The river press. [volume] (Fort Benton, Mont.) 1880-current, 1905-05-31
WEDNESDAY,, MAY 81, 1906.
ROBBING THE PEOPLE OF LAND.

The recent exposure of land frauds
In Oregon, and the prosecution OF a
large number of offenders among
whom is a United States senator, has
attracted public attention to the evil
of land grabbing in the Pacific north.
west and other parts of the country.
The public domain is the property of
the American people-a property
which increases in value as it grows
smaller in area-and those who secure
possession Of it by illegitima ate meth.
DDS despoil their fellow citizens.
The enormous extent to which the
land grabbing evil has grown is de
scribed in an article in one of the pop.
ular magazines, in which a number of
cases of enormous land holdings, il.
legally acquired, are recited. There
is Henry Miller, for example, who
came to this country a poor German
boy in 1850. He has gathered in town
ship after township. until now, as
Sho"u ~ tSStliA'ObS Ia AAlIu Jaws
court, his holdings aggregate - ,1l7!
square miles, or IA, $50, 600 acres.
What those figures meansca be better
understood by rejecting that they Gov
err an area three5times..a rs large as New
~Jersey-as large as the,combined areas
Of New Hampshire, Massachusetts.
Connecticut and Delawarc-an area
greater than ALL, Greece. Miller APP
pears TO have been the most success
full Of all those who have used the ma.
chinery provided by the land laws for
robbing the nation and barring out
the actual settlers for whose benefit in
theory those laws We're enacted.
But there is a long list Of others who
have each secured a:so.called ''legal''
title to estates beside which the prin-
cipalities, dukedoms, baronies, etc.,
of the Old World shrink to insignif.
canoe. John a. Benson has tied up
about five million acres, mostly by
mean Of fraudulent surveys and the
homestead law, in;mauipulating which
he had the aid Of numerous corrupt
officials at Washington. He is said
TO have been indicted cighty.s ix times
but SO far has escaped conviction,
through the aid of c~onscienceless law
yers and sympathetic %juries.
Frederick A. Hyde has also ma.
nipulated the homestead law SO as to
secure the ownership OF a large number
OF townships. A specimen of his meth.
DDS in "homesteading' is found in
the use OF a wagon, located on the
corners of four sections, each quarter
OF which wagon represented the house
OF a settler who for a price slept there
and made the necessary Oaths of set-
Element and improvement to secure a
patent for the land: which was forth.
with made over to his employer. A
man named Jack has an estate which
includes nearly half Of Monterey
county, Cal. Jesse ID. Carr has &C
located his various great holdings a,
to inclOse an immense area of land
VuS UVAS ~ "uACA SCe IC0uo AZ Ile
United States. And around the whole
he has stretched u barbed wire fence
nor than 100 miles long.
These are only a few among hun
dreds Of similar instances. To cal
the roll Of all those who have b,
fraud obtained possession of liking.
doms' in California, Oregon, Ne.
vada, Washington and other state.
would be to name a large proportion
Of the men who have made themselves
prominent in affairs, including un,
fortunately q great number Of publ.
officials, United States senator's, rep
r~esentatives, district attorneys ant
land Office clerks. Similar big scheme.
have been worked in Minnesota, tn,
Dakotas and other states not referred
to in the magazine article.