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Show 314 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT Colorado enabling act, the omnibus act provided that none of the four states was to sell its lands at less than $10 an acre. They were permitted to lease them in blocks up to 640 acres for terms of 5 years.89 Wyoming and Idaho Instead of following the precedent of the Omnibus Act of 1889, Congress in 1890, adopted two separate measures to provide for the admission of Wyoming and Idaho after they had reversed the process Congress preferred by organizing state governments without waiting for an enabling act. The two measures followed the Act of 1889 closely, however, with changes in the quantity of land granted and the omission of the minimum price of $10 an acre required by the former act in sales of all state land.90 Utah Utah, the 45th state, having satisfied Congress that the Mormons had abandoned plural marriages, obtained an enabling act on July 16, 1894, authorizing the holding of a convention and the forming of a state government. In addition to the requirements exacted of the Omnibus States, polygamous marriages were forever prohibited in it. In return for its disclaimer clause and the fact that it did not receive internal improvement and swampland grants Utah was given, not the 6 and 7 percent of its land that the Omnibus States received, but a full 14 percent. The largest addition was the doubling of the school lands to four sections in each township-2, 16, 32, 36. The most significant of the newer purposes for which grants were given was for "permanent water reserves for irrigation." Grants to Utah 89 Act of Feb. 22, 1889. 25 Stat. 677. As early as 1879 there was a movement in Dakota Territory to have the school lands held for $10 an acre and, as Herbert Schell has shown, Congress accepted the $10 minimum price and required it by the enabling act. Schell, 212, 213, 221,222. 90 Acts of July 3 and 10, 1890, 26 Stat. 215, 222. School___________________________ 5,844,196 Public buildings___________________ 64,000 University________________________ 46,080 plus 110,000 Agricultural college________________ 200,000 Irrigation purposes_________________ 500,000 Insane asylum_____________________ 100,000 School of mines____________________ 100,000 Deaf and dumb institution___________ 100,000 Reform school_____________________ 100,000 Institution for the blind_____________ 100,000 Miners' hospital (Act of Feb. 20, 1929). 50,000 Normal school____________________ 100,000 Five percent of the net proceeds from sales was to be allowed the state for common schools. An additional requirement applied to Utah was that no part of the income from the lands thus granted was to be used for sectarian schools.91 Oklahoma Enters, Arizona Delays State-making seemed to be nearing its end in 1905 and 1906 when it was proposed to join Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory into one state and Arizona and New Mexico Territories into another state. There was marked opposition in all four territories to such compulsory marriages but Congress insisted on the unions. On June 16, 1906, it adopted an enabling act authorizing the creation of two states out of the four territories and forbidding Oklahoma to remove its capital from Guthrie until 1913 or to appropriate money for a capital building during this period.92 In both new states polygamy and laws to restrict the suffrage on account of race, color, or previous conditions of servitude were forbidden. All state officers of Arizona were required to be able to read, write, and speak English sufficiently well to 91 28 Stat. 108 and 29 Stat. 876. 92 34 Stat., Part 1, pp. 282 ff. In Goyle v. Oklahoma the Supreme Court held that these limitations were in violation of the equal footing on which the state entered the Union and were not binding on it. |