Williams news., 1903-12-12
MAXWELL'S SCHEME:
Thos. F. Weedin, of the Florence Blade,
 States His Views.

Geo. Ii. Maxwell IS the paid agent of the transcontinental land grant railroads and his special mission is to obtain repeal on the stone, timber and desert land laws and the communication clause of the homestead act, exclusively in the interest of those land grant roads and the syndicates handling their lieu land scrip. To divert public attention from this mission he is shouting, througha a subsidized press, Eve must save the public lands for the home seeker and bona fide set tier" He knows this slogan will appeal to popular sentiment, and so it should but for the fact that in this instance it is merely the 'stop thief' cry of a corporation lawyer engaged in a scheme to enhance the value of lieu land scrip and at the same time place all the valua- ble timber and agricultural lands of the west within the grasp of rich syndicates. His scheme is very simple one, so simple, in fact, that one wonders why it has escaped public attention so long. First by a pre-arranged plan, with officials of the Interior department. 8 vast amount of valueless land included in those railroad grants was taken into government forest reserves.- although they did not contain tim Der enough to cook a hoe cake.- and in payment for each acre of these worthless lands the govern ment issued the railroad company lieu land scrip which entities the holder or holders to locate the same number of acres of public land with out restrictions as to the charac- ter of the land selected or the loca- ton thereof. A large amount of this scrip has been bought by rich syndicates but the majority is still held by the land grant railroad companies. This scrip is now worth $5 per acre, but if Maxwell can suc- ceed in having all the land laws repealed and the homestead act stripped of it's communication clause, this lieu land scrip will immedi- ately become worth $20 per acre, as it will then be the only means of acquiring title to large tracts of the public agricultural and timber lands of the west. The railroad and syndicate holders of the scrip would make millions by the opera tion, either by selling the scrip to other syndicates or by taking up all the valuable timber lands on the coast and large belts of the best agricultural lands. And in accu- mulating these millions the land grant corporations would be out nothing except the money they are putting up for Maxwell and his lieutenants to work the job. The government would part with it's best lands without receiving a dol lar therefor, and the poor home seeker and bona ide settler, about :. whom Maxwell and his hired man, Wm. Smythe, profess to be so much concerned, would be permitted to take 16O acres of the leavings and acquire title thereto by five years continuous residence thereon.
 In furtherance of this diabolical scheme of loot, Maxwell, with the coin furnished by his syndicate em- ployers, maintains in Chicago and Washington City press and ad- vertising bureau, which he, with deceptive intent, calls the National Irrigation Association, and by means of which he flches cash con- tributions from numerous eastern manufacturers under the catchy pre- tense that he is building up new western markets for their products by advancing the cause of national irrigation. If these deluded man. ufacturers and the general public would stop a moment to think they would see the hollowness of this pretense. They would see that this arch hypocrite's demand for the repeal of the land laws would, il