Rensselaer Republican, Volume 28, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 December 1896 — LAND IS GOING FAST. [ARTICLE]

LAND IS GOING FAST.

SECRETARY FRANCIS* ANNUAL REPORT. ,j Hts Statement Shows thatthe Country Is Being Rapid’ly Settled---Big: Sums for Pensions—Problem of the BondAided Railroads. H ri-1 . s Uncle Sam’s Domain. The annual report of Secretary of the Interior Francis was made public Friday. Itproposes absolution of the vexed problem of the bond-aided roads, deals exhaustively With the.pension administration, reviews the progress of-the Dawes commission negotiations and touches upon various matters of especial significance in the West. The report opens With a discussion of the public domain. It" shows that the total number of acres disposed of up to June Jjl last was 946,000,000, leaving public domain still vacant estimated at over 600,000,000, not including the tlistri. tof Alaska, with an area of over 369,000,(XX) acres. Since the homstead act was passed, on May 20, 1862, there have been 162.891,132 acres entered by homestead settlers, Of' this "almost To3,f)oo,()ooacres will all.be patented when the legal conditions have been made. Of the remainder 42,000.000 acres represent entries cancelled. The tpfa! irnmhpE.' of‘ taltteral-eritries’ up-to-date is 29,820; patents to railways and wagon roads since the first grant was made reach 55,729,751.acre5. There have been 335,691,752 acres disposed of by preemption, cash sales, scrip,’locations, military bounty’ laud warrants, town sites!, desert land, timber culture, timber and stone entries, Indian allotments and donations to settlers.

Rapidly Settling the Country. The total grants of lands to the various States aud Territories up to March 12 last, aggregated 181,868,630 acres, in addition to agricultural college scrip for 7,830,000 acres. The total of all lands segregated from the public domain aggegates 946,219,160 acres. The report says: “These figures demonstrate that the country is being settled with great rapidand—that- is-being diminished by great strides. If the rate of disposition of the last thirteen years, which is 25.(100,000 acres a year, is continued for thirteen years to come, there will be little of the public domain outside of Alaska in possession of the government at the expiration of that time.” Discussing forest reservations, the report says no permits to cut-timber on public lands should be granted for any purpose other than to supply the needs of actual settlers in the neighborhood of the forests where timber is to be cut arid should be accompanied by all possible safeguards. Secretary Francis urges upon Congress the necessity for legislation for the reclamation and disposal of lands within the arid regions. Unless the Carey act could be amended so as to give the State power to pledge lands for thejr reclamation. he says, it would be better to place the lands under the direction of the States only so far as may be necessary to secure their reclamation for the benefit of actual settlers.

The total amount paid by the government in pensions and thfe cost of disbursing the same for the last thirty-one years is $2,034,817,769. This lacks only a little over. 8346,712,500 of being eqirril to the high-water mark of the. interest-bearing public debt- The present number of pensioners, which is 970,678, is greater by 4,666 than in 1893, when the maximum annual cost was reached, and is greater than ever before. This is due to the death of old soldiers and the continued payment of allowances to their heirs, while the amount paid is decreased through the death of invalid pensioners leaving no dependents. The pension policy of the department has been to make the pension list a roll of honor rather than to save money ,to the government; the effort has been to defeat the designs of impostors, while recognizing the claims of the needy and deserving. General public sentiment, however, is that the obligation of the government is confined to. those who fought for its maintenance and those dependent upon them. The total number of our pensioners in” foreign - countrics was 3,781 , who were paid 8582,735. Inerease.of from $8 to sl2 a month is recommended for all wholly disabled and destitute Mexican war survivors Treating with the Indiana. Under the head of Indian affairs the Secretary repeats the recommendation of his predecessor for a commission of three, one of whom shall be an army officer, to take the place of the commissioner and assistant commissioner of Indian affairs. With regard to the dispute over the Uncompahgre Indian reservation in. Utah, in which valuable deposits of asphaltum have been discovered, Secretary Francis expressed the opinion that the commission which treats with the Indians for the allotment «>f their lands totally misunderstood the agreement of 1880, by which the Uneompahgres were removed from Colorado. The Indians declined to pay $1.25 an acre for the lands allotted to them because they were led to believe that the purchase money would come out of their trust fund of $1,250,000, which furnishes them $50,000 per annum. . This is not the case. The purchase money would not disturb the tihist. fund, but would eventually come okt of the proceeds of the sale of their Colorado lands. The commission was dissolved last February. Under the head of bond-aided railroads the Secretary says ,he has complied with the joint resolution of June 10, 1896, requiring him to eoittinue the issue of patents to bona fide purchasers of lands sold by bond-aided railroads, but he says he declined to issue patents io all surveyed lands on the application of the Central Pacific. With regard to the Nicaraguan Maritime Canal Company chartered by the government in 1889, thSecretary says a preliminary report of the company submitted to him shows that jio work was done during the present year, j In conclusion the Secretary calls attention to the cramped quarters in the Interior Department, the large sum paid for rent annually—reaching $46,000 last year —and earnestly recommends the' erection of another structure on a block adjacent to- the present building adequate to accommodate all branches pf the department.