Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 May 1887 — RIGHTS OF HOMESTEADERS. [ARTICLE]

RIGHTS OF HOMESTEADERS.

President Cleveland Declares Against Railroad LandGrabbing. The Secretary of the Interior Receives Instructions as to How He Shall Proceed. The President has addressed the following letter to the Secretary of the Interior, relating to the controversy between the Northern Pacific Railroad and a settler in Washington Territory: Dear Sib • I have examined with much care and interest the questions involved in the conflicting of claims of Guilford L. Miller and the Northern Pacific Railroad Company to certain public land in Washington Territory. The legal aspects of the case have been examined and passed upon by several officers of the Government, who do not agree in their conclusions. Miller claims to be a settler upon the land in question, whose possession dates from 1878. He alleges that he has made substantial Improvements upon this land and cultivated the same, and it appears that he filed his claim to the same under tue homestead law on the 29th day of December, 1884. The railroad company, contends that this land is within the territory or area from which it was mt tied to select such a quantity of public land as might be necessary to supply any deficiency that should be found to exist in the specified land mentioned in a grant by the Government to said company in aid of the construction of the road, such'deficiency being contemplated as likely to arise from the paramount right to private parties and settlers within the territory embracing said granted lands, and that the land in dispute was thus selected by the company on the 19th day of December, *IBB3. A large tract, including this land, was withdrawn by crder of the Interior Department from sale and from pre-emption and homestead entry in 1872 in anticipation of the construction of said railroad, and a deficiency in its granted lands. In 1880, upon the filing of a map of definite location of the road, the land in controversy, and much more which had been so withdrawn, was found to lie outside of the limits which included the granted land; but its withdrawal and reservation from settlement and entry under our land laws was continued upon the theory that it was within the limits of indemnity lands which might be selected by the company as provided in the law making the grant. The legal points in this controversy turned upon the validity and effect of the withdrawal and neservation of this land and the continuing thereof. The Attorney General is of the opinion that such withdrawal and reservation were at all times effectual, and they operated to prevent Miller from acquiring any interest in or right to the land claimed by him. With this interpretation of the law, and the former orders and action of the Interior Department, it will be seen that the efiect has been the withdrawal and reservation since 1872 of thousands if not millions of acres of these lands from the operation of the land laws of the United States, thus placing them beyond the reach of our citizens desiring under such laws to settle and make homes upon the same, and that this has been done for the benefit of a railroad company, having no fixed, certain, nor definite interests in such lands. In this manner the beneficial policy and intention of the Government in relation to the public domain have for all these years to that extent been thwarted. There seems to be no evidence presented showing how much, if any, of this vast tract is necessary for the fulfillment of the grant to the railroad company, nor does there appear to be any limitation of the time within which this fact should be made known, and the corporation is obliged to make its selection. After a lapse of fifteen years this large body of the public domain is still held in reserve to the exclusion of settlers, for the convenience of a corporate beneficiary of the Government and awaiting its selection, though it is entirely certain that much of the reserved land can never be honestly claimed by said corporation. Buch a condition of the public lands should no longer continue. So far as it is the result of executive rules and methods these should be abandoned, and so far as it is a consequence of improvident laws these should be repealed or amended. Our public domain is our national weaJth, the earnest of our growth, and the heritage of our people. It should promise limitless development and riches, relief to a crowded population, and homes of thrift and industry. These inestimable advantages should be jealously guarded. and a careful and enlightened policy on the part of the Government should secure them to the people. In the case under consideration I assume that there is an abundance of land within the are* which has been reserved for indemnity, in which no citizen or settler has a legal or equitable interest, for all purposes of such indemnification to this railroad company—if its grant has not been already satisfied. I understand, too, that selections made by such corporations are not complete and effectual until the same have been approved by the Secretary of the Interior, or unless they are made in the words of the statute, under his direction. You have thus far taken no action in this matter, and it seems to me that you a e in a condition to deal with the subject in such a manner as to protect the settler from hardship and loss. I transmit herewith the papers and documents relating to the cases which were submitted to me at my request. I suggest that you exercise the power and authority you have in the premises, upon equitable consideration with every presumption and intendment in favor of the settler, and, in case you find this corporation is entitled to select any more of these lands than it has already acquired, that you direct it to select, in lieu of the land upon which Mr, Miller has settled, other land within the limits of this indemnity reservation, upon which neither he nor any other citizen has in good faith settled or made improvements. I call your attention to Sections 2450 and 2451 of the Revised Statutes of the United States as pointing out a mode of procedure which may perhaps be resorted to if necessary for the purpose of reaching a just and equitable disposition of the case. The suggestions herein contained can, I believe, be adopted without disregarding or calling in question the opinion of the Attorney General upon the purely legal propositions which were submitted to him. Yours very truly. Gboveb Cleveland, To the Secretary of the Interior, Washington. The Significance of the Letter. (Washington special to Chicago Times.] The significance of the President’s letter to Secretary Lamar is increased by the circumstances of its publication. The Secretary left here for Charleston Monday morning, and he has not returned. He is expected back on Monday. The letter is dated last Monday, and was given to the press last night, so that the President wrote the letter and made it public while the Secretary was absent, and the Secretary did not see the President’s letter to him until it was published in all the papers. By giving this letter to the public before the Secretary saw it the President made the snub administered to the Secretary as severe as possible. There is some curiosity to see how Mr. Lamar will take it. People who have paid attention to publie land matters, recognize that an emergency existed which called for just such action as the President had the nerve and sense to take.

While agreeing in general with the theory that comets have their origin beyond the limits of the solar system, Prof. Daniel Kirkwood finds proof that some of those of short period are minor planets, whose orbits in the asteroid zone have been changed through the perturbing influence of the large planets. The third comet of 1884, for instance, seems to have been drawn from the asteroids by Jupiter in May, 1875.