Standing Ground | Sept 2009 | Dan Byfield --

It has been nearly 16 years in the making. Two of the nation’s most recognized private property rights organizations have finally merged to become American Stewards of Liberty. You can trace our beginning all the way back to when Wayne Hage of Nevada met Mike Dail of Texas – two icons in the property rights movement.

Wayne had just published his book Storm Over Rangelands: Private Rights in Federal Lands and Mike was in the middle of organizing landowners in Texas to keep the feds out of his more than 97 percent privately-owned state. Although one was from the West and the other from the South, they both were fighting for the same cause – private property rights and liberty.

Wayne’s battle started when he and his family bought Pine Creek Ranch near Tonopah, Nevada in 1978. The federal government wanted his ranch, but Wayne wouldn’t sell, so the government began years of harassment, until finally they confiscated his cattle, forcing Wayne, and his wife Jean, to file Hage v. United States in 1991. The case was a Fifth Amendment takings case that eventually proved there are private property rights within federal lands.

Shortly after filing the case, the Hage family started Stewards of the Range in 1992 to help support their case and help others fighting similar property rights battles. The nationwide implications of Hage v. United States grabbed the attention of Mike, who began figuring ways to financially support Wayne and their case.

Mike was the CEO of the Federal Land Bank of Mason in Central Texas. He and a few of his banking buddies realized that private property was the key to our nation’s survival and their financial institutions survival. In 1993, they convinced the Farm Credit Bank of Texas board of directors to form their own property rights organization that would later become the American Land Foundation.

One of its first actions as a new organization was to contribute to Hage v. United States, reinforcing Mike’s commitment to Stewards of the Range, and his good friend Wayne.

Complimenting Each Other’s Strengths

Stewards’ strength has always been its grassroots members who have contributed faithfully to their cause. “My dad was an amazing person who inspired thousands of people to join in the fight for private property,” Margaret Byfield, executive director of Stewards of the Range, said.

Hage v. United States has been in court for 18 years and Stewards has funded and guided it the entire way. And, every decision by the court has been in favor of the Hages – an amazing feat not accomplished by anyone else in America. Through Fred Kelly Grant, Stewards began training local leaders in 2006 the revolutionary strategy known as coordination to help protect their communities and, in turn, private property all across the nation.

The American Land Foundation, on the other hand, did not start out as a grassroots organization like Stewards. “We were very fortunate, when we started to have the support of Federal Land Banks,” said Dail, who since the beginning of the organization has served as chairman of the board. It wasn’t until several years later that American Land Foundation became a membership organization.

American Land Foundation has accomplished a great deal as well. In Texas, we stopped the designation of over one million acres of private property from being listed as critical habitat for two song birds by starting a movement that would later become “Take Back Texas.” Within two weeks of making the decision one Sunday night, we helped organize over 5,000 landowners who crossed the Colorado River and marched 15 blocks down Congress Avenue in Austin to the front steps of the Texas State Capitol, which eventually led to the state legislators passing the nation’s first private property rights bill.

And, we were told by political operatives that George Bush acknowledged it was his stance for private property rights that put him over the top against Ann Richards in his race for governor. However, once he got to Washington, the battle for private property didn’t progress like we hoped it would, but that’s a whole other story.

The majority of American Land Foundation’s funding has historically come from individual Federal Land Bank institutions in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, and Texas that are all part of the Tenth Farm Credit District known as the Farm Credit Bank of Texas. Other major funding came from the Scarborough-Linebery Foundation out of Midland, Texas, as well as other private foundations.

The combination of the two successful organizations creates a unique and strong association for private property rights unequaled in the nation. “Joining the nearly 5,000 members of Stewards with the strong financial support of American Land Foundation is a positive move and a serious effort on our part to affect the kind of change needed if we’re going to save our nation,” Dail said. “We’re excited about the possibilities and are anxious to get started.”

We have combined the talents of the two organizations with the members and funding of both, creating a very powerful organization for the property rights movement.

Long History Together

The two organizations have been working together since 1994. Our first major project was the creation of Liberty Matters. We needed a fast and efficient way to get messages and alerts out to thousands of individuals and property rights organizations nationwide.

Liberty Matters was the nation’s first computerized faxing system capable of simultaneously faxing alerts over 18 separate telephone lines. No one at the time could match it.

For years, we led the charge fighting tough battles in Congress and defeated hundreds of pieces of legislation. In later years, Liberty Matters became a weekly news service providing national private property stories. We eventually produced our own weekly cable television program on National Empowerment Television out of Washington, D.C., reaching millions of viewers.

To this day, Liberty Matters is still an integral part of both organizations and the private property rights movement, sending out Action Alerts on legislation, as well as, vital information to the grassroots members whenever the need arises. Three years ago, we decided to combine our publications into one — Standing Ground. The name represents our stances on issues and reminds us of Wayne and Mike, who have never had any “backup” in them.

For the past three years, our two organizations have been promoting, teaching, and implementing coor-dination locally. Today, we are in over 70 locations across the nation.

We realized several years ago that locally people still have the power to change politics, shape priorities of their community, and protect private property. We have concluded that if we are to restore private property to the caliber of constitutional protection our Founding Fathers envisioned, it is going to take communities fighting and winning at the local level.

Our strategy focuses on teaching people how to win locally by supplying the tools, resources, and expertise to help them succeed. We will still engage in the national issues and challenge those efforts set to destroy our private property, but our priority will be strengthening local organizers by helping them win their specific battles with our staff and resources, national reputation, and experience.

If we win in enough locations, we will have the strength to unite nationally with more force and power than we have ever experienced.

Never Compromise - Stand Our Ground

Together we are a powerful operation and organization. It has been a long and exhausting road, but between the two organizations, we can claim hundreds, if not thousands of victories. One thing we can both emphatically state is neither organization has ever waivered from our mutual and parallel missions to protect private property.

We have retained the core belief that private property is sacred and must be preserved if we are to survive as a free and prosperous nation.

We have never forgotten our members whom we represent. We have the finest board of directors who have guided us through the toughest of times and allowed us to forge ahead, even when the odds were against us. We’ve stood up to our enemies and many of our friends.

“You’ve given us hope” is the most common statement of everyone who we’ve helped with coordination. I cannot tell you how many times we’ve heard that, and how wonderful it is to know we provide hope where none exists.

Trust me, we know there is a Greater Power working in this world and we know if we are to survive, it’s going to take prayer and vigilance on our part.

One thing is for sure, our guiding principle remains:

Never compromise when it comes to private property or our liberty.

It is with extreme pride we look back at our history as two of the finest private property rights organizations in the nation. And, it is with tremendous hope we look forward to our future as we continue to stand our ground carrying on the great traditions of both organizations under the new banner American Stewards of Liberty.