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Show 550 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT rations which were being sued-such as the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad for $100,000, the Colorado Central Railroad for $75,000, and the Boston and Colorado Smelting Company for $100,000.M Timber and Stone Act of 1878 Nevertheless, three measures were adopted during the 2d session of the 45th Congress and in the 46th Congress that threatened to render ineffective efforts of the Department of the Interior and the General Land Office to protect the timberlands. The first was an amendment to a deficiency measure that would have ripped the heart out of the enforcement program by denying money for the payment of agents' salaries. It was the ripper amendment that aroused the bitterest fighting between those who hoped to halt all enforcement and those who either had respect for Schurz and Williamson, like Hoar and Dawes, or who, like Matthews and a few others, believed that as long as depredations upon the public lands were illegal the law required punishment of the guilty and should be enforced. The amendment, somewhat softened before adoption, provided that: Where wood and timber lands in the Territories of the United States are not surveyed and offered for sale in proper subdivisions convenient of access, no money herein appropriated shall be used to collect and charge for wood or timber cut on the public lands in the Territories ... for the use of actual settlers in the Territories, and not for export from the Territories ... where the timber grew. If any timber cut on the public lands shall be exported from the Territories it shall be liable to seizure/*5 The second measure was the Timber and Stone Act of 1878. Since a large part of the remaining timberlands of the United States had never been offered for sale 54 Cong. Record, 45th Cong., 2d sess., March 6, 1878, p. 1536 and elsewhere. 55 Act of April 30, 1878, 20 Stat. 46. the only way they could be acquired was by use of the rarer forms of scrip or by perversion of the preemption and homestead laws. For some time Aaron Sargent and other West Coast members had been trying to get through Congress a bill that would allow individuals to purchase up to 160 acres of timberland for $2.50 an acre. Sargent pointed out that Commissioner Williamson had been urging the enactment of a measure that would provide for the sale of timberland but neglected to bring out that, along with sale, Williamson advocated appraisal of the timber before its sale and reserving the land. The land office officials said over and over again that their agents were not concerned with the cutting of timber on public lands by settlers for their own use in building cabins, or for fencing and fuel, nor had they any intention of seeking out and prosecuting the individual miner who was using small amounts of timber for cribbing, shoring, or fuel. The officials had never thought it necessary for the settlers or miners to buy such small amounts of timber they used. This should have been well known to all members of Congress from the West and probably was, but there were persons seeking a way to enable the timber interests to gain ownership of redwood, sugar pine, and Douglas-fir land without running the legal risk in employing dummy entrymen and abusing the laws. They were shrewd enough to make use of the appealing argument that the poor homesteader needed timber and that a measure should be enacted to enable him to acquire ownership of a small tract from which he could cut wood as he needed it. The defenders of Schurz and Williamson were not sufficiently aware of the fact that if homesteaders wanted such a measure it was really to enable them to sell the extra tract to large investors in timberlands as other homesteaders in the Great Plains were selling relinquishments |
