88 UNITED STATES FOREST POLICY 



fighting a hopeless fight ; at any rate he incurred the unqualified 

 hatred of most of the congressmen from the public land states, who 

 never missed an opportunity to attack him in Congress, and in 1888 

 he was removed from office because, it was said, of a disagreement 

 with the secretary on the question of land-grant forfeiture. Even in 

 recent years, western men have referred to the way settlers were 

 "hounded." by the Department of the Interior during Cleveland's 

 administration,^^ 



Secretary Vilas (1888) followed out a policy similar to that of 

 Lamar and Sparks, but his successor, John W. Noble (1889-1893), 

 secretary under President Harrison, adopted a radically different 

 policy with regard to the timber lands. He found 105,000 cases piled 

 up in the Land Office awaiting final action, and proceeded to dispose 

 of them by "a more liberal interpretation of the land laws in favor 

 of the settlers. "^^ Although Secretary Noble seemed to judge his own 

 efficiency by the amount of land he was able to dispose of,^^ and al- 

 though his policy doubtless resulted in many fraudulent claims of all 

 kinds passing to patent,^* yet he was sincerely interested in the public 

 timber lands and later accomplished much for their preservation in 

 connection with the law of 1891. This will be considered in connection 

 with forest reserves. ^^ 



THE "BILL TO LICENSE TIMBER THIEVES" 



While most of the officials in the Land Department thus called 

 insistently for better law enforcement, a great many members of Con- 

 gress always thought the enforcement was entirely too vigorous. 

 The complaints of two of these timber congressmen in the early fifties 

 have already been mentioned;^" and in Schurz^s administration such 

 complaints became more numerous, until a law was actually secured 

 releasing some of the timber thieves from their difficulties. On May 



SI Cong. Rec, Sept. 24, 1888, 8876. 



82 Report, Sec. of Int., 1889, XIX. 



83 Ibid., 1890, III. 



8* In 1889, Secretary Noble reported a decreasing number of fraudulent entries, 

 but this may only have indicated laxity of administration. (Report, Land OflSce, 

 1889, 54.) 



85 Cross Reference, pp. 115, 116. 



88 Cross Reference, p. 41. 



