The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1893-06-07

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There is mass of evidence before
your committee as to the fraudulent
manner in which pine land has been
obtained from the United States
government, and much more evil
dence could have been obtained on
this subject, but your committee did
not feel that it had any authority to
inquire into matters outside of
state lands. The evidence shows,
however, that shanties worth SIS each
were made of few sticks, with frag
ments of broken glass or bottles
stuck through holes as an excuse for
windows, and a few grains of corn or
beans were planted with stick in
the ground, SO that the claimants
would be able to swear they had
lawful residence and garden. By
these shameful devices the United
States government has been cheated
out of millions of acres under the
presumption and homestead laws,
while the parties who went through
this pretense of a residence sold out
for from 5000 to $500 each to some
wealthy lumberman, who had en-
ployed them to go there, and who
was we'll aware that the claimant
must commit perjury before the
title of the land could pass to him.
1t is claimed before your committee
that not ten per cent. of the entries
made in the timber regions are gen.
uine, and that ninty per cent are
cover for fraud.
The evidence shows that, not sat-
isfed with these villainous decep-
tiOns, frauds on more wholesale
scale have been contemplated, if not
carried out. 1t is in evidence that
prominent lumberman, a clerk of the
court in Itasca county, and in con-
versation with witness intimated
that he desired to see "a man Of
nerve" in that position, who, as the
witness understood, was to perpe-
trate wholesale frauds on the govern
ment by securing for the said lum-
bermen tracts of land on which suffi-
Gent Improvements had been or on
which no improvements whatever
had been made and which had never
been occupied by any pretended set
tier. In short, the testimony in
every direction seems to reveal bot
tomless abyss of venality and crime,
out of which a few men have built
up vast fortunes at the expense of
the national government, the state
government and all it's institutions.
One witness, a county auditor, while
testifying before your committee ad-
mitted that while in the employ
and in the pay of prominent lum-
Der company he had gone with the
United States surveyor, formerly an
employe of the same company, to
help locate some twenty or more men
on claims which were to be turned
over to the lumbermen, and that he
had succeeded in getting from these
men from one hundred and fifty to
two hundred dollars each. The lum-
Der company had the whole thing in
their own hands. They were security
for the surveyor, they selected the
surveyor, they furnished him with
necessary supplies; they sent their
agent along with him, and whenever
fine piece of land was discovered,
they clapped man on it to
hold it under the system we have
described. The evidence further
shows that some of these very men
SO located by the agents of this COM
pany proved up on their lands before
this same clerk of the court, who
was imported from Montana on ac-
count of his nerve" and that the
lands we're then turned over to the
very company that had supplied the
surveyor and sent out the man to To-
cate these men.
TAX FRAUDS.
We now approach an other and very
important branch of this inveStiga-
tiOn, tO-wit: The extent to which
the revenues of this state have been
defrauded by failure to assess them
for what they really were worth in
proportion to other lands assessed in
this state. The evidence discloses
the fact that the county of Itasca
embraces about fifty-fOur hundred
square miles, or One-fOurteenth of
the whole state. About One-third of
this area, or the neighborhood Of one
million acres, has been patented to
individuals from the United States,
and of this land over one-half or in
the neighborhood of six hundred
thousand acres has been assessed and
taxed at an average valuation of a
little over So per acre. About one-half
of the personal estate of the county
also escapes taxation. The county
has been miserably mismanaged and
the result is it has an indebtedness
of nearly twenty thousand dollars,
while it has about ten thousand dol