Putnam patriot., 1911-08-04
THE PUTNAM PATRIOT August 4 rsII

Under the first limitation the navi- gation company and every other per son is prevented from locating more than leo acres in one body. By the construction of the land department, as shown in the record this requires a separation between any two entries by the same person or in the same in terest of tract of forty acres This would prevent the possibility of any one person or any one interest acquir- ing an entire tract like that of T.. .soo acres.
 Frontage Held by Government.
 The second limitation is important in that il prevents the entry of claims at any point on the shore having greater frontage than half a mile and requires that between that and the next claim taken up there shall be a frontage reserved to the public and kept in public control of a quarter of mile. The consequence is that in the seven miles of the frontage of this eliminated tract there must be reserv- ed for government control and use and such disposition as congress may see it to make and free from private ap- propriation frontage aggregating two and three-quarter miles and so distributed along the shore in front ages of eighty rods as to make cer- tain of a public frontage of this width having all the advantage that any pri- vate frontage can have In other words, if a tract with a half mile frontage Is located at a particularly advantageous place with reference to frontage must be reserved to the pub lie a frontage of a quarter of mile, or a half mile in all, for public uses.
 These two restrictions necessarily prevent a monopoly of land abutting on the shore. and as they necessarily prevent a monopoly by any one To- cator or in the interest of any com pany for whom loeators are acting they take away the motive for the ac- quisition of land and frontage merely for the purpose of excluding other companies and possible competitors and tend to confine locators to the ac- quisition of land to be profitable in its use.
 Since the executive order was is sued, Oct. 2S. 1910. there have been four locations under soldiers scrip, three of them of leo rods each along the bay, separated by two divisions of eighty rods. 1 shall assume that all of them are in the interest of the Controller Railway and Navigation company None of them has been ap- proved or passed to patent, but l shall assume they can be passed to valid patent.
 Frontage Left Open.
 Of the shore frontage unloeated which may be appropriated by scrip there remain six frontages of 160 rods each on the shore of the tract opened by the executive order facing the bay and channel, and in addition at least two and three-quarter miles of front age distributed in eleven eighty-rod strips. subject to public use and the disposition of congress. There is thus ample room for many other railroads to reach high water mark on Control Ter bay and there to acquire tracts for terminals. Of the 12.S00 acres the entries in area have covered only 800 acres, and all the rest is available for scrip location under the provisions of the act.
 There is third reason why the opening of this tract to settlement and limited private appropriations cannot lead to monopoly in the Controller Bay company or any one else. The dis tance from the dry land-i. e.. the shore land-the line of high water mark-to the line of low water mark is between two and three miles, and the distance to deeper water is about a mile far ther, making it necessary. if harbor is to be reached and used, to con struct viaduct or trestle three or four miles long from the shore to the chan mel This tidal fiat is owned by the United States. and the acquisition un- der the public land laws of tracts on the shore abutting these tidal flats gives no right or title to those flats. This would be the law if the statute was silent on the subject, but not only the statute of 1898 but also the amend ing statute of 1903 expressly imposes the restriction that no title or right can be obtained under the act in the shore of a navtgable body of water.
 I submit to all fair minded men who may have been disturbed over the charges made in respect to the execu- ave oruer Of Ocr. zs, 1g1U. that 1T has been demonstrated by the foregoing that no public interest has suffered from its issue, that great good may come from it and that no dishonest or improper motive is needed to explain It. l might, therefore, stop here; but, rather, for the purpose of the moral to be drawn from them than to vim dicate the order l propose to consider the attacks upon the order that hys- teria or rancor has prompted.
 Order Was Made Public.
 The charge has been made that this was a secret order and that though it was made in October, 1910, no one knew it until April, 1911. This is ut terly unfounded. The statement of MT. Vernon. the correspondent of the Post-Intelligencer of Seattle. news paper of wide circulation among peo- pie most interested in Alaska. shows that ten days before the order was made news of the details of Ryan's application and the probability of it's being granted was given wide public ity. It further appears from the rec ords of the interior department that fhe evening the order was signed, Oct. $. 1910. a full notice of the issue of