Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 3.djvu/298

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

where loss is apparent, arising from a real or fairly supposed invitation of the Government to settle upon the lands mentioned in the bill under consideration, such loss should be made good.

“But I do not believe the condition of these settlers will be aided by encouraging them in such further litigation as the terms of this bill invite, nor do I believe that, in attempting to right the wrongs of which they complain, legislation should be sanctioned in principle and in its practical operation doing injustice to others as innocent as they and as much entitled to consideration.”

The reasoning and conclusions of the President were correct and sound, as will be seen hereafter.

Senator William Evarts of New York, one of the most eminent lawyers of the country, in discussing the bill when it was before the Senate, said:

“My judgment is that the settlers who are sought to be benefited by this act, are ill-advised or misconceive their resort. Indemnity would answer their purpose as well as the maintenance of their footing on the land. I do not wish to disparage the adherence to what they may suppose their right; but in my judgment this act will only introduce a new series of litigation which must terminate in the utter disappointment of the plans and hopes of the settlers, and must finally bring us back after much litigation, and after their hopes are still longer deferred and still more bitterly disappointed, to the only proper remedy which I submit with great respect to the Senate.”

He then introduced a bill, similar to the one introduced by Captain Orr which passed the House in 1874, granting indemnity to the settlers whose titles had failed through the decision of the Supreme Court in the Riley and Crilly cases. The Navigation Company and its grantees were willing and anxious to join with the settlers in securing indemnity for those who had lost their homes, in order that their titles might be no longer questioned, but many of the settlers still had a hope that there was a chance to reverse the decisions of the courts which awarded the title to the Navigation Company. After the repeated confirmations of those decisions there was no good reason to believe that they would ever be reversed. The Evarts