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Show : UTAH MAY RECOVER : MILLIONS OF ACRES , Attorney General Believes That Government Holds Illegally Enough Coal Land to Support Schools of State. Now that the circuit court of appeals hns clearly ruled that the enabling act granting Utah statehood granted without reservation reser-vation four school sections in each township no matter whether t coal lands or not all that is necossary for Utah to secure clear ! title to all the millions of acres of valuable land in the state com-I com-I prised in these sections is to hnve the matter finally decided by J the supreme court of tho United States. j With this accomplished and state officials ttro certain of victory thore as well as In the court of appeals Utah will have, j free of government interference, not only nil the school sections whose title is now in controversy, but will either get back from tho government all the lands taken away by the Interior depart-' ment in the last ton years on the ground they were coal lands or , , falling of this, the government must make cmh payment for them This is tho school land situation as it exist at present, accord- I ing to Attorney General Hnrncs, and since he began the fight for i Utah's rights to this land and the revenue it will bring, in 1W I when deputy attorney general, Barnes declares he never felt the i situation to be more hopeful. I Determined to Clear the Matter Up. The attorney general is determined that the matter shall be cleared up as soon as possible. He-is eager for the fray. The case i in which the state won the big victory through the court of appeals ap-peals was that of the government against the estate of Arthur A. I Sweet. The government "threatens" to appeal the case. That is just what Utah wants. To demonstrate the eagerness with which the attorney general awaits an appeal by the government, he hns a trump card In his hnnd which he asserts he will piny in the event that the government doesn't appeal. That trump card is the case of A. T. Miller, in which Miller was granted coal laud near Castle Gate in Carbon county. The state protested on the usual grounds I that the land was state land. Tho state was benten In the Salt Lake City land office, in the general land office and before the secretary of the interior. Now the case is being held on a petition for a rehearing. "If the government doesn't appeal the Sweet case, if we cannot get this land matter before the United Statos supreme court, then I shnll take the Miller matter or a. similar one directly into the United States supreme court, and in an equity proceeding seek to enjoin the department of the interior from ever interfering with the slate of Utah in its school lands." That is the attorney general's trump. In explaining his ongor-ncss ongor-ncss to get the highest tribunal to act in the matter. Harnus ox-plains ox-plains the mngnitude-of the Sweet victory and wlmt it will mown to the state if sustained. Will Support the Public Schools. I "It means that Utah will have, in coal lands alone, enough laud millions of acres of it to support the common schools without taxation, merely using the interest on the money derived. "It means wc will have clear title to land that today is worth I three hundred dollars by government estimate and some of which will in ten years be worth a thousand dollars an acre. 1 "It means wo will cither get back all the laudj taken by the government in tho past or wo will gel a consideration, and a large lone, in lieu." To demonstrate the strength of Utah' case, Attorney General I Barnes quotes the syllabus of the court of appeals decision in the Sweet ense, some of the most material passages being as follows: "The enabling act of Utah grants the lands valuable for minerals min-erals as well as all other lands in Sections 2, 10, !)2 und I1G in each township, not expressly excepted from the grant in Section G thereof. "Where the terms of a statute are clear and their meaning certain, cer-tain, construction has no place or office. The legal presumption is that the legislative body meant what it said and It is the duty of the courts not to amend or revoke, but to give effect to the enactment. enact-ment. "Where a legislative body makes a plain grant or provision and makes no exception to it, the legal presumption is that it in- I tended to make none, and it is not the province of the courts to do so. ' "The grants of land to Utah for school purposes was not a sale, and neither Section 2U18 Revised Statutes, nor the act of May 10, 1872, 17 Stat. 11, Chap. 152, reset ving mineral lands from snle, Is applicable thereto. Neither of them disqualify the congross subsequently sub-sequently to grant public lands valuable for minerals for school or other public purposes, or modify or restrict the effect of such tin nbsolute grant." Secretary Lynch Is Highly Elated. William J. Lynch, secretary of the state land board, like the attorney general, is highly elated over the victory In the Sweet case, nnd asserts that this is tho biggest victory and most Important Im-portant one to tho people at Inrge ever won by the state. It affects af-fects evoryone, he says, for it means eventually a big reduction In taxes. Ho calls attention to the fact that the circuit court held Utah's enabling net, by which congress granted statehood nnd nchool hinds, to hnvo no reservations, nnd that Section 10, granting grant-ing these lands for school purposes only, and Section 20, repealing nil former statutes, meant what it said and did not mean coal lands should be exempted. As Attorney General Barnes expresses, it: "Utah's skirt are clear as regards opposition to tho government's taking away of coal lands. Since li)07, when the Sweet case was first begun nnd when tho state first voted an npproprlntion to defend Its title to i.tnto school lands, the nttorney general's office has consistently fought tho govornmont. Every tlmo the Interior department nt-tumptod nt-tumptod to grant patent to a pieco of school land for coal purposes, the state Interposed nnd carried the case right through the various land office and interior department tribunals. Each tlmo the stnte has lost its caso. It is estimated that more than a hundred of those hnve been fought out since 1907." Makes Several Trips to Washington. The Sweet ense is tho only one the stato was ever parmltted or enabled to got before tho court. So strong ha boon the nttorney general nnd other officials' interest in tho matter that Bnrnca ha tnken four trips to Washington and Govornor Spry one or two. It wns planned fpr a time to try and prevont the Intorior department 05 tho general Innd office from having jurisdiction in land dls-Jltt dls-Jltt vjf JhoweoWnqeuJH brought beforo the United Statos supreme court, this will be unntfeossnry, as thore will be no more 'Usputos. |