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Show 558 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT finally reached Washington and an agent was sent out to investigate. Although he found sufficient evidence to present to a grand jury to secure indictments against those who had participated, the agent was dismissed and patents were issued for the entries. Later, steps were taken to forfeit some of the patents and some lands were recovered. The entire episode brought no comfort to the Scotch capitalists nor to their American representatives when the scandal broke. Nor could Sparks avoid the mortification of knowing that it had taken nearly 4 years for his own officers to ferret out the scandal and bring the persons implicated to justice.76 In 1887 Sparks set the maximum value of land being acquired under the Timber and Stone Act at $50 an acre. He was apprehensive that the rapid alienation of public timbered lands, especially land at the heads of streams and on mountainsides, would destroy the natural watersheds and reduce agricultural districts to a desert condition. It will be noted that Sparks was picking up the arguments of Schurz in behalf of conservation.77 Secretary Lamar put a precise finger on the weakness of the Timber Cutting Act. "Individual avarice and corporate greed . . . vie in accepting the bounty, and unless checkod by wholesome modifications of the 76 W. Turrentine Jackson, The Enterprising Scot. Investors in the American West After 1873 (Edinburgh, Scotland, 1968) , pp. 223-31. " GLO Report, 1885, pp. 73, 306, 315; 1886, pp. 442-53; 1887, pp. 87, 467-87; 1888, p. 55. Sparks was forced to resign because his superior, Secretary Lamar, was not willing to push enforcement procedures as fast as Sparks wished. In 1888 Sparks' successor could report the denouement of the California Redwood cases. The records of Humboldt County showed that 57,000 acres entered under the Timber and Stone Act, had been conveyed to the Humboldt Redwood Company, composed of Scotch capitalists and their American associates, and were now valued at $11 million. Some 90 entries were held for cancellation, hearings were pending on others, and proceedings had been instituted to set aside patents on 175. law, will soon cause all the mineral lands to be stripped of their timber." That which is "every one's property is no one's care," and "extravagant waste is the consequence of negligent legislation." Lamar recommended an amendment to the law that would provide for the sale of the timber on the mineral lands, which was about what Schurz had struggled for, though Lamar would have left open to true settlers and small miners the privilege of free lumber.78 Few in the West could have regretted the passing of the first Cleveland administration, particularly its Commissioner of the General Land Office. As a result of the campaign of villification directed against him by the newspapers, many westerners had come to think of Sparks as an enemy of their section. He had questioned the honesty of most people making homestead, preemption, timber culture, and timber and stone entries, had held up patents for investigation, had filled the courts with cases involving trespass and brought to a halt the operation of mining, smelting and lumbering operations employing many people. If, however, westerners had reflected on the role of the Commissioners, at least since Burdett in the Grant administration, they would have recalled that all of them had done yeomen service in trying to enforce the laws against infractions by powerful groups and capitalists. All had made important recommendations for improvements in both administration and in legislation to make the system more satisfactory to the West, including the right to sell timber or timberland, and that all had urged strongly the need of better salaries to attract abler people into the responsible offices of the Department. All would have agreed with the judgment of Harold Dunham that the greatest deterrent to effective administration of the public land "Secretary of the Interior, Annual Report, 1885, p. 40. |