During the hearings which were heretofore had, statements were made by the author of the bill, the Hon. J. B. Aswell, by Mr. Proudfit, a representative of the Land Commissioner's Office; by Hon. Robert P. Hunter, Mr. Consaul, Mr. Bernstein, and Mr. Norris.

During the course of these proceedings some of the parties requested Col. Hunter to furnish them with a list of the persons interested in the land involved in this proposed legislation, and it was stated that as far as practicable this would be done.

The further statement was made by someone in opposition to the bill that it was desired that a considerable length of time be granted in which testimony or affidavits might be procured as reflecting upon the bona fides of certain claimants.

We will be glad this morning to first have you gentlemen discuss among yourselves the order in which you will proceed. Has there been any consideration of that?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. No, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Who desires to be heard first? The chairman of the subcommittee has had no opportunity to confer with you to ascertain.

Mr. HUNTER. The hearing had in June was postponed at the request of the opponents of the bill, in order that they might get up certain papers and testimony, and I would therefore suggest that it would be proper for them to proceed first.

The CHAIRMAN. The Chair thinks that is proper.

Mr. HUNTER. Another suggestion I would make is, and I make it with all deference to the chairman and to the committee, that I deem it to be beyond the scope of this investigation, as authorized by the Congress, to investigate the claims of individual settlers, and I, on behalf of the proponents of the bill, object to any proof or investigation of the bona fides or of any other matter connected with the individual settlers.

The CHAIRMAN. I will interrupt you right there to state that there is no limit upon the right of the committee to investigate the matter, Col. Hunter, and if the committee thinks that there is no impropriety in determining upon the question of good faith that is assailed or raised, there is no impropriety of determining that question, because it is a matter in equity for the committee to determine whether there should be any legislation at all, and if there should be legislation, who should be the beneficiaries of it.

In the last hearings one of the gentlemen--by the way, who was an advocate of the bill, too-made public announcement that he had acquired a claim, as an assignee of one whom he claimed to be an original settler, for $100, and that he regarded his interests under that claim to be worth between $5,000 and $6,000. I announced then, and I repeat it now, that I am not in favor of legislating for the relief of that class of men. I do not think they are entitled to relief. That is my judgment about it, and I think it was conceded then by every person present there should be no relief in a case of that sort, where a man had acquired a claim valued at $5,000 to $6,000 for a mere nominal consideration, admitting that it was purely a speculative enterprise on his part. If there is an absence of good faith in the acquisition of the property, I think that is a very proper matter for the committee to investigate; but, in any event, the committee will control it.

Mr. HUNTER. Certainly, sir; but will you allow me to conclude what I had intended to say?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes; certainly.

Mr. HUNTER. I consider that the investigation of individual claims is vested, by the general laws that have been in operation for very many years, in the Land Department of the United States.

The CHAIRMAN. Do not misconceive me. The committee have no idea of undertaking to investigate the details of each individual claim. That would be an impossibility. But we do investigate, in a general way, the general question of good faith.

Mr. HUNTER. I have no objection to going into the matter of the individual claims, except that I have a strong conviction that the law vests all those matters in the land department, and especially in the Secretary of the Interior; and I am going to read you some authorities to that effect. The only practical objection I have to going into the invesigation of individual cases is that it will consume time, and it will force us to go into the investigation of the individual cases, and so far as this committee may determine, to go into the investigation of individual claims of settlers-claims of individual settlers. We shall want an opportunity, of course, to make counter proof on our side, and I am prepared to do that in a large number of cases. I merely suggest to the chairman that if we open up that door and go into that inquiry it will lengthen the investigation. However, I have no objection. I am here, and I have enlisted for the war, and I appear in the game, and I am ready to stay as long as the committee sees fit to prolong this investigation.

I would like to have another understanding. I had it before. I just would like to know that it is the ruling of the committee that the proponents of the bill are entitled to close. We occupy the position of the plaintiff if this were a case in court, with the right to open and close. So far as our opening is concerned, I think we made it in the hearing in June. All we want to be assure of is that we will have an opportunity to close.

The CHAIRMAN. I think that is proper.
Mr. Bernstein, are you ready to proceed?
Mr. BERNSTEIN. Yes, sir.

STATEMENT OF MR. HENRY BERNSTEIN, OF MONROE, LA., REPRESENTING THE HEIRS OF THE GOULDS.

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Mr. Chariman, in behalf of the opponents of this bill, since your last hearing, we have had prepared by the Land Office a large map showing in detail the lands embraced in the original grant, and also those that were embraced in the indemnity grants. We now present this to the committee as Exhibit A. We ask that it be filed and, in reduced form, be printed as a part of the hearing before the committee. The map being quite an expensive one, we would ask leave of the committee, at the proper time, to withdraw it for our files.

The CHAIRMAN. Will you be able to present a reduced map yourselves?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Yes, sir; I think we will.

The CHAIRMAN. If you do that, it will not be necessary to file that map.

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Very well.

You will notice that the lands embraced in the original map here are shown in brown, and those embraced in the indemnity grant are in red. That will give the committee a very fair idea of the extent of the grant and such portions of the territory as was originally taken out and omitted from the grant that went to the railroad.

We have also prepared and present to the committee as Exhibit B, a list of filings on the New Orleans Pacific Railroad grant lands. I shall not go into detail as to the contents of this printed list furnished by the Land Office, but it shows in round numbers approximately 2,724 filings.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the character of the entries? Are they public-land entries?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Under what law?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Under the homestead law.

The CHAIRMAN. Under the homestead law?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Attempted homesteads on the lands embraced in this grant.

Now, it is fair to the committee to call their attention to the fact that the list does not contain actually 2,724 homestead entries, for the reason that there are a number of townships or sections on which no entry has been made, and the Land Office gave those a serial number, going along and just putting after them "No filings." These should be deducted from the total number in order to arrive at the actual number of filings.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the actual number?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Approximately twenty-five hundred and odd. However, since this list has been furnished us we have discovered, in checking it over, that there are quite a large number of homestead filings that have been omitted unintentionally from this list by the Land Office.

We have checked over, I understand from Mr. Norris, something over 60.

Mr. NORRIS. Some 60 or 70. We have a typewritten list, however. Mr. BERNSTEIN. This will practically offset the blank numbers that are contained in that list, and we would say, therefore, with a reasonable degree of certainty, that there are approximately 2,500 filings upon these lands.

Now, we desire also to say to the committee that our former statements that there were something like 9,000 filings on these lands were made in error, brought about by the fact that the information was obtained from the serial numbers of the Land Department. It seems that they began to run the numbers of these entries from a certain number, and that was continued serially until the land offices at Natchitoches and New Orleans were consolidated or abolished and the one at Baton Rouge opened, and then the Land Department arbitrarily adopted another serial number, skipping several thousand numbers, and, without investigating in detail, we simply took the total of these serial numbers, which indicated something like 9,000. We will make that statement in order to have the committee understand the situation.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the total area of land, then, involved in the controversy, taking 2,500 as the number of entries?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. It practically involves the entire grant as given to the railroad company or obtained by the railroad company. Senator STERLING. Are the entries each for 160 acres?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. In most instances. In some few instances they are for less, but in most instances that is the correct number.

We ask to file that as Exhibit B.

(The paper was left in the possession of the clerk to the committee and ordered by the chairman not printed in the proceedings.)

Mr. NORRIS. I think it would be proper, also, to call the attention of the committee to the fact that these entries are still being made. There are entries in this list as late as February and March of the present year, and even as late as August of the present year.

Mr. BERNSTEIN. It is also desirable to call the attention of the committee to the fact that these entries represent only such entries as have been actually filed and upon which the fees have been paid to the land office. There are thousands of attempted entries on which that has not been done, and they are just waiting to see the result of this legislation.

Senator STERLING. They really do not initiate an entry at the land office until a filing has been made, do they?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. That is true.

Now, we have also had prepared for the benefit of the committee a plat book showing the filings of the Gould holdings, which we specially represent. From this plat the committee will be able to see readily the extent of these filings. This we file as Exhibit C.

(The plat book referred to was left in the possession of the clerk and ordered by the chairman not to be printed in the proceedings.) Take, for instance, page 24, which represents township 2 north, range 6 west; there have been, as shown by this printed list of filings, Exhibit B, 117 filings in that township. They are represented as shown.

The CHAIRMAN. That is township 2 north, range 6 west?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Township 2 north, range 6 west. There have been more filings on that township than any other township of the Gould holdings.

You will notice that practically covers every section or part of section with the exception of a portion of four sections, and the only reason that those sections have not been filed upon is because of the fact that the timber has already been taken from those lands by the mill owners, and they are not now timberlands.

Senator STERLING. That is a grant of alternate sections.

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Yes, sir; odd-numbered sections.

The CHAIRMAN. Are any of the filings made on lands on which the timber has been taken off?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. No, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. In no instance?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. In no instance that we have had brought to our knowledge, and we have carefully examined almost every tract of land within the entire grant.

Also you will notice that there are several filings made on the same lands.

The CHAIRMAN. When were the first filings made in that township? Do you know?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. No, sir; I have not that information. But that would be gathered by an examination of these lists.

The CHAIRMAN. That would be practically impossible.

Mr. BERNSTEIN. We could possibly have that done.

The CHAIRMAN. No; I do not know that it is important.

Mr. BERNSTEIN. It would take up so much detail, and it is such an undertaking that we have not attempted it.

The CHAIRMAN. What extent of these lands, or so much of them as filings have been made upon, is in cultivation?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. None of it, or practically none.

The CHAIRMAN. You can see the reason that I asked the question about the filings. If the filings were made a long time ago and no visible area in cultivation, it would be a circumstance that would reflect upon the good faith of the filings, I should say.

Mr. BERNSTEIN. There is practically none of it in cultivation. Senator STERLING. Have there been any contests instituted against any of these that you know of?

Mr. HUDSON. In some instances; yes, sir.

Senator STERLING. You do not know approximately the number of contests that have been made?

Mr. HUDSON. No, sir. Usually they have been dismissed by the register and receiver and carried up and dismissed by the commissioner and appealed to the Secretary.

Senator STERLING. That is, the contests have been dismissed?

Mr. HUDSON. We call them entries, Senator, but really they are just filings.

Mr. BERNSTEIN. They were simply rejected by the Land Office on the ground that the patents had already issued to those lands.

Senator STERLING. Then there is no harm done, except for the timber that is taken off in the meanwhile?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. And, Mr. Chairman, I will state that in a great many of those instances parties have gone onto those lands within the past few years and built little huts-log cabins-right out in the virgin forest, and they cut down timber for the purpose of building those huts, and also undertake to make clearings for the purpose of establishing what they presumably are trying to establish a homestead.

The CHAIRMAN. I asked you awhile ago what area of the lands has been cultivated?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Very little. Practically none. But there has been considerable timber cut in attempting to make these clearings.

Now, we have gotten out injunctions in a great many instances and stopped these parties from proceeding on these and similar entries. The CHAIRMAN. Is there any requirement in this grant-I do not recall now-as to the time or price at which the railroad should sell these lands?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Why, yes. They could sell them at $2.50 an acre within a specific time. But that was only to actual settlers. That was only to those who had occupied as actual bona fide settlers prior to the time of the selection.

The CHAIRMAN. Was there a forfeiture clause in the grant in case the railroad company refused to sell?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. No, sir.