The farmer who has children that are not of age when the new arrangement
goes into force will see great hardship in the 160-acre law. He intended
to give this piece of land to one son and that piece to another, and so
on. He would give each of these sons more, but some one else owns the
rest of the country thereabouts, and these, say, 160-acre tracts, are
the best he can do. Leaving out of the question whether his sons can
locate alongside of himself or not, and confining ourselves to their
chance of being able to get 160 acres, which is the vital point in the
whole matter, he must see that, if he must surrender his excess and all
others must do the same, there would be more land to take up than there
are people to take it. We are in a Republic, Mr. Farmer, and the
interest of the many who have called at your door call on you to
disgorge with the rest.
When we come to the land in the mountains we find that it averages poor,
yet the 160-acre law must be applied there also. To allow more would be
to give an opening to the smart one, who would take advantage as he has
always done; and as the country is pretty well tired of him we will save
future complications by tying him down to 160 acres like the rest.
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