It is supposed that the bill now under consideration was passed by the
Congress in ignorance of the previous statute. A duplication of the act
would manifestly be entirely useless.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _February 21, 1889_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I herewith return without approval House bill No. 1368, entitled "An act
to quiet title of settlers on the Des Moines River lands, in the State
of Iowa, and for other purposes."
This bill is to all intents and purposes identical with Senate bill
No. 150, passed in the first session of the Forty-ninth Congress, which
failed to receive Executive approval. My objections to that bill are set
forth in a message transmitted to the Senate on the 11th day of March,
1886.[32] They are all applicable to the bill herewith returned, and
a careful reexamination of the matters embraced in this proposed
legislation has further satisfied me of their validity and strength.
The trouble proposed to be cured by this bill grew out of the
indefiniteness and consequent contradictory construction by the officers
of the Government of a grant of land made in 1846 by Congress to the
State of Iowa (then a Territory) for the purpose of aiding in the
improvement of the Des Moines River. This grant was accepted on the 9th
day of January, 1847, by the State of Iowa, as required by the act of
Congress, and soon thereafter the question arose whether the lands
granted were limited to those which adjoined the river in its course
northwesterly from the southerly line of the State to a point called the
Raccoon Fork, or whether such grant covered lands so adjoining the river
through its entire course through the Territory, and both below and
above the Raccoon Fork.
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