The anti-monopolist. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1874-1878, 1877-04-19
THE PINE LAND RINGS.

II1E FINE LAND hINdS.
The pressure OF other matter has
crowded out the following interesting
article from the ST. Paul Dispatch
showing the extent of the robberies that
have been practiced in this state in the
pine lumber business. The public are
under obligations to the Dispatch for
unearthing these frauds:
eve give to-day the details of the in.
vestigation into the operations OF the
Minnesota pine-land ring so far as that
investigation has gone. The existence
and operations Of this combination have
been matters of common notoriety in
this State for many years. Those ope-
rations have been exposed and de.
nounced in such newspapersa as were not
muzz!ed by the direct or indirect con-
troll of the ring, but 80 strongly was it
intrenched in the politics and business
of country that all attempts to bring
its members to punishment. or even to
get the evidence of their scandaious rob.
berries officially befora :.hae authorities at
Washington, have hitherto failed. 1t
embraces lumbermen, lawyers, bankers,
politicians and gentlemen of leisure
Each moves in his chosen sphere, and
does his part OF the work, but all enjoy
the rich proceeds of fleeing the public
The success OF Secretary Bristow, in
ferreting out the rascality of the whisky
ring, and visiting the iniquities of its
members with a swift and merited pun>
ishment, encouraged the friends of hons
est government in this State, to hope
that this large, older, more deeply root
ed, and far more Ubiquitous pine-land
ring would meet o similar fate. But we
have had no Bristow at the head of the
Interior Department. Abortive attempts
at investigation have always resulted in
"divide," a suppression, or q white.
wash, while the rogues have grown more
rapacious, more insolent, more defiant
than ever before. Secretary Chandler
commenced during the past winter to
investigate, with apparent earnestuess,
but that investigation was suspended
about the time of President Grants re-
tirement from Office. and the implicated
parties are moving heaven and earth to
make that suspension permanent. 1t
remains to be seen of what stuff Secre
tary Schurz is made.
The operations of this combination
have been on scale most gigantic and
have been carried on for twenty years
with perfect impunity. Like all other
associations of its kind it has MANY rams
ifcations and sections-many' grades Of
responsibility and working levels of vii
lany. Some OF its members have lived
only in the vestibule, getting the con-
sent Of their consciences to combine only
so far as was necessary for ''selt>protec-
tion'-against honest men. Others have
plunged all over into the deepest mire
| O 1scoundrelism. Its methods have been
various. and some of them are probably
not vet known outside its own mystic cir
Gle. But all of them have had in view
the robbery Of the government by means
more or less stepped with deception,
fraud and criminality. We shall throw
more lights on these methods in subse
quent articles, but will mention q few
here, that their general nature may be
known.
The most common and most innocent
of these methods has been trespass or
the public land. The United States
twenty years ago, owned millions o
acres of valuable pine lands in thi.
State. The penalties, both civil ant
criminal, tor trespassing OF these land
have been very severe-but who evel
heard Of prosecution-much less /;
conviction? The lumbermen have, vir
tually, cut logs wherever they wished
If not detected, all was well. II acci
dentally discovered, rate of stumpag,
far below the current market price wa!
paid to the oficials-and only an infini-
tesimal portion of that seems ever t
have reached the national treasury
Government and State lands have beer
systematically robbed and stripped o
the timber, which alone made them o
any value, and the robbers have fattenet
on the spoils. The only palliation to
this action is the tact that occasionally
man may innocently cut over his line b.
reason of inaccurate or indefinite sur
veys. But making double allowance
for all this, it will not account tor |
thousandth part of the criminal sp0lia'
ton that has been practiced in this Stat
unchecked and unpunished.
i Another method has been the mann
facture, or willful purchase of forged o
fraudulent half-breed scrip, and the en-
try uof vast bodies Of these valuable land