Seth Kaller, Inc.

These lands are probably of more fundamental consequence to the whole people than any other public lands… Might it not be well for the government to retain title and to lease the right to mine upon such terms as would attract the investment of capital for this purpose?”

Just over three months after signing the Hepburn Act, giving the Interstate Commerce Commission real regulatory power, Roosevelt responded to a letter from its Acting Chairman who was complaining of coal monopolies created by the railroads. Roosevelt strongly supports the Hepburn Act, telling Clements, “I will back you up to the limit in compelling the railroad companies to afford the independent producers proper track connections and proper transportation facilities as well as to carry the coal for reasonable charges.” Roosevelt also asserts that the nation must maintain control of its coal lands, an increasingly valuable resource in the railway age: “we should not part with anymore coal lands.”

THEODORE ROOSEVELT. Typed Letter Signed, to Judson C. Clements, October 13, 1906, Washington, D.C. On “The White House” letterhead. 2 pp., 8 x 10¼ in.

Inventory #26771       Price: $3,500

Complete Transcript
                     The White House / Washington / October 13, 1906.

My dear Mr. Clements:

            I have just received your paper on the Union Pacific coal investigation. The following paragraphs seem to me to directly conflict with one another, and I send around to you at once to find out exactly what it is you mean. You say in the first place:

            “No limitation of the right to acquire these lands from the government can prevent their being ultimately monopolized, provided title is once fixed in a private individual with the unlimited right of conveyance. In view of this fact it is worthy of serious consideration whether the government ought to part with title to its coal lands. These lands are probably of more fundamental consequence to the whole people than any other public lands, and that importance is a constantly increasing one. Might it not be well for the government to retain title and to lease the right to mine upon such terms as would attract the investment of capital for this purpose?”

            But you go on to say in speaking of the present situation, as follows:

            “Today, however, the only available coal lands are owned by these two companies. If therefore, the public lands in that region are permanently withdrawn from private entry the effect is to intensify and perpetuate the very monopoly which these railroads have created.” <2>

            I am inclined cordially to agree with the first of these two statements; but the second seems flatly to contradict it and I don’t understand how they can be reconciled or indeed what the second means. I will back you up to the limit in compelling the railroad companies to afford the independent producers proper track connections and proper transportation facilities as well as to carry the coal for reasonable charges. But I feel very strongly that your first position which is that we should not part with anymore coal lands, is correct, in which case your second position, that we should not withdraw public coal lands from private entry can not but be incorrect.

                                                                        Sincerely yours, / Theodore Roosevelt

Hon. Judson C. Clements, / Acting Chairman, Interstate Commerce Commission.

Historical Background
In 1902, the Justice Department under President Theodore Roosevelt sued the Northern Securities Company under the provisions of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. The Northern Securities Company controlled the Northern Pacific Railway, the Great Northern Railway, and the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, diminishing competition among them. In 1904, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled for the government and dissolved the company. A series of other cases over the next seven years dissolved many other trusts.

In the summer of 1906, Congress passed and President Roosevelt signed the Hepburn Act, which gave the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) the ability to set maximum rates for railroads and made their decisions binding, contestable only in federal courts. In a parallel development, many railroads had acquired interests in or taken over completely coal companies to supply them with fuel at reduced prices.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) was born in New York City, graduated from Harvard University in 1880, and attended Columbia Law School. He served in the New York State Assembly from 1882 to 1884, and as president of the New York City Police Commissioners in 1895 and 1896, then as Assistant Secretary of the Navy from 1897 to 1898. After service in Cuba during the Spanish-American War, he won election as Governor of New York and served from 1899 to 1900. He ran as Vice President to William McKinley in 1900 and became President in September 1901, when McKinley was assassinated. Reelected in 1904, Roosevelt was President until 1909. A prolific author and naturalist, Roosevelt was instrumental in the Progressive movement of the early twentieth century, helped preserve the nation’s natural resources, and extended American power throughout the world with a focus on a modern navy. In 1912, he again sought the Republican nomination for President, but when the convention chose incumbent William Howard Taft, Roosevelt formed the Progressive Party and outpolled Taft in the general election. The Republican division allowed Democrat Woodrow Wilson to win the presidency.

Judson C. Clements (1846-1917) was born in Georgia, joined the Confederate army as a teenager, and was wounded at Atlanta in July 1864. After the war, he graduated from a law school in Tennessee in 1868 and began a practice in Georgia in 1869. He served in the Georgia House of Representatives (1872-1876), the Georgia State Senate (1877-1880), and the U.S. House of Representatives (1881-1891). While in the Georgia General Assembly, he helped write the state’s railroad laws. In Congress, he helped write the legislation that authorized the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). In 1892, President Benjamin Harrison appointed Clements to the ICC. Reappointed by Presidents Grover Cleveland, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson, Clements served as acting chairman when longtime chair Martin A. Knapp was unable to fulfill the duty. When Knapp resigned in December 1910, Clements became acting chair and in 1911 chairman for a one-year term. He continued serving as a commissioner until his death in June 1917. Considered a radical on the ICC, Clements pushed for real power over the railroads, which led to the passage of the Hepburn Act in June 1906 that allowed the ICC to set maximum railroad rates.

Condition: Scattered toning and foxing, heavier to the first page; staple holes to the upper left corners; very good to fine.