90 UNITED STATES FOREST POLICY 



ers and seized by the United States officers ; but it seems probable that 

 most buyers knew where their timber came from, and the debates 

 indicate that innocent purchasers were the objects of little more 

 solicitude than the timber trespassers themselves. 



Robinson of Massachusetts offered an amendment limiting the con- 

 doning effects of the bill to cases of trespass "in the ordinary clearing 

 of the land, in working a mining claim, or for agricultural or domestic 

 purposes," and this amendment, extended by Conger to cover also 

 cases of unintentional trespass, passed by the rather close vote of 

 94 to 85.**^ The vote on this amendment, which Converse said meant 

 the practical defeat of the bill, indicates a fairly clear division in the 

 House on the question of conservation. New England did not cast a 

 single vote against the amendment. Pennsylvania, a conservation state 

 from early times, gave a heavy vote for the amendment, as did also 

 Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan; while the South voted almost 

 unanimously against it.'*^ 



The bill, as amended, passed the House, but in the Senate various 

 other amendments were attached, and a conference committee was 

 necessary to adjust the views of the two houses."^ As finally passed,^* 

 the act released trespassers from prosecution in any civil suit, for 

 trespass committed prior to March 1, 1879, on payment of the regu- 

 lar price of the lands (usually $1.25 per acre). Thus it had been con- 

 siderably improved since its first presentation, the immunity being 

 limited to civil suits, and applying only to trespasses committed prior 

 to March 1, 1879. Even as amended, it was clearly favorable to the 

 trespassers, and the final vote was cast with full appreciation of that 

 fact.**' 



DIFFICULTIES IN THE WAY OF TIMBER PROTECTION 



The Land Office was always handicapped in its efforts to protect the 

 public timber, not only by the evil character of the existing law, but 

 by the absence of certain other laws under which to proceed. For 



91 Cong. Bee, May 21, 1880, 3627, 3631. 



92 This, it must be noted, happened nearly a decade earlier than the abolition 

 of private sale in the South (Cross Reference, pp. 40-53), in which the southern 

 members of the other House of Congress showed a radically different attitude. 



93 Cong. Bee, June 10, 1880, 4384; June 12, 4483. 



94 Stat. 21, 237. 



