Imperial Valley press., 1909-07-03

Crafty land lawyers and covetous persons seeking to acquire productive farms without labor by confiscating the homes of bona fide settlers in Im- perial Valley are thwarted by decis- ions given last Wednesday by Register Prescott of the Los Angeles Land Of ice.
 The action of the Register in block ing attempts to deprive settlers of reclaimed ranches through fine-spun technicalities encourages the hope that some intelligent understanding of the land problems and the actual condi- tions in Imperial Valley may even reach Washington in time. It is a plausible guess that recent investiga- tions on the ground by Agent Satter- white have had something to do with the illumination of official minds in the land department.
 By dismissing the advance guard of a host of frivolous contests which were calculated to harass many inno- cent settlers in the Imperial Valley, says the Los Angeles Times, Gen. Prescott register, indirectly removed one of the greatest causes of uneasi- ness in the valley. Though several decisions of land office courts were ap- .parently against him, the Register handed down decision which will hald good unless reversed by the Gen. eral Land Office.
 The contests which have been pour ing into the Local Land Office were based on a recent decision in some other district which held that if land is reclaimed at the time desert entry is filed in the Land Office, the entry should be cancelled. While this decision might not work any hardship in many sections of the country, it would, if enforced, make vast difference in the stability of holdings in the Imperial Valley. But the contests will never be allowed in the Los Angeles office, unless explicit instructions to the con- trary are received from Washington.
 Because of confusion in rulings of the Land Office, conflict of surveys and withdrawal of lands from entry pend ing correction of the governments erroneous work and mistahes for which settlers were in no sense responsible, many settlers have found it necessary to file desert entries on their own holdings after reclamation. In some cases a settler has relinquished his claim to the government, because of some defect in the original entry, and then filed on it anew under the desert land act.
 A contest promoter discovered a decision to the effect that desert entry cannot be made on reclaimed land, and at his instigation a number of contests were begun against bona fide settlers and owners of improved ranches.
 The case in which the decision was rendered, Wednesday, was that of Geo. w. House against Isaac J. Reynolds. About 1SO acres near El Centro is in- vowed. The other contests which are affected by the decision are: William A. Van Horn against D. J. Louis, for eighty acres near Calexico; Harry B. Pearson, Jr against Albert Fuller, tract near Holtville; Isidor Babi against Horace E. Harris, 320 acres near Imperial; Isidor Babi against John Crawford, 16O acres near Imper- ial; Lee Dees against Joseph Trahil, 16O acres near Silsbeej Stephen H. Jackson against James M Edmunds 160 acres near El Centro; Theodore A. Iasigi against Horace D. Harris, 16O acres near Imperial, and Iasigi against John Crawford.
 Following the opinion of land court somewhere in the West, the contestant in the case of House against Key holds filed an affidavit setting forth that the land in controversy was re- claimed at the time the entry was filed.
 The Decision
 "There Is nothing .n the affidavit stating that the land is not naturally desert in character" asserts the reg lster. Tor that 1t was reclaimed by the installation of a well or other perna-