The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-01-03

ton lands be sold. The prellminaries
 provided for the sale of these lands are "a little different to those of earlier times but I know of no law that ever author | ized their sale without tho consent oi the people in the township or districts where the lands lie, who are the req .beneficiaries of them, and for whose ben. eft the state holds them in trust.
 Disposition of Funds
 "The disposition of the funds de.
 rived from the sale of these lands, is
 equally as carefully provided for il
 the code, as. follows:
 "1S02. (3656) Proceeds of schoo
 lands covered into treasury; faith and credit of state pledged for payment oi
 interest. All funds now in the state
 treasury derived from the sale of six
 teenth section or other school lands, or
 which may hereafter accrue from the sale of such lands, together with the
 redemption money of other lands in which former aecumulations have been invested under an act approved March 1, 1881, entitled "An act to authorize the compromise and settlement of claims for school lands in this state are covered into the state treasury and made available for general purposes; and the faith and credit of the state is pledged for the payment of the interest on such fund to the public schools of the state, at the rate of per cent per annum.'
 'These lands and the proceeds of their sales constitute permanent en- dowment fund for the benefit of the schools of the several counties, and it is not the spirit of the original grant, the policy of the law nor within the power of the state to exhaust, consume or entirely annihilate these lands, nor the fund derived from their sale; neither can they be diverted into other channels than those defined by law for their management, distribution and 
 ''The law has always tried to safe- guard the expenditure and disburse- ment of the school money of the state, reference to the source from which 1t came and to that end we have section 6S34 of the present code, as fol- lows:
 "6S34 Any person into whose hands or under whose control any of the public school money may come, who uses or permits the use of the same, or any part thereof, except for pur- poses of the public schools, and in ac- cordance with the law regulating the public schools and providing for the of the public school money, is guilty of embezzlement, and on conviction must be punished as if he had stolen it..
 "The timber on the school lands of the state, constituting as it does, part of the realty, cannot be sold except as is provided in sections 17S2 and 17S3 of the code--in other words, there is an absolute want of legal authority for the sale of the timber on the school lands of the state, separate from tho land itself.
 Lands Sold at Will
 There has been no Legislation in Mo- bile county, or applying to that county, that has changed the situation with ref erenee to these lands, or diyested the ti- tie from the state or vested it in the school commissioners of the county, or any other local authority although in many of the school matters of the county Mobile has a different and separate sys- tenn. Notwithstand this total lack of au- Lhority, find that the school commission CTS of the county of Mobile have talon charge of the school lands In the county and have administered them as they saw fit, and have sold land and timber, de- voting the proceeds from such sales 10 he schools of the county, where it has been consumed, both as to principal and interest; some of the land is gone, the timber, once as fine as grew in the pine belt of the state. is practically all gone, and there is no fund anywhere that rep resents it's value. None of the money by the board of school commis- sioners was ever paid into the state treas ury.
 q am attaching hereto copy of form of lease into which is written the mov- ing cause of it's execution; namely, to per- init the lessee to cut and carry away all timber, naming the kind that was on the land at the time of making the con tract above 10 inches. or such other size as happened to be most convenient, or adapted to the kind of timber to be cut. Instead of making deed of conveyance to the timber on the land, they made lease as they chose to call 1t, Which carried with it every right that deed of conveyance could have carried insofar ,s the timber was concerned. attach another CODY of a form of lease used, often on the same land, which carried the alleged right to box for turpentne all the small timber that had not been pre- viously cut for timbering purposes. Thus f. may easily be seen that when both op- srations had been carried on for while pn the same land, there was not either arge or small timber left. As direce md proximate result of these operations. there is now but little timber left on the eth section land of Mobile county.
 ''So far as the enactment of law Is the state has made suitable ,ffort to protect the timber on the ,chool lands of the state, and l re- ;pectfully direct attention to section LTe0 of the code, as follows;
 "'1T9O. (3632) : +* Any person who, without authority, cuts down, boxes. njures, or destroys any tree on school ands. shall forfeit and pay for every ,uch tree sto, to be recovered before my court having Jurisdiction. in the corporate name of the township, or ,chool district where such lands are To- ,ated.'
 Sovereignty of State
 "section 17s1 provides that all fines md forfeitures collected under the preceding section shall be paid into he state treasury, and added to the principal of the school fund of the Thus, 1t may be seen that Ihere is not, nor does there. appear to nave ever been any effort made to de- stroy the sovereignty of the state over these lands or the fund derived from their sale, or collected as penalties for .respasses upon them.
 q have a detailed list of all the lands of the county upon which leases were made and from which timber was cut or boxed, with the names of the persons, firms and corporations taking such leases and afterwards cutting or boxing the timber. have, also, list of all the members of the board of school who authorized these leases, and to them, jointly with the men who cut or boxed the timber, should be charged, not the price collect ed by them for the timber, but the sta tutory penalty, or at least the actual value of tho timber cut and destroyed.
 There are 10o of these leases, cover ing vast area of the school lands, for ,uhich iha hnn rd of school com mi Ssinners