Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1907-03-15


able, the heavy timbered lands OF
Western Washington next and the
agricultural lands the least of the
three. But the history of the dis
position of these lands, to the extent
that they have already been disposed
OF, shows that the greatest value has
been received for the sales of farming
lands, the second from the sales of
timber lands and the least from the
sales of tide and shore lands. And
this has been due, not to the COM
parative values of the respective
classes of lands enumerated, but to
the fact that the agricultural lands
have been disposed of at something
approaching their actual value while
the tide and shore lands and the tim
ber lands, or rather the standing
timber on them, have been distrib-
uted among favored purchasers at
nominal prices, and no adequate pro-
portion of their actual value received
for them.
This has arisen from the fact that
the persons desiring to possess them
selves of the farming lands have gone
to the State to purchase them as in
dividuals, and have purchased them
under conditions which afforded COM
petition in the bidding aroused, while
the purchasers of the tide and shore
lands and of the timber have pur-
chased at their own prices, and in
many instances being specifically
permitted by law so to do.
Throughout the history of the
Washington land laws farming lands
have been one exception to the almost
general rule that the States lands
have been sold to preferential pur-
chasers or under conditions which did
not permit of competition in the bid
ding for them. In the case of tide
lands almost all sales have been made
to persons who were made by law
preferential purchasers, many of the
laws under which sales were made
specifying that such preferential pur-
chasers should have the right to pur-
chase the lands in question at the ap-
praised valuation. For instance, a
law passed by the States Legislature
providing for the sale of tide lands
provided, Session Laws 1889, page
435;
"The owner or owners of any lands
the shore Of the Pacific ocean, or of any
bay, harbor, sound, inlet, lake or water
course shall have the right for sixty days
the filing of the final appraisal
OF the tide-lands to purchase all or any
part of the tide lands in front of the
lands 30 owned"
1t was this preferential right to
purchase which at all times shut off
competition and enabled preferential
purchasers to secure State lands at
the appraised price which in many
instances was q fraction of the ac-
tual value of the property. And this
preferential right to purchase has
been continued down to the present
time, although the law has been prac-
tically redrawn by every subsequent
Legislature. And it has resulted in
the great tide-land areas of Seattle
and Tacoma, aggregating more than
a thousand acres in each city, some
of it now worth half a million dollars
an acre, being dissipated to private
owners at nominal prices. But there
was another preferential purchaser
whose right was still higher in law
than that of the adjacent upland
owner, for it is provided in the same
section:
"That il valuable improvements in &C.
tual use for commerce, trade or business
have been made upon said tide-lands by
any person, association or corporation,
the owner or owners of such improve
ments shall have the exclusive right to
purchase the lands so improved for the
period aforesaid" tSixty days.)
This is the law under which it was
provided in general terms that State
land should be sold to the highest
bidder, but under this provision the
bidding was, for period of sixty
days, restricted to single bidder.
This provision was repeatedly re-en-
acted by subsequent Legislatures,
though later altered to read that the
owner of such improvements should
have the exclusive right to apply for
the purchase of such lands, and broad
ened so as to include other adjacent
lands needed by him for the purpose
to which the lands occupied were be-
ing used. At its first opportunity
this provision was declared invalid
by the Supreme Court of the State,
but meanwhile scores of tracts OF
land worth hundreds of thousands 0i
dollars had been dissipated to pre-.
ferential purchasers at their own
prices.
And standing out as almost indis.
putable proof that this preferential
purchase clause was inserted by the
Legislature at the instigation of per-
sons so made preferential purchasers
is another provision of the same act
which promulgated an entirely differ.
ent rule with reference to improved
agricultural land. This provision ex'
cludes the person improving agricul.
tural land, whose moral right was
Just as strong as that of the person
improving tide-land, from any other
right than that of temporary posses
sion. 1t provides, Laws 1889, page
440: