The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1914-01-06
RULES IN FAVOR
OF POOR miner

The miner and the prospeetor have
come into their own. Forest service
inquisitions, the harassing of the To-
Gator. the arbitrary disapproval of
claims, often illegally and with show
OF force, is to be no more. The gov
ernment, through its land depart
ment, has come to the rescue of the
settler and the seeker after the
precious things of the earth, says the
Denver Financial & Mining Record.
The department of the interior now
says that miner can go on the for
est, make his locations, proceed with
his work, and it Is no business of the
ranger or any other forest officer, pro-
vidlng the miner and the prospector
complies with the printed regulations.
1t IS no business, either, of the lanl
agents until he gets ready to prove up
on his claim. Then if there afe OBJ.
1ections they can be raised
Andres A. Jones, first assistant
secretary of the interior, has render
ed the decision. The great west may
be slow in realizing what it means.
1t is the dawn OIL new era, for it
wipes out the ruling in the famous
Yard case, and the Yard case was the
foundation on which all of the op-
pressive principles of conservation
were founded.
That Secretary Franklin X. Lane
approved the ruling of his first as
sistant there can be no doubt, because
the decision breathes the same broad
spirit of justice to the miner and the
prospector which Secretary Lane
promised in nearly every interview
he gave out during his recent swing
through the western country.
Assistant Secretary Jones, who, by
the way, is son of the west and halls
from New Mexico, bowls over the
Yard case and makes it tumble like
a house of sand. He says: "After a
careful consideration OF the questions
presented by the record, the depart
ment is convinced that the policy fol-
lowed by the land department since
the decision in the Yard case, supra,
is entirely indefensible. whether
viewed from legal or administrative
standpoint
What He Says.
Again he says: ANY attempt by
the secretary of the interior to usurp
the functions of the courts must be
barren of results, since the law pro
vides him neither the power nor the
machinery for the forcement of any
Judgment. or decree in matters of
which jurisdiction is committed to the
courts. Of course the mining claims
must have the essentials to validity or
the attempted locations will be null
llties and not exclude any one from
the land
1.-The courts are open alike to the
government and all claimants under
the agricultural and mineral land
laws and they have not only the iur-
isdiction to determine but the power
to enforce their Judgment and de-
crees in cases involving possessory
claims to land. Not so with this de.
partment, whose undoubted authority
10 dispose of public land embraced in
an invalid location does not extend to
entertaining bills for the removal of
clouds upon title or actions for tres
pass or in ejeetment.
The epochal ruling is made in the
case of J. p. Nichols and Cy Smith,
who located placer claims in the Wal
Iowa national forest in Oregon. Off
GERS fthe forest service claimed
there was no discovery of minerals
and that the lands were held for
speculation and rental to parties for
grazing purposes. The land officers in
Oregon upheld the forestry service
and the commissioner of the general
land office affirmed it. Now the de.
partment of the interior completely
reverses the ruling.