the claim was no longer valid, or where claimant corporations were dissolved by operation of the statute of the State of their creation, such as failure to pay corporation taxes, and so forth. These claims were again to be reviewed by him and the same consideration given to those cases as if they had been filed under the 1929 amendment.

EXPLANATION OF INCREASE IN ESTIMATE FOR 1938

Mr. O'NEAL. I would like to have you explain this increase asked for in the appropriation for 1938. For 1937 you had $13,600, whereas the estimate for 1938 is $20,000.

Mr. FERTICH. $20,000 is the administrative cost per year. That amount has been given to the Commission every year since the advent of the present administration, as well as in previous ones for some time back. The last Congress appropriated $13,600 under the theory that the Commission could conclude its work by February of this year. That was before the passage of the two acts referred to, and since that time your Committee on Appropriations has made a deficiency appropriation to cover that difference to enable us to operate to June 30 of this year.

So that the appropriation asked for here is that which has remained continuously for a past number of years.

Mr. O'NEAL. Has your work increased since the passage of the two acts materially over what it was just prior to that time?

Mr. FERTICH. Very materially, sir, for the reason that the act of June 30, 1936, placed the burden upon the Secretary of the Interior to determine questions of law which previously were determined by the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia in the form of a decree to the Secretary of the Interior.

CONCLUSION OF WORK OF COMMISSION

Mr. O'NEAL. Have you any estimate as to when this work can be concluded? I notice that they thought, prior to the passage of these two acts, that it would be concluded on June 30, 1936. Is there any estimate that you can give us now as to when you think this work can be concluded?

Mr. FERTICH. I do not think there is the slightest doubt but that this work can be concluded by June 1938.

Mr. O'NEAL. In the fiscal year that we are now appropriating for? Mr. FERTICH. Yes. I base that upon the fact that the Commission is notifying claimants by registered letter, requiring a return receipt, that the Commission reserves the right to dispose of all pending cases on the record, as made, within 30 days, and that the failure of claimant to produce additional evidence will be recognized by the Commission as their recognition of the right of the Secretary of the Interior to close the case.

Mr. O'NEAL. Is there any appeal from that?

Mr. FERTICH. There is no appeal, certainly, from the Secretary of the Interior, on matters of fact. There is a question in my mind as to whether there is an appeal on questions of law from his finding under the June 30, 1936, act.

NUMBER OF CASES PENDING

Mr. RICH. How many cases have you yet to determine, of those who have made claims?

Mr. FERTICH. There are 63 cases pending in court, 24 in the Commission, under the 1929 act. There are 65 claims to be reviewed under the May 18 amendment, and 130 to be reviewed under the June 30, 1936, Act, and 109 claims not yet determined as to review.

Mr. RICH. Have all of the cases been presented to the Interior Department?

Mr. FERTICH. That is correct. The time for filing has passed. Mr. RICH. And now you have sent them this notification that you referred to, and if they do not appeal, you will turn them down? Mr. FERTICH. That is right.

Mr. RICH. And you still have 87 to settle?

Mr. FERTICH. More than that.

Mr. RICH. Sixty-three in the court, and 24 in the Commission? Mr. FERTICH. But that is under the 1929 amendment. I will give you this statement concerning that situation.

Mr. RICH. But what I am trying to get at is this, that once in a while you see some fellow coming around lobbying to Members of Congress for a new bill for something. You are going to settle provided that Congress does not pass any new bills?

Mr. FERTICH. Absolutely.

Mr. RICH. Is there a possibility of new bills being presented which will make you again consider some of these claims, or additional ones? What I want to do is to stop Congress from passing any more bills that would do anything further in connection with these war mineral claims.

Mr. FERTICH. The Congress passed the last two bills without the approval of the Secretary of the Interior.

Mr. RICH. I appreciate that. I remember when Mr. Ickes was before the Committee on Public Lands, and that he opposed those bills, which should never have been brought in; but when you get a lot of people lobbying back home, and have people lobbying all around you, some people cannot say "no."

Mr. FERTICH. I would say this, that the larger claims have been disposed of. The claimants who, I presume, were largely responsible for the passage of the amendment of 1929 were in claim no. 1, and that is a claim for which an award of $580,836.86 was allowed, upon a claim of $701,000.

Mr. O'NEAL. Your work was considerably heavier last year, right after the passage of the amendments, but I am wondering if it is not a fact that you would not have to have a deficiency this year if we should only appropriate what you received last year.

Mr. FERTICH. The deficiency of $6,400 was to care for salaries and expenses until the end of the fiscal year 1937.

Mr. O'NEAL. But what I mean is that you are asking for an appropriation of $20,000, whereas the appropriation for 1937 was $13,600. Mr. FERTICH. We requested $20,000 for the 1937 appropriation, but Congress saw fit to make a deduction under the theory that we could wind this up in February of this year. That was before the passage of the two amendments.

Mr. O'NEAL. But the work has not slackened off this year sufficiently to enable you to operate within the amount of $13,600?

Mr. FERTICH. No. The work has increased by the very nature of the cases that we have to review, and because of the additional fact that previously the court would determine the questions of law by decree, but now under this amendment it is necessary for the Commission to perform the functions formerly performed by the courts. Mr. O'NEAL. Thank you very much.

TUESDAY, MARCH 16, 1937.

GENERAL LAND OFFICE

STATEMENTS OF FRED W. JOHNSON, COMMISSIONER, AND THOMAS C. HAVELL, TECHNICAL ADVISOR TO THE COMMISSIONER

Mr. SCRUGHAM. The next item is for the General Land Office. The Commissioner of the General Land Office, Mr. Fred W. Johnson, is present.

Mr. Johnson, have you any general statement to make?

GENERAL STATEMENT

Mr. FRED W. JOHNSON. Before presenting the general statement concerning the work of the General Land Office that I have prepared, I would like to call attention to the fact that the appropriation for salaries, General Land Office, which was for $700,000 in 1933, has been reduced to $587,700, notwithstanding the fact that there has been no diminution in work. Our appropriation for general expenses has been decreased from $28,000 to $16,000; the salaries of registers from $80,000 to $75,000; the appropriation for contingent expenses, Land Offices, from $175,000 to $160,000 during the same period.

These reductions have so reduced the force of the General Land Office that we are no longer able to keep the work current, and as a result we are receiving many complaints both from Members of Congress and from the public. We are being compelled to take clerks off of work already in arrears in order to move arrearages in other branches of the work. This is particularly true with reference to the work arising under sections 8, 14, and 15 of the Taylor Grazing Act, which fall to the General Land Office for administration. revenues, however, have been kept in satisfactory condition. receipts for the past fiscal year were $5,194,399.62, whereas our operating expenses were $1,527,797. In other words, every time we spend a dollar we collect $3.50.

Our

The

While it is true that the Executive orders of withdrawal of November 26, 1934, and February 5, 1935, have resulted in a marked decrease in the number of original entries, selections, and so forth being filed, there has been an increase in other Departments of the work. For example, under the Mineral Leasing Act the area included in outstanding licenses, leases, and permits has been increased by 1,014,960 acres, bringing the total to 12,322,637. Over 5,000 applications for leases under section 15 of the Taylor Grazing Act have been received; 357 applications for exchanges of State-owned land, under section 8 of the Taylor Grazing Act, have been received. At the same time, the normal work of the Land Office has continued without interruption. For example, there were furnished during the past year 38,896

copies of records for which $10,826 was collected and an additional 60,016 for official use, making a total of approximately 97,000 copies, or an average of 300 copies daily. This is an increase of 6,468 copies over the preceding year. There were 139,147 letters received, or an

average of 500 a day.

The work of surveying the public lands has been helped by three Public Works projects in the last 3 or 4 years, one for $1,000,000, one for $168,000, and the present Public Works project of surveying the public lands, which terminates on June 30 next, of $750,000. As there are no further Public Works funds in sight for surveying the public lands, the entire burden next year must be carried by the regular appropriation, for which but $650,000 is provided in the present estimates. The work of surveying the public lands as carried on both under the regular appropriation and under the Public Works allotments has not only enabled the Department to bring about the survey of areas for which there has been the greatest demand, particularly in bringing about the survey of unsurveyed lands within the grazing districts, but at the same time they have been important factors in contributing to the relief of the unemployed through the appointment of transitmen, draftsmen, computers, field-note writers and transcribers, stenographers, and the hiring of hundreds of temporary field assistants.

だ Mr. SCRUGHAM. Does that complete your statement, Mr. Johnson? Mr. FRED W. JOHNSON. That completes it, except for the general statement which appears in the justification.

JUSTIFICATION OF ESTIMATE FOR 1938

Mr. SCRUGHAM. If you wish to have that justification appear in the record, present it to the reporter and it will be made a part of the record.

(The statement is as follows:)

Due to Executive orders of withdrawal, No. 6910 of November 26, 1934, and No. 6964 of February 5, 1935, and the amendments thereto, there was a marked decrease in the number of acres included in original entries, selections, and filings made during the fiscal year 1936. The area was 425,834 acres, as against 1,759,078 acres for the preceding year.

The area embraced in final entries, selections, and filings made during the year was 1,937,526 acres, an increase of 165,823 acres over the preceding year.

In

Altogether 8,238 patents were issued for 2,216,684 acres, while during the preceding year only 6,102 patents were issued for 1,394,130 acres. This shows an increase of nearly 60 percent over the area patented during the year 1935. addition, under State grants, 253,903 acres were certified to States, an increase of 30,602 acres over the previous year.

The area embraced in unperfected entries upon which final proof of compliance with the law was not due or had not been presented on June 30, 1936, was 16,862,271 acres, or 2,804,442 acres less than on June 30, 1935. The area included in outstanding licenses, leases, and permits issued under the Mineral Leasing Act on June 30, 1936, was 12,322,637 acres, an increase of 1,014,960 acres over the preceding fiscal year.

There were furnished during the year 36,898 certified and uncertified copies of entry papers, plats, field notes, patents, etc., for which $10,826.75 was collected. In addition, there were furnished for official use by this and other departments and agencies 60,016 copies of said items. There were furnished altogether 6,468 more copies than during the preceding year.

The number of letters and reports received for consideration or answer from all sources during the year was 139,147, and 73,956 letters and decisions were written. The latter figure does not include letters prepared for signature in the Department.

Numerous requests were received during the year from other bureaus and departments in connection with their respective operations for the status of public lands, the compilation of maps or diagrams, certified copies of records, the preparations or consideration of proposed orders of withdrawal or restoration, or other information or action. This work frequently involves much research or consideration and adds considerably to the duties of the Office.

In land exchanges made for the benefit of other bureaus this Office examined abstracts of title covering many thousands of acres in order to determine the sufficiency of title to the lands offered as base.

The General Land Office, in cooperation with the Division of Grazing, has prepared the orders establishing grazing districts and describing the lands included therein, together with the diagrams accompanying the orders, showing the boundaries of each grazing district and other pertinent data. It is estimated that the total area included in established districts as of June 30, 1936, was 79,805,186 acres.

The Taylor Grazing Act of June 28, 1934, was amended by the act of June 26, 1936, to increase the area subject to inclusion in grazing districts from 80,000,000 to 142,000,000 acres. The administration of sections 7, 8, 10, and 15, as amended, rests largely with the General Land Office.

Section 7, as amended, authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to examine and classify any lands withdrawn or reserved by Executive Order No. 6910, of November 26, 1934, and the amendments thereto, or by Executive Order No. 6964, of February 5, 1935, as amended, or within a grazing district, and to make such lands subject to disposal under any applicable public-land law, when such class tication shows that the lands are more valuable or suitable for such use than for the use provided for by said act, or that the lands are proper for acquisition in satisfaction of outstanding lieu, exchange, scrip, or land-grant rights.

Under section 8, as amended, exchanges may be made of privately owned lands outside of grazing districts, as well as of such lands within grazing districts. This liberalization of the law permits private holdings outside of grazing districts to be blocked up in the public interests for grazing use. The authorization for the exchange of State-owned lands has also been materially modified. Such exchanges may now be made acre for acre as well as on the basis of equal value.

Section 10, as amended, provides for distribution of receipts from leases under section 15 of the act as well as receipts from grazing districts, 25 percent for range improvements and 50 percent to be paid to the States for the benefit of the counties in which the lands producing the moneys are situated.

Section 15, as amended, authorizes the leasing for grazing purposes any public lands outside of grazing districts, upon such terms and conditions as the Secretary of the Interior may prescribe. When the amended law was passed approximately 2,255 applications for grazing lease were pending. Of this number about 1,600 involved lands within contemplated or proposed grazing districts, which applications were awaiting reports from the Director of Grazing. The remaining cases were awaiting reports from the Division of Investigations. When action on these cases is taken, due consideration must be given to the provisions of the amended law and the regulations issued thereunder.

The course of public-land business during the past decade is shown by acres in the following table: New entries and applications