Amending Indian Appropriation Act of 1892

House Report No. 147, Fifty-fourth Congress, first session.

Mr. Lacey, from the Committee on the Public Lands, submitted the following report: 

[To accompany H. R. 3948.]

The Committee on the Public Lands having had under consideration House bill 3948 report the same back with a favorable recommendation, with the following amendments:

Insert in line 3, after the word “that,” the words “so much of,” and strike out the word “requiring” in the same line, and insert the words “as require” in lieu thereof.

Also amend by adding, after line 14, the following words:

Provided further, That this act shall not apply to reservations where the proceeds of the sales or homestead or other entries thereof are under existing treaties required to be paid over to the Indians, or held in trust, or paid into the Treasury for their benefit.

Thus amended, your committee recommend that the bill do pass.

The proposed bill does not involve any new and untried principle of legislation, but is only a return to the homestead law in its original form and purpose.

It will be proper to review briefly in this connection the history of the homestead act, which, after some years of discussion, finally became a part of the laws and marked a new epoch in the country’s history when it finally became a law, May 27, 1862. . . .

There is no reason that the homestead settlers in Kansas, Nebraska, and other States should obtain their lands free of cost which does not apply with equal or greater force to those of the Dakotas and Oklahoma. The only grounds upon which the discrimination against these settlers is based is the fact that the lands cost the Government more than those previously opened to homestead settlement. But this is only a question of degree and not of principle.

The Gadsden purchase in Arizona cost 34 3/10 cents an acre, while the rich and well-watered prairies of Iowa cost but 3 3/5 cents per acre.

The Government purchases and extinguishes the Indian title to the end that a new State, peopled with American citizens, may take the place of the wild inhabitants. The cost of extinguishing this aboriginal title is not an obligation to be levied upon the new settlers of the same region, but is for the mutual and general benefit of the whole country. Costly Indian wars opened the older portions of the country to the plow of the pioneer. The expenses of these wars were not apportioned at so much an acre upon the land. Nor should the cost of extinguishing the Indian title by peaceable means become a mortgage upon the farm of the settler who civilizes and builds up the new State in the wilds of the continent.

We believe that the homestead law should be extended to these reservations and that the settlers of Oklahoma, South Dakota, and other Western States should all be put upon the same footing, and that the policy of the administration of the public lauds should be again adopted in its entirety, and that the public domain should be devoted to the purpose of furnishing free homes to a free people.

H. R. 292, introduced by Mr. Flynn, of Oklahoma, is limited in its effect to that Territory alone.

It was referred to the Secretary of the Interior, and he has made his report adversely to the bill, inclosing also the communication of the Commissioner of the General Land Office to the same effect.

The objections to the bill are clearly and strongly stated by these officials and we incorporate them into this report so that the House may be in possession of the different views taken of the proposed legislation. . . .