" It proceeded without loss of time to make a
personal study on the ground of public land problems throughout the
West, to confer with the Governors and other public men most concerned,
and to assemble the information concerning the public lands, the laws
and decisions which governed them, and the methods of defeating or
evading those laws, which was already in existence, but which remained
unformulated in the records of the General Land Office and in the mind
of its employees. The Public Lands Commission made its first preliminary
report on March 7, 1904. It found "that the present land laws do not fit
the conditions of the remaining public lands," and recommended specific
changes to meet the public needs. A year later the second report of the
Commission recommended still further changes, and said "The fundamental
fact that characterizes the situation under the present land laws
is this, that the number of patents issued is increasing out of all
proportion to the number of new homes." This report laid the foundation
of the movement for Government control of the open range, and included
by far the most complete statement ever made of the disposition of the
public domain.
Among the most difficult topics considered by the Public Lands
Commission was that of the mineral land laws.
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