Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 3.djvu/301

 homesteader who had actual notice of the adverse claim of the Des Moines Navigation Company at the time of making such preëmption or homestead claim, and only paid the necessary fees to the land officers, and who made no valuable improvements on the land so preëmpted or homesteaded. Such claims and all the facts relating to them shall be reported to Congress. All other just claims shall be paid in the order of their approval, by the Secretary of the Interior; and no money shall be paid thereunder in any case until the findings of the Commissioner, in each case, are approved by the Secretary of the Interior, who shall have full authority to control all proceedings authorized by this paragraph.”

Finally a clause was incorporated in the Sundry Civil Act of March 3, 1893, in the Fifty-third Congress which read as follows:

In pursuance of this act Robert L. Berner was appointed a special agent to investigate the Des Moines River land grant claims. He proceeded to make a thorough examination of the entire complicated subject with eminent fairness and ability, and on the 7th of May, 1895, submitted to the Secretary of the Interior a comprehensive history of the original land grant with a clear statement of all of the various decisions of the officers of the Land and Treasury Departments, the different