office of Receiver was instituted. paid for the lands.

He was to receive money

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE GENERAL LAND Office.

On April 25, 1812, the General Land Office was instituted.1 The new Commissioner was to perform those duties pertaining to the public lands which had hitherto been discharged by the Secretaries of Treasury and of War. All returns relative to the public lands hitherto made to the Secretary of the Treasury were hereafter to be made to the Commissioner, and all patents were to be issued from his office.

At this time the General Land Office had charge of the cessions from various States and the whole of Louisiana. Its administrative field was to expand more and more, according to the progress of surveys and new acquisitions of territory. Edward Tiffin, of Ohio, was appointed the first Commissioner.

In 1836, "an act to reorganize the General Land Office" was passed. The act provided for the creation of several new officers in the department. They were as follows: Principal Clerk of the Public Lands; the Principal Clerk of Private Land Claims; the Principal Clerk of the Surveys; the Recorder of the General Land Office, and the Solicitor. The act further provided for the appointment of a Secretary by the President, whose duty was to sign for him all land patents.

In 1849 came another change in the General Land Office. Hitherto it had been a subordinate bureau in the Treasury Department. The act of March 3, 1849, created the Department of the Interior, whose Secretary, according to a provision of the act, was authorized to perform all duties in relation to the General Land Office of supervision, appeal, etc.

Statutes at Large, II, 716.

Ibid. V, 107.

Ibid. IX, 207.

hitherto discharged by the Secretary of the Treasury. From that time the General Land Office has remained a subordinate bureau in the Department of the Interior.

As the superior officer of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, the Secretary of the Interior is allowed a certain amount of discretionary power in order that he may act with a certain degree of freedom, without being obliged always to go through legislative forms. He can discontinue the district land offices in any locality when he thinks their existence is no longer required. He has authority to order the departure from the regular rectangular surveys in the States where he thinks the system impracticable. The issue of military land patents; the appraisement and sale of reservations for townsites; the adjustment of swamp-claims and claims to overflowed lands with the Governors of the States interested; the calling of the Board of Equitable Adjudication for suspended entries of public lands and pre-emption claims; the designation of agricultural lands apart from mineral lands; the control of Yellowstone Park, and several other duties either of a routine or discretionary character, devolve upon the Secretary of the Interior. Finally, he must take the necessary measures for the completion of the public-land surveys.

RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE COMMISSIONER.

The existing laws thus require of the Secretary of the Interior the supervision of public business relating to the public lands, but the actual executive head of this important branch of public service is the Commissioner of the Land Office. It is this Commissioner who superintends all the machinery of the great Land Court of the country. It is he who chiefly disposes of innumerable cases of land claims. Upon him rests the responsibility of the faithful execution of the settlement laws. From him springs directly the title to land. Upon him depends the economic safety of the pioneer settler who struggles to create a home. He must fight with lawless

land "grabbers." He must keep a watchful eye upon the condition of railroad corporations to which land grants have been made. Public interest requires him to avoid the introduction into the United States of English landlordism and other forms of land monopoly. These and all other such duties devolve upon the responsible office of the Commissioner of the General Land Office.

We shall now briefly inquire how the Land Office is managed under the direction of the Commissioner. In treating of the administration of the General Land Office, we shall divide the subject into two heads: 1. The General Land Office proper; 2. The local offices subordinate to the General Land Office.

For the sake of conveniently carrying on practical administrative work, the General Land Office has created from time to time minor subordinate offices within itself. Each office is in charge of a chief clerk. At present there are twelve subdivisions-from Division A to Division P. The entire force in the General Land Office, from the Commissioner down to the laborers, numbered 301 on June 30, 1883. Their compensation amounted to $383,000 per annum.2

The local subordinate officers are Surveyors-General and district land officers. At present there are sixteen surveying districts, each of which is under the charge of a SurveyorGeneral. These districts are Arizona, California, Colorado, Dakota, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. The Surveyor-General is authorized to appoint his deputy to survey the public lands within his district. The cost of survey varies according to localities, but it cannot exceed the maximum fixed by act of Congress. The Surveyor-General makes contracts with his deputy under the approval of the Commissioner. The Surveyor's district

1 Public Domain, 1230.

2 Ibid. 553.

3 Ibid. 554.

has no reference to the political divisions of the States, and is entirely conventional, depending upon the location of the public lands. When the survey of public lands within any particular surveying district is completed, then the SurveyorGeneral's office is closed and its archives are filed with the State Government.

Quite independent of surveying districts, the district land offices have been created for the accommodation of settlers. Since 1800 there have been created two hundred and fiftyeight district land offices, but there now remain only one hundred and five offices. Each office is in charge of a Register and Receiver. The district land officers are agents for disposing of the public lands, and they come in direct contact with settlers. The execution of various settlement laws depends much upon the faithful discharge of the duties of these local officers.

In recent years efforts have been made to advance the General Land Office into a special department like the Department of Agriculture. In the first session of the Forty-Seventh Congress, the Committee on Public Lands, in the Senate, instituted investigations as to the actual condition of administration in the General Land Office. They reported a recommendation to create a Department of Public Lands. The Public Land Commission, which was created under the act of March 3, 1879, to codify the land laws of the United States, held the same view as did the Senatorial Committee. The late Commissioner, Mr. McFarland, repeatedly called the attention of Congress to the increasing work of the Land Office, and the lack of proper provision for the work.

We shall close this chapter by quoting words of the Public Land Commissioners, in their valuable work "Public Domain," with regard to the importance of the General Land Office. "The General Land Office," says one Commissioner, "holds the records of title to the vast area known as

1 Public Domain, 555.

the public domain, on which are hundreds of thousands of homes. Its records constitute the 'Domesday Book' of the public domain of the United States." In the later edition of the work, the same Commissioner again says: "The General Land Office, charged with the care and custody of the public lands under the supervision of the Secretary of the Interior, is one of the most important and responsible public divisions in the administrative circles of the Government. The survey, sale or other disposition of the nation's public lands is within its control. . . . . Its jurisdiction reaches from Lake Erie to the Pacific Ocean, and from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. Four-fifths of the lands of the entire area of the United States have been or are now under its supervision." Public lands are a public trust. Recent investigations disclose shameful frauds and deceptions as prevailing in public-land entries." The nation's interest demands a fair disposition of the public domain, and the importance of the office to which is entrusted the nation's property can hardly be exaggerated.

III.

LAND SYSTEM OF THE UNITED STATES.

The land system of the United States is of historical growth. It has passed through various legislative enactments, and through almost a century of practical administration. The present system has grown, perhaps, far beyond the anticipations of those who were first called upon to legislate concerning the public lands.

The chief object of the early legislators was to dispose of

'Public Domain, 166.

Public Domain, 1222-1223.

"New

See in New York Herald a series of articles (April 6, 1886, and succeeding issues) upon such subjects as "Greedy Land Grabbers," Mexican Land Thieves," etc.