William Howard Taft: Special Message

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Special Message
June 21, 1910

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To the Senate and House of Representatives:

There are, perhaps, no questions in which the public has more acute interest than those relating to the disposition of the public domain. I am just in receipt from the Secretary of the Interior of recommendation that in disposition of important legal questions which he is called upon to decide relating to the public lands, an appeal be authorized from his decision to the court of appeals for the District of Columbia.

I fully indorse the views of the Secretary in this particular, which are set forth in his letter, transmitted herewith, and urge upon the Congress an early consideration of the subject.

WILLIAM H. TAFT

Note: The Secretary of the Interior recommended that legislation be acted providing for appeal to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia from departmental decisions on cases involving property rights connected with the public domain, just as, under existing law, appeal may be had from decisions by the Patent Commissioner and by the Board of Customs Appraisers, respectively, to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and to the United States Circuit Courts. Under the proposed legislation, the Interior Department, in anticipation of submission to the Court, would prepare and compile separately its findings of fact and conclusions of law. The Secretary believed that such legislation would soon produce a system of decisions by a court of recognized standing which would reduce the number and expedite the determination of controversies involving legal questions previously decided by the court.

Citation: John T. Woolley and Gerhard Peters, The American Presidency Project [online]. Santa Barbara, CA. Available from World Wide Web: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=68508.

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