In the land office we see the miserable tool and his master.
In the legislative halls we see the miserable tool and his master.
And we see the leaves on Liberty's Tree droop and wither as these deadly
borers do their work under the bark below.
Up among the peaks and valleys of the Sierra Nevada lies the town of
Mariposa, settled by gold seekers whose rich findings gave world wide
fame to this hamlet among the mountains. Aluvial gold and quartz bearing
gold was scattered with lavish hand through the surrounding hills, and
in the beds of the summer-dried streams. Generous laws of their own
making, gave ample room, and the eager workers toiled on, forgetting the
past hardships of the long journey where so many fell by the way, and
the rugged hills became endeared to them as they marked out the shaded
spots on their shelving sides where their coming dear ones could look
down on the busy scene below. But the camp follower with ready knife
never finished the wounded brave quicker than did the "land grant"
swindler finish Mariposa when her riches became the theme of every gold
camp throughout the world. And to-day the big hearted and stalwart miner
goes to fever-laden Africa and ice-bound Alaska, when there are whole
mountains of the best mineral bearing land in the world in his own
country, but which our present laws forbid him to touch.
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