History of public land law development

page 486

486 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT mate from fraudulent entries convinced every Commissioner of the Land Office from 1874 and reformers in Congress of the necessity of repealing all preemption laws. As with timber culture claims, all preemption claims on which rights had been established were saved under the Act of 1891; in the next 10 years 14,152 additional preemption entries were admitted. Thereafter for years a small number of preemption claims were presented and allowed. Irreconcilable Policies It was later to be charged that by making the land system more rigid through the repeal of the preemption and timber culture laws Congress made it even more necessary for ranchers and others seeking to gain ownership of economic units to resort to fraud in a more systematic way than they had before 1891. S. W. Lamoreaux, Land Commissioner in the second Cleveland administration, followed the useful practice of summarizing in more detail at the end of his formal annual report the recommendations he had made earlier. In his final report for 1896 he recommended (1) that appropriations for surveys be made continuous so that funds contracted and in process of being used would not have to be reappropriated at the end of the fiscal year; (2) that legislation be enacted authorizing the appointment of a surveyor general for Alaska; (3) that a national irrigation commission be created to make proposals for the best and most appropriate way of developing the arid lands; (4) that the attendance of witnesses at hearings and contests before the local land officers be made compulsory by law; (5) that legislation be enacted to provide protection for public timber from pilfering and fire; (6) that legislation be enacted for proper administration of the national forests.66 Unlike Sparks and the at-times-tolerant Lamar, Lamoreaux, who had close ties to the Bourbon Senator William F. Vilas, was no reformer.67 His administration of the Land Office was not marked by any serious effort to improve the quality of service, to eliminate spoilsmanship or to protect the public lands from abuse and fraudulent acquisition. It seemed to have been the usual game of the Commissioners when they first came into office to report that the surveys of their predecessors were carelessly, inaccurately, or fraudulently done and that more rigid inspection of all surveys was necessary. Thus Binger Hermann found in 1897 that surveys done during Lamoreaux's tenure had been accepted and paid for after only superficial investigation, and in some instances without any field examination at all.68 Hermann's principal recommendations of 1897 called for: authority to subpoena witnesses in land contests, effective penalties against pilfering timber on public lands, ample laws and appropriations to protect and administer the national forests, and repeal or modification of the Timber and Stone Act.69 By 1902 Hermann's reports were showing a growing volume of ineptitude, abuse, and outright fraud in local management of the public lands. Nine survey contracts were suspended, seven surveys were rejected for carelessness, inaccuracies, failure to mark trees and install corner monuments, erroneous measurements, and negligence. A "systematic conspiracy" was unearthed to defraud the government of land through the use of Soldier's Additional "Land Office Report, 1896, p. 81. 87 Dewey W. Grantham, Jr., Hoke Smith and the Politics of the New South (Baton Rouge, 1958) , pp. 90-92. 98 Land Office Report, 1897, p. 53. ¦ Ibid., p. 86.