The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1904-04-13
THE LOBBY AND THE LAND
LAWS.

LAWS,
To an outsider it seems almost in
credible that all effort to reform the
present land laws of the country
should prove once more a failure.
There is but one opinion on this sub
ject in the section where those who
have the interests of the settler and of
the nation at heart reside. Such pro-
visions as the timber and stone act,
the desert act and the communication
clause of the homestead act have not
friend in the West except the lum-
Der kings, the land spectators and
their agents. Yet their representatives
are able to defeat remedial legislation
every time.
The land sharks have adopted a pol
icy by no means singular with them,
but one that should have worn itself
out by this time. 1t is now an invaria-
BILE rule in certain portions of the West,
when you wish to accomplish anything,
simply to start a rousing howl that it
is opposed by the railroads. 1t makes
no difference what the facts are. The
railroad interests may favor the thing
proposed, they may be entirely indif-
ferent or they may be against it. The
cry that they oppose it is enough. A
few foolish people are at once influ-
enced by prejudice and hold their ig-
norance dearer than the truth. Crafty
demagogues have taken such advan-
tage of this that men without an idea
in their empty noodles have been
elected to high places, pernicious laws
have been passed and benef1cent regu-
lations have been destroyed by the
mere allegation that railroad interests
desired the opposite.
This plan has been worked at Wash
ington with reference to land law legis-
lation. The cattle kings, who have in
closed vast tracts of public land and
wish no Interference; the lumber kings,
who have used these laws to amass
millions and are still using them; the
land grabber and the rowing idler, who
makes a living by taking up land and
turning it over to a syndicate, are all
against any curtailment of their privi-
leges. The solid interests Of the West
are naturally against the continuance
of these laws. The business man, the
farmer and the enlightened railroad
man, who knows that his property will
prosper only as the country that it
serves is settled and cultivated, want
our remaining public lands preserved
for actual settlement. Yet all of them
are helpless.
Nothing is better established than
the fact that the laws, or portions of
them which we have mentioned, are
now employed almost solely to trans
fer government land from public to
private ownership without fulfilling the
conditions required in good faith. Yet
the most earnest campaign for their
repeal is beaten by the combined forces
| of ignorance, prejudice and graft. The
believers in reform, the real friends of
| the West may be disheartened, but they
will not be discouraged or finally re-
buffed. The land laws Of the United
States must and shall be reformed. In
the presence of the honest common
| people of this country, with an election
near at hand, we urge every voter to
scan the record of his representative
in congress and to hold him to a strict
accountability for the defeat of legis-
lation intended to save our public lands
from further depredations. In few re-
spects has Republican obIiquity been
more apparent, or its hatred of reform
holder or more determined than in the
stand that it has taken against land
law reform.