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Show RECLAMATION OF THE ARID LANDS 641 entries under the Preemption, Homestead, Timber Culture, and Desert Land Acts. He also said that a married man could extend his holdings still further by having his wife enter a second desert land claim of 640 acres.13 It was impossible for the General Land Office, with its inadequate staff, to investigate the thousands of entries being made under homestead, timber culture, preemption, and desert land laws. In 1890 alone, 80,000 entries were made in 108 land offices. Attention could be given only to those entries which had given rise to complaints or which on their face appeared suspicious. Thousands of doubtful entries went to patent each year, many of which later were proved to be fraudulent. Moreover, the chances of proving fraud in those investigated were not good, defended as these entries usually were by the most skillful land attorneys in the country, such as Britton and Gray of Washington.14 It was about this time that Elwood Mead, state engineer for Wyoming and later to be one of the great architects of the American reclamation policy, said of the Desert Land Act that it offered the most convenient means of acquiring title to land. Hundreds of ditches were built solely for this purpose by parties who had no intention at the time of cultivating the lands, but irrigated them in order to acquire title.15 Later 18 John T. Ganoe, "The Desert Land Act in Operation 1877-1891," Agricultural History, XI (April 1937), 145. 14 In this situation the General Land Office found reason to order investigation of 130 desert land entries in 1890. The total number of cases being investigated in that year was 666. Of this number hearings were ordered in 14 cases, 53 were held for cancellation, 53 were examined and approved, 320 were waiting reports from investigating agents and local officers, and 473 remained pending at the end of the year. GLO Annual Report, 1890, p. 339. 18 Stanley Roland Davison, "The Leadership of the Reclamation Movement, 1875-1902" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1951), p. 77. Mead slightly modified his judgment of the Desert Land Act, saying it was "both useful and injurious." It was not suited to corporate enterprise or to reclaiming large valleys but operated to transfer to single owners miles of water fronts which should have been divided into small farms. Yet it had added somewhat to the taxable and productive wealth of the western states.16 Congress became convinced that the Desert Land Act needed tightening up, or even suspension, pending further consideration of the best way to aid in reclaiming the arid lands of the West without letting them fall into the hands of "monopolistic speculators." The first step was taken in 1888, as a result of fear that the rapid alienation of the dry lands then underway, mostly for speculation, would hinder, rather than bring about early utilization. The Geological Survey, whose head was Major John W. Powell, was provided with an appropriation of $100,000 and directed to press forward the survey of public lands suitable for irrigation. All lands designated by it for reservoirs, "necessary for the storage and utilization of water," including canals and ditches, for irrigation purposes and all land susceptible of irrigation by anticipated development were to be reserved from sale or other entry.17 Strong anti-monopoly Congressmen such as Lewis Payson and William B. Holman opposed this measure of 1888, which was a rider to an appropriation bill, on the ground that it was too broad and would delay development of the dry lands because classification by the Geological Survey was a very slow procedure. They were troubled because instructions sent to the local land officers by the Commissioner of the Land Office were so rigidly drawn that they virtually repealed the Desert Land Act, 16 Elwood Mead, "Rise and Future of Irrigation in the United States," Department of Agriculture, Yearbook, 1899, p. 604. 17 Act of Oct. 2, 1888, 25 Stat. 527. |