Report of the Pine Land Investigating Committee to the Governor of Minnesota...five thousand copies ordered printed for the use of the legislature

St. Paul: Pioneer Press Co, 1895. First and only printing, 8vo, pp. 87; original blue printed wrappers, a few small chips in the spine and mild dampstain entering from top margin, very good. Donnelley left the Republican Party after having served for three terms as Minnesota's Representative in Washington, because he saw that the Republicans were "eternally wedded to the interests of the few." In turn he became a Liberal Republican, Granger, and finally a Greenback-Democrat. As a leader of the Farmers' Alliance in the state legislature, he led it "almost to a man" into the Populist party, "in the formation of which he had an active part." The Pine Land Investigating Committee was empowered by the state legislature in 1893 to investigate the thievery of timber "stumpage" from timberland in Minnesota. Donnelley was the chairman of the seven-man committee, and the report, which blew the whistle on the stumpage thieves, was written almost entirely by him. See BAL, p. 478 who had not seen a copy. (Inventory #: 7168)