The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1885-11-06
THE SIOUX CITY INDEMNITY
LANDS.
Letter from Land Commissioners Drake
in Reference to the Grant.
How Acquired. Court Rulings. Etc.

M. X. Armstrong, st. James, MINI.
DEAR SIR:-Your favor of the 9th re,
ceived and noted. Thus far, amidst al
. this wild and ridiculous excitement over
our land titles, ] have not dictated, no,
have | personally written, a single letter
upon the question.
There is such a popular misconception,
and such general Ignorance, of the ques'
tons involved, that it has seemed to be,
at the present juncture, little short OF
, folly to try to stem the tide against the
> excited pOpulace, led on by designing
, schemers whose purpose is solely that OF
r gain. ] have waited until the movement
| should i'm large part spend its force, and
men would calmly listen to facts and be
governed by reason.
The time has not yet tonne to clearly
. elucidate the situation, but / see that
Won. in common with many others. have
n misconceptiOn of the situation when
YOU talk of our ten-mile limits. There
is no such thing known to our grant as a
ten-mile limit. The Supreme Court of
the United States, the District Courts,
and the Department ut Washington, all
have ruled, again and again, that the
LOCATED LINE, and NoT the CONSTRUCTED
LINE, is the basis for adjustment of land
grants. The present Commissioner does
not pretend to dispute this.
Now, our located line was, us You say,
about four miles north of st. James, and
the Act of March 3, 1857, withdrew from
the General Government and Vested in
the State each odd-numbered section
for six miles each side of this located
line, Il map of which was filed with the
Department at Washington, showing
1876 miles, or thereabouts. The Act
further provided that IN lieu of many
lands lost within thes ix-mile limit each
side of the road, 1t should be our privil-
ege to select from the odd-numbered
sections within fifteen miles each side of
the located line.
The Department at Washington recog-
nized our filing Of our located line from
st. Paul to the southern boundary of the
State, withdrew the lands and certified
them to the State, and the State in turn
decided them to us. We have never Of
fered for sale, nor have eve sold, IN
acre of lond which was nOt thus certi-
fed to the State and by the State decided
Ia us. Now if this had been an unbrO-
ken wilderness, and all the lands had
been within the six-mile limits vested in
the General Government at the time,
we would have acquired 72l 800 acres.
We have actually acquired Loss, 800
acres, and many of them twenty miles
from the located line.
To one readinsthe Act of 1857, and not
examining into the subject, there APP
pears something very radically wrong
here; but on May ~, 1854, Congress
passed another Act specifically for the
benefit of u railroad, known as No.
1872, section { of which reads: THAT
there be and is hereby granted to the
State of Minnesota, for the purpose of
aiding the construction of our said rail
road, four additional alternate sections
of land per mile, to be selected within
twenty miles of the line of said road"
This is not an indemnity grant, but is
absolute and as clearly defined us it it
had been embraced i'm the Act of 1857,
giving us 5Ol ,76O acres additional, with
out reservation or restriction, anywhere
within twenty miles of the located line.
The great mass of people, u~nacquaInted
with this statute, don't know that the
sol 600 acres of land supposed to be in
demnity was not indemnity at all, but a
direct grant from the Government,
practically extending our in-place limits
TO twenty miles each side of our located
line, instead of six miles, as provided by
the Act of 1857. This additional grant
has been recognized as Il valid grant of
quantity by the Supreme Court of the
United States.
Adding this sol 760 acres to the 72l ,920
acres which we were entitled to by the
Act of 1857, we would have acquired
! ,223 $50 acres had the country from
West st. Paul to the State line been an
unbrokcn wilderness and all ofthe lands
vested in the government. We nave ac-
tually acquired, as before stated, 1885,
800 acres, thus leaving an apparent de-
ficiency of 3 $3.50 acres. The courts
nave, however, rnled that we must di-
vide where u grant Overlaps other
&C, 900 acres, taken by other railroads,
leaving us an absolute deficiency of over
10000 acres.
The Albert Lea people have attempted
to make a great point over our failure TO
make On absolute selection as provided
by the Act, holding that we didn't per-
form the clerical formality of selecting
each of these pieces of land when there
was a deficiency. In other words: with
six apples upon the table before me,
give You ten, and demand that you shall
select the ten ont of the six.
The State called for all of these lands,
thus making the selection, and decided
them to us, and we accepted them.
What peurile and ridiculous technicali-
ty it is to say that we didn't select when
a deficiency existed, and when We ac-
cepted all there was left. The whole
thing is SO peurile that it requires only
the proper authorities ut the proper time
by Il few words to explode it.
Daniel Rohrer of WOrthingtOn has
been instructed to notify all whom it
may concern that grant will be de-
Tended to the last extremity, and that
every trespasser upon our lands will be
prosecuted. Furthermore, any person
4 fl 1850 .-I, nr.,.Inl H.,
trespassers will be defendeded by us
invite information of such cases.
| am satisfied that it has been
the intention of the Land Office at Wash
lngton to disturb existing grants by thus
clOuding titles. 1t is unquestionably the
purpose of Commissioner Sparks to
question the certification of lands not
actually in the possession of the com
panies until their grants can be adjusted.
The Supreme Court has decided that n
certitication is equivalent to a patent,
and that a patent carries with it prima
facie evidence of title.
There is no anxiety whatever among
the stockholders of our company as re-
CARDS the final outcome, but | deeply re-
greet that Southwestern Minnesota, when
fairly emerged from the blight of grass
hopper invasions and failing wheat
crops, and Just started on the highway TO
prosperity, Is thus to be clouded again
by an assault upon the land tenures
which, like an attack upon q wOman's
| virtue, is Il stain most difficult to eradi-
cate, groundless though it be. Our i'm
migration agents are practically with
drawing from the field, and, although
we sold 5000 acres i'm the month of
September, land sales have 10 practi-
cally ceased and promise to continue so
until this bubble is burst. 1t will surely
be exploded before spring, because the
interests involved are so great, and the
effects of the movement so baneful, that
il will hasten decisions which can no
longer leave doubt.
Ifthe General Land Office attempts
any such readjustment as has been indi-
Gated by floating rumorS, the Illinois
Central grants i'm Illinois will be raided
in some way, and all the railway grant
tenures of the country will be aspersed.
1t is rapidly coming to this, for the Wis
consin grants are now being attacked,
as is the Chicago d Northwestern, the
Topeka Il Santa Fe, and next will come
the Union Pacific.
We are not alone i'm this, and the in
terests involved are too great to suppose
for a moment that after nearly twenty
years possession, and the sale of hun
dreds of thousands of acres to innocent
purchasers, with repeated decisions and
combinations of titles in the Supreme
Court of the United States, that the De-
partment ut Washington has any serious
intent to take such suicidal action las
these reports indicate. That they do in
tend i'm their future disposition of lands