that, in the process of creating the reservations, certain agricultural lands are perforce included which should be open to the homesteader, and to obviate this defect supplies a new legal mechanism whereby they may be definitely segregated from all lands that are properly required for the forest, and then entered under the homestead law by metes and bounds, if need be, without regard to the lines of the public surveys. Though fully protective of the forest policy, the act is in this respect a settlement law.

Bearing this purpose clearly in mind, in connection with the practice of withdrawing large areas tentatively (as was done in this case) in the genesis of national forests, I do not encounter grave difficulty in applying the section to the lands in question, regardless of any technical or academic criticism that may be invited by the expression "temporary forest reserves." In framing this law Congress evidently had in mind two classes of lands reserved or held for forestry purposes, which should be brought within its operation-one comprised in "permanent” reserves, the other in "temporary" reserves. As to the former, I see no reason to doubt that there were intended those definite and ultimate reservations, commonly called "forest reserves," and now designated by law as "national forests," which have been created in some few instances by direct act of Congress, but in most instances by proclamation of the President, and are subjected by law to the administrative care and control of the Secretary of Agriculture.

A legislative definition of their objects may be found in the following words of Congress:

"No public forest reservation shall be established except to improve and protect the forest within the reservation, or for the purpose of securing favorable conditions of water flows, and to furnish a continuous supply of timber for the use and necessities of citizens of the United States; but it is not the purpose or intent of these provisions, or of the act providing for such reservations, to authorize the inclusion therein of lands more valuable for the mineral therein, or for agricultural purposes, than for forest purposes." (See act of June 4, 1897, 30 Stat. 35.)

This provision, with others in pari materia, might well be invoked as indicative of a desire upon the part of Congress to have reservations established as permanent instrumentalities to meet continuing necessities. There is certainly nothing in the legislation on the subject to evince an opposite intention. And while I know of no reason why the President, should he see fit to do so, might not lawfully create such a reservation to subserve a purpose merely and professedly temporary, my attention has not been directed to any instance in which the terms of the proclamation might not fairly be said to import an indefinite and therefore, presumably, a permanent duration. Out of these considerations I think it follows clearly enough that the term "permanent forest reserves" in the act of 1906 was intended to apply to the national forests, both because the application is quite appropriate and because there is and has been no other species of forest reserves to which the term could possibly be referred.

From this conclusion it necessarily results that the expression "temporary forest reserves" can not mean the national forests. It might be argued that Congress sought to anticipate a mere possibility, not presaged by experi ence, that the President might, at some time, create reservations for definite terms or to meet transitory needs; but this would be a strained interpretation and really an evasion of the duty to give this statute and all its parts a reasonable construction in the light of conditions as they existed when it was enacted and the mischief which it was intended to cure.

It is certainly much more reasonable to suppose that Congress had in mind the extensive withdrawals of land made from time to time as preliminaries to the creation of definite forest reservations by executive proclamation. Such withdrawals, though made by your department, in the ultimate analysis are justified by and rest upon the power vested in the President to create forest reservations. They are presumed to be made by his direction or with his assent, and, in the eye of the law, they are regarded as his acts. (See Wilcox v. McConnel, 13 Pet. 498, 513; Wolsey v. Chapman, 101 U. S. 755, 769; Wood v.

Beach, 156 U. S. 548, 550.) Where lands have been withdrawn for a definite purpose, I see no impropriety in saying that they are "reserved" for that purpose or in speaking of them as constituting a "reservation" for that purpose. So, the withdrawn lands referred to in your letter may be properly designated as a "reservation," since they are set aside and reserved from sale or other disposition until their availability for forest purposes shall have been determined. This reservation is also temporary, because it is intended, sooner or later, to be brought to an end, either by including the lands in another reservation, of very different legal incidents, or by restoring them to entry. refer to it as a "forest reservation" is not particularly fortunate, in view of the previous occupation of that term by another legal and common meaning. But this is an example of inaccuracy rather than obscurity.

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The conclusion that such withdrawn lands constitute the "temporary forest reserves" intended by the act is unavoidable when it is considered, first, that if they do not, the appellation must stand without a meaning, and, second, that such intention is in perfect accord with the obvious purpose of the statute. Withdrawals of this kind may remain in effect (as did the one here involved) for many years before the lands become embodied in a forest or are restored to entry; and the areas affected being designated in some haste, and with a view to further examination in the future, are even more likely to include agricultural tracts than are the forests themselves. The aim of the statute was to prevent such tracts from being needlessly withheld from homestead entry, and from this standpoint it is, of course, entirely immaterial whether the lands were merely withdrawn or definitely included in a forest reservation. The remedy provided by the statute is equally suggested by both situations, and applicable to each alike, permitting the entryman to have, by metes and bounds, the irregular agricultural parcels, while retaining for the Government the lands desirable for forest uses--a separation which in many instances could not be accomplished by the restoration and subsequent entry of the lands by legal subdivisions.

I may add that the foregoing views appear to accord with those expressed by the committee which reported this measure to the Senate. (Senate Report No. 3291, first session Fifty-ninth Congress.) Very respectfully,

J. A. FOWLER, Acting Attorney-General.

The SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR.

NAVAL OFFICERS SERVING AS BUREAU CHIEFS-RANK, PAY, AND EMOLUMENTS.

A naval officer who served as bureau chief in the Navy Department and is eligible to retirement after thirty years' service in the Navy or Navy Department, is entitled to the rank, pay, and emoluments of a bureau chief under the act of June 24, 1910 (36 Stat. 607), during the time he remains on the active list, whether as bureau chief or otherwise. The "emoluments" of an office or place include salary, pay, and every kind of pecuniary compensation for service rendered.

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE,

September 27, 1910.

SIR: In your note of September 16, 1910, you call my attention to the following provision in the appropriation act of June 24, 1910 (36 Stat. 607), viz:

"The pay and allowances of chiefs of bureaus of the Navy Department shall be the highest shore-duty pay and allowances of the rear-admiral of the lower nine; and all officers of the navy who are now serving or shall hereafter serve as chief of bureau in the Navy Department and are eligible for retirement after thirty years' service, shall have, while on the active list, the rank, title, and emoluments of a chief of bureau, in the same manner as is already provided by statute law for such officers upon retirement by reason of age or length of service, and such officers, after thirty years' service, shall be entitled to and shall receive new commissions in accordance with the rank and title hereby conferred."

You ask my opinion:

"Does the language of this paragraph permit an officer who is a bureau chief in the Navy Department, and who

reaches thirty years' service and becomes thus eligible for retirement, to retain the rank, pay and emoluments of such bureau chief on the active list if he then resigns or is removed from his position of bureau chief and returns to general service?"

The provision quoted obviously refers to an officer in the Navy who is, or may hereafter be, the chief of a bureau in the Navy Department, and who, at the time when the question arises, has, after thirty years' service in the navy or Navy Department, become eligible for retirement. It assumes also that while such officer has become eligible for retirement for length of service, yet he has not been retired, but continues upon the active list of the Navy.

It plainly and certainly provides that such officer "shall have, while on the active list, the rank, title, and emoluments of a chief of bureau, in the same manner as is already provided by statute law for such officers upon retirement by reason of age or length of service."

It will be noticed that the benefits thus conferred are not at all restricted to the time during which such officer remains chief of bureau, but, on the contrary, that the officer "shall have, while on the active list, the rank, title, and emoluments" thereby conferred.

To restrict the "rank, title, and emoluments" conferred by this law to a period during which the officer remains chief of bureau would be in plain contradiction of the

statute.

Then, too, if construction of any kind were permissible in this case, it might be pointed out that the interpretation here given is the only one which can give force or effect to all the language used. For, if the intention had been to confer this "rank, title, and emoluments" only during the continuance of such officer as chief of bureau, this provision as to continuance would have been quite unnecessary; for the rank, title, and emoluments would, of course, continue, unless otherwise provided by law, so long as the officer continued in such office, and the other provisions would have meant precisely the same without this clause as with it. The only possible effect of that clause is to continue, as it plainly does, such "rank, title, and emoluments"