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Show 492 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT limited entries under the Desert Land Law to surveyed land and banned the assignment of entries. This privilege had in the past enabled corporations to acquire control of large areas. At the same time the Land Office issued new instructions concerning commutation which required that the full 14 months of residence as prescribed in the Act of 1891 should be spent entirely on the land before the entry could be completed. Up to that time homesteaders had been permitted to live a portion of the 14 months away from their land. A third step that may have partly resulted from information attained by the commission on fraud in land entries was the order of President Roosevelt of January 25, modified by another order of February 12, 1907, requiring that with some exceptions no patent or other evidence of title should be issued until a field examination had been made or information of equivalent character had been obtained.79 Reaction to Roosevelt's order suspending the issuance of patents was much the same as that accorded Sparks' order of 1885. Members of both Houses attacked it as unwarranted and tried to have adopted a measure to forbid the use of funds for investigating agents to take any action against a person once the final receipt had been issued. Before enactment it was slightly blunted in cases where there was adequate ground for suspecting fraud. The action of Congress in thus trying to prevent the administrative officers from enforcing the law was held to be justified on the ground that the agents were caus- 79 Mary Wilma M. Hargreaves, Dry Farming in the Northern Great Plains, 1900-1925 (Cambridge, Mass., 1957), pp. 341-42; Morison, Letters, 5:586. ing legitimate settlers serious harm in their repeated efforts to unearth fraud.80 Roosevelt's strong pursuit of conservation, his continued lecturing to Congress, his use of commissions to emphasize and provide the substance for reforms he favored, his willingness to stretch authority and to make what some regarded as arbitrary decisions, his close relations with Gifford Pinchot, whose forest and land policies constantly stirred up opposition, all tended to weaken his position. Yet, the record of Theodore Roosevelt's administration shows his major accomplishments were in the field of forest conservation, where the West least liked his leadership, and in water conservation through reclamation, which the West strongly approved. 80 Hargreaves, Dry Farming, pp. 341-43. Total Timber and Stone Entries Year Number Acres 1879 6 769 1880 185 20,038 1881 363 42,917 1882 728 95,238 1883 2,101 297,735 1884 2,392 339,419 1885 1,027 139,301 1886 429 50,693 1887 655 80,622 1888 2,420 341,968 1889 2,361 334,519 1890 3,454 509,896 1891 1,849 259,913 1892 1,006 137,539 1893 1,382 182,340 1894 1,259 153,081 1895 627 70,066 1896 559 66,182 1897 357 40,609 1898 573 60,955 1899 537 59,019 1900 2,385 300,019 1901 3,031 396,445 1902 4,022 545,253 1903 12,249 1, 765,222 1904 9,435 1, 306,261 |