The People Own the Private Domain--the Federal Government is only the Trustee.

The statement below was made eighty-six years ago before a United States Senate Committee and was not refuted by any member of the committee.

[Mr. Summers] When this land was ceded, the United State did not want to go on record as taking 334,000,000 acres of land by conquest. Therefore, the Government insisted upon buying it. And we bought it from Mexico, and drew on the Treasury of the United States to pay Mexico. It was bought with the people’s money, and it is not the Government’s land, but the Government is holding it as trustee for the people. If the Government is a trustee and must exercise its trust—to use the language of the Supreme Court, the domestic branch of this Government is the guardian of the people’s rights in the public domain. And if that is true, then the people’s rights should be established. In addition, the Government says the statute of limitations never runs against the people; that open, notorious and adverse possession may run against an individual, but it never runs against the people and it never excuses a trustee in failing to discharge the duties of his trust. So that so far as these questions are concerned, it is not a matter of trying one case; it is a matter of clearing up a situation of vast importance that has remained for all these years in its present condition because of the manipulations to continue in control of enormous properties illegally held to control the Land Department in order.

Williamson S. Summers, attorney at law, Los Angeles, California, speaking for S. Res. 333, Mexican Land Grant Frauds, on February 17, 1927 before the Committee on Public Lands and Surveys, 69^th Cong. 2nd sess., p.24