The Wahkiakum County Eagle - Established as The Skamokawa Eagle in 1891

To The Eagle:

America was once a nation owned by the people. Now, nearly half our land is owned by government, international corporations and land trusts. Land is being concentrated back into the hands of the elite. Private property is what distinguishes us from all other nations. If government controls the land, they control our lives and America will be no different than the feudal systems our Founding Fathers fled in Europe. It is for this reason private property rights were central to the Constitutional principles of our nation. Private property secures liberty.

In 2006, foreign investors bought significant amounts of U.S. land, an 8.6 percent increase from the year before, bringing their total to 16.4 million acres. Land trusts reportedly have doubled their holdings between 2004 and 2009 to 37 million acres, 16.5 times the size of Yellowstone National Park. What remains in private hands is highly regulated and tightly controlled by a morass of environmental laws.

The radical environmental movement is behind much of this change. They believe individuals cannot be trusted to use natural resources wisely. They have won the propaganda war and succeeded in passing hundreds of laws restricting the use of private property in America, without improving our environment. I invite anyone to take a tour with private land owners of the “Kandoll Road Project” done by Columbia Land Trust and Ducks Unlimited to see destruction of an ecosystem and continuous destruction of properties.

As private ownership of land has been reduced, control over our government has lessened to the point that we are now witnessing the greatest expansion of the federal government in our nation’s history. The more land we lose, the less land we have to feed and clothe our families, communities and nation. There is no end in sight unless our generation takes action.

The programs American Stewards implement are reversing this trend. Strategies are unique, sophisticated, and powerful. They rely fully upon current law, which is why they are so effective. They give people at the local level the ability to protect their land, economies and way of life from an ever expanding government. But the ultimate success of this mission depends upon reaching every community in our nation that values these principles.

This is the mission, of American Stewards and many around the nation in our time, and our purpose – to preserve private property rights in America and with it, our liberty.

Raven Webb

Rosburg