OCR Text |
Show 798 HISTORY OK PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT The movement of settlers into the dryer portions of the Great Plains and the Interior Basin, which was accompanied by a large proportion of failures, led many farm makers to sell their claims to cattlemen and brought about a revival of the practice of commuting homestead entries. The high point in this second period was reached in 1908 when 23,059 settlers commuted their entries. Between 1901 and 1913 a total of 178,592 homesteads of the 160-acre variety were commuted. Commutation was denied to those seeking land under the Kinkaid Act, the Enlarged Homestead Act, and the Forest Homestead Act. By the adoption of the 3-ycar Homestead Law of June 6, 1912, Congress shortened the period of residence and cultivation by 2 years and allowed the settler to be absent from his claim for 5 months in each of the 3 years, thereby removing most of the reasons for commutation. Thereafter the number of commutations sharply declined. By no means all the hundreds of thousands of tracts which went to title under the preemption laws and the commutation clause after 1881 were the result of schemes to gain a quick title to resell to cattlemen, lumbermen, and speculators. As the text shows, many legitimate settlers found it either necessary or economically desirable to borrow the $200 to pay for their improved claims so that they could mortgage their farms for $500 to 31,000 or more to enlarge and make more efficient their operations. Others needed to salvage something from their blasted hopes in struggling to make a living on land not fit for farming. The abuse of preemption and commutation and the useful feature of the latter privilege are of much importance but the paramount factor on which attention should be focused is the number of homesteaders who proved up and gained title in the regular way, completing their 5 or 3 years of residence and making the prescribed improvements. Their number far exceed those who preempted or who commuted. That 1,322,107 homesteaders carried their entries to final patent after 3 or 5 years of residence is overwhelming evidence that, despite the poorly framed legislation with its invitation to fraud, the Homestead Law was the successful route to farm ownership of the great majority of settlers moving into the newer areas of the West after 1862. |