The morning call., 1891-01-18
THE KAWEAH COLONY.
A Statement i'm Relation to the
Timber Lands.

Brunette G. Haskell, attorney of Kaweah
! Colony, the cooperative enterprise in Tu-
lare County, concerning whose timber lands
| the Washington dispatches of yesterday
made mention, stated yesterday in relation
| to the natter
:" The opinion rendered by the Assistant
| Attorney General is exactly as we have
| claimed The law to be. We entered these
| lands five years ago, long before any one
| thought Of reserving them. We have been
| five years at work upon them developing
| them. In order to make them accessible
we have built twenty miles of road. costing
| over 100000 We filed on the lands in
| October, 1885, and complied with every form
| and provision of law necessary to acquire
| legal title to the lands. On December 81
| 1885, we rendered the money TO the Receiver
| at Visalla and made proof for the lands
On account of technicality the tender was
| Professionally refused, and from such re-
fusal we appealed to Washington. That
| APP peal is still pending, and it must be of
this that the Acknowledgement speaks when
| he advises that these entries should be
recogulzed as valid There is 40 question
! but that they are valid in our minds. The
| Supreme Court has often decided the very
| point in issue. In Shepey VS.. COwan, 81
| u. s., $50, it plainly said that such rights
cannot be prejudiced by refusal of local
| land officers to receive proof and payment.
We claim that these lands are ours. In
Stark versus Stark, 6 Wall, 4O2; Lessieur
versus Price, II Howard, SO; Gibson versus
Chouteau, Is Wall, %. and other cases, the
Supreme Court has distinctly held that the
right to patent once vested is equivalent to
patent issued, and that when issued the
patent relates back 10 the inception of the
right.
We did our full duty under the law. We
made our proofs which were duly accepted
and approved; we then rendered our money.
which was temporarily refused. We have
the money still ready to pay into court, but
the lands we claim are now ours The Su-
preme Court, in Hepburn versus Aud, /
Cranch, S21, decided that tender aud refusal
ar. are equai 70 PERFORMANCE: We have shown
the best of faith. We have gone to work
and developed lands that were heretofore
inaccessible. We have added largely to the
resources of Tulare County. We are prose-
cuting our appeals as vigorously as we can.
The substantial citizens of Tulare County
are our warm and earnest friends. The
Mayor of Visalia, the Sheriff, the Assessor.
County Clerk, Supervisors, the banks and
business houses and the Superior Judge of
the county have all just joined in protest
to Congress against the machinery OF the
criminal law being used against us.
The lands we claim are not within the
borders of the National Park. We are six
teen miles away from it. We are not cut
with fir and pine, which is absolutely needed
for the development of Tulare County 1t
is not of mammoth growth, but simply
good understandable timber. The movement
against US IS forwarded by a lumber mo-
nopoly of that county, which has fixed the
price of lumber in Visalia so high that even
rough boards cost S25 per thousand. We
can sell it in Visalia at a profit for SIS
thousand next year.
we recently had some internal trouble In
our colony, which is happily now ended by
the expulsion of its ring-leader.
III december last we were Informal