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Show LEGAL ASPECTS OF MINERAL RESOURCES EXPLOITATION 733 panying lists are hereby temporarily withdrawn from all forms of location, settlement, selection, filing, entry, or disposal under the mineral or nonmineral public-land laws. All locations or claims existing and valid on this date may proceed to entry in the usual manner after field investigation and examination. Over 3 million acres of land valuable for oil in California and Wyoming were affected by the order. Some of the land had previously been withdrawn from agricultural entry; some had in fact already passed into private ownership and could not, therefore, be affected by the order. As to land previously withdrawn, the order simply converted these lands into withdrawals from all forms of disposition. The withdrawal order must certainly have been President Taft's most audacious official act, for he was most cautious in matters of constitutional law.245 His lingering doubts as to the constitutionality of his action stemmed from the fact that the Federal Constitution empowered Congress, not the President, to make rules and regulations respecting the property of the United States. Roosevelt and Taft were in basic disagreement on the role of the Chief Executive in the administration of the public domain.246 Although the issue may seem relatively mild today, the historical importance of this matter of constitutional law must not be underestimated. It loomed 216 Nine years later, with the benefit of hindsight, Senator La Follette could remark, "Taft's opinion upon constitutional matters does not appeal to me and ... ought not to have any weight with anybody else." 58 Cong. Rec. 4747 (1919). 244 Roosevelt, An Autobiography 362-63 (1913) (1924 reprint) : "As to all action of this kind there have long been two schools of political thought .... The course I followed, of regarding the executive as subject only to the people, and, under the Constitution, bound to serve the people affirmatively in cases where the Constitution does not explicitly forbid him to render the service, was substantially the course followed by both Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln. Other honorable and well-meaning Presidents, such as James Buchanan, took the opposite and, as it seems to me, narrowly legalistic view that the President is the servant of Congress large in the background of all the Roosevelt withdrawals, and congressional peevishness is evidenced in the action curbing the Presidential withdrawal power for national forests in 1907 and 1910.247 It continued to be one of the most hotly debated subjects in the 6 years or so which followed the Taft withdrawals. The Pickett Act. In a message to Congress on January 14, 1910, President Taft stated:248 The power of the Secretary of the Interior to withdraw from the operation of existing statutes tracts of land, the disposition of which under such statutes would be detrimental to the public interest, is not clear or satisfactory. This power has been exercised in the interest of the public, with the hope that Congress might affirm the action of the Executive by laws adapted to the new conditions. Unfortunately, Congress has not thus far fully acted on the recommendations of the Executive, and the question as to what the Executive is to do is, under the circumstances, full of difficulty. It seems to me that it is the duty of Congress now, by a statute, to validate the withdrawals ... and to authorize the Secretary of the Interior temporarily to withdraw lands pending submission to Congress of recommendations as to legislation to meet conditions or emergencies as they arise. In line with President Taft's suggestion, Representative Pickett of Iowa introduced H.R. 24070 3 months later.249 As one of three so-called conservation measures,250 the bill empowered the President to withdraw public lands from location, settlement, filing and entry in two situations: (1) for examination and classification; and (2) for the purpose of recommending new legislation to Congress respecting the with- rather than of the people, and can do nothing, no matter how necessary it be to act, unless the Constitution explicitly commands the action. . . . My successor in office took this, the Buchanan, view of the President's powers and duties." 217 See note 190, supra. 248 45 Cong. Rec. 621-22 (1910). 249 45 Cong. Rec. 4310 (1910). 250 The others included the act to permit surface entries on coal lands (36 Stat. 583 [1910]) and a reclamation act. 36 Stat. 835 (1910). |