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Show CONSCRIPT SENATORS. Yesterday's Interesting Session The Great Land Frauds Ex. posed Etc. I Washington, February 15. In the Senate to-day Mr. Hawley presented a bill, which was referred to the Committee on Public Lands, "Relating to the taxation of railroad lands, and for other purposes." Mr. Hawley said the bill related to a very sore subject. An exceedingly large quantity of land, perhaps per-haps 60,000 square miles, had been granted -to the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, but it -was provided by the amendatory act of Congress that no patents should issue for the land until after the payment by the company com-pany of all fees relating to the surveys, etc. The fee was only about 3 cents an acre. The railroad had paid fees on only about 80,000 acres of its immense grant. It had, nevertheless, never-theless, proceeded to give to settlers warranty war-ranty deeds for many MILLIONS TJP0N MILLIONS OF ACRES Of land. The company had ingeniously got property enough to try to locate villages and cities upon its own selected sections. These lands that the company conveyed by warranty war-ranty deed had been settled and improved, and in many case3 thriving villages had grown up on them. It turned out now that by a reoent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States none of these millions of acres were taxable. The reasons given by that court were irrefragable, but Congress should immediately provide by law a remedy rem-edy for the difficulty involved. The railroad had refused to pay three cents an acre, and the communities interested there now found themselves without the power of taxation. Some of the people, however, had paid taxes, and those people were without a remedy. A few foreign corporations being large holders , had paid taxes under protest, and their rights had thus been saved by the suggestion of the railroad company. Counties and communities, therefore, were now liable to a large claim for taxes that had been paid, besides which about nine-teaths of their tax list had been destroyed and they were almost bankrupt. THE PEOPLE INTERESTED Had exhausted conversation with the railroad rail-road President and the General Land Office of the Government. One declined to take remedial action for one reason, the other for another reason, and the only help for this very serious matter lay with Congress. . Mr. Teller said that the fault lay with Congress. The Executive Departments of the Government had for yeara been reporting report-ing to Congresa the full measure of the evil referred to and requested legislation to enable en-able the Executive to protect the settlers. In three reports made to Congress by himself him-self as Secretary of the Interior, the subject had been plainly set forth. ' It was a crying evil and bhould be remedied by Congress. Mr. Plumb was glad to see so much interest inter-est aroused on the subject. He (Mr. Plumb) had himself on two separate occasions introduced in-troduced into the Senate bills to provide for the taxation of lands of the Northern Pacific Pa-cific Railroad. Mr. Conger from the Committee on Post-offices Post-offices and Post-roads reported favorably the bill granting Mrs. Julia D. Grant the franking frank-ing privilege. Passed. On motion of Mr. Dawe3 the Senate took up and passed the bill reported from the Committee on Indian Affairs, "For the relief of Mission Indians in California." Mitchell's Chinese bill. Mr. Mitchell, of Oregon, gave notice that on Tuesday, February 23, he would call up his bill, providing for the abrogation of the treaty permitting the immigration of the Chinese. He would be able to show, he said, that not only was it within the power of the United States to abrogate the treaty, but that the doctrine had been recognized by all acts of Congress, commencing over eighty years ago, with the abrogation of the treaty with France. He held it to be the bounden duty of Congress to provide for the abrogation of the Chinese immigration treaty. . Mr. Morgan then took the floor and re, sumed his argument against the constitutionality constitu-tionality of the pending education bill. Mr. Morgan said he had often heard it remarked that- THE PEOPLE OF THE SOUTH Were a hoodwinked lot of slaves, who had been forced into rebellion and secession by their leaders. This he emphatically denied, and asserted that on the contrary, he lead-, ers had been forced into secession by the people, peo-ple, and that many a cowardly heart among the leaders would have failed and fainted but for the fact that those leaders knew they did not dare to do so in the presence of the faith of an enlightened and splendid people. He characterized the bill under debate de-bate as a bribe to the South, but for his part, he neither grew blind nor closed his eyes in the presence of any bribe, no matter how magnificent. The bill would prove a Pandora Pan-dora box and would lead to what had, not inappropriately, been termed a condition of "organized hell" between the States and General Government. He prophesied that under its baneful influence we would see the people of the North and South again frenzied fren-zied with excitement. At the conclusion of Mr. Morgan's remarks. re-marks. Mr. Jackson obtained the floor, but yielded for an executive session, after which tha Senate adjourned. |