Cite as: 510 U. S. 399 (1994)
Blackmun, J., dissenting
ment and entry, and for disposing of the same shall be as follows: That the said unallotted lands . . . shall be disposed of under the general provisions of the homestead and town site laws of the United States" (emphasis added).
No subsequent attempt was made to reintroduce the public domain language into the Senate bills. When the House and Senate bills were submitted to the Conference Committee, the Committee again struck the House version containing the public domain language and replaced it with the Senate bill. See 39 Cong. Rec. 3919 (1905). Congress adopted this conference bill as the 1905 Act.
The legislative history thus demonstrates that Congress both removed the public domain language from the 1905 Act and restricted entry to the homestead and townsite laws. Although the Court attempts to dismiss the altered language of the 1905 Act as evidence that "Congress wanted to limit land speculation," ante, at 419, this reasoning explains only the presence of the homestead and townsite limitation; it does not explain Congress' simultaneous deletion of the public domain language. We do not know why this latter change was made. Possibly Congress thought the language had no substantive meaning at all; possibly the deletion was a response to the Indians' continued withholding of consent, or it is possible that opening lands under the homestead and townsite laws was incompatible with their restoration to the public domain and thus to sale "under general laws." See Newhall v. Sanger, 92 U. S., at 763. We do know, however, that we must construe doubt regarding Congress' intent to the Indians' benefit when we are left, as we are here, without the "clear statement of congressional intent to alter reservation boundaries," necessary for a finding of diminishment. Solem, 465 U. S., at 478.
President Theodore Roosevelt's Proclamation shed no competing light on Congress' intent, but simply summarized the language of the allotment statutes. The operative portion
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