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Show 500 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT prosecution of stockmen was not undertaken in Wyoming where powerful politicians were involved.7 Evidence of the misuse of the public land laws to accumulate large ownerships and to profit from resales became so convincing that Roosevelt did what Sparks had done earlier. He had special agents examine the bona fides of every application for a patent to determine whether the claimant had fulfilled the terms of the law. This kind of a critical examination was not well received in the West and contributed to the resentment that was piling up in that section against what it regarded as the misunderstanding of western problems by a government agency staffed with men from other sections.8 Between 1904 and 1920 the remainder of the public lands open to homesteading in Nebraska were taken up, mostly under the Kinkaid Act. Since the Land Office did not segregate the entries under the Kinkaid Act from those made under the original Act of 1862 we cannot determine the success or failure of entries under the 640-acre act without the most minute investigation of the manuscript records. The statistics show a big increase in the acreage entered in 1904 and an even larger one in 1905 when the number of entries tripled over 1903, being exceeded only by the entries in North Dakota. Since commutation was not allowed for Kinkaid entries, the number of commuted homesteads declined sharply in Nebraska in contrast to other states where only the 160-acre law was in operation and commutation was proceeding at a relatively high rate. Between 1904 and 1926 there were 50,413 original entries in Nebraska and 31,103 final en- 7 Arthur R. Reynolds, "Land Frauds and Illegal Fencing in Western Nebraska," Agricultural History, XXIII (July 1949) , 173-78; Sheldon, Land Systems and Land Policies in Nebraska, 197 n.; T. A. Larson, History o) Wyoming (Lincoln, 1965) , pp.380-85. 8 Peffer, op. cit., p. 148. tries which suggests that the Kinkaid entries were carried to patent to a somewhat greater extent than the 160-acre homesteads elsewhere. If the purpose of the Kinkaid Act was to hasten the closing of the public lands in Nebraska and to get them into the hands of private owners-the objective of many people in the western states-it came near to achieving this result, as the table shows. But if the purpose of the law was to make possible the establishment of small stock raising homesteads of 640 acres on which the better land would be cropped, the record of success was not so clear. Kinkaid homesteaders, lacking the capital for stock ranching, had to turn to grain farming and soon met with disaster; "the crops blew out, and little was harvested" was a story to be repeated endless times after the adoption of the Stock Raising Homestead Act.9 John Clay, who saw the initiation of the Kinkaid Act and who was one of the most knowing of cattlemen, said the 640-acre homesteads generally fell into the hands of adjoining cattlemen. "Those Sandhills are totally unfitted for agriculture. . . ." Clay called the act "another instance of stupidity in land matters." A Nebraska writer told about the "great influx of homesteaders" to take up lands under the Kinkaid Act who later sold their holdings for $1,000 to $5,000 a homestead. "Thus the Kinkaid homestead law resulted in great good to western Nebraska, and the larger ranches gradually increased their holdings in an honest and legitimate manner, buying up good titles at fair prices and in this way extending their ranches."10 9 Eleanor H. Hinman, "History of Farm Land Prices in Eleven Nebraska Counties, 1873-1933," Research. Bulletin 72, Experiment Station, College of Agriculture, University of Nebraska (Lincoln, 1934) , p. 22. 10 Bayard H. Paine, "Decisions Which Have Changed Nebraska History," Nebraska History Magazine, XVI (October 1935) , 208. |