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Show 768 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT tions of land. Andrew Johnson, Horace Greeley, and George W. Julian favored abandoning the revenue policy and granting free homesteads to all who would go west to make farms. They were responsible for banning all speculative purchasing of land in the five southern public land states from 1866 to 1876. What of earlier objectives of Federal land policy after the adoption of the Homestead Act? The revenue concept was not abandoned. Land already offered and great acreages to be put up at auction in the future were available for purchase in any amount at $1.25 an acre, or at less cost if depreciated bounty warrants and scrip were used. In the event that a homesteader preferred to take title after 6 months on his claim he could commute the 160-acre entry to a cash entry by paying $200. The Desert Land Act of 1877 offered settlers arid land in tracts as large as 640 acres if they would conduct water on it and pay $1.25 an acre. The Timber and Stone Act of 1878 provided for the sale of 160 acres of land for its timber or stone for $2.50 an acre. Actually, the government received far more from land sales and mineral leases after the initiation of free lands than it did before. True, the income from public lands constituted a very small percentage of the gross government revenue in contrast to the earlier years when it amounted to as much as 48 percent in one year. Revenue was no longer a major objective, though there were those like Carl Schurz who felt that a fair price in relation to value should be paid for forest land. Veterans of the Civil War were not to be rewarded by military bounties, though there was a strong bloc which favored the revival of the bounty acts of 1847 and 1855. But since all persons, including veterans, were entitled to free homesteads if they would live upon them and develop them, the bonus of an extra quarter-section would only play into the hands of specu- lators, as the earlier bounty warrants had done. Veterans were given the right to homestead on 160 acres of double-minimum priced land within the primary area of railroad land grants and some were able to make something out of the soldier's additional homestead rights which came to be one of the most valuable forms of scrip and one of the most abused. Later, veterans were given preference in the selection of homesteads in reclamation projects. Congress continued to make grants to states, with increasing liberality. Notwithstanding, the newer states after 1860 did not receive as large a proportion of their land as did Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, or Arkansas which had been given their swamp and overflowed tracts by the Acts of 1849 and 1850. Furthermore, Congress was placing restrictions upon the price for which the land could be sold. In the case of the Omnibus States (Montana, North and South Dakota, Washington), the minimum price was $10 an acre. Thus while giving land directly to homesteaders the Federal government was requiring the states to withhold their place grants until they could sell at the minimum it established. Equally difficult to reconcile with free lands were the grants to railroads. The colonization railroads advertised their lands extensively in Europe and in the older parts of the United States, and brought in many thousands of settlers to buy and develop their lands. At least one railroad recovered the full original cost of its construction from its land sales and some others did nearly as well. To consider legislative proposals concerning the public lands, Congress first used special committees and then in 1805 the House set up a standing Committee on Public Lands and in 1816 the Senate did likewise. There seem to have been fairly close and cooperative arrangements between the General Land Office, which was |