Part of the year referred to was within the term of my administration, and all, or almost all, of the decisions made were under the rules and principles sustained or established during that period. I have no doubt that the record of the other years of my administrative term will, on examination, turn out to be about the same.
One point more remains to be touched. If you had intended to be in the least degree truthful and fair in the presentation of the spirit governing my administration of the Interior Department, you would, together with the acts which you thought to be in favor of the railroads, have mentioned at least some of my decisions and rulings adverse to them. It would not have been necessary to go into elaborate detail; but from the many rulings, instructions and decisions you would have felt in honor bound to point out at least one which was of peculiar interest and attracted much attention. It was my decision of July 23, 1878, in the case of Nelson Dudymott on his appeal from a decision of the General Land Office. I ruled that when the act making a grant of land to a railroad company provided that all the lands so granted “which shall not be sold or disposed of by said company within three years after the entire road shall have been completed, shall be subject to settlement and preëmption like other lands, at a price not exceeding $1.25 per acre to be paid to the company.” This provision meant that all lands not actually sold by the company three years after the completion of the road should be thrown open to settlement under the preëmption law; and I forthwith directed the Commissioners of the General Land Office to instruct the local land officers accordingly. This was done. The decision covered six of the land-grant roads completed more than three years—the Union Pacific, the Kansas Pacific, the Denver Pacific, the Sioux City and Pacific, the Central Pacific and the Western Pacific.
