Lawrence as one can well imagine. Practically all of the
available land (nearly two million acres) was taken during the course of a
few days.
At the later opening of another tract one hundred thousand persons took
part in the race for the "last of the people's land." And these scenes but
illustrate the rough races to the gold-fields and the iron mountains and
the oil-wells, in eagerness to seize whatever earth had to offer and turn
it to immediate wealth--rough, restless precursors, producers, poets eager
for to-day, yet coming by and by, as we have seen, to be ready to spend
for to-morrow, building schools and universities, enlarging the field of
public provision and service, and filling the land, once neighborly,
individualistic, with institutions of philanthropy.
But the habitant of that farther valley is considerate neither of himself
nor of generous nature. He is ready to spend his all, or her all, of to-
day for to-day and for to-morrow, and to some extent unselfishly, but not
to save it.
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