OCR Text |
Show ADMINISTRATION OF THE PUBLIC FOREST LANDS 587 closer to $6 to $8 an acre, a remarkably good price when one considers the desert character of the land relinquished. Of the unrestricted scrip 92,103 acres were entered in northern California, (37,260 acres of which were entered by Thomas B. Walker), 81,652 acres in Oregon, 51,064 in Minnesota and, surprisingly for such high-priced scrip, 72,908 in Arkansas.66 Other railroads which exchanged barren desert or mountain land for the forest lieu scrip were the Southern Pacific in California (194,080 acres), the Union Pacific in Wyoming (12,250 acres), and the Oregon and California in Oregon (25,280 acres).67 The Atlantic and Pacific Railroad which had earlier controlled a grant in New Mexico and Arizona had sold large blocks of land to the Aztec Land and Cattle Company (127,534 acres), to Dr. E. B. Perrin (132,461 acres), to the Saginaw and Manis-tee Lumber Company (39,956 acres), and to William P. Baker (76,790 acres). All of these owners exchanged their lands, which were useful only for grazing, for lieu scrip. By 1904 the Northern Pacific Railroad had exchanged 108,240 acres within national forests in Idaho, Montana, and Washington for lieu scrip much of which fell to Weyerhaeuser companies and the C. A. Smith Timber Company. This railroad also benefited from a second lieu land provision written into an act for which there was considerable support outside of Congress: the act for the establishment of Mount Rainier National Park in the State of Washington. This Act of March 2, 1899, granted to the Northern Pacific Railroad 66 William S. Greever, Arid Domain. The Santa Fe Railway and its Western Land Grant (Stanford, Calif., 1954), p. 53; "Contracts in Forest-Reserve Timber Lands," S. Doc, 61st Cong., 2d sess., Vol. 55, No. 612 (Serial No. 5654), pp. 209 ff. Here is a mass of material relating to the exchange of arid and cutover lands within the forests for valuable timberlands outside. 67 Bureau of Corporations, The Lumber Industry, Part 2, pp. 55, 57, 90; House Reports, 58th Cong., 2d sess., Vol. 2, No. 445 (Serial No. 4578), pp. 15-16. the privilege of exchanging its alternate sections within the exterior boundaries of the park for either surveyed or unsurveyed public lands, not withdrawn and non-mineral, in any state into or through which its line ran.68 Congress quite disregarded Binger Hermann's warning of October 1, 1898, that experience with the forest lieu land selections under the Management Act of 1897 showed that the law was: being taken advantage of in a speculative way by the holders of tracts acquired by purchase from States, railroad corporations, and other sources; that the lands relinquished have little or no value as timber or agricultural lands; and that tracts that once contained valuable bodies of timber, having been denuded of their value, are now offered to the Government in exchange for valuable lands elsewhere. . . . Hermann warned that the right of exchanging worthless land within forest reserves for valuable land elsewhere that was virtually unobtainable in any other way "will lead to many propositions for the creation of reserves with the sole view of interested parties to acquire the right of lieu selection."6<J How right Hermann was! Within 6 months Congress created Mount Rainier National Park, making sure this time that the Northern Pacific Railroad, which was specifically named, could exchange its worthless land high on the mountain side for unsurveyed, as well as surveyed timbered land outside the park, a privilege not contained in the Act of 1897 but allowed by interpretation of the Department of the Interior. The act also extended to the Northern Pacific the right to exchange its alternate sections in the surrounding forest reserves for scrip. Mount Rainier Park was a boon to the Northern Pacific Railroad, giving it the 68 30 Stat. 993. 69 H. Doc, 55th Cong., 3d sess., Vol. 14, No. 5 (Serial No. 3756), pp. 89-90. A year later Hermann resumed his request for amendment of the lieu land provision. H. Doc, 56th Cong., 1st sess., Vol. 17, No. 5 (Serial No. 3914), pp. 113-15. |