Mohave County miner and our mineral wealth., 1920-01-17
REPORT OF ACREAGE OF
 SCRIP LAND EXAGGERATED
Continued From Front Page)

"l am glad to avail myself of the opportunity to give these facts to the people of Mohave County through the columns of your paper. 1..
 "AS you probably know, years ago certain stock men went out on the public domain and developed water, thereby making the range accessive to that water as a basis to sheep or cattle range. The odd numbered sec tions forty miles on each side of the
 Santa Fe Railroad were held by the
 Santa Fe Pacific Railroad Company,
 and after a while these different
 stock men leased these odd numbered
 sections from the railroad company,
 thereby having a little more of a
 hold on the range which they orig
 inally developed. Later as things
 progressed and the industry became
 more established these railroad lands
 were bought by the different stock
 men having equities in the different
 townships in which the lands were
 situated. In no instance in the pur.
 chase made by our companies have
 we known where any other stock mans interests were not fully. recog-
 nized, and all divisions of the sales
 of railroad lands made to our com
 panies were only made after a fair and equitable adjustment was made with all parties interested. The same conditions exist in Mohave County and men like Ira George and Carrow Bros., O. D. M. Gaddis, and others who have been through the same proposition of buying and leasing railroad lands can
 give you ideas of how the Santa. Fe
 Pacific Railroad Company handled this matter. They can tell you that before any railroad lands were sold to any of the parties making applica- tion to buy the same, that all parties who had interests in the vicinity of these lands were given full consid- eration and that in practically all cases the Santa Fe Pacific Railroad
 Company insisted upon satisfactory adjustments and divisions of the lands to all the parties interested. It be- came apparent before very long that the ownership of the odd numbered sections in township was not suf- ficient protection to the stock men having title to these lands, to war rant his making extensive improve ments or utilizing his range to it's greatest usefulness. He found that he had no control over stray bands of sheep going over and using tip his range, nor of drifts of cattle and that while he was actually the party who had made the range and spent con siderable money developing water and buying the railroad lands and making other valuable improvements on the same he still did not have any pro- tection when this was all done. The stock man naturally turned to some way in which he could solidify his railroad lands in order that he might be able to stabilize his business and secure the greatest possible benefits from his range. However, those stock men, both sheep and cattle, who hold permits on the Forest Reservations were not confronted with this problem. They found they were amply protect ed against trespassers by the, Indian Service and Forestry Service who es- tablished certain allotments for the sheep and cattle to graze upon.
 "The Forestry Service also allowed the cattle men to fence off their al- lotments into community allotments thereby giving them the fullest op. portunity to protect what was con sidered and recognized as their range.
 'It is only natural that the stock men owning the railroad lands and the in the vicinity thereof should look to a way in which they would be able to consolidate their holdings. As you probably know a great many of them were able to do this by state selections, but the State grants were not sufficiently large to enable all stock men to avail them selves of this privilege. " .'..
 'The opportunity of placing script on the even numbered sections came to us and we accordingly negotiated with | the Santa Fe for the filing of 223,- 900 acres of scrip on the even numbere sections in the townships in which | our companies had already purchased the railroad lands. The filing of this | 223, 1000 acres is primarily the cause of all the agitation carried on by the said Northern Arizona Protective As sociation. As l recall it they publish ed two articles in the newspapers, both of which greatly exaggerated the facts and created the impression that we through the Santa Fe were en- deavoring to scrip out all the small stock men. If you read these articles you will remember that they claimed that some one million one hundred thousand acres were involved in this I transaction and that the land on which the scrip was to be filed extend ed from thirty miles east of the Grand Canyon Railway as far as .Kingmn:
 "Now as a matter of fact, the actual acreage in this transaction amounted to 223,OOO acres. Not one acre was filed west of Nelson. In the entire filing not one single conflicting entry developed. We did not file one acre of land outside of the townships in which we already owned the railroad ands, nor did we file upon one acre of the land upon which there could possibly be an adverse claim, such as a homesteader, or improvements made by other stock men. ,s."..,.
 "These lands were filed upon for Tho Grand Canyon Sheen Company,