Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 3.djvu/296

 Dodge and was worth, not less than one hundred dollars per acre. It had been Mr. Crilly’s home since the early settlement of the pioneers in that region. After the Welles-Riley decision an eastern capitalist by the name of Burrows, who claimed Mr. Crilly’s farm, having purchased the claim of the Navigation Company, brought suit to eject him and his family from their home. Mr. Crilly would not believe that he could be robbed of his home by any legal process. It seemed incredible to him that the Government which had taken his money and given him its title, would permit any one to seize his homestead and turn his family out of doors. He borrowed money, went to Washington, laid his case before Congress and appealed to that body for protection. When informed that his only remedy for the great wrong inflicted upon him by the courts, was such indemnity as he could prove himself entitled to, he refused to believe it, declaring that his farm was not for sale and no power could compel him to sell it. The Orr indemnity bill which had passed the House was then before the Senate. Mr. Crilly was so confident that some branch of the Government could and would protect him and his home that he had a memorial prepared denouncing the indemnity bill as unjust to the settlers and in their behalf he urged the Senate to defeat it. This memorial and Mr. Crilly’s personal efforts defeated the bill. When this was accomplished he returned to Fort Dodge and for a long series of years in the courts and by all other means that could be devised, continued the fight. He suffered imprisonment and poverty in defense of his rights but it was a hopeless struggle of a despairing man; he was finally ejected and the farm passed into the possession of eastern speculators.

For more than twenty years the rights of the settlers who had lost their homes were ignored by the Government. Millions were appropriated by each successive Congress during all of this period for public buildings to ornament ambitious cities and strengthen the hold of