ER N EST S . GRIP F ITH 9 



the public-private power struggle to find its way to the statute books. 

 On the forest front the public interest issue continued with champions 

 old and new. The year 1919 saw agitation on the part of Graves ^ 

 and Pinchot for legislation providing for public regulation of private 

 cutting, eventually to influence the Clarke-McNary Act of 1924, and 

 also a factor not without influence later, perhaps, in the "tree farm" 

 movement of the 1940's among the more enUghtened of the private 

 operators. 



Speculator and homesteader had for decades struggled to win 

 points in land laws and their administration. Two laws of some con- 

 sequence were passed during this period: the Agricultural Entry Act 

 of 1914 and the Stock Raising Homestead Act of 1916. Yet the days 

 of abundant and productive land for the taking were over; the frontier 

 was closed. For many years the number of new homesteaders had 

 been dwindling, and these belated attempts could not disguise or post- 

 pone the fact that new issues and new forces were paramount. New 

 irrigation projects still had many years ahead of them, and to these 

 homesteaders could still migrate — but for a price. How to use and 

 lease the public lands; how to conserve the private lands; whether to 

 confirm the lessees as owners — these were the issues of the future. 



Nineteen hundred and twenty was an important year in the conser- 

 vation movement. It marked the passage of both the Federal Water 

 Power Act and the Mineral Leasing Act. The war was over; the issues 

 had been churning around long enough, and the time had come in 

 these two areas for a national policy to emerge. It was in Congress 

 and not the White House that the effective maturing of decisions took 

 place. 



Mining entry had developed abuses. The lease seemed an appro- 

 priate answer, at least for the nonmetallic minerals. The act itself was 

 a compromise between the strict conservationist views and excessive 

 advantages for private developments. For coal, sodium, and phos- 

 phate deposits, competitive bidding was introduced. For oil and gas, 

 prospecting rights were limited to 2,560 acres and two years. Discov- 



' Henry S. Graves, formerly a consulting forester in partnership with Gifford 

 Pinchot and, in 1900, founder of the Yale Forest School, succeeded Pinchot as 

 Chief Forester in 1910. In later days he is remembered as Dean of the Yale 

 School of Forestry. 



