Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1884-03-03

quest that you kindly permit me to use the
columns of your paper for the publication
Of brief statement of the merits of the
Miller Glascock lieu land bill, and my con.
nection Herewith.
have advocated the passage of this bill
and shall continue to do so, as my prede-
cessor, General Shankliu, did and does,
and consider that am as much justified in
seeking to secure what is justly due to the
State as am in protecting and properly
disposing of what she has.
Once we had an agent in Washington, as
Oregon, Nevada and Florida now have,
whose duty it was to act as the attorney
for the State in oil matters of interest
thereto, but since the adjustment of that
office it has become necessary for esch of
my predecessors and for myself to visit
Washington to perform the duties formerly
discharged by the agent.
My advocacy of the Miller Glascock bill
has bsen censured, but should be praised,
as it only provides for the rectifying OF a
mistake
On March 5, 1858, Congress passed an
Act granting to this State each sixteenth
and thirty sixth section for school pur-
poses, or an amount Of land equal to one
eighteenth Of all the public land in the
S gate. BY this and the subsequent Acts
of 1889 and 1864 we were permitted 90
select other lands IN lieu of such sixteenth
and thirty sixth sections as had been other
wise appropriated by the United States,
L IL 8
nattly Tot all, were specified as emitting
the State to indemnity. Losses because Of
lands being returned as mineral not hav-
ing been specified, the Commissioner Of the
General Land Office has denied us the right
to select indemnity for that class of losses.
We are thus deprived of Just so much of
the one-eighteenth of public land Justly due
us as has been so returued, and the Miller.
Glascock bill simply provides that the Act
OF March 3, 1858. shall be SO construed as
giving us this right specifically.
The second section Ct the bill causes ad-
verse comment, but should not, because
the United States is violating one of the
maxims of Blackstone in restricting the
State to the selection OF indemnity lands
in the same district in which the losses oc-
Cured. 1t is taking advantage of its own
wrong, inasmuch as having deprived us
unjustly of this right for nearly thirty
years, until all desirable lands have bsen
disposed of in the districts where most of
the lands returned SIS mineral exist, we
are now to be limited to the right of selec.
tion in said districts, where we cannot sat.
isfy the same, We should be accorded the
right to select the indemnity inuring to
the State under this Act from the choicest
unappropriated and unoccupied lands in
the State. There are no district locating
agents, and no district fuuds-only one
agent for the State, and the money goes
to one common fund, hence no reason ex.
lists for restriction to selection within dis
tricts.
Every other State which has enjoyed the
benefit of school land grant, and has in
Cured losses of this class, has received in
demnity for the same, except Colorado, and
a bill granting said right to that State has
passed the Senate during this session.
take no more interest in this bill than
in other measures which necessitated my
visit to Washington, but this having
caused much comment, ! take pleasure in
defending it.
The matter of lieu lands is misunder-
stood. No such thing as lieu scrip exists,
nor has there ever been any collateral which
was receivable in payment for school lands,
save school land warrants, all Of which
have already been cancelled.
The idea of such scrip has become cur.
rent, because certain land attorneys hsve
charged q certain amount for their knowl-
| edge of specific losses Of sixteenth and
thirty-sixth sections, which were named,
and used as basis in lieu of which the
lands purchased have been selected by the
State.
In the past, large bodies of lieu lands
have been secured by spectators, but since
the adoption of the new Constitution and
Codes, this has become impossible, as the
purchaser has to be an actual settler, and
can secure but 800 acres. Also, fully fifteen
months must elapse before patent can
issue to an applicant, and during that time
any one has the right to contest the
validity of an application to purchase, in
the Superior Court of the county in which
the land sought to be purchased is stu
ated.
The bill referred to is a Just one, and I
particularly desire it should pass, that 1
may appropriate majority of the bases for
the curing of defective unlisted selections
which could not be cured under the Act of
March l, 1877. Most of these detective
selections are in districts where a small
quantity of lands have been returned as
mineral, therefore the district lines must
be disre garded to admit OF necessary cor
rections. In the San Francisco District
the ma ajority of these selections exist, say
ten thousand acres, and only twelve hun
dred acres of mineral lieu would inure to
the State.
had bill before the last Legislature
providing authority for me to decline to re-
ceive new lieu applications until all such
defective selections were cured, which was
defeated by the same parties who attack
the Miller. Glascock bill. l then arbitrarily
refused to receive any such applications,
and only when threatened with man
dsmus, which would have involved the
State in great expense, did recede.
If the parties who attack the bill referred
to know of any band of speculators who
1t is their duty to name them. l know Of
none.
1t is the land attorneys who make the
attack, and who fear that the bill will pass
and their knowledge be rendered worth.
less. We have, unfortunately, lot Of
Ishmaelites in this State, who no sooner
learn of measure being proposed for the
benefit of the State, than they oppose it.
The Miller. Glascock bill has received
the indorsement of those who probably
know what are, and seek most to promote,
the best interests of the State, and SO long
as there is chance to facilitate the pas.
sage of said bill, shall labor in that di-
rection.
The praiseworthy bill granting the right
to select other lands in lieu of those re-
turned as mineral, to Colorado, is the same
as that for California, except that the Colo
RADIO bill recites the manner in which the
mineral character of lands shall be deter
mined, all OF which is superfuous, as the
United States laws already require that the
course therein prescribed shall be followed,
hence the Colorado bill, which grants in.
demnity for such lands as may have been
or shall be found to be mineral lands,
being " fair intelligible and any
State entitled to select as provided shere.
in, no tangible objection can be raised to
the California bill, which grants indemnity
for such {" lands as may have been or shall
be found to be mineral lands" using the
language of the hostile critics.
I While in Washington / endeavored to pro-
cure the passage of an amendment to the
present Colorado bill, exactly as it passed.