Property Owners Quotes
1st Viscount Bolingbroke. See {627799} for the origin of the bias against merchants and money men. It also represents a rigidity of class structure that characterized England until very recently. The landed gentry were the first class citizens. Usually titles went with the land. In America, someone who would be successful as a merchant or a banker could achieve the highest of social status and political influence. This was not true in England where a merchant that was far more wealthy than a landed lord was not accepted by the aristocracy.
After Roosevelt, most eras of American politics more or less followed the pattern Roosevelt described herein as a “calamity”, with the anger becoming more or less intense. Jefferson thought that these were natural divisions of politics in all societies--{604810}. The thing that masked this for years was race and slavery. In Lincoln’s time there were liberals and conservatives in both parties if race were ignored. In Theodore Roosevelt’s era, he, Taft and others were generally liberal reformers, while a large number of Republicans were conservative supporters of the status quo. Some democrats were radical reformers like William Jennings Bryan while others were arch conservatives. Until 1964 and the Civil Rights Act there were many conservatives in the Democratic Party, but almost all switched to the Republican Party in anger. The Republican conservatives tended to drive the Republican liberals out of the party and for the last part of the 20th century Roosevelt’s “calamity” well described the American political scene, and the anger increased carrying partisan bitterness into the 21st century.
There was much unrest caused by many evictions of poor tenant by landlords who were not recognizing any of their “duties”. This problem and the degree of government regulatory and legislative involvement have been on the political agenda for eons and continue to this day. The duties tend to change with times and places; the rights that the property owners assert seem to be constant and uniform.
Black Natives with property had voted and served on juries. This was abhorrent to the Afrikaners whom Rhodes wanted as political allies so he switched his position on native suffrage.
The Irish landlords were a craven and greedy lot. See {639225}.
Salisbury was a brilliant, effective prime minister, but he was a snob and not a democrat. See {639131}.
This is a law that even exists today in most municipalities for sidewalks but not often for the streets themselves. This was probably the origin in Western law of the notion that property owners should be responsible for the public sidewalks or streets.
As long as there have been attorneys and organized government, there have been attorney abuses of whatever systems exist. This was a major problem throughout America and continues to this day. For many interactions with government, attorneys and their skills are absolutely necessary. But for others, they are not. It is very difficult for many people to tell the difference, and the more bureaucratic and non-transparent the processes are, the easier it is for unscrupulous attorneys to take advantage.
