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Show HOMESTEADING, 1862-1882 423 land, and to make recommendations concerning the best method of disposing of the public lands to actual settlers. Both Powell and Williamson's influence may be seen in these measures.64 The debate in the House on the proposals emanating from the National Academy of Sciences was sharp and reflected an easy tendency to condemn anything supported by scientists and opposed by politicians. The scoffing remarks about "visionary" scientists made by opponents of the measure to abolish the patronage in surveying might have attracted the attention of Richard Hofstadter for inclusion in his Anti Intellectualism in American Life. Only two, or at the most three House members from the 19 public land states were friendly to the dismissal of the surveyors general. One Representative from an older state who favored the dismissal admitted that if he were from a western state where the patronage was important he would oppose abolishing the positions. Classification of lands, modification of the surveying system, the removal of the surveyors' archives to Washington were all attacked and won little support. The upshot was that Congress provided for the union of all the geological surveys, except for those relating to the lakes, in the Geological Survey in 64 For the report of a committee of the National Academy of Sciences on different agencies doing surveying work for the Federal government and the desirability of unifying them in a new agency, the Geological Survey, see "Letter from the Acting President of the National Academy of Sciences, Transmitting a report on the surveys of the Territories," Nov. 26, 1878. H. Misc. Doc, 45th Cong., 2d sess., Vol. I, No. 5 (Serial No. 1861), 27 pp. Also helpful are Wallace Stegner, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian, John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West (Boston, 1954), and William C. Darrah, Powell of the Colorado (Princeton, 1951); Henry Nash Smith, "Clarence King, John Wesley Powell, and the Establishment of the United Stales Geological Survey," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, XXXIV (June 1947), 37-58; A. Hunter Dupree, Science in the Federal Government. A History of Policies and Activities to 1940 (Cambridge, Mass., 1957), pp. 194 ff. the Department of the Interior. Powell had won his major objective. The other reforms related to surveying were dropped. When Milton Conover came to prepare his study of The General Land Office, Its History, Activities and Organization, in 1923, he found 13 surveyors general still possessed of considerable patronage.65 On March 3, 1879, a second land reform measure to which Powell had contributed was adopted. After years of touching appeals from the Commissioners of the General Land Office for more generous appropriations to enable them to maintain an adequate and sufficiently well paid staff and for reconsideration of the application of the settlement laws to various classes of land, Congress in 1879 provided for the first broad gauge investigation by a commission of experts to determine what was wrong with the land system and to make suggestions for corrections.66 On this move there was practically no discussion in Congress. The measure provided for a commission of five consisting of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, then James A. Williamson whose support of reform has been mentioned; the head of the Geological Survey, then, Clarence King, a close associate of Powell; and three civilians to be appointed by the President. The commission was to report in a year on the codification of the land laws, a system of classifying the public lands, a substitute for the present surveying procedure in areas to which it was least adapted, and plans for future disposal of the public lands. To serve with Williamson and King as members of the commission, President Hayes, possibly on the recommendation of Carl Schurz, appointed Alexander T. Brit- 65 Twelve of the 13 offices of the surveyors general had staffs of 7 to 12 in 1923; the Huron, S.Dak., office had only a surveyor general and a draftsman. Milton Conover, The General Land Office. Its History, Activities and Organization (Baltimore, 1923), p. 93. 66 20 Stat. 394. |
