the State be involved in less expense if the State were given $1.25 in cash for each acre of land to which Congress finds the State entitled. Cordially yours, Hon. SCOTT FERRIS, FRANKLIN K. LANE, Secretary. Chairman Committee on the Public Lands, House of Representatives. CONCLUSION The subcommittee, after a full and exhaustive hearing on the foregoing bill, reached the conclusion and unanimously decided that the State of Oklahoma has not received any lands in lieu of the grant of 1862 as amended by the act of 1866 under its enabling act, or at any other time, and that the State in good faith through its legislature made its acceptance of said grant of 1862 and 1866 within three years after its admission into the Union, as was required by the granting act, and had provided an agricultural and mechanical college, the object of said grant, even prior to its entrance into the Union. The foregoing report in substance was made to the Committee on the Public Lands, and therefore it is the judgment of the committee that Congress is pledged to carry out the terms of this grant on the basis of 30,000 acres for each Senator and Representative in Congress upon the admission of the State of Oklahoma into the Union, and therefore recommend the passage of this bill as amended. Mr. SMITH. In the case of these States, except West Virginia, the lands allotted to them under the law of 1862 as amended by the law of 1866, were any additions to the special grants provided for in the enabling act? Mr. MCCLINTIC. I think so. Mr. SMITH. So they had lands within their borders, which they could take in addition to other land grants? Mr. MCCLINTIC. I think so. I am not positive, except that the State was to receive the consideration which was given to all the other States. Mr. LeavitT. Would it not be well to include the act of 1862 and that of 1866 in the record? Mr. MCCLINTIC. I have excerpts of all of these acts in my statement; but we will have other speakers who will give all of them. Mr. SMITH. You can only estimate the number of acres you desire? Mr. MCCLINTIC. We had five Representatives in Congress and two Senators and that makes seven; and on the basis of 30,000 acres each, that would be 210,000 acres we would be entitled to if we got the same as the others. Mr. SMITH. Less the quantity of the public lands? Mr. MCCLINTIC. Yes sir. If we took the two thousand and odd acres; but that is so small a matter it would not make much difference with the delegation. I think the delegation would be willing to have this bill amended so that we could have scrip or leave it in its present form. Mr. BUTLER. Is scrip issued now? Mr. MCCLINTIC. It was until a few years ago. Mr. SIMMS. Mr. McClintic, in view of the apparent equity existing in behalf of the State of Oklahoma for the granting of these lands, why has there been no legislation offered in the Senate of the United States since 1917? Mr. MCCLINTIC. If my information is correct, no hearing was held in the Senate. Mr. SIMMS. Who offered the bill, and when? Mr. MCCLINTIC. Senator Harrell on one occasion but it was the same bill which I introduced in 1915. Mr. SIMMS. Would you say it was near 1915 when it was introduced? Mr. MCCLINTIC. A few years afterwards. Mr. SIMMS. Would you say 1920 to 1925? Mr. MCCLINTIC. If you figured out the year he was a candidate, that would throw some light on the date. He was in the House and afterwards in the Senate. 1922 I should say. Mr. SIMMS. Then there has been no bill introduced in the United States Senate, despite the fact that the State of Oklahoma is entitled to such a grant? Mr. MCCLINTIC. Put it in this language: When the bill was presented to the House and placed on the calendar, there was one Member there who would not agree to let it pass on the unanimous consent calendar. Mr. SIMMS. Was he a member of the Public Lands Commiteee? Mr. MCCLINTIC. No, sir; he was not a member of the Public Lands Committee. At that time our House rules had not been amended so as to require three members to object in order to be effective. Had we had the present rule which requires three members to object on the second time a bill comes up, I have no hesitancy in saying that this measure long ago would have become a law. Mr. SIMMS. There are other methods than the unanimous consent calendar by which an important bill can be heard. Mr. MCCLINTIC. I have 200 or possibly 300 copies of my old brief and have been waiting for an occasion when I could revive this bill. I did not know until this morning that Congressman Garber, my colleague was to have this up for a hearing. So I immediately got my records and found they were identical. In view of the fact that we had received a unanimous favorable report on the bill I thought it would be advantageous to this committee to know that your predecessors had carefully considered every angle of this subject. We examined every word of the debate in the House, and searched every nook and corner to get all the facts; and nowhere is there any language which exempts the State of Oklahoma from receiving the benefits of the acts of 1862 and 1866. We had to have that information so we could make the positive statement to this committee to show that our rights were equitable and just. The CHAIRMAN. When was your State admitted to the Union? Mr. MCCLINTIC. 1907. Mr. SMITH. Has the State legislature taken any advantage of these opportunities? Mr. MCCLINTIC. The State legislature has complied with the law, passing a joint resolution. I have it in the brief here. That was on November 3, 1910. It was within the prescribed period to protect the rights of new States admitted to the Union. The CHAIRMAN. You will endeavor to get a copy of that for our record. Mr. MCCLINTIC. Yes, sir. Just to show you, at that time it was estimated that there was 7,000,000 acres of homestead land not taxable, in 1917. So I take the statement made by Representative Addison Smith as being correct, that we had a sufficient number of undisposed-of acres of public land at the time, but at present we do not. Mr. LEAVITT. Some of which had been appropriated? How much public land is there now? Mr. MCCLINTIC. Between 2,000 acres and 2,400 acres; just a very small amount; not sufficient to take care of this bill. If you want to amend it so that we will be given scrip, we can use that, as other States and West Virginia used it years ago. Now that is all I have to say. There was never a more just bill presented to Congress than this one; and if the committee will agree with the Public Lands Committee of 1915, we believe they will act favorably on this bill. Mr. SMITH. Has the State of Oklahoma been guilty of any laches in complying with this? Mr. MCCLINTIC. No, sir. Application was made to the Secretary of the Interior who ruled it required legislation to carry into effect these grants. Mr. SMITH. What was the next step? Mr. MCCLINTIC. The next step was for Congress to authorize us to have scrip issued, or the proper amount of money. Mr. SMITH. But if you had the public land, there would not be any occasion for this. Mr. MCCLINTIC. But we haven't it. Mr. SMITH. You did have it in 1910. Mr. MCCLINTIC. We had public land, which was filed on by homesteaders. The CHAIRMAN. It would be interesting for some one to supply that information. Mr. MCCLINTIC. We are not asking for anything different from that accorded to other States, and I hope this committee will follow the established precedent. The CHAIRMAN. We appreciate the value of your statement, Mr. McClintic. STATEMENT OF HON. MILTON C. GARBER, REPRESENTATIVE FROM THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA Mr. GARBER. I want to make one statement in reference to the matter at issue, as considered by another agency of the Government. The question has been asked what steps Oklahoma took at the time of here admission to Statehood to receive the benefits of the act of 1862. The State of Oklahoma applied to enter 5,760 acres of land in the Guthrie, Lawton, and El Reno land districts, under the acts of July 2, 1862, and July 23, 1866; and, thereafter, on the 24th day of October, 1910, filed direct with the Commissioner of the General Land Office application for the issuance of land scrip under said acts, in the amount of 204-240 acres; being the deficiency of the distributive share after the State has applied to enter and file upon all vacant, unoccupied public lands in the State of Oklahoma which are subject to entry under the acts above mentioned. The commissioner rejected the latter application, by decision of November 28, 1910, and from this decision the State appealed. The act of July 2, 1862, supra, provides in part as follows: That there be granted to the several States, for the purposes hereinafter mentioned, an amount of public land, to be apportioned to each State a quantity equal to thirty thousand acres for each Senator and Representative in Congress to which the States are respectively entitled by the apportionment under the census of eighteen hundred and sixty-that all moneys derived from the sale of the lands aforesaid by the States to which the lands are apportioned and from the sale of land scrip hereinafter provided for, shall be invested in stocks of the United States, or of the States, or some other safe stocks, yielding not less than five per centum upon the par value of said stocks; and that the moneys so invested shall constitute a perpetual fund, the capital of which shall remain forever undiminished (except so far as may be provided in section fifth of this act) and the interest of which shall be inviolably appropriated, by each State which may take and claim the benefit of this act, to the endowment, support, and maintenance of at least one college where the leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the machanic arts. By the act of February 14, 1864 (13 Stat. 47), the time for the acceptance of the provisions of the act of 1862 was extended, and it is provided "That any State or Territory may accept and shall be entitled to the benefits of the act of 1862." Although the caption of the act of 1862 refers to lands donated to Territories as well as States, and, notwithstanding the provisions of the act of 1864, the grant was not construed by the General Land Office to have been made to Territories. See memorial of the Assembly of Washington Territory to Congress, dated December 21, 1865, which appears on page 1875 of the Congressional Globe, Thirty-ninth Congress, first session. Mr. SMITH. How many Members of Congress was the State of Oklahoma entitled to when admitted to statehood. Mr. GARBER. Five Members of the House and two Senators. Mr. GARBER. Representatives and Senators. The CHAIRMAN. Do you know whether there are any other States that are entitled to the benefit of this act, that have not yet received any benefits? Mr. GARBER. All the States have received the benefit of the act except the State of Oklahoma. Mr. SMITH. You are going to incorporate a copy of the act according to the State of West Virginia, 150,000 of script, as a precedent? Mr. GARBER. If deemed necessary. Mr. SMITH. There is only one that has not taken actual land, and that is the State of West Virginia? Mr. GARBER. We will abide by the suggestions of the committee and include copies of the acts desired. Mr. SMITH. It would be easier to get it through in that form. Mr. GARBER. I invite the attention of the committee to the decision of the Secretary of the Interior covering various questions arising here. It is argued on behalf of the State of Oklahoma that to place a different construction upon the act of 1866 than that contended for, would be held that Congress did a vain and useless thing when it extended the provisions of the act of 1862 to new States. This would by no means follow, as it must be remembered that the census of 1860 continued to be the guide under which the apportionment of Representatives in Congress was made for some years after the passage of the act of 1866, and new States admitted thereafter might have been entitled to representation in Congress by the apportionment under the census of 1860, in which event they would receive the benefits of the grant—the number of acres being readily ascertainable—in the absence of legislation to the contrary. On the whole it would appear that, as to new States, not entitled to Representatives in Congress by the apportionment under the census of 1860, the amendment of 1866 was intended by Congress as a pledge, and is ineffectual as a grant without further legislation. This theory is supported by the debate on the bill, in the House of Representatives which appears on pages 1897-1899 of the Congressional Globe, Thirty-ninth Congress, first session. Representative Kasson, speaking in opposition to the provision with reference to new States, said: "I think it would be better that the grant should be made in the usual way This bill proposes to allow three years for the acceptance of the grant after the State shall have been admitted, while, according to our practice heretofore, the acceptance is made at the time of the admission of the State. I very much prefer to adhere to this practice, under which the proposition is made and accepted at the time when the State is admitted, instead of our making this exceptional provision, entirely new to our legislation, pledging ourselves to all the Territories and giving them three years after their admission in which to accept the provisions of the grant." I took the position that it was unsafe to make pledges respecting the future disposition of the public lands with Territories changing their wants and conditions as rapidly as do the Territories of the United States. It has been ably argued that the grants of lands to Oklahoma, by its enabling act of June 16, 1906 (34 Stat. 267), for the benefit of agricultural and mechanical colleges, was not in lieu of the benefits of the acts of 1862-1866, but, in view of the department's opinion that the measure of the grant is undetermined and undeterminable, it is unnecessary to pass upon this question. If this be true, it is a matter wholly within the discretion of Congress to say whether Oklahoma shall hereafter receive the benefits of said acts, and calls for no expression of opinion by this department at the present time. Mr. SMITH. What is the date of that last decision? Mr. GARBER. December 3, 1919. Now, a few more words in conclusion: We have the former investigation of that committee and subcommittee, and the unanimous. report. Mr. EATON. The unanimous report of what? Mr. GARBER. On the bill of the same character formerly introduced. The bill ran the gauntlet of a most thorough investigation, examination, and received approval. The facts and the law were submitted to the Department of the Interior, and the department decided in the opinion just read that it is a matter for Congress to determine, and numerous precedents have been cited wherein other States have been granted the benefits of the act of 1862, such as is proposed by the pending bill and Oklahoma is the only State not receiving the endowment provided by that act. Now, Mr. Chairman, we have with us Mr. Andrews, who has been treasurer of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Oklahoma for the last seven years; but before I introduce him I would like. Congressman Hastings to say a few words. STATEMENT OF HON. W. W. HASTINGS, REPRESENTATIVE FROM THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA Mr. HASTINGS. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I see that the time is limited before the committee will rise. I have heard the statement of Congressman McClintic. I was a Member of Congress when this bill was considered before. I participated then in the consideration of the report or argument on the bill. I do not remember the exact year. I assume, however, Mr. McClintic is right-1917. I know the matter was carefully investigated and reported on by the Department of the Interior, and I did not have opportunity to refresh my memory with reference to the various laws brought to your attention this morning. However, |