in existence, and there are none other than those granted by a special act.

As to the contract feature, the reply is that none of the people that we are interested in are parties to this so-called contract Mr. Consaul refers to. That was between the railroad company and Congress, if it was a contract at all, which I deny. But if it was a contract at all it was between Congress and the railroad company, and long subsequent to the time the railroad company had sold these lands to our clients, and therefore we were not parties to it and we could not be bound by it.

Mr. Norris will answer the other questions.

The CHAIRMAN. All right, Mr. Norris, we will hear from you. Mr. BERNSTEIN. There are other reasons I wanted to present for a continuance, but I will yield to Mr. Norris.

STATEMENT OF MR. MARK NORRIS, OF GRAND RAPIDS, MICH., REPRESENTING BLODGETT CO. (LTD.), GRAND RAPIDS, MICH., WRIGHT-BLODGETT CO. (LTD.), SAGINAW, MICH.; SOUTHWESTERN LUMBER CO., CHIGACO, ILL.; INDUSTRIAL LUMBER CO., LOUISIANA.

Mr. NORRIS. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, in regard to this special point made by Mr. Consaul, he has called your attention apparently with a view of trying to make out his argument that this act of 1887 is a special act and in a certain sense a contract because it required the acceptance of the railroad company. Now, on that proposition I simply wish to call your attention to the fact that no grant, either by deed or by statute, ever takes effect until it is accepted by the grantee, either presumptively or by actual formal acceptance. That is the general rule. So that no distinction in regard to this act of 1887 can be made because of the special acceptance that was required by the act. Every grant has to be accepted, and many of the railroad and wagon-road grants which you will find in the history of United States jurisprudence contain the express provision that the grantees may or shall accept them, and I think that is true of every single act where the road was incorporated before the statute granting the land was passed.

Now, Mr. Consaul has called your attention to the authorities here, to the effect that a general act is not presumed to repeal a special act. Now, with that general rule I have no quarrel, but that is not a question of repeal at all. It does not affect the grant. It is simply an act bearing upon the evidence of title, to wit, the patent, and by its very terms it is special in its nature, and I think I can show that in just a moment by referring you to the act of March 3, 1891.

For many, many years there was no statute of limitations affecting United States patents of any kind. On March 3, 1891, Congress passed an act in general terms providing that no patent of the United States relating to land should be canceled or annulled except within five years from the date of the passage of the act as to previously issued patents, and within six years as to patents which were subsequently issued.

Now, that statute was about to expire, and it would have expired the day after this act of 1896 was passed; that is, the statute of limitations would have run under that act, for it was passed in 1891 and

the five years would have been up on the 3d day of March, 1896, and the day before that limitation ran out Congress passed this act of March 2, 1896, for the express purpose of excepting from the operation of that general act railroad and wagon-road grants. Why did they do that? Because at that time the Land Office had been unable to finish the adjustment of the railroad grants under the general act of March 3, 1887, and Congress wanted to except from the operation of that general statute of limitations all patents relating to railroad and wagon-road grants, and therefore they passed this act of 1896, showing, as it seems to me, in the clearest possible way that this act of March 2, 1896, applying as it does especially and only to railroad and wagon road grants, was intended to be and was passed by Congress to operate simply and solely upon those patents, and it covered them all.

Now, then, there is another proposition which I would like to advance. These parties had, under these acts, 10 years in which to come in before this statute of limitations ran, and they did not come in within the 10 years, and now they are asking, after this statute of 1896 ran out as to the subsequently issued patents on March 2, 1902, and as to the prior issued patents on March 2, 1901, now, then, 13 years and 12 years, respectively, after this statute has run in favor of these patents they come in and ask for what is practically an indefinite extension of all this matter in this particular instance. Now, I was before the land committee of the House when this Aswell bill was up. Unfortunately-perhaps unfortunately or fortunately, as the case may be--my engagements were such that before Brother Consaul spoke I had to leave the city, and I never did get an opportunity of drawing the attention of that committee to any authority in regard to this question of the general and special acts and their operation on these matters. But I understand this to be the rule, that while under the general rules of evidence a general act subsequently passed does not operate as a repeal, it may operate as a modification. It may operate on some of the other particulars of the previous special act. From the general reading of the act such appears to have been the original intent, and I think I can show by the authorities, without any question, that in this case it is not claimed to operate as a repeal, but adds a supplement to the land-grant law of the United States in two particulars, this act of March 2, 1896. First it confirms in good-faith purchasers any patents which may have been erroneously issued. That same section which has been called to your attention here, if you will read it a little bit further, provides that no patent to a bona fide purchaser, where the land has been sold by the railroad company to a bona fide purchaser, shall be vacated or annulled, but the patent of such a good-faith purchaser shall be confirmed.

Now, all of these people, my own clients, bought these lands at third, fourth, fifth, or sixth hand from the railroad company. These lands that my clients are particularly interested in were sold between 1885 and 1891, or along in there, by the railroad company. They passed through, in most cases, five or six different hands before they came into the hands of my clients.

The CHAIRMAN. Who are your clients?

Mr. NORRIS. I am here speaking for the Wright-Blodgett Co. and the Blodgett Co. (Ltd.); and Mr. J. P. Underwood, of Chicago,

and the Wright-Blodgett Co. and the Blodgett Co. (Ltd.), conveyed these lands with warranty to the Southwestern Lumber Co., and the Industrial Lumber Co., and a large lumbering operation is now based upon these lands. My clients held, originally, I think, something like 70,000 acres of this land which they bought under the advice of counsel resident in Louisiana and with the opinion of counsel that the title was complete and perfect. They kept them for a number of years and finally sold them to the Southwestern Lumber Co., and the Southwestern Lumber Co. sold them to the Industrial Lumber Co., or sold the timber on them to the Industrial Lumber Co., and that company is now operating.

Now, we claim, and we can show and I claim we have shown in the cases which we have had in the courts and which have been decided in our favor, that we were good-faith purchasers, that we bought and paid value expecting and intending to get these titles.

In the Winona case, in the One hundred and sixty-fourth United States, I believe, the Supreme Court of the United States decided expressly in relation to a railroad grant, which was a special grant, as Brother Bernstein has called your attention to, that wherever there was good faith and the party bought and paid value expecting and intending to get that, that his title stood absolutely confirmed; and instead of this resting entirely on this kind of a statute of limitations, take it in the case of the Iatt Lumber Co., in the Supreme Court of Louisiana; in the case of Bodcaw Lumber Co., in the Supreme Court of Louisiana, decided in the last 30 or 40 days, in each case proof of good faith has been made, and the holding of the court has been that the title was confirmed under this act of 1896 because the parties were good-faith purchasers as well as because the statute of limitations had run.

I would like to have the opportunity to submit authorities, some upon the legal proposition, but I think I have stated practically what we claim in reply to the legal point made by Brother Consaul.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, you may go ahead with your statement, Mr. Bernstein, of some of the reasons why you think further hearing ought to be postponed.

FURTHER STATEMENT OF MR. HENRY BERNSTEIN.

Mr. BERNSTEIN. At the last hearing, the hearing before the House committee, Mr. Chairman, there were quite a number of affidavits that were produced by the opponents to the measure with respect to homesteads and the character of the settlers and matters of that kind that were being mistreated so badly in Louisiana on these lands by the present title holders. We are attempting to investigate these matters and are getting up, and have gotten up some and will get up a great many more, counter affidavits, and we propose to bring before this committee, if the opportunity is presented to us, a number of bona fide settlers who were on these lands occupying them and cultivating them before the date of the definite location of this railroad, that are still there, either in person or through their children, and that every opportunity was afforded them and their neighbors by Congress to perfect their homesteads, and that they went forward and did perfect their homesteads and are there cultivating the homesteads to this date, and that numbers of other people that are now

applicants and so-called homestead settlers have squatted on little deadenings, worm deadenings, and other vacant spots that were open for their immediate settlement, and are now claiming to be assignees by word of mouth from men who are dead 15 or 20 years ago and have not been on the property, and no one has been on the property claimed as a homestead as a settler of any kind for 10 or 15 years, and they have simply recently gone in there and claim under these so-called assignments of dead men. We want to bring men here to prove to this committee the character of these so-called homestead claimants.

You take, for instance, the Gould holdings, as Col. Hunter has told you. The Land Office investigated this matter as thoroughly as it knew how during the time that this act was in existence, and before the statutory bar had run, and they found some 150 of what they called bona fide settlers living within the bounds of this grant, and they called on the railroad company to reconvey the lands so that they could recognize the rights of these settlers, and they found that the railroad company had disposed of the lands prior to that time, and the Government instituted suit. Now, as far as the Gould interests are concerned, that we represent, as soon as the Land Office decided that these men had some rights there as bona fide settlers we undertook to settle and adjust the equities that we thought might exist in their favor. We had to get the authority of the Department of Justice to do that, and we have been, going on 12 or 14 years, trying to make those settlements. Some we have got the authority of the district attorney to make, and then we could not get the suit dismissed after we had made the settlement and paid these people. We paid these people, some of them, as far back as 7 or 8 or 10 years ago, and then all that were left we finally, in the last few months, got the consent of the Department of Justice, through the present district attorney, to adjust the matter with, and we went out and made our arrangements with them, submitted the matter to the Department of Justice, and the Department of Justice took it up with us, discussed it with us, and where they thought we had not been entirely fair with the settlers suggested that we add a little more, and in some places they let us take a little off, and we met the equities that the Department of Justice thought these people had in the lands in so far as settlements made upon the Gould holdings are concerned.

Apparently one would presume that the Goulds have no further interest in the matter, since we have settled with all the homestead settlers that we have got on our lands, and we thought we had, and yet there are over 700 applications for homesteads on the Gould lands to-day that we are going to have to fight out if this bill becomes a law, because men have gone on there in the hope that this measure, or a similar measure, would be passed by Congress and give them an opportunity to go on these lands, and before we could get them off through the courts or through the Land Office they will have destroyed a vast amount of our timber that we can never recover anything for, because of the fact that they are, all of them, men that have not got anything with which to respond to a judgment.

Now, that is the position that it puts my clients in, and we want to have an opportunity of going down there and bringing before this

committee absolute evidence that there is no 340, or 450, or 200, or 50, or 75, or any number of actual bona fide settlers on our lands and we want to bring the evidence here to show you conclusively that the people who are on our lands have got no legal right nor any equitable right that this Congress should recognize, and they are simply despoilers of our properties, and they want an excuse to do so, and they are getting that excuse under the guise of the introduction of this act, which proposes to take care of assignees of people who are dead and gone long since, and they have got nothing to prove the assignment by them but their own word. They simply come up and say that they have bought from John Smith or John Jones 10 or 15 years ago and paid him $100, or a yoke of oxen, or a pony, or something of that kind.

Senator STERLING. They have two things to prove in order to make a prima facie case; they have to prove the original entry that existed at the date of the definite location of the road, and they have got to prove present actual occupancy and possession.

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Yes, sir; and it is no trouble for them to prove that, Senator Sterling. It is no trouble for them to make out that prima facie case, because when they made their homestead application they made an affidavit then, and they would have no objection to making another one at that time, and prove that Mr. Somebody who has been dead for many years made an assignment of this particular piece of land and that they are on it now. They will go there on them; they will get on the land. That is what we are complaining about. We can not keep them off of the land.

Senator STERLING. Actual homestead entry prior to the time of the definite location is a pretty definite term.

Mr. HUDSON. There was never an actual homestead entry on this whole grant prior to the definite location.

Mr. BERNSTEIN. What I meant by that was actual homestead entry, not what they are claiming as so-called homestead entries. Senator STERLING. You referred to that. The act does not limit the right to formal homestead entries; it is actual settlement, which I take it refers to persons who enter into actual possession of the land.

Mr. HUNTER. Will you tell me where your 700 men are? What parish are they in? Will you furnish me a list of them?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. I have not got them here.

Mr. HUNTER. I am going to dispute that statement before the committee.

Mr. BERNSTEIN. I supposed you would. Of course this is an issue of fact that you and I could not agree upon.

Mr. HUNTER. I would like you to indicate where they are. I know more about these homestead claimants than any man in the State of Louisiana, and I know that there are not more than 450 of them.

Mr. BERNSTEIN. That is a remarkable statement for a man who lives in town and never goes out in the country

Mr. HUNTER (interposing). I do not?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. As against woods cruisers who are constantly in the woods looking after their part of it.

Mr. FUQUA. These gentlemen all live in the towns and cities and I live in the country, and I can state what I have seen.