the United States. There has been, however, no such grant of power over the fisheries. These remain under the exclusive control of the State. * * * The right which the people of the State thus acquire comes not from their citizenship alone, but from their citizenship and property combined. It is, in fact, a property right, and not a mere privilege or immunity of citizenship."

"THE TITLE OF NEW STATES

"The title of new States admitted into the American Union since the adoption of the Constitution, to their submerged lands was recognized by our Supreme Court in 1945. In that year the Court in Pollard v. Hagan (3 How. 212), had this to say:

"By the preceding course of reasoning we have arrived at these general conclusions: First, the shores of navigable waters, and the soils under them, were not granted by the Constitution to the United States, but were reserved to the States, respectively; secondly, the new States have the same rights, sovereignty, and jurisdiction over this subject as the original States.'"

In this and many other cases, the United States Supreme Court has held over a period of many years that the various American States have owned their tidelands.

You might wonder-and for that matter, so do I-why the successor to this same Court in 1947 and again in 1950 upset the settled and accepted law of the land in the now famous California, Texas, and Louisiana tidelands cases. Apparently without rhyme or reason was this radical departure made from the sound and well-reasoned doctrine laid down by the jurisprudence and settled law of the land.

It can only be explained by the unfortunate trend in recent years toward a paternalistic, a centralized government.

STATEMENT OF ELLEN BRYAN MOORE, REGISTER OF STATE LAND OFFICE, STATE OF LOUISIANA

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my name is Ellen Bryan Moore. I am the duly elected, commissioned, and acting register of the State land office of the State of Louisiana, with official headquarters and personal domicile in the city of Baton Rouge, La.

I deeply appreciate the courtesy and privilege of making this appearance before your committee in order to express my deep concern in the legislation now pending before you.

I would like to say, first of all, that the official duties of the register of State land office in the State of Louisiana are, in general, the same as those of the commissioner of public lands in other States of the Union. Louisiana public lands, which are subject to entry and sale or other disposition, are under the control and administration of the register.

I have duties and responsibilities prescribed by statute that are broader in scope than those usually performed by land commissioners in most States; for instance, one of my official responsibilities is to collect all revenue derived from the leasing of State-owned lands in Louisiana for oil, gas, and mineral development. As a matter of fact, the State land office is the second largest revenuecollecting agency for the State of Louisiana.

Some 3 million acres of submerged coastal lands in the marginal belt of the State of Louisiana have been leased for oil, gas, and mineral development. Under State leasing in that belt, a total of 14,430,093.45 barrels of crude oil has been produced, and 46,386,661 M. c. f. of gas. I have collected on behalf of the State of Louisiana $41,989,430.89 in bonuses and royalties and $1,177,411.22 in rentals to December 1952 under State mineral leases affecting submerged coastal lands alone. Of course, I am now referring to leases that were granted before the suit of the United States against the State of Louisiana, generally known as the Louisiana Tidelands case. Since that suit was filed, various State lessees have paid to the United States, through the Secretary of the Interior, $14,372,354.02 in rentals and royalties.

In addition to lease bonuses, rentals, and royalties aforementioned received by the State prior to said suit, the State had received $3,223,321.25 in severance taxes on oil and gas recovery in the areas affected.

While it is only natural for any State official charged with the responsibility of collecting revenue for the State to be deeply concerned in the flow of income

into the treasury of the State, my interest lies deeper. It is of more importance to know where that money is going and for what purposes after it reaches the State treasury. Long since the revenue derived from oil, gas, and mineral leases in submerged coastal lands, as well as lands lying beneath inland navigable waters of the State, has been earmarked and dedicated to a material expansion in State services: the building of roads and the construction of various institutions, including charity hospitals. Of equal importance, perhaps, is the dedication of moneys derived from severance taxes. A vast portion of that revenue goes to the humanitarian program of furnishing free schoolbooks and supplies to schoolchildren.

As an official of the State of Louisiana and as a citizen of that great State, I want to see all of the great work undertaken that the revenue aforementioned serves and to prevent the stability of our State fisc from undergoing material impairment.

I am not a lawyer; in fact, I have never read the decision of the United States Supreme Court in the so-called Tidelands case that was brought against the State of Louisiana by the Federal Government. I only know that, as a result of more than 50 decisions of the very same Court in the past, the several States had every reason to believe that they were secure in their proprietary rights to all lands under navigable waters, whether inland or not, within their respective boundaries. My position is not based on legal argument but moral precepts. I feel that the States should be returned to status quo, and be secured in their property rights, which they enjoyed from the Declaration of Independence down to the time, only a few years ago, when the doctrine of "paramount rights" was held to transcend those of a mere "property owner." I think that 150 years of jurisprudence should be respected and that the history of our Nation in regard to the ownership and control of submerged lands should be given meaning and import.

Obviously the people of Louisiana, want a sound state fisc but we are vastly more concerned in the high principle which underlies our entreaty to Congress to pass legislation which would accomplish fair play and goodwill in FederalState relations.

It is manifest that our paramount objective is that of having State ownership of lands and resources restored within historic boundaries. Secondly, we desire the development of the natural resources within the Continental Shelf outside the historic boundaries of the States; and due to the fact that the State has spent many years of effort and a great amount of public funds interesting oil companies in developing such areas for oil and gas, which activities and expenditures led to discovery and production, we think that, if Congress authorizes the leasing of such lands for the development of natural resources, the State of Louisiana should obtain a substantial share in the revenue to be derived from such development program.

My position is positive and not negative. In other words, I am here to express my earnest approval of certain legislation without dealing with that legislation which I consider dangerous and inimical, not only to the State of Louisiana, but to the Nation at large. The only statement I care to make in regard to that legislation which proposes to authorize the Federal Government to lease all lands seaward of the low-water mark of the States without restoring the ownership of the states to the lands and resources within their historic boundaries, is that equity would not be done and the initiative and good faith of certain States would be destroyed.

In addition, I would like to make a few brief remarks in regard to the amendment to the last-mentioned bill in which revenue derived from Federal leases would be dedicated to national defense and security and what is left to educational purposes. I have been a schoolteacher for most of the years of my life.

I am fully conscious of the great need for an increase in educational advantages, more school facilities and higher salaries for school teachers; however, realizing as I do the great demands that exist for national defense and security, it is rather difficult for me to conceive of any appreciable revenue going to schools or for educational purposes after the demands of national defense and security are adequately served. As a matter of fact, no one can say what money, if any, would go to the schools or for educational purposes after the all-important demands of national defense and security are satisfied. This is not an idle observation. I was one of the first four women in Louisiana to enter the service of the United States Army. I served in the Women's Army Corps for a period of 4 years during World War II. I think that I am in a position to visualize to some extent, at least, the needs of national defense and security in times of emergency and particularly when we are at war.

As a former schoolteacher of many years experience and as a State official, who now views with interest, and a great measure of anxiety, the Federal aid that is given by the United States to the several States for educational purposes, I have reached the definite conclusion that the best way, if not the only way, to avoid waste and inefficiency, is that of placing the several States in position, financially and otherwise, to administer their own educational program.

My understanding is that the dispute over the ownership and control of submerged lands has been going on since 1937. Right now there is a veritable stalemate, and the needs of our people and the demands of national defense are suffering because neither the States nor the Federal Government have the right to lease and develop offshore lands for mineral development. I urge the Congress to take action as quickly as legislative processes will permit to end this debate, to restore the titles of the several States, to authorize the resumption of oil and gas activities in the marginal belts of the States, and to place the several States in the same position that they were in before this dispute arose. Such restoration would only be an exemplification of the American way of life.

STATEMENT OF HENRY D. LARCADE, JR., FORMER REPRESENTATIVE FROM LOUISIANA

Mr. LARCADE. Mr. Chairman, I represent one of the largest oil-producing districts in the State of Louisiana, and our State is the third largest oil-producing State in the United States, and aside from this fact, I am a strong believer in, supporter of States' rights, and I will defend States' rights to the last ditch. Therefore, Mr. Chairman, I am supporting, to the full limit of my capacity, legislation to confirm and establish the title of States to lands beneath navigable waters within State boundaries, and natural resources within such lands and waters, and to provide for use and control of said lands and resources.

Since the Supreme Court's decision on June 23, 1947, in the case of the United States against California, the subject and the decision covering the matter has been of great concern to the people of Louisiana and their State officials, and I share and wish to express the amazement and resentment of the people and the public officials of the State of Louisiana over this decision and the new ideology of government it would establish by enabling the Federal Government to confiscate the tidelands and submerged lands within the boundaries of our State or any State in the Union.

The State of Louisiana is not the only State affected by the decision of the Supreme Court in this matter. Practically every other State in the Union is affected by this decision, and in order to preserve to my State and all other States title to tidelands and lands beneath the navigable waters within their boundaries, I strongly urge my colleagues to vote for the enactment of such legislation. Mr. Chairman, I would go further and say that I urge the defeat of any legislation which would divest the States, parishes, counties, or cities of title to and ownership of their lands and natural resources, without compensation, and vest same in the Federal Government or any agency thereof in any capacity.

It is the first United States decision holding that any private or governmental agency has the right to take property and resources beneath the soil without lease or fee ownership or without compensation to the true owner.

It is also the first decision in America holding that the Federal Government's responsibility to protect the shores can give it rights heretofore identified with the ownership of shores.

Since the Declaration of Independence, both State and Federal Governments had recognized that the ownership vested in the States of all submerged lands within their respective boundaries. Throughout these years legal background was established, and precedent-bulwarked by 244 Federal and State court decisions, 49 United States Attorney General opinions, 32 Department of Interior opinions, and 52 Supreme Court decisions-became so firmly established that State ownership of these lands became recognized as invulnerable to successful attack.

Under these circumstances, Louisiana felt certain and secure in our title to our submerged land and all public lands, for revenues amounting to approximately $60,000,000 has been dedicated and appropriated largely for school purposes. The loss of this continued revenue would seriously affect the economy and tax structure of our State.

All of the tidelands States, since their entry into the Union, have had and exercised their proprietary rights in these submerged lands.

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While the Supreme Court denies proprietary rights in these lands to California, it is significant that the Court failed to find that the Federal Government owned the property.

It stated:

"The crucial question on the merits is not merely who owns the bare legal title to the land under the marginal seas. The United States here asserts rights in two capacities transcending those of a mere property owner."

These rights asserted by the Supreme Court are, first, the right and responsibility of the Federal Government to conduct the national defense of this country, and, second, the right and responsibility of the Federal Government to conduct the relations of the United States with other nations.

In this decision the Supreme Court has announced Federal powers which the Congress has refused or failed to convey. Twice the Congress refused to grant specific authority for the Attorney General to sue California for these lands. The Eightieth Congress passed a resolution recognizing State ownership and quitclaiming to the States, only to have it vetoed by the President.

President Truman vetoed the legislation for the alleged reason that the question of ownership was then before the Supreme Court to decide. Now that the Supreme Court's decision has evaded and transcended the question of legal ownership, it is now logical and proper for the President to vouchsafe to the Congress the consideration and determination of the question of ownership.

The Supreme Court's decision and the purport and effect of the so-called administration and Cabinet bills to effectuate it proclaims a new ideology of government in America. This decision and the bills referred to establish a national policy of the Federal Government having paramount rights and dominion over oil, one of the vital natural resources. It would establish a policy and a precedent of nationalization of vital resources. It would further unbalance the Federal-States powers and relationships which were well balanced and defined by the Constitution of the United States. If we are to maintain our form of government in the United States, we cannot afford to take this step toward nationalization and further centralization of power in our Federal Government. The power and duty of the Congress is crystal clear in its decision of this question. This will not be the first time that the Congress will have found it necessary to nullify decisions of the Supreme Court which result in legislation rather than judicial interpretation and decision. Justice Reed, in dissenting from the Supreme Court decision in the California case, said:

"This ownership in California would not interfere in any way with the need or rights of the United States in war or peace. The power of the United States is plenary over these underseas lands precisely as it is over every river, farm, mine, and factory of the Nation. While no square ruling of this Court has determined the ownership of these lands, to me the tone of the decision dealing with similar problems indicates that without discussion State ownership has been assumed.” Some of the more than 54 decisions handed down by the United States Supreme Court in the past 100 years and more have finally held as follows:

In the case of Martin v. Waddell (16 Peters 410), the United States Supreme Court, in 1842, held:

"For when the Revolution took place, the people of each State became themselves sovereign, and in that character held the absolute right to all their navigable waters and the soils under them for their own common use, subject only to the rights since surrendered by the Constitution to the General Government."

Again, in 1845, the United States Supreme Court held in the case of Pollard v. Hagan (3 How. 223):

"When Alabama was admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original States, she succeeded to all the rights of sovereignty, jurisdiction, and eminent domain which Georgia possessed at the date of the cession, except so far as this right was diminished by the public lands remaining in the possession and under the control of the United States, for the temporary purposes provided for in the deed of cession and the legislative acts connected with it. Nothing remains to the United States, according to the terms of the agreement, but the public lands; and if an express stipulation had been inserted in the agreement granting the municipal right of sovereignty and eminent domain to the United States, such stipulation would have been void and inoperative because the United States has no constitutional capacity to exercise municipal jurisdiction, sovereignty, or eminent domain within the limits of a State or elsewhere, except in the cases in which it is expressly granted.

"The right of Alabama and every other new State to exercise all the powers of government which belong to and may be exercised by the original States of the Union must be admitted, and remain unquestioned, except so far as they are temporarily deprived of control over the public lands. (Such waste and unappropriated lands ceded to the United States under the old Congress of September 6, 1780, to aid in paying the public deft incurred by the War of the Revolution, providing that 'whenever the United States shall have fully executed these trusts, the municipal sovereignty of the new States will be complete, throughout their respective borders, and they, and the original States, will be upon an equal footing in all respects whatever.')"

The above case was affirmed in 1850 in Goodtitle v. Kibbe (9 How. 478). In McCready v. Virginia (94 U. S. 391, in 1876), the United States Supreme Court again decided:

***

"The principle has long been settled in this Court that each State owns the beds of all tidewaters within its jurisdiction, unless they have been granted away. And, in like manner, the States own the tidewaters themselves and the fish in them so far as they are capable of ownership while running. For this purpose the State represents its people and the ownership is that of the people in their united sovereignty. *** The right which the people of the State thus acquired comes not from their citizenship, alone, but from their citizenship and property combined. It is in fact a property right and not a mere privilege or immunity of citizenship."

Citing the elder cases of Pollard v. Hagan (3 How. 212); Smith v. Maryland (18 How. 74); Mumford v. Wardwell (6 Wall. 436); Weber v. Harbor Comrs. (18 Wall. 66).

In the Abby Dodge case decided in 1912, reported in 223 United States 166, the United States Supreme Court held that the State of Florida owned the soil and the sponge beds in the water bottoms of the Gulf of Mexico within the boundary of the State of Florida.

It is unnecessary to cite from the numerous decisions of the United States Supreme Court sustaining the same principle of ownership of submerged lands within their borders by the various States of the Union. These are covered fully in a memorandum filed by the attorney general of Louisiana and various others. But here let me cite only some of the United States Supreme Court decisions relative to the ownership of the State of California by virtue of its inherent sovereignty, as granted and recognized by the act of Congress admitting California as a State into the Union, which at this late date the Secretary of the Interior would deny, and the recent decision of October 1946 confounds with the Federal Government's paramount power and dominion.

In 1873 the United States Supreme Court again held in the case of Weber v. Harbor Comrs. (18 Wall. 57):

"Upon the admission of California into the Union upon equal footing with the original States absolute property in, and domination and sovereignty over, all soil under the tidewaters within her limits passed to the State, and with the consequent right to dispose of the title to any part of said soils in such manner as she might deem proper, subject only to the paramount right of navigation over the waters, so far as such navigation might be required by the necessities of commerce with foreign nations or among the several States, the regulation of which was vested in the General Government."

In 1867, in Mumford v. Wardwell (6 Wall. 423, 436), the United States Supreme Court again held that when California was admitted into the Union in 1850, the act of Congress admitting her declares that she is so admitted on an equal footing in all respects, with the original States and that

"The settled rule of law in this Court is, that the shores of navigable waters and the soils under the same in the original States were not granted by the Constitution to the United States, but were reserved to the several States and that the new States since admitted have the same rights, sovereignty, and jurisdiction in that behalf as the original States possess within their respective borders. "When the Revolution took place the people of each State became themselves sovereign and in that character held the absolute right to their navigable waters and the soils under them, subject only to the rights since surrendered by the Constitution.

"Necessary conclusion is that the ownership of the lot in question (flat in San Francisco Bay), when the State was admitted into the Union, became vested in the State as the absolute owners, subject only to the paramount right of navigation."