Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1901-03-26
ALL ARE sWINpLEs.
Are Many Devices for Extracting Mon.
ey From Homeseekers.

Gy FROM F1OTnSSCckGFS.
Guthrie, o. T. March 21.-The de-
sire to get homes in the Wichita and
Comanche country has induced a
number of swindling devices to be
sprung by individuals, claiming that
the individual or association has pecul-
lar facilities for effecting the filing
of declaratory statements upon choice
tracts of land, without other expense
than fee to be paid to
him or them that the per-
son or association has had the
land surveyed, or selections in it made
for those who will pay the proper fees,
and the persons employing them will
have their filing made ahead of those
who go as the law requires and file at
the land Office.
Several of these men have already
been indicted, some are serving SEN
fences, others are awaiting trial, and
the government of the United States
is investigating quite a number of 9th
cases with a view to prosecution. The
punishment, under United States stat
utes, for these offenses, varies from
one to three years at hard labor in the
| penitentiary, and a fine of very re-
| spectacle amount. Each swindle con
stitutes a separate offense, and sen.
tence may be imposed for each swim
die.
| Where the mails are used in these
schemes, an additional indictment is
also made for the fraudulent use of the
mails, and the penalties are equally
severe.
Grand Army posts and the general
| Tllhlja chnnl1 nf Wind
lers. Nobody can do any better for
them than the government can do and
will do. Depending upon such schemes
must certainly result in losses, ant
may lead to forfeiture of settlers
rights.
The number of homeless people who
want to go into the Washita or the
Comanche country will run into scores
and probably hundreds of thousands
and systems of fleeing these people
have sprung up with wonderful rapid
ity in the last sixty days.
The most catchy of these swindles
have been of two classes, one where
the swindling persons or organizations
claim that they are agents under the
law, and have peculiar facilities 70
filing soldiers declaratory statement
upon exceptionally fine tracts of Ian.
in that country ahead of other person
who wish to settle.
The truth is an agent can file onl
one declaratory, and the corporation
cannot become agents and file them b.
the thousands; no one has any Sin
side" track, and no one knows how tn.
land is going to be opened for settle
ment; and no one can select the Ian,
to be filed upon until the day that tn,
filing is made, because it is impossible
to determine until the moment Of fiji
ing whether some one has not alread,
filed upon it. No one has any inside
} information as to the character o
quality of the land, as men have bee
going over that land by tens of thous
ands during the last twenty years, an,
every foot of the land has been repeat
: eddy traversed from every direction b
every sort and kind of people, Indians
cattlemen, missionaries, horsethieves
prospectors for farming land, prospec
tors for mining land, and prospector
for everything else.
These swindling schemes have a
ready netted the swindlers thousand
of dollars. The country will be fiood
: ed with these people for the next si
!; months, and nothing can be of NOR
, public advantage than to expose thes
, devices.