The responsibility for the defects in our methods of administering
the public lands rests in part upon our governmental
representatives, who have not always dealt wisely with the
extremely difficult problem. But it rests also upon each
individual citizen. There are those, be it said to our shame, who
deliberately seek to defeat the purpose of the laws and to
appropriate to their own selfish uses the lands which belong to
the nation as a whole. There is one division of the General Land
Office in Washington known as the Contest Division. Before it
come, not only the ordinary disputes that are likely to arise
between rival claimants, but also cases of alleged fraud and
violation of the land laws. In the year 1916 MORE THAN 12,000
CASES OF ALLEGED FRAUD WERE ACTED UPON, AND NEARLY 12,000 OTHER
CASES AWAITED ACTION AT THE END OF THE YEAR! But the
responsibility comes much closer home than this. Many of us who
would not think of violating the law have failed to appreciate the
value of the gifts that nature has given us, and have apparently
been "too busy" to inform ourselves as to whether or not our
public lands have been administered solely for the purpose to
which Congress devoted them just after the Revolution. This, like
every other matter of community interest, requires team work.

The community has certain rights to a citizen's land that are
clearly recognized as superior to the citizen's rights. Acting
through its government, it may take a part of a citizen's property
by taxation (see Chapter XXIII). Taxes are paid in money; but if a
citizen does not pay the tax upon his land, the government may
sell the land for enough to cover the obligation.

THE RIGHT OF EMINENT DOMAIN