be impeded or suppressed." If, Commissioner Sparks urged, the
preëmption, commuted-homestead, timber-land, and desert-land laws
were repealed, then, "the illegal appropriation of the remaining
public lands would be reduced to a minimum."--U. S. Senate Documents,
First Session, Forty-ninth Congress, 1885-1886, Vol. viii, Doc. No.
134:4.] The poor were always the decoys with which the capitalists of
the day managed to bag their game. It was to aid and encourage "the
man of small resources" to populate the West that the Desert Land Law
was apparently enacted; and many a pathetic and enthusiastic speech
was made in Congress as this act was ostentatiously going through.
Under this law, it was claimed, a man could establish himself upon
six hundred and forty acres of land and, upon irrigating a portion of
it, and paying $1.25 an acre, could secure a title. For once, it
seemed, Congress was looking out for the interests of the man of few
dollars.


VAST THEFTS OF LAND.

But plaudits were too hasty. To the utter surprise of the people the
law began to work in a perverse direction. Its provisions had read
well enough on a casual scrutiny. Where lay the trouble? It lay in
just a few words deftly thrown in, which the crowd did not notice.
This law, acclaimed as one of great benefit to every man aspiring for
a home and land, was arranged so that the capitalist cattle
syndicates could get immense areas. The lever was the omission of any
provision requiring _actual settlement_. The livestock corporations
thereupon sent in their swarms of dummies to the "desert" lands
(many of which, in reality, were not desert but excellent grazing lands),
had their dummies get patents from the Government and then transfer