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Show Letter of Transmittal Public Land Law Review Commission 1730 K Street, N.W. Washington. D. C. 20006 October I, 1968 Honorabi.k Wayne N. Aspinai.i. Chairman, Public Land Law Review Commission, Washington, D.C. y Dear Mr. Chairman: II is with pleasure that we forward the History of Public Land Law Development, prepared for us by Professors Paul Wallace Gates of Cornell University and Robert W. Swenson of the University of Utah under the supervision of our staff. As agreed upon between us, one of the first projects that the staff embarked upon was the preparation of a history that would* serve as background for all those considering future public land policy. Necessarily, we first examined earlier histories. We found that outstanding in the field was one prepared by Thomas Donaldson, titled The Public Domain, as part of the work of the Commission that studied public land policy in accordance with the Act of March 3, 1879, 20 Stat. 394. Taking into consideration the eminence of Donaldson's work and the requirements of the Public Land Law Review Commission, we determined at the outset to explicitly make clear that it was not intended to replace or supplement Donaldson as a source book in the field. Rather, we wanted a comprehensive review, not present in Donaldson's work, that would give us insights into the manner in which Federal public land laws and policies had influenced -through failures and successes-the sweep of our Nation's history. We designed a study to describe the relationship of public land law and policy to the history and growth of our Nation with a major focus on how and why our public land laws and policies developed as they did. The document we forward today is based-as are all of the manuscripts we arc preparing or having prepared-on an outline prepared by the staff in order to assure the desired comprehensive coverage. The start outline, which established the topical areas deemed essential to the Commission's efforts, was, before being put in final form, discussed and reviewed by a number of recognized scholars in the field of American public land history both inside and outside of the Federal Government. In our discussions with consultants, we were constantly on the alert for indications as to the person or persons best qualified to prepare this history. With |