Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1873.djvu/76

756 During the year there have been received 1,034 applications for bounty-land, of which number 437 have been rejected as identical with claims previously allowed.

During the ten years from 1864 to 1873, inclusive, warrants were issued as follows: In 1864, 1,812; 1865, 1,161; 1866, 406; 1867, 954; 1868,1,077; 1869,1,650; 1S70,1,758; 1871, 2,598; 1872, 443; 1873, 340.

It will be perceived that the number of warrants issued in the past year is less than during any other of the years mentioned. The principal cause of this reduction was the more careful adjudication of claims, induced by the discovery of frauds. Of suspended claims, under the several bounty-land acts, there are now on tile 99,587.

The total amount of land for which warrants have been issued for military service since the organization of the Government is 74,052,811 acres, which, estimated at $1.25 per acre, the minimum price, is equal in value to $92,566,013.75, as shown by the annexed table:

In addition to this amount, there were issued under the act of February 11, 1847 in lieu of land-warrants, 2,729 certificates, amounting to $238,400, which, added to the amount above given as the minimum value of land granted, makes the total value of grants $92,804,413.75.

In the last annual report your attention was invited to the fact that the character of parol evidence tiled in many claims for bounty-land was continually inducing suspicion of the validity of the claims; and I added:

"Unjust and incomplete claims are bought by unscrupulous agents for trifling sums, and are completed by an abuse of a privilege granted by authority of the third section of the act of May 14,1856, admitting parol evidence to establish a claim when no record exists. By stringent rules and regulations, this Bureau has sought to prevent these wrongs. But the only complete protection will be found in the repeal of the section to which reference has been made."

Experience, since the above suggestion was made, has confirmed the conviction that the position then taken was fully justified, and I do now earnestly ask that Congress be requested either to repeal said third section of act of May 14, 1856, (United States Statutes, vol. 11, p. 8,) or so to amend the same as to preclude the acceptance of parol evidence where record evidence of the service of the company (in which service by the claimant is alleged) exists.

It is also deemed advisable that the act of March 3 1869, (United states Statutes, vol. 15, p. 336,) construing the act of June, 1858, (United States Statutes, vol. 11,, p. 308,) so as to "authorize the legal representatives of deceased claimants, whose claims were filed prior to their decease, to the the proof necessary to perfect the same," should be so amended as to transfer the authority therein given from the legal representatives to the heirs or legatees of deceased claimants.