To expect that every man should have a home of his own and a part of the land would be Utopian. It would be a dream, and such dreams would be dissipated by the waking senses which come to us in teaching the actual and not the ideal.

But there is a measure of conservatism which should protect the industrious pursuits of the masses of the world. Lands having been given to corporations, if they have not fulfilled their contracts, it is the highest duty of this Congress to forfeit their contracts and take the lands back and fulfil their pledges with the people, made long before the legislation which gave them these vast properties. The citizens of the United States should have these lands for homes, and the government should regard these as sacred trusts.

Mr. Speaker, I view the future of this country with hope, and I have never believed the corporations could control its destinies. As I have said, they cannot combine to control it; but no one can be insensible to the vast power in the hands of a privileged class, and of the influence they have in the legislation of Congress and of the States. It is an unfortunate fact that men are willing to do as a corporation what they would scorn to do as individuals, and they too often forget in the parlor of a corporation the code of morality that governs them as individuals.

At the beginning of the French revolution in 1790 there were issued 9,000,000,000 of assignats, founded upon the public domain, from which it may be estimated how much of that country was held by the governing classes.

The issue of the assignats was a financial experiment and failed. Then came the revolution, and from it the restoration of the land of the country from the State and church to the people by purchase, and from that time France has been divided into small properties. But two nations in the world

could have paid the exactions which were made on France at the end of the war with Germany. France is one; the United States is the other. England could not have paid it. England is owned by a small portion of her people. I have a sincere belief that France will remain a republic, and chiefly from the number of small proprietors.

Our government made these vast concessions, and has also covenants with the people, as it held these lands in trust for their use and benefit. A code of morality that applies to individuals which cannot be applied equally to the government is a fraud and a delusion.

But, sir, the government should be held strictly to the letter of the law, and the people will sustain any such legislation, but beyond that not one step. No part of the lands granted that have been forfeited by the failure to perform the cove nants on the part of the companies should remain in their hands one day. And it must be considered as the settled policy of this government that no more of the public domain will be given to corporations.

My time is nearly exhausted, Mr. Speaker, and perhaps there is little more to say on this question. It cannot fail to be noticed with great satisfaction that at a recent national convention there was a declaration made against the importation of foreign laborers by corporations. How wonderfully elastic political opinion is in this country! Its views are as variable and changing as the colors of the kaleidoscope. Why, here in this book upon my desk is a statute passed in 1864, under which foreign labor could be imported, and which expressly provided that the imported man could be mortgaged and held in bondage for a year, and if he built a house his house and land could be sold by summary process on the contract made with him. At that time the war was

raging. To give more accommodation and encouragement to these people, it was declared that they should not be subject to military duty. That statute bears date the 4th of July. It is rather remarkable that the birthday of freedom and liberty and equality should be selected on which to sign such a law. That law was afterward repealed, and did not long di grace our statute-book.

And now, sir, waking after a long period of inexcusable indifference, the convention at Chicago has declared against any such legislation - in fact for the enactment of such legislation as is necessary to prevent it. During the last Congress the passage of the Chinese bill was steadily resisted upon this floor. The bill first passed was sent back with a veto by the President, and it is a notorious fact that every voice raised on this floor and every vote cast against the bill of this session to make that law effectual was by Republican members, whose convention declares for the policy they have opposed; and who, sir, knows what will be the fate of that bill in the august chamber at the other end of the Capitol, controlled as it is by the political friends of the gentlemen on the other side?

It was my good fortune to be here when the first Chinese bill was passed; and it was my privilege to raise my voice and cast my vote for it; and doubtless the convention soon to meet at Chicago will speak with no uncertain sound on this important question. Too many have already been imported, too many are here now; they interfere with the labor of the American citizen.

Mr. Speaker, what becomes of your tariff and revenue laws? They are questions that can be settled in the future; if they are not correct they can be corrected, and the wisdom is here to do it. They are questions that can be settled in

accordance with the constant change of industrial conditions and require legislation adapted to these conditions. There is no man of sufficient wisdom to anticipate what the economical and financial necessities of this great people will require. Congress is here to attend to that; to legislate for their interests and their wants.

But the question of giving away the lands, the inheritance of the people, cannot be decided by the platform of a national convention. We have the right in this country now, or if not now in the near future, to say who shall come to this country and who shall not come, and we will not permit corporate wealth and power, either foreign or domestic, to control this country and dominate its destinies by the importation of such labor as has been imported within the last two or three years. In the district I have the honor to represent large numbers of Italians, Hungarians, and Bulgarians have been imported. They do not assimilate with our people, and never can any more than the Chinese. They interfere with our own citizens who labor, native and naturalized, and take from them their legitimate employment.

There is no question that should appeal more strongly to the statesman, philanthropist, and patriot than the condition of the laborers of this country. The wonderful skill and ingenuity of the American people has wrought such marvellous improvement in labor-saving machinery, that it, in a large measure, does the work of man, until the hand of the skilled mechanic is rarely found, and there is an overproduction, and there can scarcely be said to be employment for the labor of this country; if not now that time can be anticipated in the near future. Now, if there is any power for us to legislate so as to protect American labor, it is a duty we owe to the people to do so. And we can do it on this ques

tion, for I cannot but believe that if the public lands had been reserved for the purpose for which they were intended, and that the crowded population of the east could go west and find homes there, great good would be done. We are growing in population, and the lands now illegally held by corporations under grants that have been forfeited or being acquired in vast tracts by foreign capitalists, would afford in the future, homes for millions of American freemen.

Let us return, then, to the original condition of things, before that terrible war separated us, making the South poor, and blistering the morality of the North; let us return to the principles of the founders of this government; let us accept the constitution and laws, and live up to them; let us keep our covenant and require the fulfilment of the covenant with us; let us be faithful to our trust; and above all things let liberty and justice, equality, concord, and fraternity prevail.