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Show MORE LAND FRAUD CASES IN OREGON Government Files Suit Against Railroads Rail-roads and Entrymen to Recover Vast Tracts of Land. Alleged That All of Lands Sold to De. fendants Named in Suit Were Sold In Violation of Terms of the Land Grant. Portland, Ore. Another step in the fight of the federal government to recover re-cover possession of the land included in the immense grant to the Oregon & California Railroad company was taken Saturday, when B. D. Townsend, special assistant to the attorney general, gen-eral, filed in the federal court In Portland Port-land thirty-five suits in equity against the Oregon & California railroad and Southern Pacific companies, and more than a hundred other defendants. These soits were supplementary to those previously filed against the Har-rtman Har-rtman companies, and are for the purpose pur-pose of recovering land included in the grant and already sold by the railroads, rail-roads, or, where title to the land cannot can-not be regained, of securing the government gov-ernment all moneys paid for the land in excess of $2.50 an acre, the price at which it was stipulated in the original origi-nal grant the land would be sold. Besides Be-sides the railroads, the defendants in the suits are those who have purchased pur-chased land from these companies. The suits involve more than $15,-000,000, $15,-000,000, and also more than 353.28S acres of land. All o the land is located lo-cated in Oregon. It is alleged in the complaints in the suits filed that all of the lands sold to the defendants named in the suits were sold in violation of the terms of the land grant, and for this reason the government hopes to make null and void the deeds and contracts made by the Oregon & California company to the purchasers. |