Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 September 1888 — A VAST EMPIRE RECLAIMED. [ARTICLE]

A VAST EMPIRE RECLAIMED.

What Grover Cleveland Has Done Toward Reclaiming the Public Domain. Between 1861 and 1872 Congress granted to private corporations and to individuals 163,64 ),- 944.81 acres of the public domain—almost equal to the combined area of the thirteen original Statps. For years this wholesale despoilment of the people's heritage was op nly and systematically practiced, and the Commissioner of the General Land Office, in his annual report of 1885, state s that nt that date four-fifths of our public lands had been disposed of, and of the remaining onefifth only a moiety was fit for human habitation. But when Grover Cleveland became I'resi lent in 1885, a halt was called on the land-grabbers. It was resolved that “land-grabbing” in all its forms should ceass; that the "land-shark” should disgorge his plunder; that all fraudulent acquisitions of our public lands should stop; that, the laws governing the disposition of our public lands should be rigorously and vigorously enforced; and that all claims to our remaining lands, whether by powerful syndicates or by individuals, should be laboriously scrutinized in the light of the law and the facts, and only allowed where clearly established. This programme has been faithfully carried out, and a statement recently issued from the General Land Office makes the following exhibit covering the period of Mr. Cleveland’s administration : Lands reclaimed and actually restored to the the public domain, 80,690,720.59 ’ acres ; recovery of lands recommended, 62,652.218.32 acres ; forfeited wagon road grants recommended lor recovery, 2,368,320; or a grand tot il of 145,711.258.93 acres actually restored, or in course of restoration, to the public domain—a magnificent empire in itself, embracing an area larger than that of Great Br.tan, and equaling the combined areas of the powerful Stages o’ Massachusetts, Connecticut. New Jersev, Virg’n’a, Indiana, Ohio. Pennsylvania and New lorn. Can a para’l 1 in beneficent ach evement be found in our his ory ? A res ora ,iou o: 146,711.2,8. >2 acres to iur p blic domain at a moment when that domain is prac ically nearly exhaus.id. is nearly i46,0(> ,o«> a r s of excellent land reclaimed irom the 'land grab er' and opened t> settlement ns permanent homes for o.ir rapidly increas'ng pop ilatio >. This splendid achio.emen; of President Cleveland s administrati n would be en ugh to render it memorab e in our hist try it it had done nothing else for the people.— tndianapolis Sentinel.