or safeguarding
the settlers' holdings against speculation, for the selling, leasing, or
mortgaging of the land by settlers requires the approval of the
Secretary of the Interior. The bill requires that the Interior
Department, through its Reclamation Service, acquire and improve lands,
colonize them, and make loans to settlers. It would seem a more
efficient plan to make a division of these various duties. The
Reclamation Service should acquire and improve lands for settlement,
while the colonization work and the extension of loans to settlers would
be made the duties of other public authorities, as pointed out below.

House Bill No. 3274, introduced by Representative Knutson, May 27, 1919,
proposes to create, in the Treasury Department, a National Colonization
Board with local colonization commissions, for the purpose of providing
capital for the development by land colonization of the agricultural
resources of the nation, affording certain privileges to soldier
settlers. The commissions approve and charter private colonization
companies and recommend applications for loans after seeing all the
provisions of the act have been complied with. The commissions are to
include the directors of the district land bank.

The main aim of the bill is to standardize private land colonization
companies to a certain degree, to facilitate the extension of credit to
them, and to make loans to soldier settlers. The Knutson bill in meeting
these needs is a comprehensive one. It deserves the closest attention of
Congress. Would it not be advisable, however, to attach the
administrative machinery for credit extension outlined in the bill to a
division to be created in the Farm Loan Board, with separate
colonization credit funds, and to leave the regulation and licensing of
the private colonization companies to a separate body as outlined below?

Senator Thomas J. Walsh of Montana introduced in the Senate, August 20,
1917, a bill (S. 2812) which was passed by both Houses and reported from
conference for passage in February, 1919. The bill provides for the sale or
lease of coal, oil, and other mineral lands on the public domain. The
leasing clause of the bill is weakened by the provision, "unless previously
entered under Section 2 of this act." The public coal lands would be
"entered," sold into private ownership, which means the loss of public
control over these lands and the methods of their exploitation. However,
the bill if passed wo