The Fight for the Future of Washington's Soil
An 1877 editorial warns against the 'monster evil' of land monopoly, arguing that preventing a feudal system of landlord-tenant reliance is the only way to ensure the new state's future liberties.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
In forming our organic law, we hope to have the tenure upon which land is held so fixed that no person can thereafter acquire more than a limited number of acres—say 640, or at most 1,000 acres, which is certainly ample for the use of any one man. For more than forty years we have advocated the freedom of the public lands to actual settlers, and the limitation of ownership to prevent land monopoly. In the mean time we have assisted in the formation of two State governments in which the principle was partially recognized, and propose to be a candidate for Delegate to the Constitutional Convention for Washington, for the purpose of urging this and some other measures which we deem of vital importance to the people. Patriotism itself will shrivel and die where it draws no sustenance from the soil. All the domestic and social virtues are the growth of home and the fireside. A tenant house or a tenant farm only promotes a system of lordly domination and vassal dependence.
“Patriotism itself will shrivel and die where it draws no sustenance from the soil. All the domestic and social virtues are the growth of home and the fireside.”
This 1877 editorial reflects a foundational anxiety about land speculation and corporate ownership that remains at the heart of the Pacific Northwest’s modern housing crisis. The author’s demand to prioritize individual settlers over 'lordly' land barons mirrors today’s tension between residential housing needs and the massive scale of speculative property acquisition.
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