Don't Fall into a Trap

New York, 1895

There may be some objections to the oyster planting bill introduced by Senator Childs, but its good points are many and important. A committee of Hempstead town officers have waited on the Jamaica town officers and asked them to indorse still another oyster planting bill which Mr. Vacheron will introduce in the Assembly. We are compelled to look upon this bill with suspicion because the men behind it are those who have driven the poor men out of the public waters and given the rich oyster planters a monopoly of the lands under water, including the natural growth oyster and clam lands. The Republican Boss of this county is one of these oyster land monopolists, and it looks very much as if the town officers of Hempstead, all of them Republicans and in politics, were making a cloak of themselves to cover him up.

We hope the Jamaica town officers will not fall into the trap that seems to have been set for them.

A committee of Senators, of whom Mr. Childs was one, spent a part of the summer investigating the wrongs that hundreds of men were suffering from through the autocratic conduct of the oyster barons. Literally there were no lands left which poor men could work for a living. If by accident they got on land claimed by the monopolists, shot guns were leveled at them. If they raked on land that contained natural growth shell-fish, they were arrested on the claim that the monopolist had planted the seed. Public officers, either ignorantly or corruptly, conspired with the planters and the poor men had no chance at all. It was shown that hundreds of men used to earn from $2 to $3 a day by raking on the free lands, but since the planters' monopoly came into existence these free lands have been appropriated and the average earning of a poor man is 75 cents a day.

Through the Rev. Mr. Schultz these abuses were laid before the board of Supervisors last year, but the board having no power to redress them, appeal was made to Senator Childs, and the investigation followed, which more than substantiated the very worst charges lodged by the clergyman who valorously championed the downtrodden workingmen. The bill introduced by Senator Childs is intended to eradicate these wrongs, and to make every foot of land bearing shellfish of natural growth free to every inhabitant. Most of the leased and the stolen land is controled by residents of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, and the Senator's bill takes the land away from them and places it at the service of those who live here. Of course these nonresident planters and their agents are against the Senator's bill, and we wager that it will be found that the Vacheron bill is framed in their interest, and is intended to defeat the Childs bill, and that is as good as passing the Vacheron bill, for the abuses which hundreds of men complain of can and will go right on.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, March 8, 1895, p. 4.