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Show 488 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT linquishment of timber claims. Roosevelt replied: Such a so-called homestead is not a real homestead at all. He is entitled to no sympathy. He is not the man who tills the soil, builds the home, and brings permanent prosperity to the region. This is the man who skins the country and moves on. Otherwise he would not relinquish his claim, as he admittedly does at the first favorable opportunity, to those who are seeking investments in timberlands. To the real homesteader who tills the soil and builds a house to live in, nothing should be grudged. He is there to stay. To the fraudulent homesteader who builds a shelter for the night under tall timber, no encouragement is due. He takes all he can get and moves on. Sympathy for such a man is sympathy for one who is engaged in fraudulent transactions; if sincere it is wasted; and it is hard to see how it can be sincere on the part of one who takes the trouble to find out the facts.71 Congress, in adopting the Reorganization Act of 1891 had done nothing to change the attitude of western people: they favored transferring public lands to private ownership as rapidly as possible and were not very squeamish as to how that alienation was achieved. Neither had it eliminated the influence of the spoils system from contract for surveys and from appointments of registers and receivers and superintendents of newly created forest reserves, nor had it made it feasible for local officers to give adequate attention to the proof of improvements by homesteaders and desert land entrymen. Reports continued to come in of the widespread abuse of the commutation provision of homestead, though the period was now extended to 14 months, of the Desert Land Act, and of the Timber and Stone Act. At the same time there was a certain inconsistency in the reports of the Commissioner of the Land Office who was now handling almost irreconcilable policies: the older one, in which he took pride, reporting annually the amount of the land that was patented to states, railroads, and 71 Morison, Letters, 4:1217-18. individuals and the income received from sales, and the other and altogether new ones, of administering the forest reserves, protecting them from fire and pilferage.72 Roosevelt Appoints Commission In his annual message of December 2, 1902, President Roosevelt mentioned the problem of fencing on public lands and the abuse of the Timber and Stone and Desert Land Acts and the commutation clause of the Homestead Act and urged that "if the Congress finds difficulty in dealing with them from lack of thorough knowledge of the subject" that it make provision for a commission "to investigate and report upon the complicated questions involved."73 Congress was disinclined to take the hint and the President went ahead and created a commission himself. It consisted of W. A. Richard, former Governor of Wyoming and in 1903 successor to Hermann as Commissioner of the Land Office; Frederick H. Newell, Assistant Hydraulic Engineer of the Geological Survey from 1888 to 1902 and Chief Engineer of the Reclamation Service from 1902 to 1907 and Commissioner from 1907 to 1914; and Gifford Pinchot. Hearings were held by the commission in Washington and elsewhere and much of the time of Pinchot and Newell was given to discussions with governors, land boards, other public officials, and private citizens concerning land questions. Both men attended meetings of the National Livestock Association and the National Wool Growers' Association where they had opportunities to talk with livestockmen and at the same time to present the point of view of conservationists interested in preserving, protecting, and utilizing the 72 Hermann's and Richards' Reports reflect the irreconcilability of the two policies. 73 Gifford Pinchot, Breaking New Ground (New York, 1947) , p. 244; Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, X, 527. |