The oasis., 1895-03-09
The Supreme Court and the Nogales Grant. To the Editor of THE OASIS:

I luC IlultOl Ol OACACs
 DEAR SIR:-The case of the United States vs. Santaigo Ainsa, Adm. ct al. in the matter of the Nogales de Elias land grant, was heard by the court of private land claims in Tucson in De- cember 1893 and decision was rem dered in favor of the government and the settlers, who had been made par ties to the suit. on the 14th of that month. An effort. based on the affi- davit of NIT. Ignacio Bonillas. M. E., was made to get new hearing, but this the court denied on the 30th of December.
 The act creating the court provided that either party losing in the land court could appeal to the supreme court of the United States within six months after the decision of the for mer court. The claimant took adyan- tage of this provision and appealed the case within the time allowed them. At the proper time MT. L. F. Parker of St. Louis, attorney for the settlers, made motion to have the case advanced on the docket ofthe su- preme court. This is the information now ten months old that has been conveyed to the people by a letter from Washington and has caused so much uneasiness. This same informa- tion was published by the papers of the county ten months ago and why people allow themselves to be annoyed by it now or at any time do not un- derstand. This case may be heard at this term of the supreme court and it may not. When it is heard, the case on the part of the government will be conducted by the attorney general or the solicitor general and not by Mir. Mr. Reynolds. Mir. Reynolds has noth- ing to do with the case after it leaves the land court. While I have no spe- ciiic authority for saying 30, am of opinion that none of the Arizona cases will be heard by the supreme court until all of them have been tried by the land court and l would certainly be better satisfied if that court would wait till then. The people can and will gain nothing by attempting to hurry these cases. This litiga tion is governed entirely by foreign laws, many of them two or three hundred years old, difficult to find aud more diff ticult to interpret, contradictory in many of their parts and hard to apply to the cases in hand, The courts should have ample time to study and master this mass of legislation.
 I am often asked if do not think the claimants will keep these cases before the supreme court an indefinite length of time. In the first instance do not believe they will attempt to do anything of the kind. It is not to their interest to do so. The act creating the land court provides that grants confirmed shall be referred to the surveyor general to be surveyed. These surveys go back to the land court for it's approval and when ap- proved by it to the commissioner of the general land office for issue of pa- tent It is highly improbable that the government will keep the land court and it's servants in existence un- der salary for any great length of time, nor for any more time than is ac- tually necessary, merely to gratify the land grant claimants. When the pro- per time arrives the supreme court will promptly dispose of all these cases and have no doubt whatever it will be done in way satisfactory to the settlers