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Show 728 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT drawals were made for the purpose of proposing new legislation on the coal lands. Mondell also vigorously attacked the conservation policy of the Interior Department as "paternalistic" and as "state socialism." On February 13, 1907,203 Roosevelt sent another message to Congress in which he urgently recommended legislation on the coal lands. In contrast to his earlier message, he stressed primarily the need for conservation of the remaining mineral fuels in the public domain, not only to prevent waste but also in order to reserve a portion of the* remaining coal resources for future generations. He felt that "mineral fuels, like the forests and navigable streams, should be treated as public utilities." He recommended that the most effective way to deal with this resource would be to enact "such legislation as would provide for title to and development of the surface land as separate and distinct from the right to the underlying mineral fuels in regions where these may occur, and the disposal of these mineral fuels under a leasing system on conditions which would inure to the benefit of the public as a whole." Although he did not specify the details of such legislation, he felt the system should be administered in the "spirit of generosity" which had characterized our earlier disposition of the public lands. After noting that 30 million acres of coal fields had already passed into private ownership, he suggested that legislation of the type he proposed would give the Congress ample opportunity to determine how the two systems-private ownership and public leasing-operating side by side actually worked. As a concession to the states' rightists, whom he said were justifiably interested in the rapid development of the "lusty young commonwealths," he ventured that the leasing system could be administered with the "least possible" interference by the Federal government. ** 41 Cong. Rec. 2806-8 <1907). In the second session of the 59th Congress, a number of bills providing both for severance of surface and minerals and for leasing were introduced by Senator Hans-brough (North Dakota) ,204 Representative Volstead205 and Senator Nelson (Minnesota) ,206 Representative Lacey (Iowa)207 and Senator LaFollette (Wisconsin) .208 Doomed by the lethargic attitude of Congress toward the coal problem, all of these bills failed to survive referral to the Public Lands Committees of the two Houses. Roosevelt and his successor continued, however, to withdraw coal lands. The effect of a general withdrawal was to give the government an opportunity to classify the land. Land found to be valuable for coal might then be sold under the coal acts for more than the minimum price prescribed in the 1873 Act. Robbins points out that between 1906 and 1909 public coal lands sold for $75 to $100 per acre.209 Between August 21, 1907, and November 1, 1909, 4,165,542 acres were segregated, but as Peffer points out these were mainly to protect bona fide oil prospectors from those who were attempting to obtain coal lands under the agricultural land laws.210 By March 4, 1909, half of all the withdrawn coal lands had in fact been restored to entry.211 This indicates the great difficulty the government experienced during this entire period with the process of classification. In retrospect, the coal lands problem was undoubtedly a relatively minor crisis, since between 1873 and 1910, only 3,806 coal land entries, totalling 544,244.92 acres were actually made.212 During these years, 804 41 Cong. Rec. 489 (1906). ¦ 41 Cong. Rec. 630 (1907). **41 Cong. Rec. 611, 1788 (1907). 107 41 Cong. Rec. 1246, 2492 (1907). **41 Conc. Rec. 1483 (1907). It was this bill which was singled out for criticism by Rep. Mondell in his famous statement. ** Robbins, Our Landed Heritage 346 (1960). 110 Peffer, The Closing of the Public Domain 108 (1951). 111 Id. |