St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-07-04

tract, makes his settlement, goes to the To-
cal Office, makes his declaratory statement,
pays the required fee then his pre-emp-
ton Fright has become definitely fixed,
and has attached TO this particular tract of
land. As this is what Vice President
Drake calls "a mere fling" there is and
can lie no other under the law. He as
sumes that these men were spectators; in
other words. the man who desires a piece
OF land contiguous 10 railroads. Is 10 be de-
nominated a speculatOr. and be ouSted of
mis- land, but the man who seeks TO select
his land outside of the extreme limit of rail-
road grants, away from the conyeniences
Of civilized life. such man is Mr.. brakes
ideal pre-empter.
Again. Mr.. Drake says. at is well
known to any one cOnverSant with the
history of early prescriptions that
not One-fOurth were in good faith,
etc" This statement is born of
the effort of railroads to acquire
these lands. The writer is an old settler i'm
Minnesota. thirty years in the state and
twenty-eight upon the frontier i'm Southern
Minnesota. / am intimately acquainted
with the early settlers and believe the truth
to be that not one in twenty made either
homestead or presumption entries in bad
ride over the prairieS and never see vest
ige of improvements buildings, if any
would be burned down. breaking would be
again grown up TO grass, and this is the
testimony upon which these entries were
called fraudulent. Again Mr.. Drake saws
1--WE should apply TO the railroads if we de-
sire TO act fairly for information" Then
we fellows who have had our lands
stolen from us must apply 10
the robbers for information or else we can
not properly appear in court: nonsense, we
are inviting population to Minnesota, and
no better way can be devised to invite pop
ulatiOn than TO deal justly by the settler.
and see 10 il that the deed for which he
pays his hard earned cash conveys TO him
good title. Is it not better that this matter
be settled now. that after years of hard la
Dor the settler may find his title defective
and the grantor dead or unable to pay.
The facts are. many hundreds of thousands
of acres of lands now intended 10 be granted
by congress to railroads have been taken by
ways peculiar 10 railroad corpora
tons, and the settler compelled TO
look elsewhere for lands. These lands
the railroad companies cannot give title
to. We would advise Mr.. Drake to read
the full text of the decision rendered by the
VI lilC = llAlCu obelNNo III N4iO
Kansas Pacific case. He will be enlight-
ened thereby. Now. Mr.. Editor. we ask,
is it reasonable to suppose that congress in
tended to say 10 these land grant corpora
tons. after you have secured the land
that by the terms of the grant were intended
to be granted, you may roam at will over
the country. and wherever you can find a
settler who has not complied with the strict
letter of the law You may dispOsseSS him
and take his land? This is precisely what
the railroad companies have done. Mr..
brakes company may be an exception. but
we doubt it. We do not know that these
lands referred to in this and former COM
munication will ever be recovered from
these railroad companies. If not. their his
tory would be record of villainy accom-
pliShed unparalleled in the annals of the
land department of the United States.
Very truly, j. L.
Blue Earth City. June 90. 1885.