Theodore Roosevelt

TLS as president, two pages, 8 x 10.25, White House letterhead, October 13, 1906. Letter to Judson C. Clements, Acting Chairman of the Interstate Commerce Commission, in full: "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 If therefore, the public lands in that region are permanently withdrawn from private entry the effect is to intensify and perpetuate the very monopoly which these railroads have created.'I am inclined cordially to agree with the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." In very good to fine condition, with scattered toning and foxing, heavier to the first page, and staple holes to the upper left corners. In June of 1906, after a series of Antitrust suits that successfully dissolved the railroad industry's monopolizing Northern Securities Company, Roosevelt passed the Hepburn Act which gave the Interstate Commerce Commission great control over the nation's railways: it made their orders binding, contestable only in federal court, and allowed them to set maximum rates for railways. In this letter to ICC Chairman Judson C. Clemens, Roosevelt stands behind this piece of legislation, writing, "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." He also asserts the nation must maintain control of its coal lands, an increasingly valuable resource in the railway age. Decisive and clear, this letter is a wonderful example of the directness for which Roosevelt was known.

Format: TLS