s and other causes a very small quantity of the public lands,
when sold at public auction, commands a higher price than the minimum
rates established by law. The settlers on the public lands are, however,
but rarely able to secure their homes and improvements at the public
sales at that rate, because these combinations, by means of the capital
they command and their superior ability to purchase, render it
impossible for the settler to compete with them in the market. By
putting down all competition these combinations of capitalists and
speculators are usually enabled to purchase the lands, including the
improvements of the settlers, at the minimum price of the Government,
and either turn them out of their homes or extort from them, according
to their ability to pay, double or quadruple the amount paid for them to
the Government. It is to the enterprise and perseverance of the hardy
pioneers of the West, who penetrate the wilderness with their families,
suffer the dangers, the privations, and hardships attending the
settlement of a new country, and prepare the way for the body of
emigrants who in the course of a few years usually follow them, that we
are in a great degree indebted for the rapid extension and
aggrandizement of our country.

Experience has proved that no portion of our population are more
patriotic than the hardy and brave men of the frontier, or more ready to
obey the call of their country and to defend her rights and her honor
whenever and by whatever enemy assailed. They should be protected from
the grasping speculator and secured, at the minimum price of the public
lands, in the humble homes which they have improved by their labor. With
this end in view, all vexatious or unnecessary restrictions imposed upon
them by the existing preemption laws should be repealed or modified. It
is the true policy of the Government to afford facilities to its
citizens to become the owners of small portions of our vast public
domain at low and moderate rates.

The present system of managing the mineral lands of the United States is
believed to be radically defective. More than 1,000,000 acres of the
public lands, supposed to contain lead and other minerals, have been
reserved from sale, and numerous leases upon them have been granted to
individuals upon a stipulated rent. The system of granting leases has
proved to be not only unprofitable to the Government, but unsatisfactory
to the citizens who have gone upon the lan