The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-03-20
The Record of Congress

Washington, March 19.-(SpeciaL)-- What has Congress done this winter in the forestry and irrigation cause? Did it do anything of importance in either. or on the public land question? Noth- ing in any sense spectacular. but yet several things of very considerable inn portance, and furthermore 1t refused to do several very bad things which were strongly urged upon 1t.
 After a long struggle of years the law was passed consolidating all of the forestry work of the Government into one bureau in the Department of Agriculture; this in place of having 1t split up among some five various branches in different departments. This gives over 60,000,000 acres of forest reserve into the care of the Forestry Bureau of the Department of Agricul- ture with adequate authority to fairly protect the forests, allow for the cut ting and sale of ripe timber and. with power to arrest traspassers, etc.
 Several small bills desired by the reclamation service to more fully carry out the irrigation law were considered and readily passed by Congress, such as the bill to allow the proceeds from the sales of the vast amount of partly used supplies, at the end of each sea- son. to go back into the reclamation fund.-" instead of into the treasury. thus keeping the fund in tact and op- erating as an incentive to the engineers to take care of their property and real ize the most out of 1t.
 The really great legislation of the session, however. was the repeal of the forest reserve lieu selection law, thus preventing the location in the future of all forest reserve scrip, so-called, i. e.. repeating the right of a man or cor poration owning land within forest reserve to relinquish it to the Govern ment and select fin lieu thereof any other unreserved nonmineral public land.
 This is a great step forward in land law reform and does away with one of the most notorious and scandalous foFms of fraud and graft under the Federal land laws Under this law enormous losses have been put upon the Government. the right to select these lieu lands having been transferable and resulting in the relinquishment during the past few years of several million acres of comparatively worth less railroad grant and other lands in cluded within forest reserves. and the selection in their place of equal areas of the finest timber lands in the Northwest.
 Denuded slopes not worth 50 cents an acre. or bare mountain sides, acquired under otSer land laws at nominal figure simply for the purpose of ex- change, have been re1inquished and lieu selections made. worth. according to the highest official and expert au- thorities $50 and even $100 an acre. By these transactions the country has lost in the last few years tens of mill lions of dollars. By the action of Con- gress this form of graft is now at an end.
 The repeal of this lieu land law Is the first recognition by Congress of the wise recommendations of the President and his Public Lands Commission. There are three other specific reform recommendations of the President and the commission and these will be for Congress to act upon at Its next ses- sion.
 Another point. however. wherein Con- gress followed the recommendations of the Commission was in the refusal of the Senate to enact $40 acre homestead laws for Colorado and South Dakota