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Show AN INCONGRUOUS LAND SYSTEM 459 grants."53 He reiterated his urgent request for action on the withdrawn lands in 1883 and in 1884 when Congress was considering forfeiture legislation McFarland suspended the issuing of patents in all cases where either House of Congress had passed legislation providing for forfeiture.54 McFarland was succeeded as Commissioner by William A. J. Sparks of Illinois who had served four terms in the House of Representatives. There he had principally distinguished himself by bitter altercations with "Sunset" Cox of New York and James B. Weaver of Iowa. In both instances his actions showed him excitable and in the heat of his emotion addicted to the use of unparliamentary language for which he had to make apologies.55 The Record provides little indication that land questions absorbed his attention while he was in the House. True, he introduced a bill to repeal certain contigent land grants given railroad companies in Indian Territory, but it got nowhere.56 The measure to which he seems to have given the greatest attention and most effective support was designed to transfer the Office of Indian Affairs from the Interior Department to the War Department. He was not returned to Congress in 1882, whether by his own choice or by his constituents is not clear, but the fact that the Illinois delegation urged Cleveland to appoint Sparks to office suggests that he was defeated. Sparks' appointment as Commissioner was regarded as "moderately good," though clearly political by the New York Times. He was said to know something about the public land business having been receiver of the Edwardsville land office in Illinois from 1853 until it was closed in 1855. The 53 Ibid., p. 11. 54 Report of 1883, p. 23, and Report of 1184, p. 11. 58 Cong. Record, 43d Cong., 3d sess., Dec. 22, 1880, pp. 328-35. 58 Cong. Record, 45th Cong., 2d sess., Jan. 21, 1878, p. 444. Times added that he was "credited with a good deal of combativeness" which his friends declared would be employed "whenever he discovers any crooked transactions in his department."57 In his first report, dated just 7 months after he was appointed, Sparks struck hard at "the great looseness and irregularity which have characterized the surveying service." In proceedings before Congress, the courts, and government officers, the most absurd claims had been erected into "impregnable rights," declared the new Commissioner. Sparks claimed that in validating state swampland selections the General Land Office had even overruled a statutory provision and in other instances had approved swampland selections adjacent to desert land selections; purchasers of California state land rights had been permitted, through laxness, to select valuable timber-lands in lieu of the school sections; "fictitious and fraudulent" entries of land had been widely made by cattle interests beyond the 99th meridian; 40 percent of the homestead entries were estimated to be fraudulent; "official rulings" had protected "conspicuously fraudulent" entries under the Timber Culture Act; and depredations upon public timber were "universal, flagrant and limitless." Never had a responsible official so caustically and effectively condemned the Congress for the looseness with which it had drafted laws and for its failure to adopt the remedial measures suggested to it, or the courts for reading into laws meanings that Congress had not intended. No Commissioner had denounced his predecessors, except McFarland, for tolerating and even shielding evasions, improper actions and outright fraud. On railroad land grants Sparks held that the withdrawals had been made without authority, and "sacredly reserved" for the railroads, that the legal rights of settlers 57New York Times, March 25, 1885; United States Official Register (Washington, 1853), p. 139. |