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Show LEGAL ASPECTS OF MINERAL RESOURCES EXPLOITATION 725 between coal and the precious metals is not entirely clear. In all probability, the coal lands were more readily discoverable and were, therefore, thought to have a greater potential for raising revenue. Moreover, in exposing the coal lands to sale in 1864, Congress was acting much as it had only a few years earlier when it authorized the sale of land valuable for copper and iron ore.186 Whatever justification there may have been for the sale of coal land in 1864, it is clear that the policy became obsolete within a relatively short period of time. The coal lands were to become a major national issue in the first decade of the 20th century. In the interim, a few special mining statutes which applied to nonmetalliferous deposits were enacted. The Building Stone Act of 1892187 made land chiefly valuable for building stone subject to entry under the placer law. The oil lands in 1897188 and the saline lands in 1901189 were similarly made subject to placer locations. The Conservation Period. In the 19th century our great natural resources-water, land, forests, minerals-were regarded as virtually inexhaustible. In the minds of most Americans, conservation was, therefore, an irrelevant concept. It is true that some inroads were made on the prevailing philosophy by the creation, for example, of the forest reserves and a few national parks,190 but it was not until the Theodore 1M See Part 1, "The Period of Sale." 187 27 Stat. 348 (1892). 388 29 Stat. 526 (1897) , superseded by the Leasing Act of 1920, 30 U.S.C. § § 181 et seq. (1964 ed.). 189 31 Stat. 745 (1901). 390 Although Congress authorized the President to withdraw land for forest reserves (later called "national forests") as early as 1891 (26 Stat. 1103) , no administrative machinery was adopted to supervise these lands until 1897. 30 Stat. 34 (1897). During the Theodore Roosevelt administration, more than three times as much timberland was withdrawn as had been set aside in previous administrations. As part of the conservation movement, the Forest Service of the Department of Agriculture was set up in 1905. 33 Stat. 628 Roosevelt administration after the turn of the century that a real breakthrough came about. In rapid succession, the new administration proposed to control the Federal grazing lands, to increase the national forests, to withdraw the coal, oil, and potash lands from sale, to reserve waterpower sites, and to reclaim the desert under the Reclamation Act of 1902. Gifford Pinchot, James R. Garfield, W. J. McGee, and others dramatized the conservation movement to the public until by the end of the Roosevelt administration it had become an accepted national policy, grudgingly accepted by many, of course, but nonetheless the country-even the West-knew that there was no turning back to the haphazard public law of the previous century. During the first decade, the furor over the creation of the national forests somewhat eclipsed the Roosevelt program of mineral conservation. Although less has been written about this aspect of the general conservation movement than about water and forests, the politics behind coal and oil provide one of the most fascinating chapters in the history of the public domain. It is not the purpose here to assess (1905). See Note, 60 Yale L. J. 456 (1951). In 1907, the opponents of conservation attached an amendment to the agricultural appropriation bill, which provided that the President could not set aside additional national forests in the six northwestern states. Unable to veto the bill, Roosevelt set aside 16 million acres of forest land in these states 2 days before he signed the bill. Roosevelt, An Autobiography 404-5 (1913) (1924 reprint). The extent to which this action rankled members of Congress is illustrated by the fact that as late as 1910 a section was added to the Pickett Act limiting withdrawals for national forests. Beginning in 1872 (Yellowstone, 17 Stat. 32) , 28 national parks have been created by acts of Congress. Withdrawals were made to carry out the provisions of these statutes. It is probable that the President has an "implied" power to establish national parks. A 1950 Act forbade any further extension or establishment of national parks in Wyoming. 64 Stat. 849 (1950). On mining locations in national parks, see 1 American Law of Mining 326-30 (Martz ed. 1960). |
