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Show 556 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT Timber Trespass Cases 1881 1882 1883 Trespass cases______________ 322 817 Board feet....._____________79,936,000 222,734,583 Logs and trees_________..... 28,255 186,484 Cords of wood______________ 128,394 79,139 Market value_______________ $225,472 ____________ Stumpage value_______________________ $511 ,069 Civil and/or criminal; suits instituted___________________________ 289 987 301,140,487 1,337,231 91,669 $8,144,658 $1,709,824 539 1884 627 270,225,521 1,144,329 198,325 $1,093,178 144 Compiled from GLO Reports, 1881-1884. and the number of trespass cases brought against the accused parties. Teller, as Senator from Colorado, had been devastating in his criticism of the activities of the timber agents in 1877 and 1878 and had a major part in the adoption of the Timber Cutting Act. As Secretary of the Interior, responsible for supporting his Land Commissioner he made no allusion in his reports to law enforcement, seemingly being content to leave the matter in the hands of the Commissioner. On the other hand, in the year before Teller become Secretary, McFarland had reported that the principal trespassing in Colorado had been done by mill owners and railroad contractors working up ties and bridge timbers for lines both within and outside the state, and that a large number of trespass cases were on trial at Leadville, while Secretary Teller's subsequent reports made no mention whatever of cases of trespass or trials in Colorado. Teller might well have thought that his chickens were coming home to roost for not only did his Timber Cutting Act not prove as satisfactory as he and others thought it would be, but the Timber and Stone Act also caused his Department trouble. The number of entries increased from 363 for 41,977 acres in 1881 to 2,101 entries for 297,735 acres in 1883. In 1883 McFarland reported that the limitations and restrictions of the act were being "flagrantly vio- lated" and that "much of the most valuable timber land" on the Pacific Coast was being taken up by "home and foreign companies and capitalists through the medium of entry made by persons hired for that purpose." Anyone familiar with the working of the land system at the time the act was adopted in 1878 could have foretold this result. McFarland was sufficiently indignant at the misuse of the law that he suspended all entries under the act and called for an investigation that might lead to the cancellation of illegal entries and the prosecution of the guilty parties. In 1884, when 2,392 entries for 339,419 acres were made McFarland came out for repeal. Under the Timber and Stone Act lands were passing in bulk to a few large operators. Such preventative measures as he had tried were wholly inadequate. The requirements of the law are slight and easily evaded, and evidence of fraudulent proceedings rest so much within the knowledge of interested parties that specific testimony can rarely be obtained. Thus, while results are observable, easily demonstrated, and of common notoriety, the processes by which they are reached are difficult to trace in a legal proceeding.73 Teller apparently preferred to evade responsibility for his subordinate's actions or remarks on the Timber and Stone Act, for he neither summarized them in his report nor made any allusion to them. On the 73 GLO Report, 1884, p. 8. |