Page:Looters of the Public Domain.djvu/38

 sold during the Spring of 1906 to Wheeler & Cook of Pennsylvania for $30 per acre, or $4,800 per quarter section.

The figure named as the cost of each claim to Mays and Jones, will appear as exceedingly low, but it is nevertheless correct, and I will endeavor to explain my computation thereof, as follows: At the time of procuring titles to the claims in question, all State lands, whether School or Indemnity, were being sold at $1.25 per acre, and any person over the age of 18 years and a citizen of the State of Oregon, was entitled to file on 320 acres of State lands, it being merely necessary for him to appear before a notary public, make application for the land, pay the State one-third of the purchase price, which was $66.66, and receive a certificate of purchase therefor, which could be assigned to any person whomsoever, and the assignee, upon payment to the School Land Board of the balance of the purchase price due the State, would receive a deed in his own name, as if he were the original locator. Jones was therefore in a position to gobble up each half-section of 320 acres at an actual cost of $410, $400 of which went to pay the State, while $10 was given to the original applicant.

The law at that time, but which has since been changed, permitted one person to act as attorney for any number of applicants, he being allowed to file the applications, pay to the Clerk of the State School Land Board the stipulated price, and receive the certificates. Thus Jones, having obtained assignments of all certificates at the time the applications to purchase were made, as they were signed and acknowledged and turned over to him in blank, it only became necessary for him to fill in the numbers of the certificates, together with the description of the lands and date of acknowledgement.

At the time of the trial and conviction of W. N. Jones, F. Pierce Mays and Geo. Sorenson, it was proven that Jones had been successful in reducing the cost of applicants from $10 to $2.50 each, and it has been said, and is no doubt true, that he secured a number of them for a glass of beer.

Page 32