit only for a barbarous country and a barbarous age.”
There is nothing intrinsically wrong in the relation of landlord and tenant, which should excite a prejudice against the landlord; on the contrary, many landlords have been a blessing to the communities in which they lived; but our land system is a conspicuous part of a grandly false social system based on pure selfishness, which makes all men jealous competitors, and destroys the spirit of fraternity.
Our social system tends ever to make the rich richer and the poor poorer, and the struggle in Ireland is but the forerunner of a movement that will extend around the globe. Is there no remedy for the evils? Indeed there is! Sixty years of thought have made me familiar with the evils and the remedies. Some of the remedies are coming to the front at present. All will in time be presented in the Journal of Man.
Land reform is but one of the great measures that progress demands. The first and greatest is a PERFECT EDUCATION for all, moral and industrial. The second is SPIRITUAL RELIGION. The third is JUSTICE TO WOMAN. The fourth, which is JUSTICE IN LEGISLATION, includes land reform, financial reform, and many other reforms. The fifth is INDUSTRIAL CO-OPERATION. The sixth is TEMPERANCE.
The first reform includes all the others. The second would ultimately bring all things right, and so would the third in a longer lapse of time.
Anthropology is the intellectual guidance into all reforms, and therefore should precede all. Hence it is the leading theme of this Journal.
The Sinaloa Colony.
Mankind would be one family or group of families, if the principles of Jesus could be imparted to the human race. But the robber races that occupy this globe at present are intensely hostile in feeling to that life of Christian love which is commanded in the books which they honor with their lips.