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Show PUBLIC LIDS SET mm roads Senate Passes Bill of Importance Im-portance to Growing Western West-ern Communities. Special to The Tribune. WASHINGTON". Feb. 12. The senate recently passed a bill of -great importance to the public land states of Arizona, Colorado, Colo-rado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada. Ne-vada. Utah, Wyoming, North Dakota, '. California, Oregon and Washington, in ' that it proposes to grant to each of the states named 500,000 acres of public lands to be sold or leased and the proceeds used for constructing and maintaining public wagnn roads. The lands are to be selected bv the land boards, Is nd commissioners or governors of the states within one vear after the bill becomes law and the Issuance of patents to the respective states as soon as the selections are certified to the interior in-terior department Is authorized. After issuance of patents the lands shall be sold by the state at public auction in units not exceeding 640 acres, no Indi vidual association or corporation to.be I permitted to acquire more than 25,000 I acres. Lands not sold may be leased for periods of not less than five years. The measure was originally introduced by Senator Warren and proposed grant-! grant-! ing 1,000,000 acres to the state of Wyoming Wyo-ming for road purposes. Similar bills applying ap-plying to other western states were introduced in-troduced by various western senators, and I all these were finally combined into one general bill, which was reported upon favorably by the senate public lands committee. com-mittee. If the bill, which hag passed the sen- ate. becomes a law each of the public land states Included within Its provisions ! will be In position to obtain a substan-j substan-j tial fund for road construction and improvement. |