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Show 552 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT tected in trespass and being prosecuted under the Act of 1831 who were not cutting for export could relieve themselves of all liability by paying $2.50 an acre for land on which they had cut or taken timber. With redwood stumpage totaling 25,000 to 200,000 board feet an acre, the $2.50 price represented not a tenth of its value.59 A final section of the Timber and Stone Act repealed that part of the Act of 1831 that allowed informers to have one half of the penalties and forfeitures. This repeal naturally reduced the flow of complaints and evidence of trespassing and increased the burden of the timber agents. Further Deterrents to Protection and the Free Timber Act The third measure that handicapped the Department of the Interior in its efforts to protect timber on public lands was the adoption in 1878 of the Free Timber or Timber Cutting Act. By this act residents of Colorado and Nevada and the Territories of Arizona, Dakota, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming were permitted to cut timber for "agricultural, mining, or other domestic purposes" on mineral lands that were not subject to entry except for mining. The privilege was denied railroads which were doing all right without it. Reverting to the discredited and unworkable plan of Hendricks, Congress again placed responsibility for such enforcement as was called for on the local land officers. Again, as with the Timber and Stone Act, the law was vague, perhaps purposely so opening wide the door for cutting-but only on lands deemed to be mineral.60 88 Payment of $2.50 an acre did not entitle the trespasser to ownership of the land which he could buy, if he so wished, at the regular government price. 00 Act of June 3, 1878, 20 Stat. 88. Over the course of years the registers and receivers had shown a A fourth measure to weaken respect for the Interior Department's efforts to protect public lands from depredations came in 1880 with an act of Congress that freed all persons against whom criminal suits or proceedings had been brought for taking timber from public lands, provided they purchased the land on which they had committed trespass. The original bill, reported without dissent from the House Committee on Public Lands would have freed them also from civil proceedings. Supporters of the measure declared, with something less than accuracy, that until Schurz became Secretary of the Interior, the government had permitted, even encouraged, people to treat the public lands as common property and had made practically no effort to prevent cutting of timber on them. They declared it was cruel and harsh to commence suddenly a system of prosecution with the use of spies and informers and blackmailing which infested all parts of the timber growing regions. They tried to give the impression that suits were brought against innocent purchasers of logs and lumber cut by others or that people needing wood for construction of homes, fencing, and fuel were being badgered by petty complaints, investigations, and threats of legal action.61 Edward S. Bragg of Wisconsin tried his best to disabuse members of Congress of the idea that the bill was designed to aid the small settler who was being harassed by bureaucratic officials. Bragg, Omar Con-marked tendency to tolerate or perhaps one should say wink at infractions of the law by the larger economic interests, as the investigating agents had reported on numerous occasions. To expect them "to ascertain from time to time whether any timber is being cut ... except for the purposes authorized" was absurd. It had long since been found that local officers with no incentive to search out illegal acts such as the investigating agents were expected to do, would not bend a finger to enforce the law. 61 Cong. Record, 45th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 3327-28; Senate Reports, 45th Cong., 1st and 2d sess., Vol. 1 (Serial No. 1789), No. 122, p. 2. |