Watson's Magazine, Vol. IV, No. 2, April, 1906

by Various

The Idler wouldn’t; the Feeble couldn’t; the Hunter didn’t; the strong, clear-headed Laborer made the farm.

Those who assail private ownership of land say that “the man who makes a farm doesn’t make it in the sense that one makes a basket or a chair.” They see clearly that, if they admit that the pioneer who goes into the wilderness or the swamps and creates a farm, is to be put on the same footing as the man who goes into the woods, gets material and makes a canoe, or a chair or a basket, it is “farewell world” to their theory about the land. Therefore they say that the farm was already there, waiting for the farmer. All the farmer had to do was to go there and tickle the soil with a hoe, and it laughed with the harvest.

How very absurd! You might just as well say that the willows that bent over the waters of the brook were baskets waiting for the tardy basketmaker to come and get them. You might just as well say that the hide on the cow’s back was a pair of ladies’ shoes waiting for the lady to come and fit them to her dainty feet.

Must we get rid of our common sense, our practical knowledge, before we can argue a case of this sort? Do not these doctrinaires know that they are denying physical facts, plain everyday experience, when they say that a piece of wild land in the desert, in the swamps, on the mountain side, or in the woody wilderness is a farm waiting for the farmer? Sheer nonsense never went further. But they are compelled to this extent because of the necessities of their case. They see at once that if ever they admit my position that the laborer takes raw materials with which nature supplies him, and out of those raw materials creates something that did not exist before, then the laborer is entitled to that which his labor creates.

Now, do you mean to tell me, that for thousands of years there were farms waiting the pioneers here in North America? Consider for a moment what the New England, or the Southern, or the Western farmer had to do before he had made a farm. He had to go into the woods with an axe in one hand and a rifle in the other. Very frequently he was shot down before he could make his farm, just as Abraham Lincoln’s grandfather was killed. Very frequently he died from the fever engendered in the woods before he had made his farm, just as Andrew Jackson’s father did, in the effort to make a farm in the wilderness of North Carolina. Supposing the farmer was able to snatch up his gun quick enough to shoot the Indian who was trying to shoot him, and supposing that his constitution was strong enough to resist the malarial atmosphere in which he had to labor while creating that farm, what was the process through which he went in making that farm? He had to cut off an enormous growth of timber. He had to grub up stumps and roots. He had to plow and cross-plow the soil until it had become a seed bed. He had to inclose the farm to keep out the wild animals which would have devoured his crop. If in a rocky section, he had to remove the stones which encumbered the ground. If in a damp, swampy section, he had to exercise skill, as well as labor, in draining the soil. After four or five years, the laborer had made a farm—something as different from the wild land which he found in the woods as the pine tree is from the lumber which lies upon the lumber-yard; as different as the wool on the sheep’s back is from the coat which you wear; something as different as the willow and the bamboo are from the chairs and the baskets which are made from them.

Now, the doctrinaires say that it would be a sufficient reward to that laborer to give him the crop that he made on the land. Would it? For what length of time will you give him those crops? If you ask the laborer, he will say, “I made this farm; I risked my life in the work: I shortened my days by the labor, the exposure, the drudgery of making this farm. I never would have gone to this amount of toil if I had not believed that society would secure me in the possession of the farm after I made it.”

Having established him in his security of possession, which I say is tantamount to title, suppose that laborer wants to change his farm for a stock of manufactured goods, or for silver and gold, or for horses, or for another piece of land, do you mean to say he shall not have the right to do it? If so, you limit his title, and you have not the right to do so. That which he made he ought to have the right to dispose of on such terms as please him. His title having originated in the sacred rights of labor, you should not limit his enjoyment or his disposition of that which his labor created. If you recognize his right to exchange one product of his labor for another, you recognize his right to exchange all products of his labor for others. In other words, by plain course of reasoning, you arrive at the principle that the bargain and sale of lands is founded upon the right of the laborer to exchange the product of his labor with those who may have product of labor which he could use to better advantage than he can use his own.

Now, let us see. The laborer who made the farm dies. What shall become of it? Away back in the origin of property, occupancy was the first title recognized. As long as one individual, or one tribe, occupied a certain spot their right to use it was recognized, but no longer. When possession was abandoned, the next individual, or the next tribe who occupied that spot, had the right of possession. When tribes ceased to wander about, the occupancy of the spot which the tribe had taken possession of became permanent.

Therefore, the title to that spot grew up in the tribe along with permanent possession. No civilization was ever created by wandering tribes. It is only when the tribe fixes its permanent residence in some particular spot, recognized as exclusively its own, that there is any such thing as law and order and civilization. It is clear enough when we consider one tribe in its relations to other tribes. Let us consider the tribe in its relations to its members. Each individual in the beginning had a title by occupancy to the spot which he cultivated, and this security of possession lasted so long as the occupancy lasted. If the tribesman abandoned his spot of land, with the intent to surrender the same, then the next fortunate tribesman who came along could take possession of it and hold it. But, in the course of time, this created great inconvenience, because, as favored spots became more desirable, the competition to get them was fiercer. Hence, there were feuds, bloody struggles, disorders in the tribe. Consequently, by natural evolution society was forced, first, to recognize the right of the individual as long as he wished to occupy the spot which he had taken possession of; second to provide for the succession to that title when the spot became vacant.

The learned men tell us that, at the death of the occupant, his own family, his own children, being naturally the first who would know that he was dead, were naturally the first who would take possession after his death. Therefore, the sons of the deceased tenant always became the first occupants of the vacant land which had been left vacant by the death of their father. This succession of the sons to the fathers becoming universal, was finally recognized by the law of the tribe; and in the course of time it was recognized further in the law which allowed the tenant to make a will and to say who should take his property after his death.