of special agents to inquire into the conduct of officials under my authority who may be charged with malfeasance, and with no means, except through voluntary statements of private parties, to procure evidence upon allegations of misconduct, it is not easy to reach correct conclusions. When reached, it is usually after so long delay that the moral effect of action in the case is lost or seriously impaired.

I am of the opinion that the fee system as it now stands, applicable to the question of compensation of these officers, is mainly the cause of the mischief charged, and that some change in the legislation on the subject is imperatively demanded. A fixed salary attached to each office, graduated if necessary in classes to cover differences in the amount of business and in public importance, with a contingent appropriation for office expenses, rent, stationery, furniture, and clerk hire, and the entire abolition of any allowance to registers or receivers as fees, would, in my judgment, put an end to illegal charges on their part, and to a prolific cause of complaint and real grievance to the poorer classes of settlers on the public lands, who are unjustifiably taxed by these officers in the payment of fees and commissions in excess of the amounts authorized by law.

While this would augment the appropriations on account of salaries, so as to create a seeming increase of expenditure on account of the civil list, it is believed that the saving in contingent expense of this bureau, the office of the Secretary, and the Department of Justice, combined, would more than offset the difference, especially when it is considered that all the labor of adjustment of accounts under the appropriation of fees would be avoided, and the time of the valuable clerks and officials now devoted to such adjustment, and to the investigations, would be given to the dispatch of the necessary current business of the Departments. The great incentive, however, to this change is the securing of a pure, orderly, and honest administration of the public service, of harmony between the people and their Government, and the removal of a powerful source of temptation from official positions, making them more honorable for honest men, and less desirable for mercenary adventurers, who seek these positions on account of the facilities they offer for illegal gains, and the cover afforded by the fee system for extortion and exaction under the forms of law.

I shall be glad, at the proper time, to aid, if necessary, in framing proper amendments to existing laws to secure this desirable change, or to offer such further suggestions from time to time as may be called for upon the subject.

Should Congress, however, deem a change in this regard inexpedient, I would urge the propriety and necessity of such legislation as will more specifically direct the expenditure of the appropriations for incidental expenses of district offices, provide for the allowance of rent and necessary clerk hire, prohibit the payment of clerks out of fees received except upon accurate vouchers showing the source of expenditure, and require all excess of such fees, from whatever source derived, to be turned into the Treasury of the United States in the same manner as other public moneys are deposited.

I would respectfully recommend that the provisions of the act of Congress entitled "An act to amend section twenty-two hundred and ninety-one of the Revised Statutes of the United States in relation to proof required in homestead entries," approved March 3, 1877, be extended to all classes of entries requiring proof to be made before completion of entry.

If this were done there would no longer exist a reason why there

should be more than one land office in each State and Territory containing public lands, and eighty land offices could be abolished without the least inconvenience to settlers or others desiring to purchase land, and at the same time effect an annual saving of at least three hundred and fifty thousand dollars to the Government.

No distribution of land offices could afford facilities to persons having to make proof in regard to their entries equal to those that would be afforded by the legislation recommended.

As proof of this statement take California, which has ten land offices, being the largest number in any State, and consequently ten places at which proof can be made. If proof could in all cases be made in the county where the land is situated, there would be in California fifty-two places, as the State has that number of organized counties.

In cases of contest the law should provide for taking the testimony before the judge or clerk, who should give due notice to both parties, and have power to compel the attendance of witnesses. No power now exists in the register or receiver to compel the attendance of witnesses.

A BRIEF REVIEW OF SOME OF THE LAWS GOVERNING THE SALE OR DISPOSAL OF PUBLIC LANDS; ALSO, RECOMMENDATIONS FOR LEGISLATION.

When the full scope and meaning of some laws are ascertained by the executive branch of the Government, in their execution they become unpopular, though in the mean time rights may have vested under them. In such cases, the law-making power hesitates to enact supplemental laws or make appropriations necessary to the execution of the same. It also frequently occurs that great wrongs are done in executing a law which if properly administered would be beneficial and salutary in its effect. Under one or the other of these classes of laws may be grouped many in relation to the sale or other disposal of the public lands. Falling under one or the other of these two classes may be mentioned some of the acts granting land subsidies to railroads, wagon roads, and for slack water navigation; also the act of the 28th of September, 1850, granting the swamp and overflowed lands to the several States, and many of the acts providing for the issue of certain kinds of land scrip, among which may be mentioned Sioux half breed, Red Lake and Pembina half breed, Valentine, and other scrips; the acts granting additional homesteads to soldiers, and the act providing for the entry of lands by certain traders and employés; also the act for the sale of desert lands, and the homestead and pre-emption laws, as they now stand.

Under most of these acts vested rights have accrued to the extent contemplated by the law, but these rights have not been ascertained and the law fully executed for want of necessary clerical force to enable this office to perform the duty. Under the provisions of some of these laws all the damage and wrong has been done that can be. Under others of them, still additional wrongs and frauds can be perpetrated, and will be, unless they are repealed or modified.

However obnoxious any or all of the railroad grants may now be held to be, the rights under them have become vested, where the roads have been built, and it only remains for the executive branch of the Government to ascertain them and execute the law. Under the act of the 28th of September, 1850, granting the swamp and overflowed lands to the several States in which they are situated, many wrongs against the Government have been consummated by the State agents in selecting lands not swamp or overflowed, but it does not follow that, because in

some of the States nearly all of the vacant lands which in fact were not swamp have been certified to the States as such, the lands which in fact and law are swamp shall not be ascertained and set apart and the books closed. Clerical force and special agents are necessary to do this work. Under the law it has always been the duty of the Secretary of the Interior to perform it. If the means had been provided him for that purpose, no such wrongs would have been committed, and if the means are now provided to ascertain the true character of the lands none need be in the future.

The acts providing for soldiers' additional homesteads and for the issue of the various scrips before enumerated have been the source of much fraud against, and expense to, the Government. I cannot here enter into all the particulars of the frauds. The soldiers' additional homestead rights under the act creating them can be used to locate double minimum and pine lands. With these rights, which sold for forty cents per acre, or less, have been located pine lands of great value, which could not be bought with cash at any price under existing laws. In what was previously, if not now, the Mille Lac Indian reservation 286 soldiers' additional homestead applications have been filed in the land office at Taylor's Falls, Minnesota, on lands which are worth for their timber alone from $10 to $30 per acre.

The Red Lake cession, surrounding the Red Lake reservation, has been largely taken by the Red Lake and Pembina half breed scrip, most of which, I have no doubt, was fraudulently obtained. The lands in this cession are very valuable for the timber upon them. The Sioux half breed scrip has been the means of much fraud and robbery. It can be located upon lands surveyed or unsurveyed, and has been used fraudulently to locate much valuable timber land, which would have brought to the Government from five to twenty dollars per acre, in cash, if the law had permitted its sale to the highest bidder. A favorite mode of operating with this scrip has been to locate it upon timber land, cut the timber off under color of the title thus obtained, and then, upon some pretense satisfactory to the local office, withdraw and relocate it upon other timber land equally valuable.

The treaty of April 7, 1855, permitting certain persons to purchase 160 acres of public land, was only a subterfuge for enabling persons dealing in scrip to purchase those rights, and thereby procure choice lands in districts where the same could not be bought for cash in a direct and honest way. About six hundred of these entries have been made, when perhaps there never were to exceed two hundred persons entitled to make them under the law, if the exact facts could have been ascertained.

The act of the 3d of March, 1877, for the sale of desert lands in certain States and Territories is a good law, from which most beneficial results should and would be obtained, if it could be fully carried into effect.

The difficulty in the way of good results under the act may be briefly stated thus: The promoters of the law not being able, under existing laws for the sale or disposal of the public lands, to purchase the same for cash, had to resort to the plan of getting a special bill through Congress. The bill was somewhat loosely drawn. A liberal construction of it would allow the persons who have entered lands under its provisions to procure title by putting very little water upon the land. A strict and rigid construction of the law, which I may as well say here and now will be placed upon it by this office, in my opinion practically defeats its operation, and any good results that might be expected from it. To be

required to irrigate all of a tract of 640 acres of land, except in very rare cases, is to require something well nigh impossible, or, if possible, something so expensive that no person or corporation could afford to do. it until lands for cultivation are far more valuable than they now are.

This law, together with many others concerning the procuring of title to portions of the public lands, was passed because the lands were not for sale for cash. Very few, if any, of the acts providing for the issue of land scrip, which have been the source of so much fraud and mischief, would have been passed if the public lands had been in market, as they should, in my opinion, have been. These acts, whether so intended or not, have been so many subterfuges by means of which titles could be procured. Instead of these devious ways of procuring title to the public lands, there should be a plain, straightforward way of doing it by purchase for cash.

Recurring again to the desert land bill, I would recommend its early repeal, and in lieu of it the enactment of a law giving to persons or corporations all the lands which are truly and unmistakably desert in character, which they may thoroughly and fully reclaim by means of irrigation, either from rivers or lakes or by artesian wells. If lands which require no irrigation are given away to any persons who will settle upon and improve them, why not give away the desert lands upon the same conditions, especially when it requires so much more to improve them?

THE HOMESTEAD AND PRE-EMPTION LAWS.

A prudent writer might be expected to approach the subject of any change in these laws with diffidence if not with fear.

That these laws are kind and beneficent, or were intended to be, will not be denied. Had they been in force forty years earlier, when emigrants from all parts of the Eastern States went beyond the Mississippi many hundreds of miles from railroads or other means of cheap transportation, they would in their effect have been still more kind and beneficent. To-day the country might be said to be without a frontier other than the two great oceans and the international boundaries. Lines of comparatively cheap transportation penetrate into and very near to all parts of the country, by means of which farm products are shipped with profit to the producer, and such supplies as he requires are laid down near his door at fair if not low prices.

In view of the fact that this condition of the country exists largely if not mainly by means of liberal donations of land by the General Government, and cash aid for which the whole people, East as well as West, are taxed, is it right that all or nearly all of the public domain, even including that immediately on the lines of great highways built at Government expense, shall be held for free donations to whomsoever will settle upon and occupy it? Heretofore in the history of all people who gave away the soil it was given to induce settlements far away from the home government and for the extension of empire. Without pursuing this argument or suggestion of an argument further, and admitting that all agricultural or arable lands should be held for free donation to those who are now or hereafter to become citizens, I wish to present some reasons why lands which are not agricultural, and are unsuitable for the homes of an agricultural population, should not be subject to the homestead and pre-emption laws. The desert lands where there is not water for irrigation, the pine lands on the mountain tops amidst perpetual snows, in the great interior of the country embracing Colorado, Wyoming, Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, and Arizona, and

also in the States and Territories bordering on the Pacific, and the pine lands on the Gulf coasts and on the lakes of the North, are alike held for disposal under the homestead and pre-emption laws.

Why should these laws longer exist with reference to these lands? If the valuable pine lands are to be given away and the timber to be destroyed, would it not be better to enact some law whereby the title can pass without perjury? As the law now is, men procure title by swearing to a compliance with the laws requiring cultivation. The homestead and pre-emption laws are now educating thousands of men in the crime of perjury. It would be better to pass a law granting the land to the persons who would manufacture the timber upon it into lumber, railroad ties, and charcoal, as that is in fact what they do and all they do now after taking them under the homestead and pre-emption laws. I would recommend that the homestead and pre-emption laws be so amended as to be applicable only to arable agricultural lands, and in no case to land chiefly valuable for the timber growing upon it. Respectfully submitted.

Hon. C. SCHURZ,

J. A. WILLIAMSON,

Commissioner.

Secretary of the Interior.