To check this tendency a preference right of
purchase was given to settlers on the land, a plan which culminated in
the general preemption act of 1841. The foundation of this system was
actual residence and cultivation. Twenty years later the homestead law
was devised to more surely place actual homes in the possession of
actual cultivators of the soil. The land was given without price, the
sole conditions being residence, improvement, and cultivation. Other
laws have followed, each designed to encourage the acquirement and use
of land in limited individual quantities. But in later years these laws,
through vicious administrative methods and under changed conditions of
communication and transportation, have been so evaded and violated that
their beneficent purpose is threatened with entire defeat. The methods
of such evasions and violations are set forth in detail in the reports
of the Secretary of the Interior and Commissioner of the General Land
Office. The rapid appropriation of our public lands without _bona
fide_ settlements or cultivation, and not only without intention of
residence, but for the purpose of their aggregation in large holdings,
in many cases in the hands of foreigners, invites the serious and
immediate attention of the Congress.
The energies of the Land Department have been devoted during the present
Administration to remedy defects and correct abuses in the public-land
service.
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