Now; in order to insure even perfunctory understanding of the procedure
under which Bob McGraw planned to acquire his lands, and to give an
inkling of the difficulties confronting him, it is necessary that the
reader take a five-minute course in land law. This is regrettable, for
it is a dry subject, even in the matter of swamp and overflow lands, so
we shall endeavor to make the course as brief as possible.
Section sixteen and thirty-six in each township throughout the United
States are commonly designated as “school lands,” for the reason that
the Federal government has ceded them to the various states, to be sold
by the states for the use and benefit of their public school funds.
School lands are open to purchase by any citizen of the United States,
and in the case of California school lands the statutory price is one
dollar and twenty-five cents per acre.
Now, frequently it happens that by reason of the inclusion of certain
of these “school lands” in a Forest Reserve, a Reclamation District, an
Indian Reservation, a National Park, a Government Military Reservation
or an old Mexican grant (which latter condition obtains very frequently
in California, where the titles to many huge grants still hold since
the days of the Mexican occupation) they are lost to the state. In such
cases, the Federal government reimburses the state suffering such loss
of school lands, by extending to the state the privilege of selecting
from the public lands within its borders an acreage corresponding to the
acreage thus lost by reason of inclusion in a restricted area.
The lands thus selected from the public domain in exchange for school
lands lost to the state, having been taken in lieu, thereof, are known
as “state lieu lands,” and the lands which were originally state school
lands and which have been lost to the state by reason of their inclusion
in some restricted area, are spoken of as the “basis” for the exchange.
If a citizen of the United States, duly qualified, desires to purchase
state school lands at the statutory price of one dollar and twenty-five
cents per acre, he must file his application for a section, or such
fraction thereof as he may desire, or be entitled to purchase, with the
surveyor-general of the state, who is also ex-officio registrar of the
State Land Office. If there are no school lands open for purchase at the
time, naturally they cannot be purchased; but if, on the contrary, the
state owns many sections of school lands which have been included in
restricted areas, the surveyor-general will select for the applicant
from the public domain such state lieu lands as the purchaser may
desire. However, no such selection of lieu lands can be made by the
surveyor-general unless there is a corresponding loss of school lands
_as the basis for the selection._
Now, this basis constituted the horns of a dilemma upon which Bob McGraw
had once found himself impaled in an attempt to purchase three hundred
and twenty acres of timbered land in the public domain--land which he
knew would, in the course of a few years, become very valuable. Bob's
restless nature would not permit of his taking up the claim under the
homestead law, for that would entail residence on the property for more
years than Bob could afford to remain away from his beloved desert;
hence he decided to acquire it by purchase as state lieu land at a
time when he knew there were no available school lands lying outside
restricted areas. Mr. McGraw saw an attractive profit in purchasing at
one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre three hundred and twenty acres
of timber worth fully fifty dollars per acre.
Thrilled, therefore, with most pleasurable anticipations, Mr. McGraw had
duly filed his application for purchase of this particular half-section,
under Section 3495 of the Political Code of the State of California. He
knew that, owing to the recent extension of the Forest Reserve policy,
thousands of acres of school lands had recently been lost to the state,
and that therefore, under the law, there could be no legal hindrance to
his purchase of lieu lands--particularly in view of the fact that there
were several hundred thousand acres of government lands within the state
from which to make his selection!
To Bob's surprise, his application for the purchase of lieu lands had
been denied, under a ruling of the State Land Office--a ruling
having absolutely no foundation under any section of legislative
procedure--which stipulated that before the State Land Office could
receive or grant an application for the purchase of lieu lands, the
intending purchaser _must first designate the basis of corresponding
loss to the state of school lands._
“Bless my innocent soul,” Mr. McGraw had murmured at the time, “what
a curious rule! I had a notion that that was the surveyor-general's
business, not mine. I had a notion that he was paid for compiling that
information for the people, and not forcing them to compile it for
themselves.”
However, in no whit daunted by the prospect of a little research work,
Bob had had recourse to the land maps in the office. To his surprise and
chagrin he discovered that as fast as he brought to light a “basis” for
his selection, he was informed, after some perfunctory investigation
by the employees of the State Land Office that these bases _had already
been used!_ Eventually the light of reason began to sift through the fog
of despair and suddenly Bob had a very brilliant idea.
“Euchred!” he muttered to himself. “I do not happen to possess the
requisite amount of inside information and I have no means of obtaining
it until I ascertain where it is for sale! The purpose of this
ridiculous rule is to keep the rabble out of the public domain until
some middleman gets a profit out of his information. I'll just give up
for the time being and await results.”
Bob did not have long to wait. Within a week he received a letter from
an alleged land attorney, offering to locate him on state lieu lands
worth fifty dollars per acre, in return for the trifling payment of
one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre to the state and the further
trifling payment of ten dollars per acre to the purveyor of information
respecting the necessary basis for the exchange!
At the time this procedure had struck Bob as rather humorous. He was an
ardent admirer of genius wherever lie saw it, and even this exhibition
of evil genius, which so adroitly deprived him of his constitutional
right to the public domain without the payment of a middleman's profit,
rather aroused his admiration. At the time he was not financially
equipped to argue the matter calmly, clearly--and judicially, and he
had no money to pay for “inside information.” He only knew that the rule
requiring applicants to designate the basis was an office-made rule and
had no place in Mr. McGraw's copy of the Political Code of the State of
California.
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the knave
caroled Bob, and charged the matter up to experience, not, however,
without first storing the incident away in his nimble brain for future
reference.
Now, while recovering from his wound at the Hat Ranch, Bob had brooded
much over the difficulties which would without doubt assail him in his
attempt to acquire his lands in Owens river valley; also he had figured
out to his own satisfaction the exact method by which the land-grabber
was enabled to grab; or, provided the grabber did not care to retain
his grab, how he could nevertheless derive tremendous profits from his
control of certain officials in the State Land Office. Therefore, after
his day spent in the public law library in San Francisco, Bob's brain
was primed with every detail of the land laws, and had confirmed his
original interpretation of the land-grabbers' clever schemes to defraud.
However, not satisfied with his own opinion, he decided to seek a little
expert advice on the subject, and to that end he went the following
morning to his father's old friend and his own former employer, Homer
Dunstan, the corporation attorney, whom he knew to be an authority on
land law.
He sent in his name by Dunstan's stenographer, and presently Dunstan
appeared in the reception room. He welcomed his old friend's failure of
a son in a manner which bespoke forced heartiness, for old sake's sake,
and a preconceived impression that the ill-dressed, pale Bob McGraw had
come to him to borrow money. They shook hands and stood for a moment
looking at each other.
“Glad to see you again, Bobby, after all these years. You've grown.
Where in the world have you been ranging since I saw you last?” Homer
Dunstan was forcing an interest in Bob McGraw which he was far from
feeling, and Bob was not insensible to this.
He grinned. “Drifting, Mr. Dunstan--just drifting. Mines and
mining--mostly the latter; there's a difference, you know. It's my
inheritance, Mr. Dunstan, despite all poor old dad did to make me
follow in your footsteps. So I've quit bucking the inevitable and turned
wanderer. Do you happen to be engaged with a client just now?”
“Well--no, not just this minute. Perhaps if you'll call--”
“No, I will not call later. My motto is 'Do it now.' Seeing that you're
regularly in the business of dispensing legal advice, I'd like to take
advantage of the ever-active present.” He pulled from his hip pocket a
tattered wallet and produced a hundred-dollar bill. “Mr. Dunstan, how
much expert legal advice can you give me for that?”
Dunstan's manner underwent a swift metamorphosis. “Oh, put back your
money, boy. I have an hour to spare this morning, and for your father's
sake my advice to you will always be given gratis on Mondays and
Fridays.”
“Glad I called on Friday, even if it is an unlucky day. Your generosity
knocks that superstition galley-west, so I'll take you at your word.
Also I will gladly retain this century. To tell the truth I have urgent
need of it for other things,” and he followed Dunstan into the latter's
private office. Dunstan indicated an easy chair and presented his
ex-assistant with a fifty-cent cigar.
“Well, Bobby, my boy, what's on your soul this morning?”
“A very heavy weight, Mr. Dunstan. Desert land. Acres and acres of it.”
“Any water?”
“Not yet.”
“Any prospect?!”
“I have it bottled up, and it's all mine. Now I want the land.”
“Well?”
“I want to acquire thirty-two thousand acres of state lieu land in Owens
river valley, Mr. Dunstan.”
“You cannot do it.”
“Well, suppose there was a rule in the State Land Office which forced
prospective purchasers of state lieu lands to first designate the basis
of exchange before their applications would be received and filed.
Suppose also that you wanted to turn crook and steal thirty-two thousand
acres of lieu land, despite this rule. How would you go about it?”
The lawyer glanced at him keenly. “See here, son, I don't give that kind
of advice to young fellows--or old fellows for that matter--even for
money. I'm an honest corporation attorney, and stealing the public
domain is illegal--and very, very risky.”
“Don't worry, sir. When I have your advice, I will not follow it. Tell
me how you would steal this land. It's a hypothetical question.”
Dunstan smiled. “That's unfair--attacking a lawyer with a hypothetical
question. It's rather hoisting him on his own petard, as it were.
However, I'll answer it. In the first place, if I planned to go into
the business of looting the public domain I would conspire with some
prominent official of the State Land Office to institute such a rule.”
“Good. Somebody conspired with a surveyor-general forty years ago
and had such a rule instituted in the State Land Office. The state
legislature, however, has never been asked to confirm that rule and
spread it in black and white on the statute books.”
“Well, having had such a rule instituted” continued Dunstan, “I would
then have the public at a disadvantage. Through my friend in the land
office I would have primary access to the field notes of the chief of
staff in the field, and I would have advance information of where
losses of school lands were soon to occur. In other words I would be in
position to designate every basis of exchange of lost school lands for
lieu lands, and the public would not. I'd give some weak brother say
one hundred dollars to file on some lieu lands and use the basis which
I would designate, and in the meantime I would hustle around, secure in
the knowledge that I had the basis tied up. It would appear of record
as used in the state land office. When I had secured a customer for the
lieu land I had tied up with my dummy applicant, the dummy would abandon
his filing in favor of my client, I would collect the difference between
the statutory cost of the land and the price my client paid me for it,
whack up with my friends in the land office and consider myself a smart
business man.”
Bob nodded. “I figured it out that way also. Now, suppose an
outsider--myself, for instance--succeeded in getting his application
filed without designating the basis for the exchange of lands, and the
surveyor-general has issued me a receipt for my preliminary payment of
twenty dollars on account of the purchase of the lieu land--what then?
When he discovered I was an outsider, could he reject my application?”
“Well, he might try, Bob. But with his receipt in your possession, that
would be bona-fide evidence of an implied contract of bargain and sale
between you and the State of California. You could institute a mandamus
suit and force him to make the selection of lieu lands for you.”
“I figured it out that way” said Bob musingly. “The only rift in the
surveyor-general's lute is the fact that while he has never yet bumped
up against the right man, he is due to so bump in the very near future.
However, Mr. Dunstan, I do not think our present surveyor-general is
doing business with the land ring. I think the guilty man is one of
his deputies through whom ninety-nine per cent of the office routine is
transacted, and the land-grabbers have him under their thumbs.”
“Then why not go direct to the surveyor-general with your troubles?”
queried Dunstan.
Bob shook his head. “No hope in that direction. The office records show
all bases used, and the deputy--the surveyor-general, in fact--can find
defense for their arbitrary ruling in the matter of designation of the
basis--by claiming that their office force is not large enough to permit
of such extended search of the records; hence they turn their records
over to the applicant of lieu lands and let him search for himself. The
surveyor-general, being honest, will be hard to convince that his deputy
is not--particularly since the deputy is probably an old friend.”
“It's a peculiar condition” said Dunstan. “The worst that can happen to
the deputy is to lose his job, the dummy entryman can abandon his filing
at any time he may elect, and there is no law making it a felony to
accept money in exchange for information--if you do not state where you
acquired it. How are you going to stop this looting?”
“I'm not quite certain that I want it stopped--right away” said Bob,
and grinned his lazy inscrutable smile. “I want to do a little grabbing
myself, only I want to do it legally. I have a scheme worked out to do
this, but I want you to confirm it. Just now you schemed out a plan to
get public lands illegally, and you ought to be able to scheme a plan
to get them legally, operating on the state lieu land basis. I want
thirty-two thousand acres of desert land and the law only allows me
a selection of six hundred and forty. I want to get this thirty-two
thousand acres without corrupting any weakling in the employ of the
state, without paying money to dummy entrymen, without designating the
basis for the selection of my fifty sections, without antagonizing the
land ring and without disturbing that rule of the State Land Office, can
it be done?”
Dunstan frowned at his visitor. “Of course it cannot be done” he
retorted sharply. “Why do you ask me such fool questions?”
“Because it might be done--with a little luck and some money.”
Dunstan shook his head. “There is only one way for you to acquire desert
land, Bob, without disturbing the rule in that land office. You'll have
to file on a half-section only, under the Desert Land Law of the United
States of America, paying twenty-five cents per acre down at the time
of filing your application. Then you must place one-eighth of it under
cultivation and produce a reasonably profitable crop. You must spend
not less than, three dollars per acre in improvements, and convince the
government that the entire tract, if not actually under irrigation, is
at least susceptible to it. That accomplished, you can pay the balance
of one dollar per acre due on the land, prove up and secure a patent.
That's the only way you can secure desert lands without doing some of
the things you wish to avoid doing.”
Bob shook his head. “Too slow, too expensive and generally irritating.
Why, I'd have to live on the land until I could prove up!”
“Well, then, Bobby boy, put your scruples behind you and pay somebody
to live on it and prove up for you.” “No use” mourned Bob. “I can see
myself at the head of a long procession of desert-land enthusiasts,
bound for McNeill's Island, and I'm too young to waste my youth making
little rocks out of big ones. Even if the attorney-general didn't have
me on the carpet, I'd have to ride herd on one hundred dummy entrymen
with a Gatling gun, or else equip each one with an Oregon boot. My land
lies in a devil's country and I don't think they'd stay. You see, Mr.
Dunstan, were it not for that confounded rule I mentioned, I could
purchase a full section of desert land in the public domain, under the
provisions of the state lieu land law. Under that law the land would
only cost me one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, while under
the United Slates Desert Land Laws it would cost me not less than four
dollars and a quarter per acre. Too much money for Bob McGraw. Now,
Owens river valley is pure desert, Mr. Dunstan, and it lies, or will
lie, very shortly, in the public domain. It is not agricultural land,
neither is it coal-bearing nor timbered, so I can purchase it by the
full section, which will only require fifty entrymen. Besides, there
have never been any entries made heretofore in the section of the valley
that I have my eye on, and I'd like to get my land in one strip without
having it checker-boarded with adverse holdings.”
Dunstan smiled a little wearily. “But we're not getting anywhere, Bob,
my boy. You're simply wasting your breath. Just what nebulous idea for
the acquisition of this desert land have you floating around in that red
head of yours? Now, then, proposition Number One.”
“I cannot oppose that rule. I must sneak my applications in and get
them filed and secure a receipt, when I will be in position to force the
attorney-general to make the selections for my clients.”
“Oh, they're clients, eh?” said Dunstan. “I thought they were to be
dummy entrymen.”
“They are--but they don't know it--and not knowing it, they will not be
committing a crime.”
“Ignorance of the law excuses nobody, Robert. But proceed with
proposition Number Two.”
“My clients are to be paupers--so I must pay for the land which they
will file upon. Hence I shall need money.”
Homer Dunstan figured rapidly on a desk pad.
Notarial fees on fifty applications @ $ .50 $ 25.00
Filing fees “ “ “ @ 5.00 250.00
First payment “ “ @ 20.00 1000.00
_______________
Total, $1275.00
“It will take $1275 to start you off, Bob, presuming, for the sake of
argument, that your filings are accepted--which, of course, they will
not be.”
“Oh, I have the twelve seventy-five, all right” said Bob confidently.
“Well, after your applications are passed to patent, you will have to
put up $780 more for each section, or $39,000 in all. Have you provided
for this additional sum?”
“Why, no sir. I was going to ask you to lend it to me.”
“Indeed! Well, assume that I'm that soft-headed, Bobby, and proceed to
proposition Number Three.”
“Well, under the law, my applications must be acted upon within six
months after filing. The surveyor-general must approve or disapprove
them within six months, and if he approves them--”
“Which he will not” promptly interjected Dunstan.
“I'll sue him and make him. Well, when the applications are sent on
to the Commissioner of the General Land Office at Washington for his
ratification of the exchange of the lieu lands, they may be hung up
there a long time--years, perhaps--”
“Certainly. The land ring will see to that.”
“Then, don't you see, Mr. Dunstan” said Bob, brightening, “I'll have
lots of time to get that balance of $39,000 together.”
“I'm so glad” said Homer Dunstan. “Then I won't have to lend you the
money after all. Well, when you're an old man, Bobby, and that red head
of yours is snowy white, your lands will be passed to patent and--”
“But the peculiar thing about this operation, Mr. Dunstan, lies in the
fact that the land ring will readily ascertain my financial condition,
and that of my clients--”
“In which event, my dear boy, your lands will be rushed to patent right
away, you will be notified that they are waiting for you to pay the
balance due on them within, thirty days, and if at the end of thirty
days you do not pay that $39,000, your applications lapse automatically
and your initial payment will be forfeited to the state as liquidated
damages.”
“I fear that is just what will happen. That is why I want to know if you
are prepared to lend me $39,000 to call their bluff. I will assign you a
half interest in a certain water-right which I possess, as security for
the advance. My water-right is worth millions.”
“It will have to be, if I am to consider your suggestion seriously. Get
your fifty applications passed to patent first, however. Then see
me, and I'll lend you the money you require, provided I find upon
investigation that the security is ample. Is your water-right
developed?”
“No, sir. I've just filed on it.”
Dunstan permitted himself a very thin smile. “You're your father's son,
Bob. You see visions and you'll die poor. I am firmly convinced
that you're honest, but as firmly convinced that you're chasing a
will-o'-the-wisp--so I hold out very little hope for you in the matter
of that loan.”
“But my water-right is good for ten times the amount” pleaded Bob
desperately, and produced T. Morgan Carey's letter to bolster up his
argument. “All I need is money to develop it.”
“And in the meantime it's worth ten cents. Bob, you weary me.”
“I'm sorry, sir. You're the only human being in this world that I can
come to for help; and I never ask help of any man, unless I can pay him
well for his trouble, And I think I can pay you well--I know I can.”
Dunstan eyed him more kindly. “Your father was a visionary, Bob, only he
looked the part. You do not. I have difficulty in convincing myself that
you're insane; but surely, Bob, you must admit that no sane man would
seriously consider your proposition. Tell me how you expect to induce
fifty paupers to apply for land for you, to do it in good faith and be
within the law, and yet hand the land over to you. Dang it, boy, the
thing's impossible. You can't do it.”
“I can” replied Bob McGraw doggedly. “I can.”
“All right then, you do it. Put that trick over, Bob, and I'll take off
my hat to you.”
“You may keep your hat on your head. I want $39,000.”
“Do the impossible and I'll give it to you--without security.”
“Taken” said Bob McGraw. “I'll hold you to that, Mr. Dunstan.
I'll simply round up fifty paupers, or their equivalent, with a
constitutional right to purchase state lieu land and permit me to pay
for it for them. Then after I have secured the land for them I will buy
it back from them--”
Homer Dunstan roared with laughter. He pointed a bony finger at Bob
McGraw.
“Young man, the right to purchase state lieu land is a strictly personal
one and it is unlawful for one person to purchase for another. Of course
you can buy it back, Bob, but the attorney-general will have a leg-iron
on you before the ink is dry on your check. Transfer of title under
such circumstances would be looked upon as bona-fide evidence of fraud,
unless your clients could prove conclusively that they had parted with
their lands for a valuable consideration--”
Bob McGraw in turn pointed _his_ finger at Dunstan. “Ah, that's the weak
point in the law, Mr. Dunstan” he exulted. “A valuable consideration. I
can beat that. I'll give my clients ten dollars per acre for lands which
cost them one dollar and a quarter, and there isn't a lawyer in
the land--yourself included--who wouldn't consider that a valuable
consideration.”
“McGraw,” said Dunstan rising impatiently, “you're a consummate ass!
Where the devil do you expect to get $320,000 to buy their land from
them? I suppose you think I'll help you with that, also. Your stupidity
annoys me, Robert. Damme, sir, you're light in the upper story.”
Bob McGraw laughed aloud. “I won't need it. All I shall ever ask of you
is that first $39,000. The water I have bottled up in the Sierra will
make the land worth three hundred dollars an acre. Don't you see where I
can afford to pay ten dollars per acre for it?”
“You can't do business on gab, McGraw. Money makes the mare go, and you
cannot induce fifty men to waste their constitutional right to lieu land
on your bare word that your water-right will make a desert valuable.
You'll have to take 'em down there, at your own expense, and show 'em--”
“Old maids in New England buy stocks in wild-cat prospect holes in
Nevada. Do the promoters have to bring them out to see the holes?”
“Nobody but a fool or an idiot would listen to your crazy proposition,
and fools and idiots are not qualified under the law to do anything
except just live and try to avoid being run over by automobiles. But
granted that you can do all these things, what are you going to do with
your land when you get it?”
Bob McGraw stood up and leaned both brown hands on the edge of Homer
Dunstan's desk. The genial mocking little smile was gone from his
face now, for Dunstan's query had brought him back from the land of
improbabilities into the realm of his most ardent day-dream. He raised
his hand in unconscious imitation of every zealot that had preceded
him down the ages; the light of the visionary who already sees the
fulfillment of his dreams blazed in his big kind brown eyes.
“I'm going to give it to the lowly of the earth” he said. “I'm going
to subdivide it into ten-acre farms, with a perpetual water-right with
every farm. I'm going to build a town with a business block up each side
of the main street. I'm going to install a hydro-electric plant that
will carry a load of juice sufficient to light a city of a million
inhabitants. I'm going to reclaim the desert and make it beautiful,
and I'm going to have free light and free fuel and free local telephone
service and free water and, by God! free people to live in my free
country. I'm going to gather up a few thousand of the lowly and the
hopeless in the sweat-shops of the big cities and bring them back to the
land! Back to _my_ land and _my_ water that I'm going to hold in trust
for them, the poor devils! Back where there won't be any poverty--where
ten acres of Inyo desert with Inyo water on it will mean a fortune to
every poor family I plant in my desert.”
“Why?” demanded Homer Dunstan smiling.
“Why?” Bob McGraw echoed the attorney's query. He gazed at Dunstan
stupidly. “Why, what a damn-fool question for you to ask, Mr. Dunstan!
Isn't it right that we should look to the comfort of our helpless
fellow-man? Isn't it right that we strong men should give of our
strength to the weak? What in blue blazes are we living for in this
enlightened day and generation if it isn't to do something that's worth
while, and to leave behind us at the last something that hasn't got the
American eagle stamped on it with the motto 'In God We Trust.' Ugh! How
the good Lord must hate us for that copyrighted chunk of sophistry
I It's a wonder He doesn't send His angels down to make us tend to
business.”
“Well, I'm not going to worry about it” retorted Dunstan crisply. “I'm
too busy, and you're Johnny McGraw's boy Bob, so we won't quarrel about
it. Good luck to you, old man. Get all the fun out of life that you
possibly can--in your own way--and when you get your land and can show
me, I'll take a $39,000 mortgage on it, at eight per cent. Now, good-by
and get out. I'm a busy man.”
Bob McGraw took up his big wide hat, shook hands with his father's old
friend, and with heightened color withdrew. Out in the hall he paused
long enough to swear; then, as suddenly, the old mocking cheerful
inscrutable smile came sneaking back to his sun-tanned face, and he was
at peace again. He had suddenly remembered that he was Bob McGraw, and
he had faith in himself. He thought of Donna, waiting for him in lonely
San Pasqual; he raised his hard brown fist, and in unconscious imitation
of Paul Jones he cried aloud:
“I have not yet begun to fight!”