By joint resolution (5 U. S. Statutes at Large 797) the Congress of the United States on March 1, 1845, proposed to the Republic of Texas that it be admitted as a State of the Union said resolution providing, among other things, that "Congress doth consent that the territory properly included within, and rightfully belonging to the Republic of Texas, may be erected into a new State, to be called the State of Texas," and further providing that Texas should “retain all vacant and unappropriated lands lying within its limits." In reply to that resolution, the Ninth Congress of the Republic of Texas, on June 23, 1845, passed a joint resolution agreeing to the terms proposed by the United States (Gammel's Laws 1200). This action of the Texas Congress was ratified by popular vote of the people of Texas. Texas was then admitted to the Union by joint resolution of Congress passed December 29, 1845, with its public lands retained and with all the guaranties provided for in the original offer of Congress (9 U. S. Statutes at Large 108).

By a joint resolution passed April 29, 1846, the First Legislature of the State of Texas declared, "That the exclusive right to the jurisdiction over the soil included in the limits of the late Republic of Texas was acquired by the valor of the people thereof, and was by them vested in the Government of said Republic; that such exclusive right is now vested in and belongs to the State (acts of the 1st Legislature 1846, p. 155).

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As shown above, the Republic of Texas succeeded to all of the rights of ownership held by Mexico. The State of Texas upon entering the Union reserved as a part of the annexation agreement all the rights of ownership formerly held by the Republic except the powers of regulation and control for the purposes of commerce, navigation, and the national defense. Does the United States have any more right to expropriate the title of the State of Texas to the property under discussion than she does to expropriate the title of Mexico to her submerged lands? If Texas had remained outside the Union as a sovereign nation, could the United States now move to take over her submerged lands because they had become valuable because of oil discoveries? The title of the State of Texas is just as sound as that of Mexico since it comes from the same source. The Republic of Texas took Mexico's title to these lands by conquest and the State of Texas has never relinquished the same title.

It would indeed be unfortunate for the United States through some of its departments to repudiate a contract made with a sovereign independent nation as part of an annexation agreement at this time when so much is being done to promote peace by free agreements between nations. The Congress should see to it that this contract is not violated by passing one of the resolutions now before this committee.

In order to bring home the utter fantasy of the claims of the Department of the Interior, the committee should ponder the answers to the following questions: (1) Will Mr. Ickes if he is successful require Texas to deliver up all bonus money it has received for leases and all royalty it has received.

(2) Will the lessees of the State be paid for the property they would lose?

(3) All of the other public lands of Texas, including the endowment of the University of Texas, and A. and M. College, are held under the same title as the tidewater submerged lands and beds of navigable streams and lakes. What is to keep Mr. Ickes from next issuing leases on oil lands belonging to the University of Texas? If his theory is sound as against one part of the public lands reserved by the States, would it not apply to the balance?

(4) If this property is taken away from the permanent free school fund, will it be compensated therefor, or will the taxpayers of Texas be called upon to replace the endowment out of higher taxes?

The people of the State of Texas are looking to the Congress to put an end to this speculation as to the ownership of Texas public lands by the passage of one of the resolutions now under consideration.

In the official capacity of Commissioner of the General Land Office of the State of Texas and as the official custodian of the property of the children now attending the public schools of this State and those future generations for whom the permanent free school fund is dedicated, I respectfully urge that this committee report one of the resolutions under consideration favorably. Respectfully submitted.,

BASCOM GILES,

Commissioner of the General Land Office
of the State of Texas.

Mr. CLARY. The next witness is Deputy Attorney General Hammond, of the State of Maryland.

STATEMENT OF MR. HALL HAMMOND, DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL, STATE OF MARYLAND

Mr. HAMMOND. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, the State of Maryland has a vital interest in this matter and is heartily in favor of the passage of the resolution or a similar one.

Maryland is one of the smaller States, but it so happens it has a larger river frontage than any State in the Union. It also encompasses a large part of the Chesapeake Bay; also has an ocean frontage of approximately 32 miles in Worcester County; it has informally agreed recently to lease some 82,000 acres of land in that county, including submerged land, to a distance of a half mile from the shore, to a large oil company, and at a stipulated rental of 25 cents an acre, with royalty rights if oil is discovered, and in the proposed lease the company must drill wells within a certain time.

Furthermore, under the Chesapeake Bay, of course, are found oysters. The State of Maryland has 2,400 square miles of submerged land, some 1,600,000 acres; it has approximately 274,000 acres of oyster beds, all owned by the State, some leased, some publicly operated, and they produced 2,500,000 bushels last year of oysters, with a market value of over $12,000,000. The State derives a substantial benefit from those oyster lands, which would be threatened if title were asserted by the Federal Government.

Mr. RODSION. The State of Maryland leases the right to develop these oyster beds and maintain them?

Mr. HAMMOND. That is right; a certain number are operated as public beds, and a certain number leased to private individuals under State supervision.

The State also has extensive holdings in western Maryland, which it has acquired and uses for forests and parks, and it leases mineral rights, coal rights, fireclay rights, in those lands. If the Federal Government can assert title to the submerged lands, it can just as easily, it seems to us, assert title to any other land which a State owns. In other words, the picture from the State of Maryland's point of view is that we have a substantial interest in our submerged lands, because the larger portion of our area is under water, and affords a livelihood and great profit to the State and its citizens; and, second, we feel that from a legal point of view, our title has been unchallenged ever since the Revolution, since we have been a State, and it is existing and valid, and that any attempt to impair it should be stopped in the manner proposed here.

Mr. LEWIS. Your title goes back to the Crown of England, granted to Lord Baltimore.

Mr. HAMMOND. In 1682.

The CHAIRMAN. We are very much obliged to you.

Mr. HAMMOND. May I add just one word more; the city solicitor of Baltimore has filed with the chairman a letter setting forth the interest of Baltimore in its ports. There are 40 miles of deep-water frontage, and hundreds of millions of dollars of improvements.

Mr. CLARY. Mr. Eldridge, port manager of the port of Los Angeles is the next witness.

STATEMENT OF ARTHUR ELDRIDGE, HARBOR COMMISSIONER, LOS ANGELES, CALIF.

Mr. ELDRIDGE. Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee, my remarks will be extremely brief, and I would like the privilege of showing to each of you, before I start, this map, which shows the present Los Angeles area and the proposed development. That will give you an idea how mighty important the tide lands are to us, and it will help you to follow the few statistics I am quoting in the report.

The left-hand portion of the map before you shows the present development of Los Angeles Harbor, and your attention is respectfully invited to the dark marks which indicate the terminals that are now constructed, and the light areas are the open wharves for oil and lumber, and on the right-hand side of the page is the proposed future development and construction of this facility.

The citizens and officials of the city of Los Angeles have become greatly concerned in the past few years by the oft-implied view of various officialdom in Washington that the Federal Government and not the States and their grantees own the tidelands within their borders. This concern has materially increased by the recent action of the Attorney General of the United States in the filing of an action affecting mineral rights in tidelands in Santa Barbara County, Calif., and by press dispatches that the Secretary of the Department of the Interior intends to grant oil and gas leases covering areas off the cost of California. This concern is rightfully justified, for the citizens of California have invested millions of tax dollars in the development on State-granted tidelands of one of the finest man-made harbors in the world, not to serve the residents and industries of Los Angeles alone, but to provide for the needs of the entire Southwest.

While action or proposed action of the Government relating to oil is mentioned as arousing the present uneasiness, I cannot too strongly emphasize that the interest of Los Angeles is primarily one of developing just as rapidly as conditions warrant a harbor to serve all commerce needs.

It is true that a portion of our harbor revenues is received from oil royalties, but such receipts are secondary indeed, amounting to less than 6 percent of the total.

Commerce ever has been and ever will be paramount with us.

Some 40 years ago what is now the port of Los Angeles was little more than mud flats. The metropolitan area of Los Angeles being 25 miles from the water front and the southerly boundary of the city some 15 miles away. In August of 1909 the former cities of Wilmington and San Pedro, water-front communities much too small in population and wealth to themselves provide the funds for constructing a deep-water harbor, consolidated with the city of Los Angeles-the city of Los Angeles having agreed prior to consolidation to expend $10,000,000 to develop a harbor at San Pedro and Wilmington. On May 1, 1911, the State of California, through appropriate act of its legislative bodies, granted to the city of Los Angeles all its sovereign rights in tidelands within the corporate limits of the city of Los Angeles.

The first bond issue voted by the citizens of Los Angeles for the development of the harbor was for the sum of $3,000,000, issued in June 1911. During the next 12 years additional issues were approved,

so that in all the total of $29,900,000 has been invested from bond funds in creating the present Los Angeles Harbor, and of this sum there is outstanding unmatured as of this date, $12,480,000. The taxpayers of Los Angeles have through tax levies for that specific purpose paid approximately $22,000,000 for interest and retirement on harbor bonds.

We have today a harbor which can berth 30 large-type oceangoing cargo-passenger ships at shedded terminals, and in addition thereto serve 15 large oil tankers and several lumber schooners at one and the same time. All of these terminals, gentlemen, have been constructed on tidelands. Hundreds of acres of tidelands have been leased to shipbuilding companies, fish canneries, lumber and oil companies, and other concerns on long-term leases, and additional millions have been invested by them in the development of their plants.

The city of Los Angeles has for years been a rapidly expanding community with constant increase in population and industry. In 1910, Los Angeles had a population of 319,000; in 1930, 1,233,000; and it is presently estimated that our population now exceeds 1,800,000, ranking us the fourth largest city in the United States. In industry we have advanced from twenty-third place in 1910 to fifth place just prior to the war. Much of this growth has resulted from harbor development. Today we are reportedly the second in war production.

To maintain pace with this rapid population and industrial growth, it will be necessary in the immediate postwar era to spend many millions of dollars more for new harbor improvements, and our ultimate development plans involve an expenditure far in excess of $150,000,000. These future improvements will, of necessity, also be built on tidelands, and if there should exist any uncertainty in the minds of the voters as to the title to the lands involved; it is extremely doubtful that future bonds requiring a two-thirds favorable vote of the electorate would be authorized, for bear in mind the bonds issued are general-obligation bonds of the city, and not revenue bonds issued against the improvements only.

We strongly urge your support of the joint resolution now before you to vest beyond a question of doubt the title of tidelands in the respective States and their grantees.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Eldridge, there wouldn't be any chance of Los Angeles trying to get a little free advertising, would there?

Mr. ELDRIDGE. No, I don't think so; we are just trying to give you the picture.

Mr. CLARY. The next is Mr. Claude Rankin, State land commissioner of Arkansas.

STATEMENT OF CLAUDE A. RANKIN, STATE LAND COMMISSIONER, FOR ARKANSAS

Mr. RANKIN. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I appear for the Governor of Arkansas, and the attorney general, Guy E. Williams, and the Honorable Otho Cook, commissioner of revenue, and myself as commissioner of State lands, and on behalf of the entire citizenship of the State of Arkansas, to urge the adoption of this resolution by the National Congress.

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I didn't know until just a short time before I left that I would be able to attend this hearing, and therefore I did not prepare any brief to file with this committee, but if you will bear with me just a moment, I think I could give you a picture of the situation as it applies to the State of Arkansas.

I endorse what has been said, more particularly by the Honorable Bascom Giles, commissioner of the General Land Office of the State of Texas, and a great many of the problems that confront the State of Texas are similar to those that confront the State of Arkansas.

We have quite a number of navigable rivers, and numerous navigable lakes in the southern part of the State, and while we have executed a great many leases for the purpose of the development of coal, oil, and gas, yet we have no production so far as the beds of these navigable streams are concerned, but we do have a number of oil fields located near the navigable streams, and they are planning now, a number of different companies, to invest a considerable sum of money in the development of the beds of these navigable streams, and we have a large number of active leases now on which development is proposed to be done.

The only revenue the State of Arkansas has ever received from the lease of its navigable stream beds to this time is in the way of sand and gravel leases, from which there is a considerable income to the State. Since the year 1917 the State has had a policy of leasing the beds of its navigable streams for the recovery of sand and gravel; and within the last 3, 4, or 5 years, leases have been executed on the beds in the Arkansas in the western part of the State for the development of coal mines, and we have some leases on the bed of the Little Missouri River, near Murfreesboro, Ark., the location of the "Arkansas diamond mines," and in the eastern part of the State, quite a number of leases have been executed on the beds of the White and Cash Rivers, looking to the development of their oil and gas possibilities.

This, in a general way, presents the picture to you, gentlemen, so far as the State of Arkansas is concerned. Practically 400 square miles of the area of the State, consisting of a little more than 53,000 acres, consists of submerged lands beneath the beds of its navigable rivers and lakes; approximately one sixty-fourth the area of the State, and were the purposes of the Federal Government carried out with reference to the issuance of leases, the State of Arkansas stands to lose a considerable sum, if the potentialities of the coal, oil, and gas possibilities are such as we in Arkansas believe, and as a number of the companies that are seeking to develop those possibilities believe, and the entire State of Arkansas is in hearty accord with the purpose of this amendment and in behalf of the constitutional officers of the State and the citizenship of the State, I want to urge upon you gentlemen the necessity of its adoption as far as Arkansas is concerned. I thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

Mr. CLARY. Mr. Underwood, of the State of Washington.

STATEMENT OF J. J. UNDERWOOD, REPRESENTING THE SEATTLE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

Mr. UNDERWOOD. Mr. Chairman, my name is Jack Underwood; I represent the Seattle Chamber of Commerce, the port of Seattle, and the port of Tacoma.