The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1924-03-20
THE OLD FRAUDS
AND THE NEW

More than'2 hundred years age
the United States, and particularly
the State OF Georgia had scandal.
which compared with the scandal Of
oil at present. was perhaps greater
shock.
Georgia at the time of the forma-
ton of the United States govern
ment, claimed all lands lying west
ward to the Mississippi or nearly 30,
and even before the boundaries were
agreed upon With Spain, Georgia
was selling bodies of land that were
bounded and described by reference
to meridians and streams, much of
it being in the valley of the Yazo6
river.
Several such land sales were made
at ridiculously low prices, and the
companies that bought them, i'm
mediately. began selling land to
small spectators living in New
England, so the matter was compli-
Gated by having the innocent pur-
chasers' bought into it. In the
course OF a few years big deal was
put thru the Georgia legislature,
largely by bribery, selling forty mil
lion acres at less than 2 cents an
acre. This brought matters to
crisis and some of the honest men of
the state went out undertaking to
expose the graft. 1t made such
furore in the nation that congress in
tervened and a new legislature as
sembled and repudiated the former
act of sale. 1t provided for the ex-
punging from the records, of all
reference to the sale, and for the
burning of the land bill by the gov
ernor in the presence of the legisla-
ture and state officers.
This was done with much cere-
mony, the fire being made of rosin
from the pine trees, and when they
were about to light the fire, Andrew
Jackson, then a young man, stepped
forth and called out that fire for
such a sacred purpose should be
called direct from heaven, and he
produced a sun glass with which he
promptly conferred the rays OF the
sun upon the rosin and struck
blaze that flashed almost instantly
thru the mass and consumed the
parchment in a rush of flames.
Then came those innocent pur-
chasers of lands from the YazOo
company empowered by the state to
convey title, and for twenty years
the differences ragged in political
circles and legal channels with as
much uncertainty as does the bonus
bill now in the nation or the Ameri-
can Falls reservoir in Idaho affairs.
The state had to give back the half
million dollars purchase price paid
by the Yazoo company, and then 1t
had to appropriate eight million dol
lars to settle with the innocent pur-
hN hn1 nP
chase of Georgia lands.
While all this was happening a
new generation grew up, a genera
ton whose early childhood carried
recollections of excited talk and
speeches regarding the Yazoo land
frauds, the reckoning with flames,
the obligations of the state to the
buyers, and the awful burden of
that would be necessary il
the state made an honorable settle
ment
Compare that with the scandal OIL
the Mackay dam and the reclamation
Of the Powell tract, which began to
shake Idaho politics fifteen years
ago, and which has never yet been
met by the state. Com
pare 1t with the talk of reclamation
Of the Dubois project commenced
twenty years ago and still talked of
BY generation of young folks, who
nave heard it all their lives, who
have been born on~the tract, whose
parents were waiting for water when
hey were large, enough to listen to
talk, and who still I
nave faint hopes that some day thru
government aid, the wrongs or e
'ancied wrongs of the settlers will
,e retrieved in some measure by the !