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Show GENERAL GRANTS TO STATES 331 In 1861 we may see the first summary of action under the indemnity provision: $276,-126 had been paid in cash and 145,595 acres had been conveyed to the states. By 1915 the amount of cash paid the states was $2,095,468 and by 1922 the amount of indemnity land allowed them was 754,385 acres. The largest cash indemnities were given to Iowa, Illinois, Arkansas, Missouri and Wisconsin and the largest indemnities in land were paid to Iowa, Wisconsin, Florida and Missouri.32 Three states received indemnity scrip which appeared valueless since it could only be used in the state in which it was exchanged for "swamp" land, and there was no public land left. They were Illinois (99,675 acres), Indiana (3,715 acres), and Iowa (17,668 acres). Bills were reported from the House Committee on Public Lands in 1886, 1888, 1892, 1896, 1900, and 1907 to allow cash indemnity for this scrip but all failed of enactment, presumably because members of Congress were convinced the states had already done well enough from the donation of the swamplands. One may question whether easterners, who looked unfavorably at most proposals to give land to the western states, would have been so quiescent about the two original swampland acts if they could have foreseen the Pandora's box they opened for Federal and state governments, the courts, land grant railroads, and farmers, and the huge cost in administrative inefficiency.33 They had been led to believe the act was designed to convey to the statqs land which was worthless until it could be drained. Under sanction of the remedial Act of March 2, 1855, the General Land Office allowed settlers to contest state applications 32 The cash indemnity converted into land at SI.25 an acre together with the land indemnity amounted to 2,430,757 acres, or 15,191 farms of 160 acres each. S. Ex. Doc, 37th Cong., 2d sess., Vol. 1, No. 1 (Serial No. 1117), p. 485. Benjamin H. Hib-bard, History of the Public Land Policies (New York, 1924), p. 276. 33 House Reports, 51st Cong., 1st sess., 1890, Vol. 2, No. 422 (Serial No. 2808), .p. 4; Lokken, Iowa Public Land Disposal, pp. 207-208. for land declared to be swampland and soon 3 million acres were being contested and additional papers were coming "into the office by the bushel."34 This unexpected result and the continued delay in selecting, approving, and patenting and then selling the swamplands made necessary a second remedial measure, which was adopted in 1857. This measure declared that state selections of swamp and overflowed lands, where vacant and unappropriated and not interfering with any actual settlement, were to be confirmed and patents were to issue. A proviso-members of Congress loved to add provisos to measures to protect an alleged interest without determining what effect it might have on other features of the measure-stated that the act was not to interfere with the Act of 1855 just described. On the day this measure became law, Henry Bennett reported from the House Committee on Public Lands that gross frauds had been perpetrated under the two swampland acts, resulting from the "looseness" with which they had been framed and the limitless time allowed for their operation "under the specious pretence of the reclamation of waste lands. ..." The Secretary of the Interior at the time of their enactment was blamed for much of the difficulty for his decision to permit the states to make their own selections, instead of requiring them to be made from the evidence of the plats and field notes. Bennett mentioned especially the claim California representatives were making that "all the really valuable land" in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys that was subject to an occasional inundation should be included in their selection.35 This was the period when bills drafted by Senate and House committees were reconstructed on the floor. Sometimes in the course of debate they would be referred back 34 U.S. Supreme Court Reports, 76:92. 36 House Reports, 34th Cong., 3d sess., Vol. Ill, No. 265 (Serial No. 914), pp. 1-2. Act of March 3, 1857, 11 Stat. 251. |
