tramway to pass over its track or tracks through such canyon, pass, or defile on such equitable basis as the said court may prescribe; and all shippers shall be entitled to equal accommodations as to the movement of their freight and without discrimination in favor of any person or corporation: Provided, That nothing herein shall be construed as depriving Congress of the right to regulate the charges for freight, passengers, and wharfage.

SEC. 4. That where any company, the right of way to which is hereby granted, shall in the course of construction find it necessary to pass over private lands or possessory claims on lands of the United States, condemnation of a right of way across the same may be made in accordance with section three of the act entitled "An act to amend an act entitled 'An act to aid in the construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean, and to secure to the Government the use of the same for postal, military, and other purposes, approved July first, eighteen hundred and sixty-two," approved July second, eighteen hundred and sixty-four: Provided further. That any such company, by filing with the Secretary of the Interior a preliminary actual survey and plat of its proposed route, shall have the right at any time within one year thereafter, to file the map and profile of definite location provided for in this act, and such preliminary survey and plat shall, during the said period of one year from the time of filing the same, have the effect to render all the lands on which said preliminary survey and plat shall pass subject to such right of way.

SEC. 5. That any company desiring to secure the benefits of this act shall, within twelve months after filing the preliminary map of location of its roads as herein before prescribed, whether upon surveyed or unsurveyed lands, file with the register of the land office for the district where such land is located a map and profile of at least a twenty-mile section of its road or a profile of its entire road if less than twenty miles, as definitely fixed; and shall thereafter each year definitely locate and file a map of such location as aforesaid of not less than twenty miles additional of its line of road until the entire road has been thus definitely located, and upon approval thereof by the Secretary of the Interior the same shall be noted upon the records of said office, and thereafter all such lands over which such right of way shall pass shall be disposed of subject to such right of way: Provided, That if any section of said road shall not be completed within one year after the definite location of said section so approved, or if the map of definite location be not filed within one year as herein required, or if the entire road shall not be completed within four years, from the filing of the map of definite location, the rights herein granted shall be forfeited as to any such uncompleted section of said road, and thereupon shall revert to the United States without further action or declaration, the notation of such uncompleted section upon the records of the land office shall be canceled, and the reservations of such lands for the purposes of said right of way, stations, and terminals shall cease and become null and void without further action.

(Sec. 6 omitted.)

SEC. 7. That this act shall not apply to any lands within the limits of any military, park, Indian, or other reservation unless such right of way shall be provided for by act of Congress.

SEC. 8. That Congress hereby reserves the right at any time to alter, amend, or repeal this act or any part thereof; and the right of way herein and hereby authorized shall not be assigned or transferred in any form whatever prior to the construction and completion of at least one-fourth of the proposed mileage of such railroad, wagon road, or tramway, as indicated by the map of definite location, except by mortgages or other liens that may be given or secured thereon to aid in the construction thereof: Provided, That where within ninety days after the approval of this act, proof is made to the satisfaction of the Secretary of the Interior that actual surveys, evidenced by designated monuments, were made, and the line of a railroad, wagon road, or tramway located thereby, or that actual construction was commenced on the line of any railroad, wagon road, or tramway prior to January twenty-first, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, the rights to inure hereunder shall, if the terms of this act are complied with as to such railroad, wagon road, or tramway, relate back to the date when such survey or construction was commenced; and in all conflicts relative to the right of way or other privilege of this act the person, company, or corporation having been first in time in actual survey or construction, as the case may be, shall be deemed first in right.

In short, gentlemen, we have in Alaska a complete railway law passed by Congress giving private interests, private individuals and corporations complete authority, right, and power to build railroads, granting them rights of way and terminal facilities, giving them everything that is necessary except Government aid. It is as good a law

in that respect as you have in any State or Territory in the United States, probably better. Private enterprise began to build railroads under that law. The Copper River & Northwestern Railroad Co. built 196 miles under that law; the Alaska Central Railroad built 71 miles under that law; 80 miles were built at Nome. Altogether, we have 500 miles of railroad built in Alaska under that law, scattered in distant parts of the Territory, the Copper River & Northwestern's 196 miles being practically the only complete small system in the Territory, except one built by Mr. Joslin at Fairbanks, 45 miles in length.

We have power to build railroads in Alaska. Private interests have power to build railroads there; private corporations have power to build railroads there, but after the President of the United States in 1906 withdrew all the coal lands in Alaska, every incentive for building railroads was taken away, and all railroad building was stopped.

We have in Alaska large areas of high-grade coal lands-in United States territory. We have all the coal land laws in Alaska that you have in Colorado or Wyoming or any of the Western States. In addition to all of the good laws which Congress has passed for the development of coal lands in the various States and Territories of the West, we have the special acts of 1904 and 1908, which are applicable to Alaska alone, and I will put them in the record at this place, if I may be permitted. The act of 1908 is the most drastic antimonopoly law that has ever been written in the English language, I think. Under it a combination of 2,560 acres of coal land may be made by individuals for the purpose of one group or working, and the law is so drastically drawn that if more than that area is put into any one single combination, either directly or indirectly, the title to the land is forfeited to the United States. So that if the Government finds that there is an effort made by the great interests to monopolize our coal land in Alaska beyond 2,560 acres, the Government may take the title from that monopoly and protect the people of the United States in doing so.

The Alaska coal laws referred to are as follows:

[Act June 6, 1900 (31 Stat., 658).]

AN ACT To extend the coal-land laws to the District of Alaska.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That so much of the public-land laws of the United States are hereby extended to the District of Alaska as relate to coal lands, namely, sections twenty-three hundred and forty-seven to twenty-three hundred and fifty-two, inclusive, of the Revised Statutes.

[Act April 28, 1904 (33 Stat., 525).]

AN ACT To amend an act entitled "An act to extend the coal-land laws to the District of Alaska," approved June sixth, nineteen hundred.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That any person or association of persons qualified to make entry under the coal-land laws of the United States who shall have opended or improved a coal mine or coal mines on any of the unsurveyed public lands of the United States in the District of Alaska may locate the lands upon which such mine or mines are situated, in rectangular tracts containing forty, eighty, or one hundred and sixty acres, with north and south boundary lines run according to the true meridian, by marking the four corners thereof with permanent monuments, so that the boundaries thereof may be readily and easily traced. And all such locators shall, within one

year from the passage of this act, or within one year from making such location, file for record in the recording district, and with the register and receiver of the land district in which the lands are located or situated, a notice containing the name or names of the locator or locators, the date of the location, the description of the lands located, and a reference to such natural objects or permanent monuments as will readily identify the same.

SEC. 2. That such locator or locators, or their assigns, who are citizens of the United States, shall receive a patent to the lands located by presenting, at any time within three years from the date of such notice, to the register and receiver of the land district in which the lands so located are situated an application therefor, accompanied by a certified copy of a plat of survey and field notes thereof, made by a United States deputy surveyor or a United States mineral surveyor duly approved by the surveyor general for the District of Alaska, and a payment of the sum of $10 per acre for the lands applied for; but no such application shall be allowed until after the applicant has caused a notice of the presentation thereof, embracing a description of the lands, to have been published in a newspaper in the District of Alaska published nearest the location of the premises for a period of sixty days, and shall have caused copies of such notice, together with a certified copy of the official plat of survey, to have been kept posted in a conspicuous place upon the land applied for and in the land office for the district in which the lands are located for a like period, and until after he shall have furnished proof of such publication and posting, and such other proof as is required by the coal-land laws: Provided, That nothing herein contained shall be so construed as to authorize entries to be made or title to be acquired to the shore of any navigable waters within said district.

SEC. 3. That during such period of posting and publication, or within six months thereafter, any person or association of persons having or asserting any adverse interest or claim to the tract of land or any part thereof sought to be purchased shall file in the land office where such application is pending, under oath, an adverse claim, setting forth the nature and extent thereof, and such adverse claimant shall, within sixty days after the filing of such adverse claim, begin an action to quiet title in a court of competent jurisdiction within the District of Alaska, and thereafter no patent shall issue for such claim until the final adjudication of the rights of the parties, and such patent shall then be issued in conformity with the final decree of such court therein.

SEC. 4. That all the provisions of the coal-land laws of the United States not in conflict with the provisions of this act shall continue and be in full force in the Dis

trict of Alaska.

(PUBLIC NO. 151.)
[S. 6805.]

AN ACT To encourage the development of coal deposits in the Territory of Alaska

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all persons, their heirs or assigns, who have in good faith personally or by an attorney in fact made locations of coal land in the Territory of Alaska in their own interest, prior to November twelfth, nineteen hundred and six, or in accordance with circular of instructions issued by the Secretary of the Interior May sixteenth, nineteen hundred and seven, may consolidate their said claims or locations by including in a single claim, location, or purchase not to exceed two thousand five hundred and sixty acres of contiguous lands, not exceeding in length twice the width of the tract thus consolidated, and for this purpose such persons, their heirs, or assigns, may form associations or corporations who may perfect entry of and acquire title to such lands in accordance with the other provisions of law under which said locations were originally made: Provided, That no corporation shall be permitted to consolidate its claims under this act unless seventy-five per centum of its stock shall be held by persons qualified to enter coal lands in Alaska.

SEC. 2. That the United States shall, at all times, have the preference right to purchase so much of the product of any mine or mines opened upon the lands sold under the provisions of this act as may be necessary for the use of the Army and Navy, and at such reasonable and remunerative price as may be fixed by the President; but the producers of any coal so purchased who may be dissatisfied with the price thus fixed shall have the right to prosecute suits against the United States in the Court of Claims for the recovery of any additional sum or sums they may claim as justly due upon such purchase.

SEC. 3. That if any of the lands or deposits purchased under the provisions of this act shall be owned, leased, trusteed, possessed, or controlled by any device permanently, temporarily, directly, indirectly, tacitly, or in any manner whatsoever so that

they form part of, or in any way effect any combination, or are in anywise controlled by any combination in the form of an unlawful trust, or form the subject of any contract or conspiracy in restraint of trade in the mining or selling of coal, or of any holding of such lands by any individual, partnership, association, corporation, mortgage, stock ownership, or control, in excess of two thousand five hundred and sixty acres in the district of Alaska, the title thereto shall be forfeited to the United States by proceedings instituted by the Attorney General of the United States in the courts for that purpose.

SEC. 4. That every patent issued under this act shall expressly recite the terms and conditions prescribed in sections two and three hereof.

Approved, May 28, 1908.

Now, there is no place in the United States where there are such good coal laws as we have in Alaska. There is no place where the rights of people are so well protected in respect to coal lands as they are in Alaska. Locators have gone in there and have undertaken to take up those coal lands, and you know, of course, the general history of these efforts. Less than 200 acres of coal land in Alaska have gone to patent. Notwithstanding all of our good laws, notwithstanding the drastic features of the coal antimonopoly laws, less than 200 acres of coal land in Alaska have gone to patent, and the result is that railroads are not built, because there is no coal to burn, even in their engines, and none to mine or transport. Alaska does not need coalland laws or railroad laws, but she does need prompt, fearless enforcement of the laws of Congress now in force there.

Senator WALSH. If that policy is persevered in; if, notwithstanding all the protection thrown around the disposition of this land by that act of 1908, the department is not issuing patents for those coal lands to anybody, what use would there be in constructing a Government road through there?

Mr. WICKERSHAM. This use, Senator: The Government of the United States will own the road; it will own the coal land. It certainly can trust itself to take out the coal, to transport it on its own railroad, and put it upon its own ships for the protection of the country, even if it won't trust private capital.

Senator WALSH. Yes; that is to say, you contemplate not only this, that the Government will build this road, but that it will likewise furnish traffic for the road by its operating the coal mines?

Mr. WICKERSHAM. Not necessarily, but it must either open the

private capital

that the Government may eiten them. The Senator's bill provides

operate or lease the

Senator WALSH. I understand that; but in any case, unless the policy persevered in since 1908, of withholding from disposition the coal land, notwithstanding the provisions of that act-is departed from, your road will have no traffic at all except what the Government provides for it.

Mr. WICKERSHAM. Oh, I assume the Government will do what it ought to do in a case of that kind. We certainly will have no traffic in coal, Senator, without the Government does something to open the coal land in Alaska.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Either themselves or through some other system.

Mr. WICKERSHAM. Either through Government ownership or through some other system. The Government certainly is not going to prevent the development of that great Territory much longer.

Senator WALSH. The idea that was in my mind, Mr. Wickersham, was this, whether the two must not almost of necessity run together.

Mr. WICKERSHAM. There is no doubt about that, Senator. They must run together. Now I call your attention to this official map. This is a map that was prepared by the road commission of Alaska, but I have had put upon it, from the description given in the law, the boundaries of the four judicial divisions in the Territory of Alaska. This [indicating] is the first judicial division, here in southeastern Alaska. It has a population of 15,216 people, according to the last census. Here [indicating] is the judicial division at Nome, where there are 12,351 population. The third is the Valdez division, in southern Alaska, having a population of 20,078. The fourth is the interior, or Fairbanks, division, having a population of 16,711. The railway lines on this map are copied from the railway report of the Alaska railway commission. These dotted lines are the lines which they considered in their report, and about which they made a statement of figures. The lines covered over with red are the lines which they have recommended to be built.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Those are the dotted lines covered by red? Mr. WICKERSHAM. Yes, sir; they aggregate 733 miles, the total amount which they recommended to be built. Those 733 miles will cost, they report, $35,611,000, the amount stated in Senator Chamberlain's bill. You will find the recommendation of the commission on page 141 of the official report.

Now, that is the general outline of the situation. Here, at this point [indicating] the Bering coal field-is high-grade coal, near Controller Bay. Here [indicating] is the Matanuska coal, the highgrade anthracite and bituminous coal. It is proposed to build a branch into that.

Senator LIPPITT. Where does the present Copper River Railroad run?

Mr. WICKERSHAM. The Copper River & Northwestern Railway runs along here [indicating], up the Copper River, and turns east up the Chitina River and to Kennicott.

Senator LIPPITT. So that system marked in red connects with the Copper River road?

Mr. WICKERSHAM. That short branch is 38 miles long, and connects with the Copper River Railroad. I want to call your attention now to two features

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. You did not name the other coal field.

Mr. WICKERSHAM. It is the Nenana coal field. I want to call your attention to this fact, that these proposed railroads proposed by the commission, for I do not propose any, and neither does Senator Chamberlain's bill; Senator Chamberlain's bill does not provide that the President of the United States shall build any one of these proposed roads, but leaves the President absolute authority to locate such roads in Alaska as he pleases, after an examination. He may build these roads, or he may build others, but the bill does not require him to do so. I call your attention, first, to the fact that these proposed roads are in the vicinity of the population of Alaska. Here [indicating] is a population of 20,078. Here is a population of 16,711, making nearly 37,000-something over 36,000 population, out of a total of 63,000, and all on the immediate lines of road proposed by the railway commission.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. That is in the third and fourth divisions?