Omaha daily bee., 1889-09-24
THE GENERAL LAND OFFICE,

The report of the acting commissioner
of the general land Office, just submitted
to the secretary of the interior, shows
that some reforms are urgently needed
in the methods of conducting the busi-
ness of that Office. The immediate pre-
decessor of the acting commissioner
was u practical man, who has been
credited with improving upon the ad-
ministration of the commissioner whom
he succeeded, but his efforts were not
equal to the task of placing the busi-
ness of the Office on q thorough busi-
ness basis and recovering lost ground.
Consequently the new administration
inherited a great accumulation of official
work. much of which is still in arrears.
The acting commissioner ascribes this
state of affairs partly toa lack of clerical
force, and in q great part also, to the
prevalence IN the Office of mistaken
methods and practices which have mad
the effect of obstructing rather than
facilitating the proper transaction of
business. 1t is fact made familiar by
the annual reports of several commis
sioners that the clerical force of the
general land Office has not for years
been sufficient to keep up with the de-
mands upon the Office, but congress has
steadily refused to give this important
part of the public service the relief it
required. 1t is to be hoped the next
congress will take more sensible and
liberal view of the matter, for the very
best business methods cannot be wholly
successful without adequate means for
carrying them out. There is no other
Office under the government where it is
more important that business sho uld be
done promptly and expeditiously than
| in the general land Office.
Acting Commissioner Stones COM
ments upon the course in certain re-
| spects Of his immediate predecessors
| are not commendatory. One of his first
| acts was to abolish the board of revIew
that had been created by Commissioner
| Sparks, and before which there were
| pending between seventeen and eigh-
| teen thousand cases. All these were
| disposed OF within little more than a
took charge. The policy instituted by
| Commissioner Sparks is discredited as
the result of "his un warranted and un-
fortunate suspicion that widespread
system of fraud prevailed among claim
ants on the public domain requiring
prompt and heroic remedy" and the
acting commissioner states that during
the few months OF his connection with
the duties OF the Office he found no evil
dence of general misconduct on the
part of western settlers, and failed to
discover any general system of fraud
upon the government prevailing in
reference to the public do :
main. Instances of attempted fraud
are exceedingly rare. This is very
| gratifying statement, but before wholly
condemning Commissioner Sparks it Is
| well to remember that his predecessor
gave him warrant for suspicion OF
widespread fraud, and it was the very
| gen eral public opinion that n system Of
frauds upon the government in counec-
tion with the public lands had been
practiced for years. This opinion was
founded upon the concurrent represen-
tations OF land agents, and while it may
be conceded that these were some
what exaggerated, as was shown
by subsequent investigation, it must also
be granted that there was excellent
ground for the suspicion that a wide
spread system of fraud prevailed, and