Joseph McKenna

“ The salt company opposes the contentions of the state, and invokes against the meaning attributed to § 8 the rule of strict construction of grants by the government. The purpose of the grant is, it is urged, to constitute a fund by the sale of the lands, the income from which is to be used exclusively for a university and agricultural college, and that the result of the grant as construed by the state would be to endow them as no other educational institution is endowed. ”

“ Necessarily, we think, the preceding substantive phrase 'one hundred and ten thousand acres of land,' and we have the meaning of the section to be that the saline lands are to be contained in or comprise a part of the 110,000 acres of land. We see no particular awkwardness in the expression of the purpose, and it well may be contended that it needs not for its support the rule of strict construction. And such purpose is in harmony with grants of saline lands to other states. ”

“ Something is attempted to be made of the fact as militating against the selection of saline lands as part of the grant of 110,000 acres that no time limit was fixed, as in grants of such lands in other states. The fact has some force, and giving it and the other contentions of the state proper weight, they cannot prevail against the considerations to which we have adverted. ”