The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-01-05
MINERS TO RECONSIDER,
Compromise Bill May Be Dropped
by the Executive Com.
mittee.
Chairman Merrill of the Montana
State Commission Is Here and
Is to Be Heard.

! Already a movement is on foot by. some
OF the members of the executive com
mittee of the State Miners Association t
/ have reconsidered its action by which the
FoTd-Ralston-Singer substitute bill was
agreed to at the December meeting.
There have been three bills before the
Miners Association for introduction tc
Congress on the mineral land question
since the efforts began to bring about some
sort of an agreement between it and the
Central Pacific.
AS w. II. Mills and the miners failed tc
reach common ground of understanding
the decision was reached by the latter o.
appealing to Congressional action for re.
lief, and the first bill proposed was the
Idaho-Montana act as made applicable to
this State. Then Attorney William II.
Singer of the Southern Pacific drafted a
bill, and it was presented by the miners
for consideration.
Finally a compromise bill-the COM
bined product of Mr.. Singer, Chairman w.
c. Ralston OF the Mineral Lands Commit
tee and Chairman TREY L. Ford of the
Committee on Legislation-was adopted as
substitute for the other two.
John NJ. Wright, A. II. Ricketts, and
Charles G. Yale of the old Mineral Land
Com ittee have never taken kindly to the
substitute bill and their hostility has been
all the more intensified by the visit to this
City of Chairman Thomas A. Merrill of
the Montana State Mineral Land Commits
sion.
Mr.. Merrill drew up the first draft of the
bill which ultimately developed into the
Montana and Idaho act, and it is this par
ticular statute for which Messrs. RICKETTS,.
Wright and Yale have all along been con.
fonAinn nv Marril -
Miners Convention here in 1894, and also
a delegate to the Mississippi Con-
gress of that year. Els home is at Helena
and he has extensive mining interests.
Speaking of the operation of the Montana
and Idaho act he observed yesterday:
Both our miners and the Northern Pacific
Railroad Company in our State are pleased
has between 1900, 900 and $4,000, 900 acres
of land in Montana, which is about nine-tenths
OF its grant in the two States.
Since May the commissions in the the three
districts constituting our State have examined
and classified l, 100, 900; in TACT, they did this
in five months, and q an expense of fraction
less than cents per acre: Our appropria ton
was only $4,000. There have been no protests
from the miners at all, and all that the railroad
company has protested has been less than 1000
acres. The railroad people like the law so well
that they assist the Commissioners with sur
yeyors In the field
The law simply amounts to this: The Gov
eminent says, We have granted SO many acres
of land to the railroad company, reserying the
mineral lands; now we propose to go and as
certain by means of commission, duasi-ju-
dicial in i is character, just what lands we have
granted and what lands we have not. After
the commission has determined their charac-
ter, the right OF protest by any one to the
Land Office is left.
But the substitute bill of the California
Miners executive committee is exactly the OBJ
poSite. Its assumption at the very out
set is that all the lands in the Central
Pacific grant are non-mineral, and the
burden of proving any of them to
be mineral in character is left on the miner,
which is all very well Tor the railroad com,
pany, bat great hardship Tor the prospector
and miner. Besides, under your bill, the de-
termination of the commission in its cIassif-
cation OF lands could be made only upon the
application of some one, and even then it
would have only the weight of mere evidence
in the Land Office, and would be subject TO
the rule of preponderance of testimony.
Mr.. Merrill will pay brief visit to Los
Angeles, and upon his return meeting of
the executive committee is to be called to
hear his views formally expressed.