the regulation of land dealing.
The United States needs acutely regulation of land dealing within its
boundaries, and as a natural antecedent to regulation it should have and
must have a definite land policy. To go one step farther, no efficient
policy is possible unless it is founded on certain sound principles.
What are the guiding principles for a practical land policy?

First of all, there is the economic principle. It is the increase of
food production, on which the very life of the nation, its development
and future strength, depend. The war demonstrated this in a most
convincing way. The increase of productivity of the land must be
continuous and permanent. The 1920 Census reports city population
increases five times as rapidly as rural. Aside from conservation of the
soil--that is, saving what we have--there must go on constant
improvement of the soil by fertilizing and by the introduction of more
efficient methods of cultivation, intensive as well as extensive.

Then comes the social principle of an efficient land policy, with the
end in view of affording more opportunities for the establishment of
family homes. Among other results, this would closely bind the
foreign-born elements of the population to the country and in this way
materially assist the assimilation process. It would make for better
public health and for greater happiness of the people.

The political goal is the stability of democracy and the strength of the
country in domestic and international relations, in peace and in war.
The agrarian disorders of Europe, its varied turmoils, revolutions, and
war, accompanied by starvation and epidemics, are to a large degree due
to the old prevailing out-of-date forms of land tenure inherited from
mediaeval times.

Toward these ends certain changes and reforms in the distribution and
colonization of land should be undertaken. The existing conditions are
such as require prompt attention, not only in the interests of the
general public and for the sake of the general good of the country, but
especially for the sake of the immigrant. Because of his greater
ignorance and helplessness and his usually strong desire to settle on
land, he suffers more often and more severely than the native-born
American from the unscrupulousness and dishonesty and _laissez-faire_
methods that flourish in the absence of a public land policy and public
land regulation.

The partial or utter misfortune which the immigrant so o