THE NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILWAY OR THE NATION— 



WHICH? 



By Henry S. Graves 



A total of about 3,800,000 acres of land in the National Forests of 

 Montana, Idaho, and Washington, embracing some of the most valuable 

 timber lands of the Northwest, worth $50,000,000, or thereabouts, 

 is at stake in a suit which was heard by the United States Supreme 

 Court early in October. Upon the outcome of this case depends the 

 retention of these lands by the Government or their passing into the 

 hands of the Northern Pacific Railway Company. It is not too early 

 for the Forest Service to consider how it can best handle and protect 

 the National Forests which w^ould be afifected if the contention of 

 this company is sustained in its claim to this land which for the past 

 15 or 20 years or more has been reserved and administered for Na- 

 tional Forest purposes. 



This railway company was given a land grant in 1864 of all non- 

 mineral, unoccupied, odd-numbered sections within 40 miles of each 

 side of the road. By the same Act it was given the privilege of 

 selecting under certain conditions odd-numbered, non-mineral, un- 

 occupied sections within an additional 10-mile strip on each side of 

 the 80-mile grant. By Congressional resolution dated May 31, 1870, 

 it was given the additional privilege of making similar selections within 

 a second 10-mile strip on each side of the road, extending the checker- 

 board system of railroad lands over a strip 120 miles in width across 

 the present States of Montana, Idaho, and Washington. About 40 

 years after this grant was made to the Northern Pacific Railway 

 Company, the Government, by Presidential proclamation issued under 

 Congressional authority, created numerous National Forests in the 

 timbered regions of Western Montana, Northern Idaho, and the 

 Cascades of Washington. Such parts of these Forests as lie within 

 40 miles of the railroad line are therefore checkerboarded, the Gov- 

 ernment's ownership being confined to unoccupied even sections and 

 to such odd sections as were found to be barren mountain tops or 

 dreary burned wastes ; the rocky, barren sections having been classi- 



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