FORTY ACRES WITHOUT THE MULE
Lazarus, Bill
Forty acres without the mule Alaska's giveaway for the rich Bill Lazarus In a vote promising the largest land rush in U.S. history, Alaskans have decided to carve as much as thirty million acres...
...The state owns less than 15 per cent of the land near roads, rivers, and lakes within an hour's travel of population centers...
...suitable for farming...
...What about farming the land as a tax break...
...Like the anti-tax drives which have swept the nation since Californians approved Proposition Thirteen last year, the Beirne initiative rode the swell of popular resentment of government...
...And relatively little of the land is easily accessible...
...It completely negates any land-use planning...
...A claimant might choose to live on the land, but few people can eke out a living on forty acres of Alaska real estate...
...A rich person (or corporation) will be able to hire land advisers to find the choice, accessible property...
...Beirne and his disciples made much of the fact that only one million acres of Alaska land are in private hands...
...The compartmentalization of these vast open stretches will hobble a valued Alaskan way of life...
...We've created such a speculative market here that Big Bucks gets richer and Little Bucks gets poorer____Why should this land cost more than a buck an acre...
...We have totally and absolutely screwed the little guy," he said...
...Alaska has 365 million acres, only about nineteen million of which are Bill Lazarus is a reporter and columnist for the Alaska Advocate in Anchorage...
...citizens who are not residents of Alaska...
...State-owned land is available for Alaskans, rich and poor alike, to use for hunting, fishing, snowmobiling, skiing, hiking...
...Mike" Beirne, an Anchorage legislator and physician — promised a homestead for every Alaskan...
...Thousands of Alaskans could do that and keep millions of tax dollars right here in the state...
...Unlike the great Oklahoma rush for two million acres in 1889, however, Alaskans will not race across the state to stake their land, nor will they even have to set eyes on it...
...Beirne cited that feature during the campaign, saying he himself had wanted a homestead of his own since he arrived in Alaska twenty-two years ago: "The reason I didn't get the land, of course, was because when I came here I was required to live on the land, cut the trees down, break the sod...
...A developer might ring an area with a chain of forty-acre parcels, creating a private park inaccessible to the public...
...It's disastrous," says Peg Tileston, resource coordinator for the Alaska Center for the Environment...
...history, Alaskans have decided to carve as much as thirty million acres of state land into forty-acre private plots...
...No one said "giveaway," of course...
...Even in the best crop country, farms are rarely that small...
...But this one had a bizarre twist: Instead of cutting government waste by reducing taxes, government would be trimmed by the giveaway of its land...
...What he didn't mention is that few Alaskans are in a tax bracket high enough to make farming profitable as a hobby...
...But airplanes are expensive...
...For a state of 400,000 people, however, that is not an unusually small amount of private property...
...Plenty of remote land will be available...
...Nor did he dwell on certain other aspects of the land sale...
...Striking contrasting veins of idealism and greed running deep through the spirit of the nation's last frontier, the initiative's chief promoter—- Dr...
...Choice land will be claimed readily...
...I wanted to make it my hobby, a tax shelter...
...Because I couldn't, I couldn't get into farming up here...
...But it's the rich, not the poor, who stand to benefit the most...
...About 90 per cent of that land lies vacant and before the homestead initiative was proposed the state Legislature had already taken steps to provide an additional 130,000 acres...
...Individuals could tie up lands best suited for logging or mining...
...The new initiative that won approval at the polls last November requires only that a "homesteader" be a three-year state resident...
...It's a fantastic opportunity...
...It's important to remember that we the people own the land," Beirne emphasized...
...Or corporations could consolidate numerous plots for their own special interests...
...It may still be struck down by the Alaska Supreme Court on the issue that it discriminates against U.S...
...If it isn't, the ensuing spectacle may prove as interesting as bread and circuses...
...The rich will be able to pay others to claim land on their behalf...
...Even if a claimant acquires too much property by filing misinformation, Beirne's initiative specifies that the state cannot take the land back once it has been assigned...
...With the promise of free land for the masses, Beirne sold his initiative to 55 per cent of the voters...
...It's unlikely to be as rewarding...
...Once the land is divided and fenced into neat forty-acre plots, Alaskans will discover that it didn't come free...
Vol. 43 • February 1979 • No. 2
