REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF THE GENERAL

LAND OFFICE.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

GENERAL LAND OFFICE,

Washington, D. C., October 7, 1911.

SIR: The following report of the work in the General Land Office for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1911, and recommendations for change in legislation are respectfully submitted:

GENERAL STATEMENT.

Applying the test of the number of patents written as a criterion of the amount of work performed in the Washington office, it is found that slightly more was accomplished in the past year than for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1910; the total being 72,189 patents issued as against 72,080 for 1910. The majority of the most important lines of the work in the office is up to date, and the other branches are rapidly being made so. In homestead applications patents are being issued within four and a half months from the date of proof where no protest is made or contest initiated. The same is true in cases of timber and stone and desert lands. Every effort will be made to maintain the position and to bring up to date the few branches in which the work is still somewhat behind. With the hearty spirit of cooperation shown by the employees of the office, there is no doubt that this can be done in the ensuing year.

The correspondence of the office still continues to be very voluminous. During the past year there were received 368,300 letters, necessitating the writing of, in round numbers, 252,000 answers, circulars being sent to the remainder.

CASH RECEIPTS AND EXPENDITURES.

The total cash receipts from the sale of public lands, including fees and commissions on both original and final entries, for the fiscal year 1911, were $7,245,207.69. Miscellaneous receipts were as follows: From sales of Indian lands, $2,822,600.71; reclamation water-rights charges, $892,414.29; sales of timber in Alaska, depredations on public lands, sales of Government property, and copies of records and plats, $129,704.91, making the aggregate total of cash receipts of this bureau during the fiscal year 1911, $11,089,927.60, a decrease of $373,996.46, as compared with those for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1910.

The total expenses of district land offices for salaries and commissions of registers and receivers, incidental expenses, and expenses of depositing public moneys during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1911, were $870,242, a decrease of $3,395.33. The aggregate expenditures and estimated liabilities of the public-land service, including expenses of district land offices and surveys, were $3,195,759.38, leaving a net surplus of $7,894,168.22.

AREA OF LAND ENTERED AND PATENTED.

The total area of public and Indian land originally entered during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1911, is 17,639,099.54 acres, a decrease of 8,752,169.55 acres as compared with the area entered during the year 1910.

The area patented during the fiscal year is 12,272,495 acres, an increase of 1,289,345 acres as compared with the fiscal year 1910. The number of patents issued during the fiscal year 1911 exceeded that of 1910 by 109. Of the above area 5,301,686 acres were patented under the homestead law.

ORGANIZATION.

In a prior report attention was called to the fact that the statutory organization of the General Land Office proceeds along entirely erroneous lines, in that the "commissioner is supposed to supervise the special agents in the field and keep track of the work which they perform and the manner in which they are attending to the more important cases which will have to be presented to him subsequently for his consideration." I did not, prior to this report, have occasion to give the matter as deep consideration as it deserved. I have, however, during the past year given considerable thought to this

matter.

A careful consideration of the history of the legislation passed for the purpose of creating the position of commissioner and imposing duties upon him will convince any student that, owing doubtless to the fact that the attention of Congress has not been brought to the matter, the present organization is unsuitable. It is virtually the same organization which existed under the statutory provisions passed in 1785, as amended by the act passed in 1796, and by the act of May 10, 1800, when the paramount idea was the sale of the lands, after survey, and collection of the money received from the sale. These funds were considered an asset to liquidate the public debt. When, by legislation, continuing from 1840 down to the present time, there were demanded certain prerequisites other than the payment of money on the part of the claimant, the General Land Office had cast upon it the duty of determining in a judicial manner whether these prerequisites had been complied with or not.

It would have been reasonable to presume, when new duties of an entirely different character to those originally cast upon the bureau were placed upon it, that Congress would at the same time have so changed the organization of the office as to enable the bureau head to adequately meet the new responsibilities. This has not been done. The number of clerks in the bureau itself has, of course, from time to time, been increased, but the only additional strengthening of the head of the bureau has been by the appointment of an assistant commissioner, under the act of July 7, 1884 (23 Stat., 186) —

who shall be authorized to sign such letters, papers, and documents, and to perform such other duties as may be directed by the commissioner, and shall act as commissioner in the absence of that officer or in case of a vacancy in the office of commissioner.

While Congress has placed these quasi judicial duties upon the office, it has not met the situation which it created, by giving the Land Office responsible officers with authority vested in them by law to pass upon these quasi judicial questions and assume the responsibility of their actions. This could have easily been done by the creation, by legislation, of a law board, with authority in the members to sign their own decisions, and the responsibility of the commissioner for the proper execution of the laws in no way diminished, by retaining in him the supervision over the decisions of the members of the law board. An organization of this kind would have strengthened the office immeasurably, and the signature of the member of the board who might pass upon a question would mean that his personal consideration had been given to it. As it is, with the number of decisions and papers that have to be signed by the commissioner and assistant commissioner, a very great number must necessarily be signed in a perfunctory fashion. By creating a board of five members, one of them being the assistant commissioner, there would be established a responsible force of sufficient magnitude to personally consider the cases submitted to it, and claimants would realize that their claims had received the personal consideration of the officer whose signature was attached to the paper determining his rights. By retaining the supervision in the commissioner the broad administrative policy of the office would be preserved in the Executive, while the determination of each case on its merits would have the consideration of a judicial officer.

EXECUTIVE DUTIES OF COMMISSIONER.

Upon the head of the General Land Office there are cast executive duties as numerous and diverse as those of any other bureau officer in the Government service. He has directly under him over 2,000 employees. The work which he is to superintend is scattered over an area extending, in effect, from Nome, Alaska, in the northwest,

to Gainesville, Fla., in the southeast, and it is distributed among 103 land offices, 13 surveyors general offices, and 12 field divisions, with an immediate force of some 500 employees in Washington City. There is collected by the General Land Office, in round numbers, the sum of $10,000,000 a year from the sales of public lands. The money appropriated by Congress for the conduct of the work in this bureau last year was $3,417,212.82.

It will be readily seen that if the head of the office is to be, as he should be, in close touch with the executive work of the bureau and have knowledge of the method of and expenditure of money appropriated by Congress he has enough duties to occupy the attention of any one man.

To bring the matter more pointedly before Congress for its consideration, it may be briefly stated that upon the General Land Office is imposed:

First. The duty of surveying the public lands of the United States. Under legislation recently passed this work is now performed by this office directly by the engaging of surveyors, who act as employees of the office, and not by the old system of contract work. The expenditure under the old system was, in round numbers, $450,000 per annum, and placed upon the office a large weight of responsibility. The new system will entail closer supervision on the part of the General Land Office of the work done. The appropriation for the last fiscal year was $800,000. Of course, an executive officer has to depend upon the experts engaged for the superintending of this work, but he should have time and opportunity to devote considerable personal attention to it, inasmuch as he will be held responsible for the proper performance of this important duty.

Second. The duty of supervising the work of 13 surveyors general offices, where the notes are first transmitted by the surveyors in the field.

Third. The duty of superintending the disposal of the lands after survey. In its quasi judicial function the office has to see that the laws are properly obeyed under which the land is sought to be acquired. (The judicial duties will be enumerated later.) The executive duties call for the superintending of the proper organization of 103 district land offices, with the employment of 206 registers and receivers and 210 clerks. The commissioner, as head of the office, is responsible for the conduct of these offices and is held to account if the work in the various local land offices does not proceed smoothly. He has, as executive officer, to superintend the collection of moneys and see that the proper systems are installed, so that there will be a correct accounting for every dollar received for fees and commissions and for the sales of public lands.

Fourth. The duty of supervising the proper investigation of all alleged frauds and properly preparing and presenting all cases,

whether they be before the local offices for the cancellation of entries on lands attempted to be secured without due compliance with law, or in the presentation of evidence before the courts in the conduct of criminal cases, and in the collection of evidence to be presented to a Federal court in civil proceedings looking to the cancellation of patents. The appropriation for this work for the ensuing fiscal year is $650,000, for the proper expenditure of which the head of the office is held answerable as administrative officer.

Fifth. As executive officer the commissioner is responsible for the proper conduct of the affairs of the General Land Office, with its force of some 500 employees in Washington, D. C. It is his duty to see that the work which is brought from the local land offices to the Land Office proper is properly conducted; that this force is properly divided, so that the various lines of work can be expeditiously and correctly carried to completion. This includes, as purely executive work, work in the surveying division, in the drafting division, in the division of files, and in the division which has charge of the writing and issuing of patents, and in seeing that the clerks in the judicial divisions properly attend to their duties. It has already been stated that the office receives over a thousand letters a day and writes and transmits nearly a thousand letters, exclusive of circulars. This is mentioned merely to bring to the front the weight of work of an executive character which the commissioner must attend in the offices in Washington.

Sixth. Congress has imposed on the General Land Office the executive duties in connection with the opening of the Indian reservations after completion of agreements with the Indians leading to the sale of their lands. This includes the sale of lots in towns established on abandoned Indian reservations. Under the provisions of laws as heretofore passed, where lands have not been entered within a certain length of time after the opening of the reservation, it becomes the duty of the commissioner to sell by auction the remaining lands unentered. There have been also placed upon the shoulders of the commissioner the duties of superintending the sale of timber in the Chippewa Reservation, Minn., which is to be disposed of for the benefit of the Indians. After the timber is so sold it is his duty to see that it is properly cut and scaled and that the moneys due thereon are collected and paid over to the Treasury for the use of the Indians.

There are numerous incidental administrative duties, such as the keeping of records of the establishment of national forests and other reservations of withdrawn lands, the creation of bird reserves, national monuments and the like, the collection of water-right charges on irrigation projects, the keeping of tract books, and the recording thereon of restorations and withdrawals.