The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1885-11-18
Six copies of the Weekly sentinel for 90.
CONGRESS AND THE LAND CT

CONGRESS AND THE LAND GRANTS.
Washington correspondents of the Repub-
lican papers state that many Democratic
members of Congress are compiling speeches
favOring a restoration of illegally gotten
land grants, but that the Republican ma
jority in the Senate "who have legal minds
will defeat the propositions This is ex-
actly what we may expect from the past
records oil the two parties on this question.
The same wastefulness, the same dishonesty
that characterized the actions of the Repub-
lican party in its management of the peo-
pies property, may be looked for as the
chief element in the defence of the spoilers.
There is no single direction in which
true reform is needed more than in
determined effort to enfore restitution of
the stolen property, not only in accordance
with the letter but in the spirit of the law.
This spirit has been embodied in the home
stead act and the public land therein been
considered the property of the people. 1t
was the spirit and intention of that
act to retain this property for oc-
tuaI settlement. and to keep it from
the market rs a mere speculative commodity.
BY one way and another, characteristic of
the most pettifogging methods of the law,
enormous bodies of property belonging to
the people of this country have been taken
from them and given. on one or another
pretext, to corporations and individuals, and
in quantities so enormous as not to be readily
comprehended, and this, in nearly every
case, against the protests of the Democratic
II. Al. .,,I
of Republican members of both Houses, and
with the connivance, in several cases. of the
President and the Supreme Court Now we
are to hear from Republican sources
the same old cry of duty of the Gov
eminent to fulfill its promises and sustain its
credit by substantiating these ili-gotten and
illegal claims but we never hear a word
from those sources about its duty to the peo-
pie whose property has been stolen by their
chosen servants.
The lands thus taken from the people ag
gregate round sum of Sc, 500 square miles.
This is equal to the combined New England
States, the States OF New York, Pennsylva-
MIA New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia. South
Carolina, Ohio and one-half of North Caro-
lllld Ill COmDlueu. n line uLdWn odil-
dusky, o., south to the Gulf of Mexico in
Guiding all the territory east of the line to
the Atlantic Ocean, would just about equal
the territory thus squandered. The three
Pacific Railroads alone call for 200 600 square
miles, or nearly equal to the combined terri
tory of the great States of Ohio, Indiana,
Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee.
70 no tocf IF lie
are unearned that is, the companies to
which they were granted have not complied
with the contracts under which they were
made We do not advocate the enforcement
OF the peoples claims in cases where rail-
roads have flu filled their contracts honestly,
and in a great measure sold them out to
individual buyers. but these do not repre-
sent One-half of the property contained in
the grants. But we do most emphaticaly
advocate that in all cases where the Govern
ments title has not been extinguished
by compliance with its contracts by either
railroads or individuals, that such violation
of contract by the roads shall be held to be
equivalent to the forfeiture of their grants,
and also that all further grants for any pur-
pose, except for actual settlement according
to the spirit of the homestead law, should be
prevented.
The people are awake on this issue, and
will encourage the Congressman and the
Administration in their efforts to compel a
restitution of forfeited claims. And Repub-
lican Congressman and Senators will fail by
the bloody appeal of sectionalism, to blind
the eyes of the people, either North or South,
on this great question of reform.
The Sentinel and the Farm Guide for rs.