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Show 424 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT ton, a former clerk in the Land Office, then of the firm of Britton and Gray, the most influential law firm then practicing before the Land Office, and in 1870 a substantial investor in public lands in Kansas; Thomas Donaldson, who was to be the workhorse of the commission; and John W. Powell.67 Williamson was sufficiently optimistic to think that "radical" changes in public land disposal might come out of the report of such a commission and when its creation was authorized he urged (unsuccessfully) both the Senate and House Committees on Public Lands to appoint three members each to sit with and participate in the investigations of the commission.68 Powell's ideas and philosophy permeate every part of the commission's report and the nature of the questions submitted to witnesses. However, he did not have his way altogether and thought it necessary to submit a minority statement in which he disagreed with the other members on some issues. The members traveled for 3y2 months by rail and stagecoach in the West where they discussed issues with land officers, miners, lumbermen, stock raisers, real estate dealers and, indeed, representatives of most elements interested in administering, buying, and selling, as well as exploiting the lands. Perhaps it is not surprising that in California where much of the best land was in a few hands the commission heard from representatives of the California Protective Union and the California Land Reformers' League who, influenced by Henry George, opposed public land sales and wanted titles to remain in the 67 Eight years later Britton could privately boast to Lucius Q. C. Lamar, Secretary of the Interior, before whose office much of his practice was conducted, that he had "a professional income exceeded by but few if any lawyers in the United States." Wirt Armistead Cate, Lucius Q,. C- Lamar, Secession and Reunion (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1935), p. 476. 6&Cong. Record, 46th Cong., 1st sess., June 30, 1879, p. 2488. Neither House acted upon his suggestion. government. Instead of holding public hearings at which interested people would be invited to attend and give testimony, as congressional committees have long since learned to do to good effect, the commission drafted a detailed series of questions which they submitted to interviewees and thereby lost much of the value that comes from the give and take of oral examination after the submission of formal testimony. The slant in the questionnaire assured that much attention would be given to mineral and timberland policy and the "pasturage lands" of the Interior Basin and California. Out of 673 pages of testimony, 251 pages plus nine maps are devoted to California, 76 are given to Colorado, 63 to Nevada, and 51 to Utah. Powell and Donaldson's intimate knowledge of the Interior Basin and the fact that none of the members of the commission were well acquainted with developments where home-steading was most active may account for the lesser attention devoted to that area. No one appeared before the commission from Kansas, the state where the largest number of homestead applications was filed in 1879-11,338-or from Minnesota, next with 5,699 applications. Testimony was taken from 34 people from Nebraska (4,905 applications) and Dakota Territory (5,688 applications) but California (1,887 applications) was represented by 84 speakers, Colorado (477 applications) by 43, Montana (140 applications) by 30, and Utah (548 applications) by 28. This concentration of the testimony and the efforts of the commission on what might more appropriately be called the Far West severely limited the significance of the recommendations and may help explain why they were so completely ignored by Congress which, at the time, was more aware of the need for reform in the administration of the |