The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1869-07-30
A LAND OFFICE BUSINESS.

LAND OFFICE'' BUSINESS.
An item is going the rounds to the effect
that the Land Office at Salt Lake City filed
SS3 declaratory statements Covering l40,-
600 acres of land) under the pre-emption
act, during the first t'co 'oeehs OF Juhe,
This certainly revives the memories, but
surpassed the facts, of the old times in the
Mississippi valley when the enormous sales
of Government lands to emigrants made
the term land Office" the synonym for
all that was colossal and gigantic in busi-
ness. But after all it is not so extraordl-
nary as it seems. 1t has, all along, been
one of the complications of the Mormon
Question that the Saints were not allowed
to pre-empt their land. A large city has
grown up in the wilderness, and the sur
rounding territory is dotted with villages
and farms along all the water courses, and
vet neither farmers nor villagers nor citi-
zens have hitherto technically owned
foot of the soil they had transformed from
q state of desolate wilderness to one of
fertility and civilization. The Mormons
have possessed their domain only by virtue
of "Squatter Sovereignty, This was
not from an unwilingness on their part to
pre- empt the land according to law, and to
pay their dollar and quarter per acre, but
from the unwllingness of the United
States authorities to give them chance.
The land was never put into the market.
No land Office was ever established in the
territory until this spring. The rush,
therefore, which we have recorded means
simply that the Mormons, as soon as the
Salt Lake Office was opened, proceeded to
legally pre-empt the lands on which they
have been squatting for twenty years.
We hear great deal lately about the
Mormon Church holding the title deeds to
all the real property of the Saints. Mr.
Medill, of the Chicago Tribune, now on an
excursion to California, speaks Of this ard
wonders at the iufatuation of the people in
thus deciding away their property to
Brigham Young, without any security
whatever. His wonder would probably be
less, if he would consider that these A." title
deeds are not worth the paper they are
written en-, and that the true and only titles
are the presumption papers which the
Mormons are now taking out for them
selves. The title deeds professed to trans
fer property which in reality belonged to
the United States, and therefore are null
and void. The redemption alone add in
the Saints favor the tenth point of law to
the nine points of possession, which are
already theirs. Many shrewd old Saint
has reasoned before giving the deed re,
ferred to, thus " If the United States
never interferes here, and the Church be-,
comes the State Brigham will own my
property any how, so l may as well give
this deed to please him. And if the
United State prevails and gets Brigham
under control the lands will be pre,empted
and this deed will not be worth anything.
Therefore, I'll give it," IF the Mormons
hand their pre-emption papers over to the
Church, (or Brigham, for he is the Church
holding all its funds in his own nanae as
" trustee in trust,") then will they truly
exhibit that tanatcal devotion which their
former act obtains them credit for. Some
Of them will do this, if asked, but a great
many Of them will not