Repeal the land laws! Let the settlement of the public domain cease until we know its capabilities. Better to deprive a few worthy men and women of the advantage afforded by the laws than to throw away the birthright of unborn millions. We do not know very much as yet about the ability of the West to sustain population, but this we do know, that no general land law can apply to this great semi-arid region and give anything like equal justice. Investigate carefully the areas desired for settlement. Make the unit of the homestead variable, according to the amount needed to support a family. In irrigated sections but a few acres will suffice. In even the drier districts it may well be questioned whether more than 160 acres should be granted any one settler. We cover altogether too much ground. Our Western farming has borne bitter harvestings of the weed called “land hunger.” We need to concentrate. And whatever laws may be enacted, they should be of such a character as will stop speculation in lands intended for the people. Let the lands be sold, and no title pass until after a reasonably long term of years, and after actual continuous residence and actual valuable improvements have shown beyond question that home making was the primary object of the settler. But the urgent present need is for repeal of the various laws that permit this land plunder. We can settle details of future administration later on. We cannot later on return to the people their stolen lands. [Illustration] _Candid_ Mrs. NEWROCKS—If there’s anything I hate it’s writing letters. NEWROCKS—Do you? Mrs. NEWROCKS—Yes, indeed. I wish somebody would invent an easy substitute for spelling. _Proof_ FIRST COMMUTER—This is a one-horse railroad, anyhow. SECOND COMMUTER—Of course it is. Why, J. P. Morgan never tried to get control of it. [Illustration: THE TRIUMPH OF JUSTICE BY CLARENCE S. DARROW.] It was in 1850 that William Henry came to Chicago. He was then a young man of twenty-five and fresh from his father’s farm. While William was still in his teens it was plain that the slow life of New England would never satisfy his ambitions and desires and so his restless nature turned him to the great, wide West. William had scarcely landed in the little, muddy, struggling town before he knew that he and the city would grow up together. Even in its early days, Chicago had that wonderful power which clings to it still—that power of inspiring every one who touches it with absolute confidence in its greatness and its strength. When William Henry came to Chicago it was a little village stuck fast in the swamp and mud that bordered the great lake, while in every other direction stretched the endless prairie with its black soil and its green, waving grass. But William Henry was young and Chicago was young and even then in his imagination he saw before him the endless stone streets and the unnumbered stores and factories and homes that the future years would bring.