improvements the land system, and particularly the
condition of the General Land Office, may require. At the time this
institution was organized, near a quarter of a century ago, it would
probably have been thought extravagant to anticipate for this period
such an addition to its business as has been produced by the vast
increase of those sales during the past and present years. It may also
be observed that since the year 1812 the land offices and surveying
districts have been greatly multiplied, and that numerous legislative
enactments from year to year since that time have imposed a great
amount of new and additional duties upon that office, while the want
of a timely application of force commensurate with the care and labor
required has caused the increasing embarrassment of accumulated arrears
in the different branches of the establishment.

These impediments to the expedition of much duty in the General Land
Office induce me to submit to your judgment whether some modification
of the laws relating to its organization, or an organization of a new
character, be not called for at the present juncture, to enable the
office to accomplish all the ends of its institution with a greater
degree of facility and promptitude than experience has proved to be
practicable under existing regulations. The variety of the concerns and
the magnitude and complexity of the details occupying and dividing the
attention of the Commissioner appear to render it difficult, if not
impracticable, for that officer by any possible assiduity to bestow on
all the multifarious subjects upon which he is called to act the ready
and careful attention due to their respective importance, unless the
Legislature shall assist him by a law providing, or enabling him to
provide, for a more regular and economical distribution of labor, with
the incident responsibility among those employed under his direction.
The mere manual operation of affixing his signature to the vast number
of documents issuing from his office subtracts so largely from the time
and attention claimed by the weighty and complicated subjects daily
accumulating in that branch of the public service as to indicate the
strong necessity of revising the organic law of the establishment. It
will be easy for Congress hereafter to proportion the expenditure on
account of this branch of the service to its real wants by abolishing
from time to time the offices which can be dispensed with.

The extinct