The record-union., 1893-05-03
THE PRETENSE OF A DOUBLE
GRANT.

GRANI.
When Congress passed an Act which in
effect declared that where the sixteenth
and thirty-sixth sections were lost
to the State by reason of prior appro-
priation indemnity selections might be
made to compensate such loss, the land
rings, ever jealously guarding the inter-
ests of the State, Immediately alleged loss
of sixteenth and thirty-sixth sections
found in lands designated as swamp and
overtlowed. Making this loss the basis
of lieu selection, they made their selec-
tions from the public domain, and de-
pended upon the subserviency of the
land officers of the State to permit amend
ments to their applications in the event
be good.
We frequently encounter deplorable
evidence of the intellectual demoraliza-
ton resulting from the practice of the
law. The necessity for subterfuge, the
frequent appeal to technicality, when
persisted in too long, shorten the dame
ters of the intellect until eventually the
mind revolves in rapid circles around
some diminutive point, while the broad
policy of the law and the underlying
equity are forgotten altogether. The
Bard of Avon must have been con-
templating the average lawyer when he
said: MANS nature is subdued to the
thing he works inn
The swamp and overfowed lands
within the limits of the State of Califor-
MIA were granted to the State. They
were granted for the purpose of reclama-
ton. They were fertile and their re-
clamation would increase the area of
tillable land in the State, thereby increas-
ing its swealth-producing capacity. When,
therefore, subsequent Act declared
that the State should be indemnified for
loss of sixteenth and thirty-sixth sec
tons, by reason of pre-emption claims
initiated prior to survey, by reason of
u.
later by reason of forest reservations by
which the Government desired to pre-
serve the forests within certain limits.
eXtinguishing therein all private rights,
it was providing for indemnity for the loss
sustained by the State. 1t had made a
grant of each sixteenth and thirty-sixth
arb ril
might fall when the surveys were
made; but this grant it made after
it had alienated forever its title
to swamp lands; and therefore the six
teenth and thirty-sixth sections living
within the swamp and overhowed dis
tricts of the State were never subject of
the school grant. Having made the grant
and finding subsequently in a few cases
that certain public interests and private
rights were seriously interfered with, the
Government proposed in effect to the
State to take other. and in the nature of
things, better land than the lands lost in
place; but the object of this was to in
demnify the State for the loss it would
sustain by according to pre-emptors and
to miners rights which they may have in
nocently initiated. But what was lost to
the State by the prior grant of the swamp
land in a body, including the sixteenth
and thlrty-sixth sections? The answer
is, necessarily, nothing whatever. Since
the State lost nothing, it is absurd to
assume that it had right to be indemni-
fed where no loss had accrued.
A point is sought to be made by the in
PRODUCTION of the consideration that the
grant of sixteenth and thirty-sixth sec
tions was for school purposes, while the
grant of the swamp land was for reclama-
ton. This is one of the finely drawn dis
tinctions which, when INDUCED in, shall
lows the mind and belittles the intellect
ual conceptions. There is no difference
between a grant of land to the State of
California for school purposes and grant
of land to the State. Public education is
charge against the people of the State of
California, anu IL lne government OF the
United States saw fit to bear part of that
charge, the munificence was to the peo-
ple of California. Likewise, the grant
of the swamp lands was grant and
gift to the people of the State of Califor-
MIA. They were granted for the purpose
of reclamation. If they could have been
reclaimed for a dollar an acre and sold for
fifty cents, as private individual would