Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-02-12
MAXWELL GRANT.
Talk With the Agent of the Max
well Land Grant Settlers.
The Influence of Texas Sought to Secure
Executive Action in Behalf Of
the Settlers.
The Recent Decision OF the United States SUI
preme Court Did Not Vest the Title in
the Maxwell Company.

A small, thin, white-haired old gen.
tleman might have been seen around the
hotel Hobbies of this city during the past
two or three days, talking very earnestly
when engaged in conversation and SEEM
ingly deeply absorbed when silent. 1t was
Mr.. O.. P McMams OF Las Animas
county, N. NJ, the agent of the settlers
whom the claimants under the celebrated
Maxwell land grant are seeking to eViet
from their homes. The feeling that has
been developed in the unequal contest
between men on one side and money on
the other has grown to such an intense
heat that it has already resulted in
collision, occurring recently, in which
one man was killed and several wounded.
Mr.. McMains mission to Texas Is to
seek the aid of Texas influence
in securing executive action in behalf of
the settlers. As he himself expressed it,
"Texas and New Mexico are now so
bound together, by the great trunk line
starting from Fort Worth that they have
common interests, and should exchange
mutual aid and sympathy. -
A popular error, growing out of the
meagre dispatches in the associated press
report, is the belief that the recent de-
cision of the United States supreme court
against the government and in favor of
the defendants in a suit instituted by
Attorney General Garland to cancel quit
claim patents obtained in confirmation
of the Maxwell grant, has fore~er settled
the question and vested title in the Max
well company. Such is not the case.
The merits of the main question were not
were it otherwise every lawyer will un-
derstand at glance that rights cannot
be Invested by a collateral proceeding.
In response to the questions of GAZETTE
reporter Mr.. McMains made the follow
ing statement of the case the settlers,
showing the judicial and historical as
poets of the matter.
One Of the territories referred to in
the eighth article of the treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo of February 2, 1913,
coded by Mexico to the United States, is
the territory of New Mexico. This terri
tory was west of the Rio Grande, and
embraced the largest portion of Arizona
and the southeast portion of Utah.
On September 8, 1850 TStats. at large,
vol. 8, p. 446l congress purchased from
the state of Texas, for $40 1000 900, the
following described tract of land: Begin
at a point where the thirty-second
parallel of north latitude crosses the Rio
Grande; thence north with the Rio
Grande to the thirty-eighth parallel
of north latitude; thence east
with said parallel to the 1880
meridian; thence south with said merid-
ian to the thirty-second parallel; thence
west with said parallel to the place of be-
ginning. This purchase was added to
the then territory of New Mexico west of
the Rio Grande, portion of said pur-
chase being subsequently added to the
territory of Colorado. Another portion
of New Mexico that was not ceded by
the treaty of lS4S is the Gadsden pur-
chase south of the thirty-second parallel
of ncrth latitude.
The supreme court, in its opinion in the
Maxwell grant case, admits that only
Mexican grants in ''that portion of New
Mexico ceded by the treaty. are emit
tied to treaty protection.
The Maxwell grant claimants however,
and the encouragement of New Mexico,
William Pelham of Texas falsely repre-
sented to congress that the said grant
was in the territory of New Mexico ceded
by the treaty, and congress, guided by
this false representation quit claimed
the grant TO the heirs of the original
granters-Ch Charles Beaubien and Guada-
lupe Miranda-as ga good and valid
tract under the treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo.' Act of June 81, 1860, Stat
tute, volume -, page Il.
THE QUTTCLAIAI CONFIRMATION.
The supreme court defines quit
claim confirmation by congress of a
Mexican grant to be simply ''an admis-
sion that the right of ownership had
never been III the United States, but
had passed at the time of the cesslon to
the claimant or to those under whom he
claimed. - Adam VS.. Norris, l03 L
S. 59l In the case of the Beaubien
and Miranda or Maxwell grant, how
ever, the said grant did not 'pass at the
time of the cession to the claimants for
the good and sufficient reason that it was
not, as represented, in the territory of
New Mexico ceded by the treaty. The
admission, then, by congress, that the
grant was valid under the treaty, and
entitled TO treaty protection, was without
authority Of law, and is utterly worth
less.
THE DECISION OF SECRETARY COX.
After the unlawful admission by con-
gress of the validity of the Beaubien and
Miranda grant under the Hidalgo treaty,
the surveyor general of New Mexico, at
the instance of the grant claimants, for
warded to Commissioner Wilson of the
general land office an application for
survey of the grant according to the de-
scription of boundaries as petitioned for
by the original grantees. Commissioner
Wilson requested of the surveyor general
an approximate estimate of the number
OF acres contained in the grant as de-
scribed by metes and bounds, and the |
surveyor general answered "about two
million acres. The commissioner
then, in a formal and elaborate
opinion, decided that it was not the |
intent Of congress in its act of 1860 that |
the claimants should have one foot |
more land than they had title to from |
Mexico; that their grant by Mexico did |
not exceed twenty-five square leagues
eleven leagues to each claimant-or /
about 90 200 acres; that both congress
and the courts up to that time had taken |
the position that after 1924 and 1928 a |
governor of a Mexican territory was pro-
hibited from making grant TO any one |
person in excess Of eleven square leagues.
The grant claimants thereupon appealed |
from the commissioner decision to the /
secretary of the interior, the honorable |
!. d. Cox. Secretary Cox in his decision /
of December 81, 1863, affirmed the COM |
missioner S decision; the grantees were /
entitled to the grant made by Mexico, 1
that congress had admitted was valid i