United States Bureau of Mines

“ The United States Government has no police power within the States, and it is not within its province to enact or enforce rules or laws, or even to make police inspection regarding the methods of operating mining properties. The province of the mine accidents investigations and that of its successor, the Bureau of Mines, is, within the States, like that of other and similar Government bureaus in the Interior Department, the Department of Agriculture, and other Federal departments, merely to investigate and disseminate information. ”

“ It is true that the regulations for the operations of the mines issued by the Coal Mines Administrator provide for the retention of the private managers to assist in the realization of the objects of Government seizure and operation. ”

“ In several countries state ownership of coal mines is established; as, for example, in parts of Prussia, Australia, Chile and Bulgaria. In others the undeveloped coal lands are still largely owned by the government, as in Alaska and the western United States. In some countries the government retains control of all mineral rights, simply leasing the property and granting a mining concession. Many governments have a department or administration of mines. In every country, of course, in an emergency, the sovereign state would exercise control of coal resources as fully as was necessary. ”

“ The lead-ore deposits in the United States have large possibilities, but with the exception of the disseminated lead deposits of southeastern Missouri the developed ore reserves will supply production for only a few years. Control of the mines in the United States is vested almost exclusively in Americans or American companies, some of the latter, however, having foreign stockholders, chiefly British or Canadian. ”

“ I do not favor Government ownership or operation of coal mines. The need is for action under private ownership that will secure greater continuity of production and greater public protection. The Federal Government probably has no peacetime authority to regulate wages, prices, or profits in coal at the mines or among dealers, but by ascertaining and publishing facts it can exercise great influence. ”

“ All that the Government sought was the cessation of the consumption of mining equipment and manpower in the gold mines and the conservation of such equipment and manpower for more essential was uses. The Government had no need for the gold or the gold mines. The mere fact that L-208 was in the form of an express prohibition of the operation of the mines, rather than a prohibition of the use of the scarce equipment in the mines, did not convert the order into a 'taking' of a right to operate the mines. ”

“ AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS Section 5 of act Dec. 18, 1942, provided that: "In order to carry out the purposes of this Act [sections 13 to 16 of this title] there is authorized to be appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, the sum of (a) $450,000 for the erection and equipment of a building or buildings, including plumbing, lighting, heating, general service, and experimental equipment and apparatus, the necessary roads, walks, and ground improvement, and land for the site of the building if no land is donated ”

“ The land containing lead mines, in the districts made by the act of 1834, are not subject to pre-emption and sale under any of the existing acts of Congress. Ibid.
Digging lead ore from the lead mines upon the public land of the United States, is such a waste as entitles the United States to a writ of injunction to restrain it. ”

“ In Alaska the production was mainly from the Fairbanks district, the ore being shipped to Los Angeles and Seattle for smelting.
The ownership of mines within the United States does not play an important part in the present control of the world’s resources, inasmuch as production under normal conditions is insignificant. It is possible that with the development of new uses for antimony, and a greater demand for that metal, the reserves in this country may become of commercial importance.
About 40 per cent. of the Mexican antimony output is controlled in the United States. ”

“ The mining engineering field force of the Geological Survey, at the head of which is Mr. George S. Rice, an experienced mining and consulting engineer, has already made great progress in the study of underground mining conditions and methods. Nearly all the more dangerous coal mines in the United States have been examined; samples of gas, coal, and dust have been taken and analyzed at the chemical laboratories at Pittsburg; extended tests have been made as to the explosibility of various mixtures of gas and air; as to the explosibility of dust from various typical coals ”

“ The tract was within a half mile in each of three directions from lands here in controversy.
As indicative of the weight and importance which men having a practical knowledge of coal mining attached to the outcrop at the time, the government proved by an experienced mine foreman, who had been in charge of large mines, known as the Cumberland, adjacent to a portion of the lands in controversy, that those mines were opened in 1900 by reason of what was found on the outcrop ”

“ Probably in no other mines in the world does massive machinery play so great a part in mining operations and hand labor so little. Work in the Mesabi Range began in 1892, and the output grew rapidly until 1901, when it amounted to 9,303,541 long tons. The Southern iron region shares with the Northern Appalachian region in the advantage of having coal and limestone, two essentials in the reduction of the ore and found in close proximity to the ore itself. The South has the additional advantage of cheap labor, but it is under the disadvantage of having a limited local market. ”

“ Chief Justice VINSON delivered the opinion of the Court.
In October, 1946, the United States was in possession of, and operating, the major portion of the country's bituminous coal mines. [1]
Terms and conditions of employment were controlled 'for the period of Government possession' by an agreement [2] entered into on May 29, 1946, between Secretary of Interior Krug, as Coal Mines Administrator, and John L. Lewis, as President of the United Mine Workers of America. [3] The Krug-Lewis agreement embodied far reaching changes favorable to the miners ”

“ Machinery is usually purchased at centres of mining supplies and manufactures. San Francisco, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Denver and Chicago are the principal rendezvous in the West for mining men in need of machinery. Mexico City is, similarly, the outfitting point for the mines of southern Mexico. The United States holds the supremacy of the world in the matter of equipping mines and mills, large orders of American-made [90] mining machinery being shipped to even the antipodes. ”

“ Yet it has forged its way in unmistakable terms of progress and there was an insistent demand, among those men particularly interested in the welfare of mining, for the protection and the assistance which would and has now come through the establishment of a governmental department. Various states have long recognized the importance of the mining industry by the establishment of departments. The Canadian and Mexican governments maintain very creditable Departments of Mines. ”

“ These orders prevented the mines operated by respondents from acquiring new machinery or supplies so that, by March of 1942, respondents were reduced to using only the machinery and supplies which they had on hand.
Soon thereafter, a severe shortage of skilled labor developed in the nonferrous metal mines. This was due in part to the expanding need for nonferrous metals, and in part to a depletion of mining manpower as a result of the military draft and the attraction of higher wages paid by other industries. ”

“ At the close of the war, the Contracting Powers undertake to do their utmost to remove the mines which they have laid, each Power removing its own mines.
As regards anchored automatic contact mines laid by one of the belligerents off the coast of the other, their position must be notified to the other party by the Power which laid them, and each Power must proceed with the least possible delay to remove the mines in its own waters. ”

“ We do not find convincing the contention of the defendants that in seizing and operating the coal mines the Government was not exercising a sovereign function and that, hence, this is not a situation which can be excluded from the terms of the Norris-LaGuardia Act. In the Executive Order which directed the seizure of the mines, the President found and proclaimed that 'the coal produced by such mines is required for the war effort and is indispensable for the continued operation of the national economy during the transition from war to peace ”

“ The remarkable mines being developed in the Cœur d’Alene, Okanagan, Colville, Pine Creek, Cracker Creek and other districts, have placed this region in the front rank of mining interests in the United States, and point to a future of unbroken prosperity for many years. At some point so situated as to reach each of these districts with almost equal facility, and where all the essentials for the reduction of ores, such as coal, iron, wood, limestone, etc., exist or can be cheaply procured, will be established immense reduction works. ”

“ The next provides that all valuable mineral deposits in government lands shall be free and open to exploration and purchase, and the lands in which they are found to occupation and purchase. In the next it is declared that no location of a mining claim shall be made until the discovery of the vein or lode within the limits of the claim. The whole scope of the chapter is the acquisition of title from the United States to mines and mineral lands, the discovery of the mineral being, as stated, the initial fact. Without that no rights can be acquired. ”

“ Our Bureau of Mines ought to be equipped and empowered to render even more effectual service than it renders now in improving the conditions of mine labor and making the mines more economically productive as well as more safe. ”

“ The question intended to be raised in this case is, whether the grants made by the United States of placer mines, as such, involve the right to discharge the refuse earth and gravel produced by working said mines, called 'tailings,' into the neighboring streams, in this case Bear River, inasmuch as the mines cannot be worked except by means of a discharge of the streams of water loaded with such refuse. This question depends upon the construction of the titles given by the United States. ”

“ The Marquette iron range in northern Michigan, the Gogebic in Wisconsin and Michigan, the Menominee near Marquette, the Vermilion Lake and Mesabec ore-beds near Duluth,—all these combined to yield millions of tons of ore, caused the development of numerous mining towns and laid the foundations of a gigantic expansion in the production of steel. As the iron and steel industry with its furnaces, machinery and skilled labor was already established at points in Illinois, Ohio and western Pennsylvania, it was cheaper to transport the ore to these places than to transfer the industry to the mines. ”

“ The business of smelting is a part of the operation of mining, although it may be a distinct branch from that of digging the ore; but the law ought not to be so construed as to require the whole operation to be embraced in the same contract. They are different operations, requiring different qualifications, and distinct regulations. This contract is for the possession of land. The work is to be performed at the United States' lead mines, and must of course be performed within the limits prescribed by law to be attached to such mines. ”

“ More than fifteen thousand men find employment in this weird city. Day after day the brave miners go down into the mines, never sure that they will see the sunlight again, for many are the perils of mining. Who has not read of the terrible disasters caused by suffocation from fire damp, by flood, the falling of walls, or the explosion of coal dust? Small particles of coal dust are constantly floating in the mines, and much is stirred up by the cars used to carry the coal to the outside world. ”

“ In strictly accurate phrase, it is the prospect which is found, and the mine which is made and investment cannot properly begin until a body of ore has been blocked out in a proved prospect. Add to the glamor of risk the haze of fraud, and the foregoing will show the nebulous condition of mining investments in relation to mining laws in America to-day.
What we really need is a Bureau of Mines at Washington. Nobody protects the mining investor. Nobody guards the widest open gate into the savings deposits of this country. ”

“ It integrated all the elements of the industry—ore deposits, coal mines, limestone, a thousand miles of railroads, ore vessels on the Great Lakes, furnaces, steel works, rolling mills and other related interests. The value of the tangible property which was thus brought under the control of a single group of men was estimated by the United States Commissioner of Corporations at about $700,000,000. ”