Class. General recapitulation of the Philippine civil service—Continued. SUMMARY. Division. Insular service: Americans. Filipinos.. Municipal service of Manila: Total: ོར:「ཆེ 2,044 2, 280, 044 4, 606 3,086, 989 APPENDIX F. A SKETCH OF THE DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED IN THE APPLICATION OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM OF SURVEYS TO THE PUBLIC LANDS IN NEW MEXICO, ARIZONA, AND COLORADO, AND IN THE ADJUDICATION OF THE RIGHTS ACQUIRED UNDER SPANISH AND MEXICAN GRANTS IN THOSE TERRITORIES. [By the Chief of the Bureau of Public Lands.] The territory acquired by the United States from the Republic of Mexico under the treaties of 1848 and 1853 included an immense area, in certain portions of which the condition of land titles, although based on a different system, presented difficulties of settlement similar to those that are to be met in the Philippines. Six years after the treaty of 1848 a surveyor-general for the Territory of New Mexico was appointed, and this officer was authorized to apply to the district under his control, which then embraced what is to-day New Mexico, Arizona, and a part of southern Colorado, the rectangular system of surveys which at an early date in the last century had been successfully used in the States of the Mississippi Valley. In addition to this duty he was also authorized to examine into and report upon those claims for land that might be presented to him which were alleged to have their origin in titles emanating from the former governments of Spain and Mexico. The presentation of these claims to the surveyor-general was not, however, made obligatory. In complying with this last duty the surveyor-general received from such claimants as saw fit to present them the original muniments of a large number of Spanish and Mexican grants, many of which were accompanied by deeds through which the claimants sought to connect themselves with the original grantees of the former governments. He also received from the governor of the territory many grants, deeds, wills, and other instruments of legal import that were supposed to contain information of value in the proposed investigation of the titles to land. Armed with this material and aided by a force of surveyors he set about the performance of his duties. He established a meridian and a base line, from which at intervals. of 6 miles the necessary township and range lines were extended, dividing the country into townships of 36 square miles. These subsequently were subdivided into sections of 1 square mile, or 640 acres. This work of course extended over a long period of years, the theory of the Government being that the public surveys should be extended only over those regions and at such periods as were made necessary by the demands of actual settlers. In the meantime the surveyor-general had taken up the examination of the private land claims that had been filed in his office. This was not done in the order in which the claims were filed, but as claimants urged action and were prepared to present proofs. Documentary evidence showing the origin of title, or oral proof of the destruction thereof, was presented; witnesses were presented to testify to the extent of the land embraced within the boundaries, which were usually natural objects; and also as to the facts of occupancy and cultivation. Claimants were represented by counsel having more or less knowledge of the laws under which the claims originated, while no provision of law furnished the Government with a representative charged with the duty of opposing the approval of the claims. The surveyor-general was practically a judge before whom claimants, aided by counsel, had unlimited opportunities for the production of any kind of evidence favorable to their purpose, while no attorney appeared for the United States and no protection was given its interests except such as could be given by the surveyor-general himself. The fitness of that officer for the management of the details of the surveying work manifestly did not qualify him to exercise judicial functions. This fact led some of the surveyors-general to request that some officer be appointed to represent the Government's interests in the investigations, but, except in a few instances when the United States district attorney was ordered to appear, nothing was done. When the surveyor-general had satisfied himself as to the character of the claim presented to him he wrote an opinion on the case and transmitted it through the Commissioner of the General Land Office to Congress, recommending that the claim be confirmed or rejected. With few exceptions the opinion was favorable to the claimants. Congress for many years was apparently guided by the fact that the surveyor-general was in a position where his knowledge of the merits. of the claims was better than its own, and consequently confirmed a large number of claims, some of which were of vast extent. But from time to time rumors began to reach the committees on private land claims in both the House and Senate to the effect that under the existing system many abuses had arisen, and that in confirming the claims as recommended by the surveyor-general Congress had conferred on unmeritorious claimants the gift of vast areas of land which under a different system of adjudication would have been declared to be public. domain of the United States. This resulted in stopping further confirmations; and, while this action checked the abuses that had arisen in the settlement of these claims, it also worked a great hardship on those persons whose claims were just, and retarded for years the development of a region which had been under the American flag for nearly a quarter of a century. Congress, while refusing to confirm further claims because of the defects discovered in the old system, failed to provide any other means for their settlement until the year 1891. The consequent uncertainty as to the validity of land titles based on Spanish and Mexican grants in New Mexico and Arizona prevented immigration and the investment of capital in mining and agricultural enterprises, greatly to the prejudice of those territories. In Colorado the results of this condiwere not nearly so bad, for the reason that the grants were few in number, the most of them had been confirmed by Congress, and most of the immense mineral-producing regions of that State were not coyered by them. Now let us revert to the difficulties encountered in applying the system of public surveys to a country where existed large numbers of private land claims which had either never been surveyed or were sur veyed so imperfectly that their boundaries were not accurately marked on the earth's surface, and the existence of many of which were unknown to the officer charged with the extension of the surveys. The Territory of New Mexico presents a typical example of these conditions. Until a private land claim had been surveyed by the surveyorgeneral's office and accurately platted there was no means of knowing the location of its boundaries, and consequently no way to avoid extending over it the lines of public surveys. For many years after the establishment of the surveyor-general's office private land claims were not surveyed until after their confirmation by Congress, and then it was frequently discovered that lands belonging to them had already been surveyed as public lands. In such cases where no rights had been initiated under the public land laws the only injury sustained was by the Government, in that it had borne the expense of surveying lands that were finally decided to be of private ownership and from which it could never derive any benefit. In those instances where rights had been acquired under those laws conflicts arose between the settlers claiming their lands to be Government lands and the claimants under the confirmed Spanish and Mexican titles. This led to expensive and vexatious litigation, and in some instances to personal violence. At a later period the surveyor-general was authorized to make surveys of private land claims that had not yet been confirmed by Congress. These were called preliminary surveys and were intended to furnish Congress with accurate information as to the extent of the land embraced in claims of which confirmation was sought. Surveys of this kind being greater in number than the surveys of the confirmed grants, gave rise to a proportionately greater number of disputes between grant claimants and persons who had either begun or perfected their titles under the public land laws to lands afterwards included in the so-called preliminary surveys. In addition to those persons who had documentary evidence of the origin of their titles under the Spanish and Mexican governments, there was a much greater number who were occupying comparatively small tracts of land, and who were absolutely unable to trace their chains of title to either of the former governments, although in many instances, by means of deeds, wills, etc., they were able to show that they and their grantors or ancestors had been in the possession of the premises in question for long periods and had commonly been considered to be the owners thereof. The number of claims of this character was very much greater than that of the claims in which original muniments of title were known to exist, but few, if any, of them were ever filed with the surveyor-general as claims against the United States, until Congress in 1891 (forty-three years after the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo) provided a method for their settlement. By act of March 3, 1891, the Court of Private Land Claims was created by Congress. This court consisted of five judges who were authorized to pass not only on all matters of law arising in the trial of private land claims based on Spanish and Mexican grants, but also to decide all matters of fact. Claimants under such grants were authorized to bring suit in this court against the United States for the lands to which they claimed they were entitled; and a decree of confirmation by the court operated as a quitclaim on the part of the United States to any interest in the land in question, but did not affect the rights of third parties. From the decisions of the court an appeal lay to the Supreme Court of the United States. After the confirmation of a grant it was surveyed by the surveyorgeneral of the district in which it was situate, in strict accordance with the terms of the confirmatory decree. The field notes and plat of the survey were then returned to the court for its approval or such amendment as it saw fit to order. The expense of the surveying operations was borne in the first instance by the United States, but claimants were required to reimburse the Government for one-half the amount of such expense before patent could issue. An attorney was provided, whose duty it was to represent the interests of the United States in all suits brought in the court. One of the defects of the act was in not providing this officer with the necessary assistants that he needed, but this was overcome by the Department of Justice authorizing him to employ expert translators, examiners of titles, experts in Spanish paleography familiar with the old archives of the country and with the signatures of the officials appearing thereon. These assistants were paid out of the contingent fund of that department. That class of claims, heretofore referred to, in which title could not be traced back to a grant made by the former governments of the country, but which, with some color of title and equities of possession and use constituted the majority of holdings, was not submitted for decision to this court. By a provision in the act creating it such cases were submitted to the registers of the local land officers, where evidence was taken in regard to the occupancy, cultivation, etc.; and these claims were surveyed under the direction of the surveyor-general. The act establishing this court and providing for the settlement of the small holdings was not perhaps perfect in all respects, but its results taken as a whole were good. It resulted in practically settling in nine years the question of what land belonged to the Government and what was private property, while practically nothing had been accomplished toward that end for a period of forty-three years except to confirm immense tracts to a few individuals. The settlement of these grants by means of a court instead of by other plans had the advantage of bringing to bear on the questions involved the services of men of high character, learned in the law. The Government's interests were by this method most thoroughly protected through the office of the United States attorney for the court, and the wisdom of providing that officer with the expert assistants was fully justified by the results. These assistants examined the archives of the former Spanish Government as they exist in New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas, and the archives of the Mexican Government in many of the towns and cities of that Republic, and in their investigations accumulated a great amount of information bearing on the methods formerly in use in New Spain in the alienation of public lands. Laws were discovered that were in existence at the time of the settlement of private land claims in California, but which were unknown at that time to American lawyers. Some of these had important bearings on the Arizona grants, which were of a distinctly. different character from the grants in New Mexico and Colorado. Another direct and beneficial result of these investigations was that by means of them every attempt to secure lands by means of forged documents was frustrated. The most notable of such cases was the |