"3d. When application is made by a railroad company to select tracts which are covered by existing pre-emption or homestead claims at the date of the right of the road attaching, but subsequently relinquished or abandoned, to allow the company to file such proof as they may have in support of their right to the land, or to have hearings for the purpose, and should the evidence be satisfactory you will permit the selections.
"4th. When any person applies to enter a tract of such lands, claiming the right to do so by such prior abandoned claim, you will order a hearing, notifying the railroad company, as well as the pre-emption or homestead claimant, so that they may produce such evidence in support of their right as they may have to furnish. Your inquiry must be directed to the personal qualifications of the original claimant, and his compliance with the law prior to filing an entry; and I desire to enjoin upon you the necessity of excluding all testimony not material to showing the facts upon the subject of inquiry. You will, however, be careful that all such facts are brought out, and if necessary to this end you will yourselves examine and question the witnesses. You will in all cases give the parties interested personal notice of the time and place of hearing, when their whereabouts are known, or they can be reached by such notice. In other cases you will cause the notice of contest to be published at least once a week for four weeks in the newspaper having the largest circulation in the vicinity of the land. Parties initiating a contest must provide for defraying the expenses thereof, but when the case comes before you for trial you can apportion the expenses according to the equities of each case. Your particular attention is called to the fact that in some of the earlier railroad grants, lands covered by homestead claims, which may subsequently be cancelled, are not exempted from the operation of the grant. Therefore, in such cases, the tracts revert to the grant, and you will recognize no application for these lands by other parties, but will pay due regard to the rights of the grantees. You will in no case allow pre-emption filing, or homestead entry on this class of lands, without instructions from this office."
This circular, in the interest of railroad companies, is signed by Willis Drummond, commissioner, and directed to registers and receivers of district land offices. While the acts of congress exclude from the grants to railroad companies all lands held by pre-emption and homestead claims, the secretary of the interior says it means valid claims. He then declares all claims invalid or fraudulent when there has not been a literal compliance with the statute. If the pre-emptor filed his claim one day or one week before he commenced his occupation, his claim, as against the railroad company, is fraudulent. Or, if for some cause, after having complied with all preliminaries, he should leave his claim for a day or a week, it could be treated as abandoned, and his right would be lost. These rulings, in favor of railroad companies, and adverse to the settlers, having been made, the companies were not slow in taking advantage of them. Men who supposed their claims to be valid, who had invested their all in improving them, have had their validity questioned, or have been charged with abandonment. The first intimation a settler has, is a notice to appear and defend the home of his family against the claim of a powerful corporation that is seeking to take it from him. He must submit to the alternative of losing his home at once, or of protracted, expensive litigation, with the assurance that he is combatting a powerful adversary before a tribunal that has already prejudged his case in favor of his opponent. All that the railroad companies need do to defraud the settler is to satisfy the register or receiver that, under the rulings of the department we have quoted, the settler's claim is invalid, or that he has abandoned it.
We draw no fancy sketch. The circular speaks for itself, and the large number of men who have been compelled to leave their pre-emption and homestead claims, with the constantly increasing quarter-sections of land that are being added to the railroad grants, attest the truth of our statements. We are not aware of any law of the United States recognizing the right of railroad companies to become parties in a contest concerning a homestead or pre-emption right. Nor do we believe that the interior department of the government can legally authorize these companies to become claimants for lands held by settlers under act of congress. If any question arises between two pre-emption claimants, the commissioner of the general land office decides the dispute. If any question is raised as to whether the claimant is entitled to his pre-emption, there are, under the acts of congress, but two parties to the controversy—the claimant himself and the interior department. The order allowing railroad companies to appear as parties, and by virtue of numerical strength and immense wealth and influence, to overpower the settler, is doing him injustice, as well as degrading a high official position, and sustains our charge that these railroad companies influence the interior department of the government. We think we have shown that the whole strength of this department is used in favor of these great monopolies, and against the interests of the people. While we do not charge the officers of this department of government with intentional wrong, we do charge that this great corporate power, which has such unlimited influence over the legislative department of the government, has virtually taken control of the department of the interior in cases where its interests can be subserved by the influence of the department.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE MONOPOLISTS AT THE DOOR OF THE WHITE HOUSE.
The influence of this great corporate power does not spend all its force at the interior department, but it is seen handing in its card at the white house.
While we claim that railroads and other corporations have, to a considerable extent, influenced the distinguished occupants of the presidential chair, we do not wish to be understood as intimating that any of our chief magistrates have acted corruptly. We simply assert that this great corporate interest has secured favorable action from our presidents when they have been appealed to. As will be seen by their perusal, the acts of congress chartering the Pacific railroad and branches, imposed certain duties upon the president in connection with their location and construction. In the discharge of these duties the wishes of the companies were in all cases complied with, and in some instances to the injury and at the cost of the government and the public, and under circumstances leaving no doubt that the president acted wholly upon the representations of the companies.