The Indian Dispossessed
The Rosebud bill provides, "That the lands ceded to the United States under said agreement . . . shall be opened to settlement and entry by proclamation of the President, which proclamation shall prescribe the manner in which these lands may be settled upon," etc., but at the prices and terms set down in the act.
Never before had such acute conditions been confronted at a distribution of public land. The Rosebud tract bordered upon well-settled, prosperous farming country; adjacent railroads and cities furnished the necessary elements for a most prodigious boom; immense value above the four-dollar price was to be given away; and, with it all, the West was land-crazy. The usual "rush at the crack of a gun" was out of the question. The stakes were too high. Frenzied boomers would tear each other to pieces.
A very different scheme was adopted for the distribution of the Rosebud lands. Instead of the fierce rush at a given signal, the choice of lands was to be determined by a lottery drawing. This system was first devised in 1901 for the opening of a somewhat remote tract of Indian land in the Indian Territory, but it lent itself well to the purposes of the Rosebud opening. The President's proclamation fully sets forth the plan:
"Each applicant who shows himself duly qualified will be registered and given a nontransferable
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