territories organized from the public lands, the sixteenth section
in every township was reserved for school purposes, Oregon being the
first to receive the addition of the thirty-sixth. There has been no
fixed rule of appropriation, much depending upon the people and their
representatives. In 1812, and again in 1824 congress ordered a survey
of certain towns and villages in Missouri, reserving for the use of
schools one-twentieth part of the whole survey. When sold these town
reservations produced large sums, as in the case of St. Louis. Down to
1880 seven states and eight territories had received the thirty-sixth
section in each township. Twenty-four states had received two townships
each for the use of universities. Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota and
Florida had taken more. Previous to 1882 the appropriation of land
for common schools in the land states aggregated sixty-seven million
eight hundred and ninety-three thousand nine hundred and nineteen
acres; for university purposes, one million six hundred and fifty
thousand five hundred and twenty acres; for agricultural and mechanical
colleges, nine million six hundred thousand acres—a total of
seventy-nine million one hundred and forty-four thousand four hundred
and thirty-nine acres devoted to the support of education in the United
States.
From time to time it has been necessary to make changes in the land
laws, as when the discovery of mineral lands, reserved by congress
called for the substitution of lieu lands, but there has been no
diminution in quantity or value.
Oregon has less vacant or public land than from its area might be
expected. The bounty of government in donating to the pioneer settlers
six hundred and forty acres to a family—three hundred and twenty
to the husband, and the same amount to the wife—and to single men
and women three hundred and twenty each, provided they lived upon or
improved their claims, disposed of most of the cultivable area west of
the Cascade Range. The school lands which passed with the territorial
act occupied two thirty-sixths of every township. The act of admission
passed to the state the usual endowment of five hundred thousand
acres for its public uses,[17] with twelve salt springs and six
sections adjoining each; ninety thousand acres for the endowment of an
agricultural college, and seventy-two sections for the use and support
of a state university. Subsequent grants to railroads and public
highways, with military and Indian reservations, absorbed large bodies
of land, both in the valleys and the mountains. The state devoted the
net proceeds, with the accruing interest of the five hundred thousand
acres, as an irreducible fund for the support of common schools, and
for the purchase of libraries and apparatus.[18] It also added to this
fund all gifts to the state whose purpose was not named.
The actual quantity of land allowed by congress to Oregon for common
school purposes is three million two hundred and fifty thousand acres,
at a minimum price per acre of $1.25, the management of the income
being left to a board, of which the Governor is one. I am informed by
the clerk of this board that the fund now amounts to $3,000,000, which
is securely invested at ten per cent.
In 1850 congress passed a swamp land act, the intention of which
was to enable the states subject to overflow by the Mississippi, to
construct levees, and drain overflowed lands. The law was subsequently
extended to other states. Oregon, however, had no rivers requiring
levees, nor any swamp lands. This fact did not prevent beaver-dam
lands, the most valuable in the state, from being taken up as swamp
lands. The scandal attached also the meadow lands about lakes in the
interior, and even to lands included in Indian reservation lands. Nor
is congress quite guiltless in this respect, since it has recklessly
granted principalities in the public soil to aid enterprises designed
by private companies for their own benefit, these grants being obtained
by representations, wholly unfounded, of the public utility in the
undertaking.[19] The hand of the lobbyist is visible in these matters,
while suspicion attaches to both state and national legislators, who
too frequently have other than the people's interest at heart.
The vacant public lands of the United States are still nine hundred
and eighty thousand three hundred and thirty-seven square miles
in extent, or one-third of our total area, exclusive of Alaska.
Indian reservations and forest reservations together occupy five and
forty-three hundredths per cent. The State of Texas comprises eight and
eighty-three hundredths per cent. of the area of the United States, and
owns all the public lands within its borders. Thus there remains open
to settlement the vacant one-third, exclusive of Alaska, Texas, and
the Islands. Almost all of the vacant lands are west of the Missouri
River, and include much that is of but little present value to the
agriculturist from its aridity. Yet not one rod of it is valueless
in the eyes of the political economist. Forests and mines are as
necessary to advanced civilization as grain fields and orchards. But
even were this not true, the earth needs waste places where pure air
and pure water are generated to be furnished to the lower plains. Men
will gradually accustom themselves to deserts, and will cause them to
blossom like the rose. Wherever they go, the foundation of a home is
awaiting them, and the common school is provided for their children. It
is thus we are educating the nations.
It can hardly be superfluous to revert to the obligation of the general
government and the individual state to remember and guard the people's
rights in the public domain. A wastefulness which tends to contract
free acreage beyond the convenient demands of settlement and use, is to
deprive the nation of strength and elasticity. When we have no longer
anything to offer the coming generations, it will be a pity if they
come. The power of the great land owner over the man who has inherited
nothing, and is too poor to purchase at the landlords' prices, will be,
to all intents and purposes, the same which the landlords of Europe
exercise over the peasant classes there. The ladder by which our people
have climbed to happy heights of prosperity will be withdrawn, and the
poor man will have become the slave of the rich man. It is doubtful if
the universal intelligence which we are at so much pains to cultivate
will be, in such circumstances, an unmixed blessing, since the
enlightened mind has requirements which are not felt by the ignorant,
the absence of which inflicts pain, and frequently leads to crime.
FRANCES F. VICTOR.
[Footnote 1: The lands not held as private estates in Great Britain
were known as the "Crown lands," the revenue from which was the income
of the sovereign. This continued down to the accession of George III.
This custom continued down to Victoria, who, renouncing the crown
lands, accepted for herself and her children a fixed sum annually, but
this annuity does not descend to her grandchildren.]
[Footnote 2: The history of the early voyages, and of the immigration
to America of different nationalities, including the Dutch, is too
familiar to be repeated here, and a period of nearly three hundred
years, from 1497 to 1783, is passed over. With independence, the
American states received an inheritance of which they hardly understood
the value at the time, except for its political importance.]
[Footnote 3: It would seem from this demand of Virginia that this state
assumed to lay claim to all the Northwest Territory. However, it could
make no difference, since the other states had ceded whatever rights
they had, except to strengthen the title of the general government.]
[Footnote 4: There is much that is confusing and contradictory in the
act of North Carolina, as in the reference to the ordinance of 1787,
and the clause forbidding the passage by congress of an act tending to
emancipate slaves.]
[Footnote 5: The Constitution of the Provisional Government of Oregon
was formed on the ordinance of 1787, and the above extract is taken,
somewhat abbreviated, from Articles I, II, III and IV of that document.
When the organic act of Oregon Territory was framed by congress, it
was agreed that the laws already in operation in Oregon should be
recognized as the laws of the territory. The adoption of the ordinance
of 1787 as their Constitution by the pioneers of the state, was due to
the statesmanship of Jesse Applegate, one of the "men of 1843." Its
author was Nathan Dane, LL. D., of Massachusetts, member of congress in
1787.]
[Footnote 6: Subsequently the reservation of gold, silver, and copper
mines was discontinued, and lead mines and salt springs substituted.
The income from these sources at that period would have been greater
than from other mines. But no change was ever made from 1785 to the
present date in the grant of the sixteenth section for school purposes.]
[Footnote 7: A great deal of unwise criticism has been declaimed and
written upon the government's dealings with the Indians in the matter
of their reservations. But human wisdom has seldom been able, however
sincere the endeavor, to bridge over with peace the gulf between
savagery and civilization. The United States began by binding the
government in the ordinance of 1787 to "observe the utmost good faith
towards the Indians." During the first ten years of its existence,
treaties were made with half a hundred tribes. It was declared a
misdemeanor, punishable by fine and imprisonment, for any persons, not
acting for the government, to treat with, or purchase lands from an
Indian nation—an inhibition meant to prevent trouble with the natives,
as well as frauds against the government. But Indian wars were not
prevented, and continue to this day. The United States has supported an
army to defend its citizens against savage outbreaks. Every congress
appropriates large sums for the support of its Indian wards, and for
their education. According to recent reports, the Indians of New
Mexico cost the government, in 1897, for each pupil in the Indian
schools, $167, or a lump sum of $41,750, over and above the pay of the
superintendent, and other expenses. The Indian school at Salem, Oregon,
for the same year, cost the treasury $50,100, and the support of the
establishment, $71,700. The Indian reservations, including Indian
Territory, comprise four and forty-three hundredths per cent. of our
public lands, exclusive of Alaska. The whole Indian population of the
United States is officially stated at two hundred and ninety-seven
thousand. Of these forty-two thousand five hundred and ninety-seven can
read; over fifty-three thousand can converse in English. The government
has built for them twenty-six thousand three hundred and eighty-nine
dwelling houses, besides schoolhouses, and there are three hundred and
forty-eight churches on the reservations. Religious and other societies
have contributed large amounts for school and church purposes. The
money collected in 1899 for the instruction and advancement of "the
nation's wards" was $261,515; for general church work, $119,407. New
York this year contributed for an Indian school in that state $16,016.
The senate bill this present year for an Indian school at Riverside,
California, proposed to appropriate $75,000. Another Indian school
at Perris, California, gets $167 per pupil for one hundred and fifty
pupils. The whole appropriation for the support and education of
Indians in 1900 is $8,414,000. At this rate is the nation still paying
for its public lands.]
[Footnote 8: Mr. J. Quinn Thornton, who came to Oregon late in 1846,
was appointed a judge under the provisional government by Governor
Abernethy, and was sent as a delegate to Washington late in 1847,
arriving there May 11, 1848, several times during his lifetime publicly
asserted, in written articles and in addresses delivered before the
Pioneer Association, that he was the author of the Douglas Bill. By
comparing dates it will be seen that he could have had nothing to do
with the bill, which was introduced in the house December 23, 1846,
soon after the boundary treaty. It passed the house January 16, 1847,
was sent to the senate, amended, and laid upon the table March 8,
1847. In 1848 Douglas was a senator, and Chairman of the Committee
on Territories. On the tenth of January the Oregon bill came up, was
referred to Douglas' committee, and reported, without amendments,
February 7. This was the identical bill over which senators wrangled in
so dramatic a fashion until the last hour of the session, in August,
1848. A compromise bill was devised by the southern members, by which
Oregon could come in in company with New Mexico and California, but
congress would have none of it. There was no opportunity during
Thornton's stay in Washington to alter or amend the Oregon bill, which,
when it passed the senate, was in all essential features, including
school lands, the same bill which was published in the _Oregon
Spectator_ of September 16, 1847, more than a month before Thornton set
sail for his destination. As the _Spectator_ was the only newspaper
in Oregon at that time, and owned and controlled by the Governor,
it is fair to presume that it was read by the Governor's appointee.
Notwithstanding these adverse circumstances and conclusions, Mr.
Thornton never ceased to claim the authorship of the organic act of
Oregon, nor to congratulate himself upon having bestowed upon this and
other new states the priceless benefit of school lands. "I will frankly
admit," he says in his autobiography, "that when to this section (the
sixteenth) of the public lands, the thirty-sixth was added by the
passage of this bill, the thought that Providence had made me the
instrument by which so great a boon was bestowed upon posterity filled
my heart with emotions as pure and deep as can be experienced by man;"
and goes on to anticipate being recognized as a benefactor of his race
when his toils and responsibilities should be over. See Transactions of
the Oregon Pioneer Association for 1874, and some later numbers, for
these false claims. Also the Portland _Oregonian_ of May 15, 1885, in
which he distinctly denies the facts of history, and relates incredible
occurrences with such minuteness of detail and loftiness of expression
as to deceive any but the well informed in public affairs. The ordinary
reader could not conceive such mendacity and dissembling.]
[Footnote 9: The older states made such provision as they could
for education. Connecticut reserved some of her lands for popular
education, and any state had the same right, but the "land states,"
as they were called, offered lands for seminaries of learning, and
universities, two entire townships being the usual amount granted for
this purpose, besides the thirty-sixth part set aside by compact.]
[Footnote 10: Rockwell had given notice of this amendment on the tenth
of May, one day before the arrival of Thornton in Washington. See his
"Oregon and California," vol. 2, p. 248. Therefore Mr. Rockwell's
idea did not originate with Mr. Thornton. In his article in the
"Transactions," for 1883, he makes Mr. Rockwell prophesy that he "will
not get the Oregon bill so amended as to set apart two sections in
each township, instead of one, as already provided for in the Oregon
bill"—forgetting in this instance to claim paternity to both.]
[Footnote 11: Says the commissioner: "The expediency of making
further provision for the support of common schools in the land
states has attracted much attention, and certainly is worthy of the
most favorable consideration. Those states are sparsely settled by an
active, industrious and enterprising people, who, however, may not have
sufficient means independent of their support, to endow or maintain
public schools. To aid in this important matter, congress at the
commencement of our land system, and when the reins of government were
held by the sages of the revolution, set apart one section out of every
township of thirty-six square miles. At that early day this provision
doubtless appeared munificent, but experience has proved it to be
inadequate. It is obviously necessary that at least one school should
be established in each of those townships, and to do this they have
only the section of land above mentioned, worth about $800. To invest
this sum safely it cannot be made to yield more than $48 per annum,
which will not pay the salary of a teacher for a single month; and the
whole of the principal would not enable a township to erect a suitable
common school edifice, and employ a teacher for one year. It is evident
therefore, that this provision does not go far to accomplish the
original design, and that without the aid of other means the citizens
of those growing states cannot obtain the advantages of a general
system of education. I would therefore recommend that further grants of
land be made for that object, and wherever the lands reserved for the
use of schools are found to be valueless, that the proper officer of
the state be authorized to select others in lieu of them. * * *
"With great respect, your obedient servant,
"JAMES H. PIPER,
"Acting Commissioner.
"HON. ROBERT J. WALKER,
"Secretary of the Treasury."
House Ex. Doc. 9, Vol. II, Twenty-ninth Congress, Second Session.
]
[Footnote 12: Ex. Doc., First Session, Thirtieth Congress, Vol. 1,
1847-48.]
[Footnote 13: This statement that congress "granted Oregon two
school sections" calls for explanation. It was only in the Northwest
Territory, subject to the ordinance of 1787 by compact, that these
sixteen sections belonged, as Woodbridge of Michigan contended, to the
states formed out of that territory. Where other states received them
it was by grant of congress.]
[Footnote 14: The Secretary urged other reasons for the additional
grants. "Even as a question of revenue," he says, "such grants would
more than refund their value to the government, as each quarter
township is composed of nine sections, of which the central section
would be granted for schools, and each of the remaining eight sections
would be adjacent to that granted. Those eight sections thus located
and each adjoining a school section, would be of greater value
than when separated by many miles from such opportunities, and the
thirty-two sections of one entire township, with these benefits, would
bring a larger price to the government than thirty-five sections out
of thirty-six, where one section only, so remote from the rest, was
granted for such a purpose. The public domain would thus be settled
at an earlier period, and yielding larger products, thus soon augment
our exports and our imports, with a corresponding increase of revenue
from duties. The greater diffusion of education would increase the
power of mind and knowledge, applied to our industrial pursuits, and
augment in this way also the products and wealth of the nation. Each
state is deeply interested in the welfare of every other, for the
representatives of the whole regulate by their votes the measures of
the union, which must be more happy and progressive in proportion as
its councils are guided by more enlightened views, resulting from more
universal diffusion of light and knowledge and education."—Ex. Doc.,
Second Session, Thirtieth Congress, Vol. II, 1848-49.]
[Footnote 15: Gwin's Autobiography, Mr. Bancroft's Hist. Cal. VI, 298.]
[Footnote 16: I must be pardoned if I once more call attention to the
willful perversion of truth by the talented but unscrupulous J. Quinn
Thornton. In the transactions of the Pioneer Association for 1874,
speaking of the Oregon bill and the school-land grants: "Up to the time
of the passage of this bill, congress had never appropriated more than
the sixteenth section for the support of common schools; and the _late_
Nathan Dane, LL. D., had labored long before he succeeded in inducing
the government to appropriate _that_ portion of the public lands." The
italics are mine: the word "late," to call attention to the fact that
Doctor Dane had been dead for thirty-nine years, having passed to his
reward in 1835, after a useful and honorable life; the word "that,"
because in another place Thornton claims himself to have induced the
government to make this appropriation. It is difficult to deal with
such constant shuffling with the intention to deceive. A different
unintentional error occurred in the course of my investigations, when,
in 1882, I wrote to the Department of the Interior for information as
to the first act of congress reserving the thirty-sixth section in each
township for school purposes, and was informed by the commissioner that
"the act was approved March 3, 1849 (U. S. Statutes, Vol I, page 154),
entitled an act to establish the Territorial Government of Minnesota."
He had overlooked the fact that the organic act of Oregon, which passed
on the fourteenth of August, 1848, contained the same appropriation.
This was probably because it was in 1849 that the affairs of the land
office were turned over to the interior department, and he had not
searched the previous records.]
[Footnote 17: Act of Congress of September 4, 1841.]
[Footnote 18: The canal and locks at Oregon City were built out of
the first proceeds of the five hundred thousand acres, when it was
converted to the school fund to prevent its appropriation to local
schemes of minor importance.]
[Footnote 19: By act of July, 1864, congress granted to the State of
Oregon, to aid in the construction of a military wagon road from Eugene
to the eastern boundary of the state, alternate sections of the public
lands designated by odd numbers, for three sections in width on each
side of the road, the United States to share in it as a military post
road. The land was to be sold in quantities at one time of thirty
sections on the completion of ten miles, and within five years, failing
which, the land reverted to the United States. The grant amounted to
one thousand nine hundred and twenty acres per mile for a distance of
four hundred and twenty miles—or more than all given to the state on
its admission by one hundred and fifty thousand acres. The company
was allowed a primary sale of thirty sections with which to begin
surveying. A road was opened from Eugene to and over the mountains in
1867, which was little used or useful. In 1873 the land grant was sold
to a San Francisco company, and this immense government gift passed to
private ownership in another state.]
GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN EARLY
OREGON.
As we travel through the Willamette Valley with the dispatch and
comfort of a well-equipped railway service, we are quickly forgetting
how our fathers and grandfathers journeyed. Pioneer experiences and
hardships are memories of long ago; another century is dawning, and we
say that "the new is better than the old."
In the early days of the settlement of this state the horse was the
only means of travel, unless one's course lay along the Willamette, and
then it was the canoe with paddles that carried trappers, explorers,
and occasional Hudson's Bay officials on their journeys. The native
grasses were luxuriant and abundant, the climate mild, and every
settler's door stood hospitably ajar. Journeying was by easy stages
and not irksome. It is pleasant to remember that there was a time when
one had time to be leisurely and greet one's friends in a kindly,
simple fashion. Civilization was gathered within the four walls of Fort
Vancouver, on the Columbia River. Our greatest friend, John McLoughlin,
was the chief factor of all the Hudson's Bay Company's establishments
west of the Rocky Mountains, and children who have been born in the
original Oregon Territory may well "rise up and call him blessed."