In the case of Wilbur, Secretary of the Interior v. United States ex rel. Chestatee Pyrites & Chemical Corp., 1932, the Supreme Court ruled on a dispute over mining rights in Georgia's Chattahoochee National Forest. The Chestatee Pyrites and Chemical Corporation had been granted mineral rights by local authorities but these were subsequently revoked by then-Secretary of the Interior Ray Lyman Wilbur who argued that only federal authorities could grant such permissions under provisions set out in an Act passed in 1897 to regulate land use within national forests. The court sided with Wilbur, ruling that while states have jurisdiction over property within their borders, this does not extend to federally-owned lands like national forests where authority rests solely with Congress and its designated representatives - in this case, Secretary Wilbur.

In the dissenting opinion for Wilbur, Secretary of the Interior v. United States ex rel. Chestatee Pyrites & Chemical Corp., Justice Stone argued that the majority's decision to uphold a lower court ruling allowing mining companies to extract minerals from public lands without paying royalties was incorrect. He believed it contradicted previous Supreme Court rulings and federal laws governing mineral rights on public lands. According to him, these laws were designed specifically to prevent private entities from exploiting public resources without compensating the government appropriately. Furthermore, he contended that by interpreting these statutes as permitting such exploitation, the majority had effectively rewritten them in favor of private interests at expense of taxpayers who own those resources collectively through their government.