Imperial Valley press., 1908-02-15
Rights of Honest Land Claim ants Will Be Protected
 By Land Office
OFFICIALS GIVE ASSURANCE
Uncle Sam Has No Quarrel With Man Who Us Not Trying to Steal Public Land - Rule Not Retroactive, Says Commissioner.

Register Prescott and Receiver Rob- inson of the U. s. Land Office, at Los Angeles, were in Imperial Valley this week to view land involved in a con- test and to acquaint themselves with the general situation of land affairs in this county. Gen. Prescott was obliged to return to Los Angeles after attending to the specific matter in hand, leaving Receiver Robinson to spend a few days in looking over the valley, but shortly after March 1 he will again come to the valley for the especial purpose of meeting the set tiers and giving them all the informa- tion they may desire about the pur- pose and practice of the Land Office in respect to desert land entries and assignments.
 Gen. Prescott gave positive assur- ance that the rights of every bona fide settler will be protected that no technical interpretation of rules will be allowed to jeopardize the claim of any man who is retaining and farming land and not trying, to acquire more than the law permits him to hold, and that there is not and never has been any good reason for the scare promoted by spectators and inStigatOrS of contests
 Receiver Robinson said: "The United States has no quarrel with the man who is not trying to get more than belongs to him. The Land Office will protect the settler in every way, and no contest brought against one occupying land in good faith will be recognized. All such contests, filed by persons seeking to take advantage of the new rule and to virtually jump improved farms, have been dismissed. Even when strict construction of the law would work hardship, the essen tial right of the settler is safeguarded by the Board of Equitable Adjustment Equity, not formality, is the guiding principle of the Land Office. The Imperial Valley Press has been ab- solutely right on this question from the first and all the way through. It was right in maintaining that no set tier in good faith would lose his land, and it is right in it's contention that the contestant of claims and assign ments in excess of lawful allowance is a legitimate and useful instrument of the law, recognized and encouraged by the Government, and a protector of the public domain against grabbers and grafters. No honest man will be injured by the Land Office"
 Smith Investigates.
 Congressman Smith investigated the matter in behalf of the settlers and telegraphed to attorneys for the water companies that the commissioner as- sured him that assignments taken be- fore the ruling limiting each person to one assignment will stand, and that existing claims will be fully respected.
 The communication received by counsel for the water companies states that the whole case was represented to the commissioner before Gleason reached Washington, and that he said the matter of the new order prevent ing one from taking more than one assignment is under consideration.
 Thewriter goes on to state: T do not need to explain to you how these departments sometimes get their wires crossed, but that seems to be what the trouble was in this case.
 They said to me that the matter of new order preventing one from taking more than one assignment was now under consideration by the prin-
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