Poland

The United States brought suit in the court below on a date not disclosed in the transcript of record; but an amended complaint was filed October IS, 1914. The object of the suit is to vacate, cancel, and declare null and void a patent of the United States for *383 attract of land of 160 acres, embraced in United States survey No. 242, in the Kenai recording precinct in the district of Alaska. The patent was issued to one William B. Poland on March 22, 1909, and seems to be regular on its face in every particular. The complaint also prays that a deed executed by Poland, dated May 25, 1909, conveying the land to Frederick William Low, be vacated,- canceled, and declared null and void. The amended complaint was not filed until the statute of limitation's of six years (s'ection 8 of Act of March 3, 1891, c. 561, 26 Stat. 1095 , 1099 [ 43 U.S.C.A. § 1166 ]) had nearly run.

The defendant Poland entered the above-mentioned tract of land at the United States land office at Juneau, A^laska, on April 26, 1906, as the assignee of a certain soldier’s additional homestead right, under the general homestead laws, and section 101 of the Compiled Laws of Alaska (Act of March 3, 1903, c. 1002,…

(dissenting). As will appear from the plat attached to the majority opinion, the appellee Poland has entered and acquired title to approximately 320 acres of land in the district of Alaska, in a single body, by soldier’s additional homestead right. It occurs to me that this was a plain and palpable violation of the Act of March 3, 1903 ( 32 Stat. 1028 [ 48 U.S.C.A. § 371 ]), extending the homestead laws of the United States to the district of Alaska, and providing, among other things, that: “No more than one hundred and sixty acres shall be entered in any single body by such scrip, lieu selection, or soldier’s additional homestead right.”

*391 A brief reference to the legislative history of this right and to the decisions of the department thereunder will throw some light on the object of the proviso in question. Section 2304 of the Revised Statutes ( 43 U.S.C.A. § 271 and note) provides that every private soldier and officer who served in the army of the United States during the Rebellion for 90 days, and who was honorably discharged, and has remained loyal to the government, shall be entitled to enter and receive patents for a quantity of public lands not exceeding 160 acres on…