Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1903-03-26
WESTERN ACRES.
Vast Tracts Given Away Under Land
Law That Robs the People.

After a struggle only equalled in the
history Of land legislation by the great
! fight which resulted in the enactment
Of the homestead law in 1862, writes j.
| D. WhelpIey in Golfers Weekly, con
gresS passed the national reclamation
act of year ago and created a re-
! vOIying fund which will shortly amount
to about twenty million dollars to re
claim the fertile but arid territory of
the western states.
| President Roosevelt in his first an
nual message laid down the principle
! that Successful home-making is but
another name for the upbuilding of a
nation" In his message Of last De-
Cember he again called attention to
the notorious and outrageous use OF
the present land laws. Great however
is the political power Of the landed
interests of the sparsely settled west
ern states.
The land grabbers found it easy to
accomplish their purpose under the
present land laws and the methods Of
administration which prevail in the
|
government requires only that the
legal forms involved in securing land
shall be letter perfect, and the re
CeiVeTS and registers of land offices
in the various western districts look
no further into the practical applica-
ton Of the law than might be included
in a view from their office windows.
Under the present system they are
machines for filling out blanks and
not cOnservatOrs or guardians of the
peoples interests.
| The principle underlying all land
| legislation Of the United States from
| the beginning has been that each citi-
for which he was to live upon the land
or so improve it as to benefit not only
| the new community of which he thus
formed a part, but the country as a
whole by increasing the aggregate
wealth. That this principle has
ceased to govern the land office in its
disposal Of the public land, except
purely in theory, is a notorious fact
proved by figures startling and com
| polling.
Of all the thousands of desert land
entries, for instance, which have been
| filed in the past ten years, the land
office only investigated four hundred
and seveDty-two, and out Of these two
| hunderd and ninety-seven were found
fraudulent and eventually cancelled.
The highest number of fraudulent
claims investigated were upon the one
! point of speculative intent on the part
of the settler, and in this respect Wy
| oming holds an unenviable position at
| the head of the list. OF twenty-three
cases investigated in Wyoming nine
teen Of them were found fraudulent, or
/ about eighty-five per cent. OF the
! filings. When it is realized that no
land filings are investigated except
tIose in regard to which special con-
test or information is filed, and that
in most cases there is no one so inter
eGted or so adventurous as to contest
his neighbours claim, the percentage
of fraud in the cases actually inves-
tigated becomes of startling signif-
canoe
In 1900 the government of the
United States decided away over thir-
teen and a half million acres of land :;
in 1901 these disposaIs reached a total
of sixteen million acres. a figure
which startled the country in its
enormous proportions In 1902, how
ever, there was a gain of over four
million acres. and the disposals made
by the government reached the enOr-
nous aggregate of nearly twenty mil
lion acres. At the rate which has pre-