Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 11.djvu/158

148 T. W. Davenport, the state land agent, during the period of respite from 1895 to 1899, in his two biennial reports explained how the chicanery of fraud carried on under the auspices of the state had traduced its fair name ; nevertheless, there was a lapse again, and to an even lower condition of debauchery, in the state land transactions during the four years from 1899 to 1903. There was the same old lack of co-operation between the state land agent and the clerk of the land board. The former used the same sections in the lists sent to Washington as mineral lands, in lieu of which indemnity lands were applied for, that the latter had sold as accepted state lands. There was about the same proportion of this reselling as had occurred in the preceding period. Experience costly to the state left no impression with them. 1 But more than that, villainies of a deeper dye were being consummated in connection with the state land office. The state officials were not accomplices exactly. They were simply content to ply their old customary task of receiving the moneys. The fact that the sums repre- sented but a small fraction of the value of the lands for which they were being exchanged and the fact that those who were getting these lands in lots of thousands of acres had bought the names on the applications and assignments they used — to these conditions those state officials were hardened. What a travesty of public service was theirs ! 2

A fine "culture fluid" this Oregon land law, and the con- firmed policy of the state with its lands, proved for the breed-

1 "Here was the condition of things on the ist day of January, 1903: About 50,000 acres of land had been sold in place by the State, while the same lands had been adjudicated as mineral by the local land offices, and the Executive of the State, through his State Land Agent, had selected indemnity lands in lieu thereof, and these indemnity lands had been likewise sold, so that the State had practically sold the same land twice. In addition to this, many of the alleged mineral lands had been used twice as bases for indemnity selections, so that in such cases the State had practically sold the same lands as often as three times to as many different individuals. Of the 70,000 acres, therefore, adjudicated as mineral and used as bases for indemnity selection, only about 20,000 acres are in such condition that the State can fairly and in good faith attempt to have the selections made in lieu thereof patented to the State". Governor Geo. E. Chamberlain's Message to the 23rd Legislative Assembly, 1905, p. 28.

2 The following is from testimony given at the recent Binger Hermann trial at Portland, Oregon, January 19, 1910, by one of the leading lieu land operators:

"Everybody understood that I was to get the lands (school sections unsold in what was expected to be included in the Blue Mountain Forest Reservation when created) in the usual way. I was to go down in the slums of the North End and pay men to sign applications, then deposit them at the land office and