Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 December 1887 — LAMAR’S REPORT. [ARTICLE]

LAMAR’S REPORT.

The Secretary of the interior o» Land Grant Abuses—lndemnity Lands Restored. How the Honest Settler Has Been Defrauded by Agents of Subsidized Railroads. One of the moat important features of Secretary Lamar’s annual ieport is tne jortion relating v> the adjustments of railroad land grant*. He saj. •: • Shortly after my appointment to the position I now have the h >nor to hold, and as I became somewhit familiar with the public land system, its organization, and the workings thereof, I became mote and more impressed with the fact that the public domain was being diverted fn m its legitimate purpose and converted to objects, the inevitable effect of which was repugnant to the entire theory on which the land system Was baaed. Apart from the methods of illegal appropriation of the public domain, effected through the perversion of the several laws for acquiring titre thereto, I became convinced that the administration of the congressional grants to wagon and rail roads had given rise to enormous abuses. Congress had not only made grants which in some instances exceeded in extent the area of half a dozen of the largest and most populous States of the Union, but in addition provided that any losses of lands within the granted limits should be satisfied by selections of lands within other and adjoining limits, thus nearly doubling the area of the original grant. “Under these acts the Land Department had withdrawn from public appropriation not only the granted limits as required by law, but also the lands within the indemnity limits, at the request of the grantee companies. Thus enormous quantities of the public lands were held in reservation to await the convenience of the respective corporations in the construction of their roads, the selections of their lands, and the uncertain adjustments of the grants by the department. "This land-grant legislation was certainly not in harmony with the theory pf a distribution of the public domain among the people, and gave up to capitalists as a basis for traffic and speculation and gigantic financial schemes what wae by the original policy of the Government designed to be homes for an industrious and thrifty people, the abodes of domestic happiness, and virtue, and patriotism. Notwithstanding these indemnity withdrawals were made exclusively for the interests of the companies, tew of them, if any, constructed their roads within the time prescribed in the granting act as an express condition on which the grant was made. Maps of "probable," "general,” “designated,” and “definite" routes of said roads were filed with rapidity in the department, and withdrawals thereunder asked and almost invaria. bly granted, until tire public land, Status and Territories, was gridironed over with railroad, granted and indemnity, limits; and in many instances the limits of one road overlapping and conflicting with other roads in the most bewildering manner, so that the settler seeking a home could scarcely find a desirable location that was not claimed by some one—or, perhaps, two or three—of the many roods to which grants of land had been mode by Congress. “Nor was this all, Though the desired tract might not be apparently covered by a railroad location, the settler would hardly select it before the agents of the corporations would set up a claim to it, or to the right to occupy or denude it under the right-of-way and construction privileges conferred by the granting act. Thus the settler, ignorant of his legal rights, and with no one to advise him with respect to either the law or the facts, would for the sake of peace and home readily consent to purchase the land from the company. In this way these corporations, in addition to the lands granted to them, have claimed, sold and received the price of a great deal of other land to which they had neither legal nor moral right, nor the shadow of either. “The confrsion, hardship and impositions practiced upon the settlers were greatly increased by tne bold scheme of the corporation agents where withdrawals wore made of lands to which the legal title of the companies had not attached, and which afterward remained in the same condition for years through the failure of Congress to make the necessary appropriations for the surveys. “Years have elapsed since many of the grants have been made, and other years since the withdrawals. Home of the companies have constructed the Entire line of their roads, others fragmentary portions only, and others again none at all; but the withdrawals of the lands were no less effective as a barrier against the settlers in the one case than in the other. It mattered not what might be his equities acquired by years of toil upon what he’ believed to be a part of the national domain. It was declared by the highest judicial tribunal, as expounded by tbo highest law officers of the executive, that a withdrawal once made by competent authority was legal and effective to exclude all from intrusion within its limits. “After years of waiting Congress had failed to empower the department to make the necessary stirveys whereby some of the grants might be adjusted and no immediate prospect of such surveys was in sight. But a law was passed March 3, 1887 [24 Htates, Ififi', whereby the Secretary of the Interior was ‘directed to immediately adjust each of the railroad land grants made by Congress to aid In the construction of railroads. “With an earnest desire to obey the mandate of Congress to give to the corporations their every right under the laws, and at the same time to follow the directions given by you to see that ample protection should be extended to settlers and those seeking to make settlement on the public lands (a matter which had been so long and so utterly overshadowed), I entered upon a most careful consideration of the whole subject of the history and law relating to land grants* and concluded that if the department was clothed w th authority to make indemnity withdrawals, as had been done in so many instances, the exercise of that authority was a matter entirely within sound discretion and not a matter of legal obligation in any respect; that the same sound discretion, which in the interest of the companies justified said withdrawals, now demanded peremptorily in the public interest a speedy revocation of • the same; and that the most effective way of expediting an adjustment of the land grants, and doing exact justice to the companies, guarding and promoting the interests of the settlers also, was to permit the public to enter into competition with the companies in the selection of lands heretofore withdrawn for indemnity purposes. “Accordingly, on May 93. 1887, with your approval, rules were laid upon the different companies for whose benefit withdrawals had been made to show cause by a certa n day why said withdrawals should not be revoked. Some of the companies failed to show cause; others filed answers assenting to the revocation, as they had received satisfaction of the grant either in full or as far as possible; others assented on condition that lands covered hy selections already made should be excepted from the order of revocation, and other companies objected to the order of revocation as illegal and a violation of chartered rights. Briefs were filed and oral arguments accorded to the counsel of such companies as detired to be beard, all of which were fully and carefully Considered, as was due to the importance of the questions and magnitude of the interests involved, and on Au-'. 13, 1887, my views were fully expressed in a decision rendered in the case of the Atlantic & Pacific railroad company, which, by answer and argument, raised nearly all the objections that were presented in part only by a num er of other companies. I send herewith a copy of the whole text of that opinion, in which these objections were answered seriatim. “Two days the orders withdrawing the lands wituin the indemnity limits and reserving the same from settlement were revoked, and the lands restored to the public domain and to settlement—firt-t, in the cases of two companies which had not answers d ; second, fn those which answered and assented ; and third, in the cases ot the companies which set up defenses coming w.thin the rulings in the foregoing opinion. “In the congressional grants to the following railroad companies : The Hastings & Dakota, the St. Paul 4 Northern Pacific, the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba, the St. Paul & Sioux City, the Sioux City and St. Paul ■nd the Winona & St. Peter, it is provided that upon filing the maps designating the routes of said roads and branches it shall be the duty of the secretary of the interior to withdraw from market the lands embraced within the provisions of the act making the grant In consequence of this provision these roads were osndtted from the orders of restoration.