the issuance of his patent. While care is taken to prevent and to expose
fraud, it should not be imputed without reason.

The manifest purpose of the homestead and preemption laws was to promote
the settlement of the public domain by persons having a _bona fide_
intent to make a home upon the selected lands. Where this intent is well
established and the requirements of the law have been substantially
complied with, the claimant is entitled to a prompt and friendly
consideration of his case; but where there is reason to believe that
the claimant is the mere agent of another who is seeking to evade a law
intended to promote small holdings and to secure by fraudulent methods
large tracts of timber and other lands, both principal and agent should
not only be thwarted in their fraudulent purpose, but should be made to
feel the full penalties of our criminal statutes. The laws should be so
administered as not to confound these two classes and to visit penalties
only upon the latter.

The unsettled state of the titles to large bodies of lands in the
Territories of New Mexico and Arizona has greatly retarded the
development of those Territories. Provision should be made by law for
the prompt trial and final adjustment before a judicial tribunal or
commission of all claims based upon Mexican grants. It is not just to an
intelligent and enterprising people that their peace should be disturbed
and their prosperity retarded by these old contentions. I express the
hope that differences of opinion as to methods may yield to the urgency
of the case.

The law now provides a pension for every soldier and sailor who was
mustered into the service of the United States during the Civil War and
is now suffering from wounds or disease having an origin in the service