Speech #440065037

The Secretary of the Interior decided that when the cession was made by the Osage Indians to the United States that portion of their reservation became public land of the United States and that the grant to the State for the benefit of those railroad corporations became immediately operative upon the Osage coded lands within those limits upon the extinction or surrender of the Indian title. Patents were issued to the State of Kansas. which were transferred to the corporations as their roads were constructed. A very large number of people from all parts of the country immediately emigrated thither and settled supposing that the title to the alternate sections was in the railroads. and made their purchases of those corporations. Probably thirty thousand people are within the limits of that cession at the present time. and there are not less than half a dozen towns of from a thousand to five thousand inhabitants in the sane area. The question whether the grant to the State became operative within the limits of the Osage reservation was raised in the circuie court for the district of Kansas by a suit instituted for that purpose under the directions of the AttorneyGenerl.