Arizona citizen., 1874-11-07
LANDS NEAR TUCSON.

awaiting action in the Senate. We do this to call the attention of all interested to its provisions for if it contains any ob- jectionable ones, or if it can be amended for the better, there Is time for advising Delegate Mccormick thereof. Congress convenes on the 7th of December, and if amendments in the way of improvements to the bill are promptly forwarded, it may be amended and finally passed by both Senate and House; but any delay in this respect will be dangerous, for Congress will adjourn March 3, and all bills not then passed will die. We are informed that as the bill stands, it has the approval of the General Land office:
 An act to grant title to certain lands in the Territory of Arizona.
 Whereas certain lands in Santa Cruz valley, county of Pima and Territory of Arizona, have for many years been occu- pied and possessed by persons of Mexican birth, who became citizens of the United States under the treaty of Guadalupe Hi dalgo and the Gadsden treaty and where as the said persons desire to secure patents E tracts in which they were originally taken up under Mexican authority, and have been held and cultivated to the present time, and they cannot do so under the existing land laws of the United States {: therefore,
 Be it enacted by the Senate and House Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all the right and title of the United States to the land embraced ill sections 3, II and IA, and the east half of section three, ten and fifteen, of township fourteen south, range thirteen east, Gila and Salt rlver meridian, in the county of Pima and Territory of Arizona, be, and the same are hereby, re- linquished and granted to the person or persons who have been in the actual bona tide occupancy or possession of said land, by themselves or their ancestors or grant ors for twenty years next preceding the date of the passage of this act; and it shall be the duty of the register and the receiver of the United States land office for the district ill which said land lies, to hear and determine, subject to the ap- proval of the Commissioner of the Gen eral Land office, the rights of the parties claiming under this act; and for that pur pose the said register and the said receiver shall have the power to summon wit nesses, administer Oaths, and take testi- mony relative to such occupancy or pos session: Provided, That no claim as aforesaid shall be of any validity under this act unless it shall have been duly filed with the said register and the said re- ceiver within one year after the passage of this act: And provided further, That this grant shall not extend to any reserva- tion of the United States, nor prejudice any valid adverse right or claim, if such exist, to said land, or any part thereof nor preclude a judicial examination thereof.
 Sec. ,. That whenever it shall have been determined by the said register and the said receiver, or on appeal by the Commissioner of the General Land office or Secretary of the Interior, that any tract has been occupied as aforesaid, 1t shall be the duty of the surveyor-general for said Territory to cause the said claims to be surveyed in accordance with the lines of such occupancy, and to furnish platS of the same, upon the re- ceipt and approval of which said plats and the field notes thereof by the COmmmis- sioner of the General Land-office, patents shall issue as in other cases.
 Sec. 5. That any part or parts of said designated lands that are not shown to the satisfaction of the Commissioner of the General Land-office to have been so occupied for twenty years, shall be held by him as open to settlement under the provisions of the pre-emption or home stead laws of the United States, and patents may be issued therefor for any of acres not exceeding one hun dred and sixty that parties complying with said legal provisions may desire to hold: Provided, That all existing occu- pants who have settled on said lands within period of less than twenty years shall have the prior right to acquire the same under the homestead laws of the United States.
 Pending the passage of the bill, Delegate made the following remarks in the House of Representatives.:
 MT. Speaker, the original draugbt of this bill was prepared in Arizona and handed me at mass meeting of the citi- Zens at the capital. 1 was earnestly re- quested to urge its passage by Congress as an act of simple justice.
 It is intended to give title to about four sections of land which for long years have been in possession of persons of Mexican birth. Under the treaty of Guadalupe Hi dalgo and the Gadsden treaty, these per sons, or their descendants, became citi- zens of the United States, and they are good citizens of the class described in the recent able speech of the gentleman from New Mexico MT. Elkinsl as "loyal, peaceable, well-diposed, and welded to our institutions"
 The lands in question were originally taken up in small and irregular tracts