Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 11.djvu/153

Rh for which the state should select the tract desired. What did this imply but that the individual could do this more expeditiously and skillfully than any agent of the state, though the state alone had secured the data absolutely essential for making such selection, and the possession of which data, with abundant national domain at this time available, made the work of selection exceedingly easy. Here, too, the authors of the plot embodied in the law relied upon the blind prejudice which held that zeal and efficiency in public service in Oregon was unthinkable.

This law caused the loss to the people of Oregon from their school fund millions of dollars; it encouraged perjury, forgery and malfeasance in office. Yet not one vote is recorded against it in either house of the legislature. Its false implication as to the facts pertaining to the unsold state lands remained unchallenged. The legislators seem to have swallowed the hint given in the words, "remaining unsold," as implying that the state had only a remnant of comparatively worthless lands left. Tht school fund accumulated in 1887 was $1,060,000; it is now but little less than $6,000,000. It has been increased almost five-fold through the sale of lands then "remaining unsold/' even though most of those lands were given away for but a small fraction of their real value.

Now who could have been interested in leading the legislature into such a blunder and how would these conspirators profit through their scheme? The lobbying of intending purchasers of state lands would have killed such a measure instantly. Those who had experience in the state's land office were possessed of the necessary knowledge for concocting a scheme; a stupid practice of the state in securing lieu land selections opened an opportunity for graft, and a remorseless cupidity impelled to the devising of the scheme.

That we may see at a glance, and from the inside, as it were, the operations of Oregon's "lieu land ring," let us in imagination take a position in the state's office at Salem with the conditions as they were in 1887. Applications pouring