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Show 456 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT extending the life of existing grants, and that unearned grants be forfeited. In 1869, William S. Holman and George W. Julian, the leaders of the reform group in the House, induced that body to adopt a resolution declaring that "grants of public lands to corporations ought to be discontinued." The second part of the resolution, however, which declared that the "whole of such lands ought to be held as a sacred trust to secure homesteads to actual settlers," was rejected.42 Holman was successful in the next Congress in securing the adoption of a broader resolution declaring that "every consideration of public policy and equal justice to the whole people requires that the public lands of the United States should be held for the exclusive purpose of securing homesteads to actual settlers under the homestead and preemption laws" and urging that further land grants to railroads "ought to be discontinued. . . ."43 How seriously the members of the House took the Holman resolutions may be seen in the willingness of Congress within 12 months after the adoption of the resolution to vote a large grant to the Texas and Pacific Railroad. Only the most vigorous opposition by the land reformers prevented further grants from being made. Homestead Clause in O. & C. Grant Although its significance was not to be entirely realized until many years later, Julian did win a victory in 1869: an amendment to a bill to extend the land grant of the Oregon and California (the O.&C.) Railroad that required the grant to be sold in quantities no greater than 160 acres to actual settlers only for no more than $2.50 an acre. This was the famous "homestead clause." It first appeared in a House Resolution of July 24, 1868, which 42 Resolution of Jan. 18, 1869, Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 2d sess., p. 424. 43 Cong. Globe, 41st Cong., 2d sess., p. 2095. states as a matter of policy, and as an instruction to various House committees, that in future grants to railroads or corporations it should be required that the lands be sold in 160-acre lots to actual settlers at $2.50 an acre. The 1868 resolution also held that the lands should be sold on 4 years' credit, a feature not to be carried over in later amendments.44 In 1869 Julian tried to add the homestead clause to a bill to extend the land grant for the construction of a wagon road from Eugene, Oregon, to the eastern border of the state but the House refused to accept it.45 However, the members of the first session of the next Congress had become bored with the long arguments over the conflicting rights of two companies claiming jurisdiction over the Oregon and California Railroad; they accepted Julian's homestead amendment to a bill to determine that issue without discussion or division. On this amendment was to hang the legal case for the revestment (recovery) of perhaps the most valuable timberlands (2,891,000 acres) the United States government owns today.46 Julian may well have been surprised at the ease with which his amendment was adopted by the House and subsequently approved by the Senate, again without discussion, but he probably had doubts as to how effectively the General Land Office would enforce it. As events turned out, it was not enforced. Of the total earned grant of 3,728,000 acres, 813,000 acres had been sold by 1908, when all sales were suspended; of this total 515,000 acres were sold at more than $2.50 an acre and in lots well in excess of 160 acres, 170,000 **Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 4428-30. 45 Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 3d sess., March 2, 1869, p. 1821. 46 Cong. Globe, 41st Cong., 1 sess., April 9, 1869, p. 704. For a careful study of the long and involved litigation and congressional history of the Oregon and California land grant see David Maldwyn Ellis, "The Oregon and California Railroad Land Grant, 1866-1945," Pacific Northwest Quarterly, XXXIX (October 1948) , 253 ft. |