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Show LEGAL ASPECTS OF MINERAL RESOURCES EXPLOITATION 729 the so-called "fraudulent entries" under the nonmineral acts were always a troublesome problem, of course, and these are not reflected in the above statistics on coal-land entries. Entries allegedly in violation of the coal acts touched off one of the most famous political controversies in the first years of the Taft administration. The Bal-linger-Pinchot feud, culminating in 1909-10, resulted in a bitter congressional investigation and has had repercussions in the politics of conservation far beyond the specific coal lands involved.213 Since 1907 Roosevelt had advocated a system which would permit agricultural entries on withdrawn coal lands provided the minerals were reserved to the United States. Experience had embarrassingly revealed that a great deal of valuable agricultural land in the West was underlain with coal and phosphate. In 1907 Roosevelt announced to Congress that experience in other countries of the world had proved that coal mining and agriculture need not be mutually exclusive.214 To a considerable extent, this was a concession to western politicians, and on the last day of his term, he signed an act permitting severance.215 The statute provided that a good faith en-tryman under the nonmineral laws of land later classified as valuable for coal might nevertheless receive a patent to the surface, subject, however, to a reservation of the coal to the United States with a right to prospect for and mine the coal. In the early days of the Taft administration, this 2131 Interior Department, Annual Report 120 (1910) . 103 Details may be found in Mowry, The Era of Theodore Roosevelt 1900-1912 250-59 (1958) ; Pinchot, Breaking New Ground (1947); Ganoe, Some Constitutional and Political Aspects of the Ballinger-Pinchot Controversy, 3 Pac. Hist. Rev. 323 (1934) ; Richardson, The Politics of Conservation: Crusades and Controversies, 70 Univ. Cal. Pub. in Hist. (1962). See also note 219, infra. n* Note 203, supra. 2)5 35 Stat. 844 (1909) , 30 U.S.C. § 81 (1964 ed.) . 21(1 36 Stat. 583 (1910) , 30 U.S.C. § § 83-85 (1964 ed.). act was liberalized so as to permit entry under the nonmineral land acts even after withdrawal or classification as coal land.216 The entryman must, of course, comply with the requirements of the nonmineral law under which his entry was made and, again, he could receive only a limited patent. A saving clause also authorized a limited patent to good faith entrants on classified land prior to the effective date of the act. The reserved coal deposits remained subject to disposal by the government. The act also contained provisions for adjusting problems arising between the owner of the surface and the owner of the minerals. A 1914 statute permitted new patents to be issued where the land was later classified as noncoal after a limited patent had been given by the government.217 Throughout the first 15 years of the new century there were several statutes applicable to the coal lands in the Territory of Alaska. In 1900 the coal-land laws were extended to Alaska, 218 but since the 1873 Coal Act contemplated sales in governmental subdivisions, the act could have no practical effect because the territory remained largely unsurveyed. To remedy this, a 1904 statute extended coal locations to unsurveyed land in Alaska, the locations to be set off in rectangular tracts containing 40, 80, or 160 acres "with north and south boundary lines run according to the true meridian" and described with reference to natural or permanent artificial monuments.219 A 1908 Act provided that persons locating coal lands prior to November 12, 1906 (or pursuant to instructions issued by the Secretary of the Interior on May 16, 1907), might consolidate their locations by including in a single claim not more than 217 38 Stat. 335 (1914) , 30 U.S.C. § 82 (1964 ed.). 218 31 Stat. 658 (1900). 219 33 Stat. 525 (1904). Under this act, the famous Cunningham claims involved in the Bal-linger-Pinchot controversy were cancelled in Andrew L. Scofield, 41 I.D. 176, 240 (1911). |