298 LAND MONOPOLY. 



describing the land by range, township, and section, and stating 

 under what grant the title is asked. This application must be 

 accompanied by a fee of five dollars. The Surveyor-General 

 then issues a certificate to the applicant, and sends the applica 

 tion to the United States Land Office, for certification that the 

 land is free, before he approves the application, and demands 

 payment. If there be in the United States Land Office no 

 record of pre-emption, homestead, or other occupation, the 

 United States Register marks the land off on his map, but he 

 does not certify to the State Surveyor-General until he gets his 

 fee. The payment of this fee, and return of the certificate, de 

 pend upon the applicant, whose interest it is not to get it until 

 he wishes to pay for his land. Thus, by the payment of five 

 dollars, a whole section of United States land can be shut up 

 from the settler. There are 1,244,696 acres monopolized in 

 this way, (which the immigrant can buy for from ten to twenty 

 dollars per acre,) then the speculator goes to the United States 

 Land Office, pays the Register s fee, gets his approved certifi 

 cate, and pays the State $1 25 per acre !&quot; The difference be 

 tween what settlers have to pay and what they ought to pay, 

 would have defrayed the expenses of their transportation twice 

 over. 



The general laws of the United States provide, that until 

 land is offered at public sale, there is no way of getting it, save 

 by actual occupation of not over 160 acres to each individual. 

 Until the land is surveyed, and the plats filed, there can be no 

 title, and no record can be made of pre-emption. 



But by the State law of March 8th, 1868, which repealed all 

 previous laws, all restrictions of amount, or use, except as to 

 the sixteenth and thirty-sixth township sections first granted, 

 were swept away. Even with respect to these, the applicant 

 was not required to swear that he wanted the land for settle 

 ment, or wanted it for himself. Again, the actual settlers, upon 

 the sixteenth and thirty-sixth sections above referred to, under 

 this law, could only be protected in their occupancy for six 

 months after its passage, after which date the protection ex 

 tended only sixty days. Many a settler, in hitherto undisputed 

 possession, knew nothing of these enactments until they re 

 ceived notice that another party had a clear title to their farms. 

 As if this were not enough, a special bill was passed legalizing 

 all applications for State lands, even where the affidavits by 



