By the bill now in question these sections containing _coal and iron_ are bestowed on this company at the nominal price of $1.25 per acre, or two thousand four hundred dollars ($2,400), thus making a gratuity or gift to the New York and Montana Iron Mining and Manufacturing Company of thirty-six thousand dollars ($36,000).
On what ground can such a gratuity to this company be justified, especially at a time when the burdens of taxation bear so heavily upon all classes of the people?
Less than two years ago it appears to have been the deliberate judgment of Congress that tracts of land containing coal beds or coal fields should be sold, after three months' notice, to the bidder at public auction who would give the highest price over $20 per acre, and that a citizen engaged in the business of actual coal mining on the public domain should only secure a tract of 160 acres, at private entry, upon payment of $20 per acre and formal and satisfactory proof that he in all respects came within the requirements of the statute. It can not be that the coal fields of Montana have depreciated nearly twenty fold in value since July, 1864. So complete a revolution in the land policy as is manifested by this act can only be ascribed, therefore, to an inadvertence, which Congress will, I trust, promptly correct.
Believing that the preemption policy--so deliberately adopted, so long practiced, so carefully guarded with a view to the disposal of the public lands in a manner that would promote the population and prosperity of the country--should not be perverted to the purposes contemplated by this bill, I would be constrained to withhold my sanction even if this company were, as natural persons, entitled to the privileges of ordinary preemptors; for if a corporation, as the name and the absence of any designation of individuals would denote, the measure before me is liable to another fatal objection.
Why should incorporated companies have the privileges of individual preemptors? What principle of justice requires such a policy? What motive of public welfare can fail to condemn it? Lands held by corporations were regarded by ancient laws as held in mortmain, or by "dead hand," and from the time of Magna Charta corporations required the royal license to hold land, because such holding was regarded as in derogation of public policy and common right. Preemption is itself a special privilege, only authorized by its supposed public benefit in promoting the settlement and cultivation of vacant territory and in rewarding the enterprise of the persons upon whom the privilege is bestowed. "Preemption rights," as declared by the Supreme Court of the United States, "are founded in an enlightened public policy, rendered necessary by the enterprise of our citizens. The adventurous pioneer, who is found in advance of our settlements, encounters many hardships, and not unfrequently dangers from savage incursions. He is generally poor, and it is fit that his enterprise should be rewarded by the privilege of purchasing the spot selected by him, not to exceed 160 acres."