They are widely separated, you cannot pass from one to the
other and receive confidence from both. If you wait upon the landlords
you will get their side of the story; but, then, the tenants will
distrust you and shut their thoughts up from you. If you go among the
tenants you will not find much favor with the landlords. You must choose
which side you will investigate."
Considering this advice good, I determined to go among the people and
from that standpoint to write my opinions of what I saw and heard. I
made up my mind to tell all I could gather of the opinions and
grievances of the poor, knowing that the great are able to defend
themselves if wrongfully accused, and can lay the land question, as they
see it, before the world's readers.
I hear many take the part of the landlords in this manner: "You are
sorry for the tenants, who certainly have some cause of complaint; can
you not spare some sympathy for the landlords who bought these lands at
a high figure, often borrowing the money to buy them and are getting no
return for the money invested?"
Land hunger is a disease that does not attack the tenants alone. The
poor man hungers for land to have the means of living; the rich man
hungers for land because it confers rank, power and position.
