In the United States at this time, almost every economic crisis brought about a wave of immigration from the east to the west. Those who lost nothing in the economic crisis, those who lost their jobs and could no longer gain a foothold in the east, moved to the west. However, life in the West was not as good as it might have been, and President Lincoln's Homestead Act provided that any head of a family or a citizen of the United States who had reached the age of 21 and had never participated in the rebellion could register for a total of 16o acres (1 acre = o.4o hectares) of homesteads after swearing that the land was acquired for reclamation purposes and paying a fee of $1o, and the registrant could obtain a land license and become the owner of the homestead after living and cultivating the homestead for five years.

The western part is so vast that 16o acres of land, no matter how barren, is enough to support a small family. However, Lincoln's bill has a small, exploitable loophole. At that time, in order to obtain as much money as possible to support the war, the U.S. government added the following clause to the Homestead Act:

"If the registrant makes a pre-emptive application, it can be purchased after six months at a price of $1.25 per acre."

This clause gave a lot of speculators the opportunity to hire a group of people to register 16o acres of land, then sprinkle some grain seeds on it at will, let God cultivate it for half a year, and then buy the land for $1.25 per acre. And then transfer it to those speculators. In this way, these speculators were able to buy large tracts of land at very low prices. And then the guys who took the commission would apply for new land, and then it would be a cycle again.

Lincoln was well aware of the situation, but he could not stop it. This is because his government really needed money at that time, and secondly, because he can't afford to provoke the forces behind some of the guys who did this.

The guy who knew this was none other than Scrooge, who was praised by Lincoln as "an example of a patriotic businessman." By doing so, he bought large tracts of land in Texas and Louisiana. Because at that time, Scrooge was the biggest creditor of the U.S. government, and if the U.S. government was not satisfied with him, he only needed to stop borrowing from the federal government, and the federal government's capital chain could be broken. Therefore, Lincoln could only turn a blind eye to this behavior and pretend not to see it.

Since it could not see what Scrooge did, the Lincoln administration could only ignore the similar actions of others. So, all the guys who followed the example and drew scoops with gourds came out. Well, as a result, a lot of land was sold, but in fact, a lot fell into the hands of big capitalists like Scrooge.

Of course, there are many more lands in the West, such as New Mexico, such as Washington State, such as Oregon, such as California, such as Nevada, Utah, Arizona...... The vast expanse of land is still able to accommodate large numbers of immigrants. They all have one problem in common, though: they're all too far away.

Generally speaking, the living conditions of a poor European egg can go to North America and be better than that of Europe, because the vast western region makes it impossible for American factories to squeeze workers to the point that they cannot live for five years in the factory, but it is not so easy to really go to the west. The distance between the west and the east is, in a sense, much farther than from Europe to North America. It only takes about half a month to take a boat from Europe to North America, but from the east to the west of the United States, because the railroad has not yet been built, you have to be prepared to walk on the road for half a year.

Naturally, there are a lot of expenses along the way. Naturally, many people simply can't afford such expenses. Especially those immigrants who have just arrived in the Americas, they have spent almost all their savings on the ticket to cross the Atlantic, and they have just arrived in the United States and encountered an economic crisis. Unable to find a job or go to the west, he immediately fell into trouble.

The arrival of these new immigrants also brought disaster to the local workers. A lot of companies immediately started to lower the wages of their workers, and the owners said to the workers, "If you think the wages are low, you can do nothing." Head out to the docks and check out the European immigrants who have just disembarked! As soon as I give me a gentle whistle, they'll come running up and taking your place. You can give it a try and see if I'm lying! ”

Although this attitude is infuriating, although many workers want to slap the guy who said it, and although they also want to just leave the person who said it, the empty pockets remind them that in order to survive, they must endure the humiliation. If this kind of thing was born before the oil boom, they would definitely not tolerate such a threat, and they would have left anyway, they have been doing it for several years, and they can afford to travel to the west. But now, having lost everything in the oil boom, they really can't resist these bosses, because they are now just as poor, if not poorer, than the new immigrants, because these new immigrants, at least for now, are not saddled with usury or anything like that.

……

After agreeing with Morgan on the issue of dividing the spoils, Scrooge did not return to Cleveland, but stayed in New York. This is to deal with some things related to the communication tower, and the second is to be able to direct their gluttonous feast in the economic center of the United States.

At this time, the duck fort was actually completed. It's just that many of the family's businesses are still in Cleveland, and it's not a short-term thing to move over. However, it is still very good to treat this place as a relaxing villa and live temporarily.

At the highest point of the castle is a reflecting astronomical telescope with a diameter of 1.5 meters. This thing is a prototype of the two-meter aperture telescope in the University of Cleveland's Planetarium. When the two-meter mirror from the University of Cleveland was made, it was used by Scrooge to decorate the façade of Duckburg. Now, it has a new purpose, allowing Dorothea to look at the stars.

"Okay, see Saturn's rings, right? It's all broken stone, right? Scrooge said to Dorothea, who was watching the fresh.

"Well, can this thing see the scenery? For example, use it to see the sea during the day. Dorothea asked.

"I'm afraid I can't." Scrooge replied, "First of all, this thing is seen upside down, and up and down is reversed." Anyway, looking at the stars doesn't have a problem of positive and negative. What's more, the field of view of this thing is too small, well, the larger the mouth tightness, the smaller the field of view. So, with this telescope, you can only see half an eye of a seagull on the horizon. Dorothea, if you want to see the scenery, it's better to use this ordinary telescope. Scrooge said as he pointed to a pair of binoculars standing nearby.

Dorothea took her eyes off the eyepiece of the telescope and said, "I don't like something so big that I can't see the scenery." ”

"Didn't you say that girls like to look at the stars and the moon?" Scrooge asked.

"That's the moon like this," said Dorothea, pointing to the sky, "not the pockmarked moon and stars in this telescope...... Hey, what's over there? It looks like it's on fire! ”

Scrooge's bull head looked in the direction of the sea, where there was literally a flame.

"It's a shack area where the newcomers live temporarily." Scrooge said, leaning on the binoculars next to him and looking over there. However, telescopes of this era did not have coating technology, so in low-light conditions at night, nothing could be seen except the beating firelight.

"It's ......," Scrooge said.

"Needless to say, someone must be attacking the newcomers." Dorothea said coldly, "Two days ago, the Sun and the New York Herald were playing up the threat posed by new immigrants to American workers, isn't that what it is? A few days ago, it was said that a lot of trade unions, instigated by a group of socialists, were planning to organize some kind of big event, and it was said that they were planning to organize a big demonstration or something. If all these poor workers make a fuss, it will be a bit troublesome. Wouldn't it be nice to let them make trouble with themselves first now? Well, under the current conditions, it is so easy to fool those who have not read books into believing that their lives are sad, all because of these outsiders, and when they get into trouble with these outsiders, they will be rich. ”

"Dorothea? How do you see things like that? Scrooge was amazed.

In fact, this method is not particularly clever, and this trick is called "inciting the masses to fight the masses." In fact, Scrooge, who has hundreds of years of experience more than others, has no difficulty in seeing through this little trick. Because this technique has really been used in later generations. For example, a pearl city with a high degree of autonomy and has always been open to foreign tourists is very unpleasant, and even blames tourists for coming too much. But in fact, after careful analysis, it is not strange that this strange phenomenon has occurred. First of all, a group of real estate tycoons controlled the economic lifeline of this pearl city, coupled with a high degree of autonomy, the pearl people ruled the pearl city, and in the pearl city, no force could restrain them, so in fact, no one could control them, and the pearl people ruled the pearl city, and it became the real estate tycoon ruled the pearl city. They also rely on high housing prices and high rents to squeeze the local people to the bust. Although the city is not large, the density of Monopoly is definitely the first in Asia.

Waiting for the fart people to have a hard time and be dissatisfied. So they ran to the rabbit country, saying that for the sake of their ancestors, they would pull their brothers along. And then the rabbits totaled, you can't ignore it, or let the little rabbits go on a tour in a group, well, so the "free tour" or something came out. In this way, the people of Pearl City can also make some money by traveling.

But tycoons have always had a good tradition of not seeing money in other people's hands, not in their own pockets. As soon as the fart people made a little money, the tycoons immediately resorted to raising the rent and raising the house price**, and then, the small money jumped from the fart people to the tycoon's pocket. What the? What should I do if the fart people are unhappy? Then deceive them: you see, since those little rabbits came to travel in groups, the pressure on the city has suddenly increased, water and electricity have also risen, housing prices and rents have also risen, traffic efficiency has also declined, and sanitation and cleaning are also difficult to do. Anyway, the news media are all run by tycoons, everyone says so, according to someone Ge, if you persist in propaganda a thousand times, lies will be regarded as truth by others, not to mention that the people either don't read any books, or they read books that make people more and more stupid the more they read, and deceiving them is not the same as playing, it doesn't take a thousand times at all, and it is absolutely more than enough to have ten or eight times. In fact, the people of Pearl City who were played by the tycoons really ran stupidly to fight the little rabbits...... The well-informed Scrooge saw through this easily, but it was really not easy for Dorothea to do this.

"Well, the other day, I asked Carol how he learned to do business. Carroll copied me the list you gave him, and Marx's book does make a lot of sense. Especially when you look at the actions of you and Morgan, you can immediately understand what you don't understand. Dorothea said.

"Dorothea ......"

"Rest assured, I didn't become a socialist, they all have a point, but what if it makes sense? It also depends on the interests and strength. ”

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