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Show EARLY EFFORTS TO PROTECT PUBLIC TIMBERLANDS 551 of their timber culture or preemption claims. Those who believed in the enforcement of the timber laws were the least familiar with land legislation generally and therefore were not able to see the wide loopholes in the Timber and Stone Act and to guard against them. In the discussion in 1876 there was practically no support for Williamson's hesitant suggestion that the government should retain the land and sell the timber. Some members thought 160 acres of timberland would not provide economic units for lumbering, and since the tracts would be bought by wealthy millmen and speculators in any event, the land should be offered at auction in unlimited amounts. Sargent was opposed to selling in unlimited amounts because in his own state offered land had been gobbled up by speculators using scrip, warrants, and cash. California was still bedeviled by these large speculative holdings whose owners exacted high prices from actual settlers. The Senate voted 36-9 against offering the land at auction in unlimited amounts. Without division, the measure passed the Senate in 1876, but the House took no action on it.56 The Timber and Stone Act, when finally adopted in 1878, provided that unoffered, unappropriated, and unreserved surveyed public lands in California, Oregon, Nevada, and Washington Territory, valuable chiefly for timber (or stone) and unfit for agriculture (hitherto only open to entry under homestead and preemption laws or with special forms of scrip), could be purchased in quantities not in excess of 160 acres at the minimum price of $2.50 an acre. An applicant was required to swear, as were homesteaders and pre-emptors, that he "did not apply to purchase the same on speculation, but in good faith to appropriate it to his own exclu- sive use and benefit; and that he has not, directly or indirectly, made any agreement or contract, in any way or manner, with any person or persons whomsoever, by which the title he might acquire from the Government . . . should inure" to others. One of the arguments Aaron Sargent offered for the Timber and Stone Act was that it would make Californians honest by providing them with a way by which they could acquire small tracts of timberland without having to swear that they intended them for farms and residences.57 In the light of all the false swearing being done in connection with homesteading and preempting land, it is difficult to believe that Sargent did not foresee that the Timber and Stone Act would be similarly abused. But whether he had his tongue in his cheek when he advocated the measure and opposed competitive bidding and wide open entry, he surely was aware that the measure would provide an easy way for the timberlands to go into private ownership. A face-saving device was written into the Timber and Stone Act declaring that it is "unlawful to cut, or cause or procure to be cut, or wantonly destroy, any timber growing on any lands of the United States ... or remove, or cause to be removed, any timber from said public lands, with intent to export or dispose of the same. . . ." 58 Miners, farmers, and ranchers were excluded from this section to the extent that they cut on public lands for their own improvements. The penalty for illegally cutting timber on the public lands or transportation of the same was made very light, a fine of $100 to $1,000 with no prison term. Furthermore, persons de- 56 Cong. Record, 44th Cong., 1st sess., Feb. 16, 17, 21, 1876, pp. 1100-1107, 1142-46, 1186-91. 57 This was Senator Ingalls' summary of a major argument of Sargent. Ibid., pp. 1101, 1189. 68 There was much opposition on the Pacific Coast to the export of logs for manufacture in other countries. |