money and time in building their houses and farms, attempted to acquire their land, the asking price was significantly greater than that ($8–$20/acre), which the SP attributed to rising property values because of the laying of the railroad, although many settlers believed it was due to their own improvements such as irrigation, housing, fences, and barns. Some paid for their land, but most did not. Settlers protested against the railroads, but to no avail. A bill in the United States Congress that would have fixed the price at $2.50/acre failed to pass. The Southern Pacific then filed and won a lawsuit in 1878 against the settlers, amidst allegations of court bias (former California Governor Leland Stanford was also president of SP). The SP was convinced of its legal ownership of the land and felt it should have the freedom to set whatever prices it deemed fit for its property. The U.S. Supreme Court finally settled the issue in Schulenberg v. Harriman 21 Wall. 44 (1874), ruling that the SP's change of route did not invalidate its charter. Thus, the SP was justified to reclaim the land without compensation unless the settlers were willing to pay their asking price, now up to $35/acre. Still, the Settler's League, which was formed in 1878 in opposition to the SP's Mussel Slough actions, even attempted to appeal directly to President Rutherford B. Hayes during his visit to San Francisco in 1880, presenting him a petition which read, Through sheer energy and perseverance by the investment of our means ... and relying firmly upon the rights we had acquired as American citizens, and upon the pledges of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company [in regard to low land prices], we converted a desert into one of the garden spots of the State. Besides the 1874 Supreme Court ruling, a critical moment came on December 15, 1879, when Judge Lorenzo Sawyer of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Orton, 32 F. 457 (C.C.D. Cal. 1879), that the federal government controlled the railroad land grants, and more importantly, the state could not control ultra vires acts of corporations. Given the legal system's affirmation of its position, the SP began to forcibly remove some of the settlers. Their agents would attempt to serve eviction notices, but often would not find anyone at home, as homeowners knew they were coming. In these cases, the agents then tried removing