HEARINGS BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON THE PUBLIC LANDS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES SIXTY-FOURTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION ON H. J. RES. 58, H. R. 9814, 10058, and 12116 TO ALTER AND AMEND AN ACT ENTITLED "AN ACT GRANTING LANDS TO AID IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF A RAILROAD AND TELEGRAPH LINE FROM THE CENTRAL PACIFIC RAILROAD IN CALIFORNIA TO PORTLAND, IN OREGON” FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1916 PART V WASHINGTON: GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE OREGON AND CALIFORNIA LANDS GRANTS. COMMITTEE ON THE PUBLIC LANDS, The committee met at 10 o'clock a. m., Hon. Scott Ferris (chairman) presiding. The CHAIRMAN. Senator Chamberlain, the committee will be glad to hear you. STATEMENT OF SENATOR GEORGE E. CHAMBERLAIN, OF OREGON. Senator CHAMBERLAIN. I shall be brief, Mr. Chairman, in what I have to say. In order that I may advise the committee that this legislation is not a matter of a few days ago, but that it is a subject that has been under discussion by the people of Oregon for a great many years, I want to call your attention to the fact that as soon as the railroad company withdrew the lands from sale and settlement, about 1903, the people throughout the State began to discuss the matter and to condemn the railroad company for its withdrawal, because so many counties were involved in it, the expenses of local government depended so largely upon the rapid settlement of the lands, that they thought that the withdrawal of the lands, in view of the terms of the grant, was an outrage against the State. The purpose of the railroad company, however, was fixed and determined. Many of my friends discussed the subject between 1903 and 1908, when the resolution authorizing suits for forfeiture passed Congress; and I did, too, at public meetings as governor of the State. In 1907, as president of the National Irrigation Congress, at Sacramento, Cal., I addressed a large audience where this subject was one of the matters under discussion, and at that time I called the attention of the people to the conditions surrounding this grant, both in California and Oregon, and suggested a course that ought to be followed to compel the railroad either to comply with the terms of the grant or else that the courts or Congress be appealed to to take steps to bring the company to a realization of its duties under the grant. At that meeting Mr. E. H. Harriman, head of the Union Pacific system, in answer to my suggestion that action should be taken to compel the railroad company to dispose of these grant lands as the law required, not only refused to put them on the market under the terms of the grant, but served notice on the people that it was the purpose of the railroad company to hold them for their own benefit for 20 or 30 or 50 years. Amongst other things, he said: Of course, you understand the ties really are the foundation of the transportation line. We could not run a railroad if we had all the rails and all the equipment and right of way unless we had the ties upon which to place the rails. We have given that subject a good deal of thought and we are in control of, or ownership of, a considerable area of timber land in this western country, and especially in Oregon, and, Mr. Chairman, we are not holding those lands for speculation; we are holding those lands to protect you people in the future-in 20, 30, or 50 years from now. We will let other people cut the forests; we will use the ties from their ground, and when the time comes we intend to have a reserve with which we can maintain these great transportation lines for those that come after, that they may not accuse us of wasting the resources which we had at our command. The service of this notice upon the people of California and Oregon determined the people of Oregon, at least, and I think the people of California, to see that Mr. Harriman and this great company represented by him should do their duty toward the people. Shortly afterwards the Legislature of Oregon and the citizens of the State memorialized Congress to do something to relieve the situation, and in 1908 Senator Fulton, who was then a Member of the Senate from my State, introduced a resolution, which was adopted, directing the Attorney General to institute proceedings against the railroad company and others in order to try out the right of the Government to forfeit the lands or to compel the observance of the terms of the grants on the part of the railroad company. Shortly after that suits were instituted in Oregon against the railroad company and others, and you gentlemen are entirely familiar with the subsequent proceedings, because you have heard testimony on the whole subject within the past few days. The subject is not a new one with me. I have given it a great deal of attention, both in the State and since I have been here, because I realized the importance to the people of the State to have these lands brought under actual settlement by sale or otherwise so as to assist the State in its development and in the purposes of government. Some of the counties of the State are practically without any sources of revenue, without any property subject to taxation, because of the reservation of this and other lands. Take one county in the southwestern part of the State, Curry County. That depends for its revenue largely upon a strip 6 miles wide east and west and running through the county along the Pacific Ocean. The balance of it is either in this grant or in forest or other reservations of the Federal Government. That is a condition that has become unbearable. Upon my own information and the advice that I have received from citizens of Oregon this bill was prepared, and I believe it more nearly meets the situation than any other pending measure. I have no criticism to make of the authors of any of these other measures. I attribute to Mr. Hawley the same patriotic motives which animate me, and that is to do what seems to him best for the Government and for the State, but neither his nor the other proposed measures meet the situation. That is the judgment, I believe, of the department officials, upon whom will devolve measurably the enforcement of the law. I call attention to the fact that the bill as framed by me had to do originally only with the undisposed of portions of the grant. I did not care to get into a controversy that would lead possibly to prolonged litigation. I confined it to the undisposed of lands, and after consultation with Mr. Williams and Mr. Smyth and other representative of the Department of Justice, I thought that inasmuch as the railroad company had offered no suggestion or assistance in the preparation of this or any other bill, if we had to have a fight we might just as well have it from the beginning to the end, and therefore I have acceded to the suggested amendments which were made with the purpose, and object of adjusting all of these differences not only for the lands undisposed of but for those that have been illegally sold, as spoken of by the Supreme Court of the United States, so that there may be a full and complete accounting with reference to them all. There was a conference recently held in Oregon to consider the best method of disposing of these grant lands under the decision of the Supreme Court. I believe the railroad company was represented there by Mr. Dunn, of San Francisco, a very distinguished member of the bar of California. He offered no suggestion or advice with reference to these grants, although the conference lasted several days. There have been other conferences, and the railroad company has never made any suggestion that would assist in the solution of the problems involved. I ask you gentlemen to sift the testimony of the distinguished attorney, Mr. Blair, who was here yesterday, and if you can see a suggestion in it, then your brains are acuter than mine. The disposition of the company, as a matter of fact, has been to kiss the whole proposition aside for some reason, and none of us have known what the reason is, because all of us have been anxious to meet the railroad company in such a way as to do justice to it. The purpose of this bill is to give the railroad company complete justice, under the decision of the Supreme Court, and to allow it $2.50 an acre for all the land, and that is all that it could get under he terms of the grant and under the decision of the court. This bill protects them in that, and I think that is all that they can claim or insist upon. The bill was analyzed here, I believe, by Mr. Smyth yesterday, and I will not attempt to do what he has done so well, but one great object of this measure was to put these lands on the market. If you will read it carefully, you will find that the lands are automatically classified by it into three classes. The departmental officials have power to establish rules and regulations, so that the homesteader classifies the land when he undertakes to settle upon it or acquire title thereto. He proclaims the character of it himself and determines under what classification it comes-whether mineral, agricultural or otherwise. I did not think that it was a sound public policy to tie these lands up for the purpose of a governmental classification, but to place them in a position where they could automatically be entered by the people who wanted to make homesteads or by those who wanted to purchase the timber on the lands and eventually leave the lands in condition to be entered by homesteaders. This, gentlemen, is in brief the origin and history of this proposed legislation, and very briefly the condition I had in mind in the preparation of this measure, and I shall now be very glad to attempt to answer any questions of the committee. Mr. KENT. Do you not believe that under the terms of this bill the railroad company would get more than they would have gotten if they had carried out the original terms of the grant; for the reason that there would have been some land that they could not have sold for $2.50 an acre? Senator CHAMBERLAIN. There would have been much of it that they could not have realized $2.50 an acre on, but there was much that they could have realized more on. |