“I never knew that this was the object of the Spanish and Mexican governments in granting large tracts of land, but it seems to me a very wise plan when there was so much land and so few settlers.”
“Precisely. It was a good policy. In fact, the only one in those days of a patriarchal sort of life, when raising cattle was the principal occupation of the Californians.”
“I must say that to establish the Land Commission seems to me rather a small subterfuge for the Congress of a great nation to resort to.”
“What makes this subterfuge a cold-blooded wrong, of premeditated gravity, is the fact that at the time when we were forced to submit our titles for revision, and pending these legal proceedings, we, the land-owners, began to pay taxes, and the squatters were told that they have the right to take our lands and keep them until we should prove that we had good titles to them. If the law had obliged us to submit our titles to the inspection of the Land Commission, but had not opened our ranchos to settlers until it had been proved that our titles were not good, and if, too, taxes were paid by those who derived the benefit from the land, then there would be some color of equity in such laws. But is not this a subversion of all fundamental principles of justice? Here we are, living where we have lived for fifty or eighty years; the squatters are turned loose upon us to take our lands, and we must pay taxes for them, and we must go to work to prove that our lands are ours before the squatter goes. Why doesn't the squatter prove first that the land is his, and why doesn't he pay his own taxes? We, as plaintiffs, have to bear heavy expenses, and as the delays and evasions of the law are endless, the squatter has generally managed to keep the land he took, for we have been impoverished by heavy taxation while trying to prove our rights, and the squatter has been making money out of our lands to fight us with. Generally the Californians have had nothing but land to pay their taxes, besides paying their lawyers to defend their titles. Thus, often the lawyer has taken all that was left out of the cost of litigation and taxes.
“It makes me heartsick to think how unjustly the native Californians have been treated. I assure you, sir, that not one American in a million knows of this outrage. If they did, they would denounce it in the bitterest language; they would not tolerate it.”
“They would denounce it perhaps, but they would tolerate it. I used to think as you do, that the American people had a very direct influence upon the legislation of the country. It seems so to hear public speakers in election times, but half of all their fire goes up in smoke, and Congress is left coolly to do as it pleases. And the worst of it is, that this very arbitrary Congress, so impervious to appeals of sufferers, is also led by a few persistent men who with determination do all things, spoil or kill good bills, and doctor up sick ones; and then they half-fool and half-weary the nation into acquiescence, for what can we do? The next batch that is sent to the Capitol will have the same elements in it, and repeat history.”
“It seems to me there ought to be some way to punish men for being bad or ineffectual legislators, when sense of honor or dread of criticism fail to make them do their duty.”
Don Mariano sighed and shook his head, then in a very sad voice said:
“That should be so, but it is not the case. No, I don't see any remedy in my life-time. I am afraid there is no help for us native Californians. We must sadly fade and pass away. The weak and the helpless are always trampled in the throng. We must sink, go under, never to rise. If the Americans had been friendly to us, and helped us with good, protective laws, our fate would have been different. But to legislate us into poverty is to legislate us into our graves. Their very contact is deadly to us.”
“And yet you do not seem to hate us.”