PRIVATE LAND-CLAMS.
In my last annual report I called your attention to the imperative necessity for some legislation by Congress to provide a way for the more speedy settlement of the private land-claims in the territory (except California) acquired from Mexico by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, and the Gadsden treaty of 1853, than is now provided by law. The reasons then given for asking such legislation were:
First. The slow progress made under existing laws in the settlement of said claims.
Second. The large number of claims still remaining unsettled, covering large tracts of land, which interfere with and retard the sale and disposal of the public lands.
Third. The want of harmony between the land system of the United States and the system under which said grants were made, which engenders strife and conflict between the grant claimants and settlers.
To remedy these evils and avert further difficulties, I recommended the passage of an act providing for the appointment of a commission with full power to hear and determine the validity of all such claims within the territory named, subject to an appeal to the United States courts.
No law was enacted by Congress at its last session for the more speedy settlement of said claims, although a bill was introduced in the Senate which, had it been enacted, would, in my opinion, have accomplished the desired object.
All the reasons which existed one year ago, making such legislation necessary, still exist, and the last is intensified by the disorders and bloodshed which have occurred in New Mexico during the last year, most of which are traceable directly to the conflicting interests of grant claimants and settlers.
RAILWAYS.
The following sections were accepted by the President at the dates given, and on the roads specified below:
On the 23d of January last, so much of the fifth section of the Southern Pacific Railroad of California, constructed under the act of March 3, 1871, as lies between the beginning of said section and the point where it crosses the western boundary of Fort Yuma military reservation, California; on the 13th of February, 1878, the tenth section of the main line of said road, 41.66 miles; on the 7th of May, 1878, part of the sixth, all of the seventh, and part of the eighth section of the said road, formerly known as the California and Oregon, now by consolidation part of the Central Pacific Railroad of California; and on the 11th of July, 1878, the seventh, eighth, and ninth sections of the Oregon and California Railroad.
