cultivated since that time and until the present day; that he made application for homestead entry but his application was refused on the ground that New Orleans Pacific Railway Co. held patent to said lands; that his money has never been returned, which he sent with his application; that one Gillis came to him and worked up a compromise with him making some very attractive promises; that the compromise was never lived up to by said Gillis who claimed to have a lease for turpentine right from one Jim Ball.

Claimant further states that he believes he has a just claim on the land under the provisions of the Government land grant, and prays relief. He states that he has been abused, harrassed, intimidated, and threatened by claimants under railway title.

Sworn to and subscribed before me at my office in Pollock, La., this 17th day of January, 1914.

[SEAL.]

STATE OF LOUISIANA, Parish of Grant, ss:

W. W. WHITE, Notary Public.

Before me, the undersigned notary public, duly commissioned and qualified in and for the parish of Grant and State of Louisiana, personally came and appeared Robert L. Humphreys, of legal age, personally known to me, after first being duly sworn deposes and says that he is the owner of all the settler's rights to the following-described lands, to wit, west half of the northeast quarter and the west half of the southeast quarter of section 27 in township 6 north of range 1 west, Louisiana meridian; that same was settled in the year 1881, at Braziel, and has been continuously occupied and cultivated since that time; that he purchased said settler's claim from L. R. Layseon and Arthur Layseon; that he contemplates making application; that his timber has been cut from the land; and that he had been promised by one J. F. Ball of a deed to the land if said Ball be allowed to cut and remove the timber on said lands, which was refused by said affiant and said Layseons.

Sworn to and subscribed before me, R. L. HUMPHREYS, at my office in the town of Pollock, La., this 19th day of January, 1914. [SEAL.]

W. P. GUYNES,

Notary Public.

STATE OF LOUISIANA, Parish of Grant:

Personally came and appeared before the undersigned authority, E. L. Turner, who, being duly sworn, deposeth and saith that he is the owner of the homestead rights and all improvements on the west half of the northeast quarter and the east half of the northwest quarter of section 7, township 6 north, range 1 west, in Grant Parish, La. He further states that said land was settled by his father in the year of 1879, and that it has been continuously occupied and cultivated each year from 1879, until the present date, and that he has more than 60 acres cleared land on the place, houses, barns, and other improvements necessary as a farm. He further says that the J. F. Ball Bros. Lumber Co. sued out an injunction against him preventing him making any improvements on the land. Said suit was brought in the State courts; later the Gould heirs filed suit in the Federal court against him, preventing him from occupying or farming the land. He further states that he made application to homestead the land and that the Interior Department ruled against him on the ground of negligence on his part, and the inability of the department to afford him any relief under act of February 8, 1887, because of patent. to the New Orleans Pacific Railway Co. He further states that he owns no other land, and that he has remained on the land notwithstanding the court's order to vacate, but that he has not been able to make a living by farming because of the injunction preventing him from using the land.

E. F. TURNER. Sworn to and subscribed to before me this the 17th day of January, 1914. [SEAL.] ODUS WATSON, Notary Public.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, we have heard from two or three representing the proponents; suppose we hear from some one representing the opponents to the bill.

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

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I did not think that I would have anything to say at this hearing, but feel perhaps as I was born within one of the parishes within the limits of this grant about 50 years ago, and have lived and grown up in the territory that is contained within these limits engaged in commercial life there for a number of years, when quite a young man, and for the last 20 years have been engaged in the practice of law in the Parishes of Grant, La Salle, Natchitoches, and Winn, where large bodies of this land are situated-it might help you gentlemen to understand something about the situation if I say a few words in explanation of the conditions that existed in that territory at the time of the grant and for quite a number of years subsequent thereto. You understand in Louisiana at that time there was a large area of public lands, not only lands that were designated as swamp lands and had by act of Congress been donated to the State of Louisiana, and which were referred to and understood to be the alluvial lands, such lands bordering on the Mississippi, Red, Ouachita, and other rivers running throughout the State, but the hill lands which were not granted by Congress to the State of Louisiana.

(At this point the bell rang for a roll call of the House, and the committee took a short recess, at the expiration of which the hearing continued as follows:)

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Mr. Chairman, I was just stating that perhaps it would be of some service to the committee to have some general idea of the conditions that prevailed in that country at the time this grant was made.

The CHAIRMAN. You were born and raised there?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Yes; I have never lived out of the State of Louisiana in my life, and, except for the past 15 years, never without the parishes that the grant covers.

Now, as I have stated, public lands were very plentiful down there. There was no trouble getting a homestead in any portion of the State of Louisiana, either in the hills or in the swamp countries, and the people who occupied, as a rule, these lands had a twofold reason for not taking advantage of the many acts of Congress and the many opportunities given by Congress to perfect their claims and actually obtain fee-simple titles to the land. The first reason was that the very moment they perfected their claims and had vested in them an absolute title to these lands, the lands were put upon the assessment rolls and subjected to State and parish taxation, and the minimum basis per acre, I think, of the assessment was $1.25 an acre.

Mr. RAKER. Have the railroads and their assignees all paid taxes on this land?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Absolutely.

Mr. RAKER. All those in that controversy?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Absolutely; they have paid.

Mr. RAKER. Both State and parish?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. State, parish, Confederate veteran, and other taxes too numerous to mention, and they have been doing so up to date. Of course, I did not understand you to mean, Mr. Raker, they

were paying on the improvements on the land or anything of that kind.

Mr. RAKER. Oh, no.

Mr. BERNSTEIN. They were paying on the lands from the moment the patents issued until the present time.

Mr. RAKER. The lowest a dollar an acre?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Anywhere from $1.25 up to $1.50 or $2.50, according to the character of the timber that is on it.

Now, as I stated, these settlers did not want to comply with the acts of Congress, because if they complied with the acts of Congress they became liable to taxation on their 160 acres of land in addition to the improvements they had on the land. As long as they did not do so they had their homes; they were not being disturbed; land was plentiful; it was a drug on the market; nobody wanted it; nobody wanted to pay taxes on pine timber. There was not a railroad within miles of this territory for many years, and for many years the eastern and western portions of the grant were in some instances 25, 30, 40, and 50 miles from a railroad. There was no demand for such timberlands.

Now, as to the character of the soil, it was light piney-woods soil. To use a homely expression we frequently use down in that country, 'you could not raise a decent row on it."

Mr. RAKER. You certainly have a bumper up now.

Mr. BERNSTEIN. But in the meantime the timber on this land-not the land itself, but the timber on this land-has jumped from practically no value at all to in some instances where it is worth $60 to $70 an acre. Therefore you can get up a very considerable row now over the ownership of the land that bears this timber.

I want now to call your attention to this fact in connection with it: You do not find, and my friend Col. Hunter will not present to you if he will be kind enough to file a list containing the names of all the settlers in whose behalf he is urging this legislation, a single settler who is asking relief of Congress to permit him to perfect a homestead on lands on which the timber has been cut.

Mr. RAKER. Let me ask you right here now, while I think of it—I do not want to offend, or anything of that kind-Col. Hunter, will you furnish us with a list of the names of the land you represent? Mr. HUNTER. Yes, sir; I will furnish it.

Mr. BERNSTEIN. If he furnishes that list you will not find there is appealing to Congress a single homesteader, a single settler, or a single person representing a settler, that is asking to have perfected a settlement or a homestead on lands that are not covered with pine timber, other than those embraced in equity suit No. 16.

Mr. HART. I ask that you let some of those affidavits be read. Mr. BERNSTEIN. I have not seen them, but they will simply be to this effect, that a man had a little settlement of a few acres, in some cases less than 10 or 20

Mr. RAKER. Your contention is, Mr. Bernstein, that places where the timber has been cut off have been abandoned?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Absolutely abandoned and gone-where, the deponent sayeth not.

Mr. SINNOTT. How about Mr. Henderson's case?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Mr. Henderson's place is virgin pine timber.

Mr. SINNOTT. You are not trying to apply an ex post facto regulation of the Land Department to these men who settled on the land at that time when it was permissible to take up homesteads in virgin timber?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. No, sir; I am only trying to show why 20 or 30 years ago-after this grant was made these people are knocking at the door of Congress to give them relief when they had relief, or opportunity of relief, years and years ago, to have perfected titles, had the land at that time been worth a sufficient amount to have justified them in this little outlay that would have been necessary to perfect those titles.

Mr. RAKER. I understand, from the statement of Mr. Bernstein, he is not questioning, nor any of the men representing the railroad, that these people are not homesteaders, or the land is not properly homesteaded because there is timber on it.

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Oh, no; nothing of that kind.

Mr. RAKER. But his contention is to see if I get it right-that where the timber has been cut, ever since then the original homesteader has quit and does not want the land?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Absolutely true; and there are thousands and thousands of acres in these odd sections, interspersed with little clearings here and there that evidence such settlements, and yet you won't find in a single solitary instance anybody like our friend Mr. Fuqua, that is coming up here, who has had an assignment to one of these grants.

Mr. RAKER. Are these lands public lands?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. They are in this grant; they are covered by this grant?

Mr. RAKER. No; in the even-numbered sections.

Mr. BERNSTEIN. In the even numbered, no; but I am speaking of the odd sections.

Mr. FUQUA. Mr. Chairman, we challenge that statement.

Mr. BERNSTEIN. But such odd sections as have brought this controversy up, the owners of it have cut the timber from it and therefore it is denuded land-what we know and what you gentlemen understand to be denuded land.

Mr. RAKER. You do not quite understand my question. The railroad gets the odd sections?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Yes; the odd sections.

Mr. RAKER. And the even sections-was that land all taken up? Mr. BERNSTEIN. It was taken up until it was withdrawn from public sale, excepting to a homesteader.

Mr. RAKER. That is part of the public lands yet?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. No; there is very little of it. All the timber has been homesteaded.

Mr. RAKER. Is any of it being cultivated?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. There is an occasional farm here, there, and yonder; but, as stated by Mr. Fuqua, almost invariably those farms are located upon some creek where there is a little of what we call hummock land-that is some alluvial land around on the creek bottoms where you can probably get a 10, 15, or 20-acre field; and that is usually the character of lands that are under cultivation. I knew an old gentleman years ago in that section of the country who, when I knew him, was eighty-odd years of age. He had lived on that

land at that time sufficiently long to not only have reared a family, but to have reared grandchildren, and he never even made an effort, up to that time, to acquire title to his land. I remember asking him on one occasion, "Why in the world don't you homestead on this land and save you home? Some of these days somebody is going to come along and either enter it or homestead on it." "Why," his reply to me was, "I would have to pay taxes on it, and if someboy comes along and takes it from me, I will move over across the creek to another piece."

Mr. RAKER. Does a new growth of timber come up on it after it has been cut off?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Practically not. And, further, those lands per se, with the timber growing on them at that time, had practically no value. There were no purchasers for them. I remember very well the first Monday in March, 1881, standing in front of the courthouse of the parish of Winn, which is one of the parishes in which a portion of this grant is situated, and seeing the sheriff and tax collector in that parish sell at public outcry more than 100.000, several hundred thousand, acres of land that had previously been forfeited to the State of Louisiana for unpaid taxes. And, under the act of 1880, of the legislature of that State, instructions had been given to the tax collectors to sell such lands for whatever they might bring, with a view to putting them back on the assessment rolls so that they would produce revenue for the State. say I saw hundreds of thousands of acres of land in that parish (and it was equally true of all the other parishes) sell at 5 to 10 cents a forty; and some of them, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of this committee, had on them pine timber that is to-day worth $50, $60, and $70 an acre. When they did bid on those lands, these farmers and settlers throughout the country, when offered 160 acres, or 640 acres, of land, someone would ask the assessors, who was our general authority on land matters during those days-few others knowing what the southwest quarter of the southeast quarter of such and such a section meant-where the land offered was, and he would say "Why, away over here in the bald piney woods; it has not a thing on it in the world but pine trees "; and they would bid 5 and 10 cents a forty.

The CHAIRMAN. That was the redemption title, was it not?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. No, sir; an absolute title. It had all been forfeited for several years, commencing after the war. Those titles originally

The CHAIRMAN. Those titles could not be redeemed?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Those titles could not be redeemed; they had been forfeited to the State of Louisiana many years before that and had been held in that condition, bringing no revenue into the State; and the policy of the State was to put them back on the tax rolls and to put them in private ownership, so that they could be cultivated and improved, and in the meantime the State would be getting some revenue from them.

And for that purpose they were offered for whatever they would bring, and they would not bring, in numerous instances, 5 and 10 cents a forty. And whenever 160 or 80 acres of land was offered and the assessor would tell his friends who would ask him that it lay alongside of some creek, and therefore had some hammock land on it,