The Miller Press

NORTHWEST LAND FRAUDS
OLD SOLDIERS USED AS DUMMIES BY GRAFTERS.
Report of Indictments at Aberdeen Is Received at Washington.
Washington, Dist. of Col.—Extensive land frauds through the use of soldiers' declaratory statements have been unearthed by agents of the general land office in the Northwest, and the commissioner of the land office has received a report of the indictment at Aberdeen, S. D., of a half dozen persons, including women, charged with conspiracy in these practices.

At the land office at Timber Lake in South Dakota, 2100 such statements, each covering 160 acres of land, have been filed within the last year, while 100 such statements were filed in the land office at Lemmon. The effect of the filing of these declarations is to hold the land indefinitely, thus shutting out legitimate entrymen.

It is asserted that not one out of 20 of the statements is followed by actual proving up. The plan is to get old soldiers or the widows of soldiers to make preliminary declaration of their intention to take up land under the law, and at the same time procure from them a relinquishment which is sold to the land seekers. Sometimes $500 has been obtained for these relinquishments.

Inasmuch as there was no original intention to acquire the land by the soldier claimants the government contends that the use of the names of these people clouds the lands covered by their declarations and deprives legitimate home hunters of their rights.