The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-10-27

coast We're quick to see the advantages
5to#be obtained under this law, and they
secured the passage of state law which
made il possible for one man to obtain
control of as much land as he might
need and in such localities as he might
choose The Nevada legislature enacted
a law which gave each citizen the right
to buy. $40 acres of state land. This
privilege was not confined to residents
Of the state, and the land was sold only
after being selected by those who were
to buy.
A cattleman desiring to secure control
of a range filed an application with the
state government for the purchase of
6R acres of land, this land probably be-
ing distributed in forty-acre tracts along
one or more of the numerous well water
ed and fertile valleys of Nevada. 1t was
not necessary that this cattleman should
conhne his application to $40 acres, how
ever for the law allowed him to act as
agent for others; SO all he had to do was
to use the names of his family or friends,
as. the case might be, and file applica-
tons for as many 64os as he cared to pay
for. The state law provides that the land
shall be sold for s1.25 an acre. Twenty
cents IAN acre deposit is required at the
time of the purchase; the balance is held
upon twenty-five years time with per
cent interest, with the privilege of paying
up at any time the applicant may see
fit. The state land board took no inter-
est in these locations, other than to file
application for the land with the United
States government, charging the acre
age to the 1000 000-acre grant which had
been made by congress.
This 100000 acres is now exhausted,
and the people of Nevada have an OPP
portunity to review the workings of this
OF EvoI -
fundamentally probably one-third of all
the land in the state now under private
ownership has passed into the hands of
few cattlemen, most of them non-resi-
dents. Less than dozen men own over
100000 acres of land, and this in a state
where there are less than 100000 acres
which are now still owned by the United
States government. So long as this state
sIaW prevailed and government land could
be secured Under the state grant, it is
evident that no citizen would care to
avail himself of the federal land laws.
2 such as the homestead act or the desert
act, with their more onerous conditions
to be fulfilled before title could be Sc
cured.
That this is so is shown in the records
of the land Office, for in 1899 there were
but three homesteads filed in the entire
state of Nevada, only nine proved up on,
and not a single desert land claim, timber
claim or stone claim was filed under the
federal laws. The state law made land
ownership to those who had influence and
control of the water supply too easy for
them to resort to federal channels. Here
after any citizen obtaining land in the
state of Nevada will be compelled to Sc
cure it under the federal law, but the
trouble is that under the shrewd distri-
button of the state holdings all of the
water, all of the fertile valleys and nearly
all of the available range, dependent as
it is upon water and meadow, has been
secured by those who manipulated the
state grant.
The agricultural population of Nevada
has remained stationary for several
years, owing to this peculiar condition of
land ownership. The population of the
state is now 1885, a decrease of 3,423 in
the past ten years. There is large pro-
portion of voters in this pouulat ion there
being about 1850 This is due to the fact
that the mines and ranches employ an
unusually large proportion of single men,
The taxable property of the state
amounts to $50, 900 and the tax rate is
lew. Some of the leading men in Nevada
have spared no effort to induce immigra-
ton and to encourage the development of
their state, but they feel almost hopeless,
u
nothing. The stae itself recently adver-
tised that it would give free title to all
land which was reclaimed by anyone I'M
der the provisions of the Carey act, by
which congress allowed each of the arid
land states 100000 acres if such land was
irrigated. There has been no response
to this advertisement. and there will be
none. for the land which could have been
irrigated under the Carey act or under
the desert land act in Nevada has been
gathered in by the great nonresident live
stock companies of California and other
places.
Such an economic condition as is here
represented has resulted in the notorious
ly corrupt condition of politics which has
made. the name of Nevada a byword
throughout the United States. The pop
ulation of the state is so small, Sc large
a proportion of the vote is controlled by
a few men and money plays such an i'm
portant part in the selection of Office
holders that men have been elected to
congress time and again who We're not
considered by the better element of the
Nevada people as representing the state
in the slightest degree.
RESPONSIBLE citizens speak bitterly of the
two nonresident senators. 1t is openly
charged that the United States senator
ships of Nevada are merely matters of
purchase and sale; the market price