or the most unavoidable implication. Indeed, it is doubtful if they can be abdicated at all. (Illinois Central R. R. Co. v. Illinois, 146 U. S. 387.)

Of course, the question might be different if the private owner had actually filled in, thereby physically removing his land from the body of the river and making it a part of the upland. But here we have no such change; the water remains, and the soil beneath is still a part of the bed of a navigable stream.

Under such circumstances I am clearly of the opinion that so long as these physical conditions exist the Government's rights and duties, which arose from them, continue to exist.

I am confirmed in these views by a considerable body of precedent, from which I have found no dissent.

The opinion of Attorney-General Griggs that harbor lines once established could be changed (22 Op. 501) is, it seems to me, in effect an answer to your present question, because, if the delineation of harbor lines is construed to be an abdication by the Government of its governmental rights, and a corresponding acquisition by the private owner of exclusive rights, the owner could no more properly be deprived of this acquisition by a change of the line than by government action outside the line. I see no legal reason, for instance, in the present case, for supposing that the Government could acquire the right to dump in the shoal waters of the river by going through the form of a purely ex parte revocation of the bulkhead line when it could not have that right without going through that form.

In Turner v. People's Ferry Co. (21 Fed. 90, Circuit Court, Southern District of New York), Judge Brown carefully considered the point and reached the conclusion (pp. 94, 102, 103) that the establishment of a harbor line did not give an exclusive right to the owner of the land under water, but that the public right in the interest of navigation continued, at least until the private owner had himself filled in and reclaimed the land under water, and whether it continued even after that Judge Brown found it unnecessary to consider.

In So. Pac. Co. v. Western Pac. Ry. Co. (144 Fed. 160) an injunction was sought among other things to restrain the dredging company (which was acting in the improvement of a river under the authority of the Government) from dumping the dredged material into shoal water lying between the harbor line and the shore. The court held (p. 203), citing 22 Op. Atty. Gen. p. 646, supra, that this injunction should not be granted, as the power of Congress to improve the harbors and navigable waters "carries with it the right to deposit the material removed in making the improvements in any other part of the harbor or navigable waters or other place within its control." The court did not enter into a particular discussion of the specific question whether the establishment of the harbor lines affected this right, but the question was involved in the facts of the

case.

In the Hawkins Point Light House Case (Chappell v. Waterworth), 39 Fed. 77, it was similarly held that the Government had the power to build a light-house in shoal water without compensation to the owner of the submerged soil. Here again, in fact, lines had been established, but neither counsel nor the court appear to have supposed that that would affect the question.

The state courts have uniformly held that the establishment by States and municipalities of harbor lines similar to those established in this case by the Federal Government, does not oust the sovereign (in these cases the State), at least until the land has been actually reclaimed. This view is held not only in those cases where the establishment of the lines is construed to be a mere revocable license (Rhode Island Motor Co. v. City of Providence, 55 Atl. 696; Stevens v. Paterson, &c. R. Co., 34 N. J. L. 532; Turner v. City of Mobile, 135 Ala. 73, 129; People v. Williams, 64 Cal. 498; Eisenbach v. Hatfield, 2 Wash. St. 236; Lane v. Board of Harbor Commrs., 70 Conn. 685), but also in those cases in which the lines are deemed to recognize a transferrable property right. (Boston & Hingham Co. v. Munson, 117 Mass. 34; Miller v. Mendenhall, 43 Minn. 95, 101; Hanford v. St. Paul & Duluth R. Co., 43 Minn. 104; Bradshaw v.

Duluth Imp. Mill Co., 52 Minn. 59, p. 65; Rumsey v. N. Y. & N. E. R. R. Co., 133 N. Y. 79, 89.) I have not lost sight of the fact that in these cases the actual title to the soil under water was in the State itself, but the decisions do not rest upon that fact so much as upon the sovereign control of the State over navigation, and I do not think they are validly to be distinguished from the situation which your question presents.

Incidentally it is difficult to imagine how the dumping of soil in the shoal waters in question could be of any actual injury to the owners whose own rights are substantially limited to such reclamation. (So. Pac. Co. v. West. Pac. Co., supra.)

I am of opinion, therefore, as above stated, that the shoal waters of a river may still be made to serve the purposes of navigation notwithstanding the delineation of the harbor lines.

Very respectfully,

GEORGE W. WICKERSHAM,

THE SECRETARY OF WAR.

CONTRACT FOR SUPPLIES FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY.

The Secretary of the Treasury can not legally enter into a contract for furnishing supplies for the use of the government of the District of Columbia.

Section 4 of the legislative, executive, and judicial appropriation act of June 17, 1910 (36 Stat. 531), is not applicable to the government of the District of Columbia.

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE,
September 29, 1910.

SIR: I have the nonor to acknowledge receipt of your communication of August 30, in which you ask my opinion as to whether, under section 4 of the act of June 17, 1910 (36 Stat. 531), the Secretary of the Treasury can legally enter into a contract for furnishing supplies for the use of the government of the District of Columbia.

Before quoting the statute and expressing an opinion in reply to the inquiry, a brief review of the legislation on

the subject will assist in the solution of the question. By section 3709 of the Revised Statutes it was enacted as follows:

"All purchases and contracts for supplies or services, in any of the Departments of the Government, except for personal services, shall be made by advertising a sufficient time previously for proposals respecting the same, when the public exigencies do not require the immediate delivery of the articles, or performance of the service. * *

This section was amended by the act of January 27, 1894 (28 Stat. 33), by adding at the end thereof the following provision:

"And the advertisement for such proposals shall be made by all the executive departments, including the Department of Labor, the United States Fish Commission, the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Smithsonian Institution, the Government Printing Office, the government of the District of Columbia, and the superintendent of the State, War and Navy building, except for paper and materials for use of the Government Printing Office, and materials used in the work of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, which shall continue to be advertised for and purchased as now provided for by law, on the same days and shall each designate two o'clock post meridian of such days for the opening of all such proposals in each department and other government establishment in the city of Washington; and the Secretary of the Treasury shall designate the day or days in each year for the opening of such proposals and give due notice thereof to the other Departments and Government establishments. Such proposals shall be opened in the usual way and schedules thereof duly prepared and, together with the statement of the proposed action of each Department and Government establishment thereon, shall be submitted to a board, consisting of one of the Assistant Secretaries of the Treasury and Interior Department and one of the Assistant Postmasters-General, who shall be designated by the heads of said Departments and the Postmaster-General, respectively, at a meeting to be called by the official of the Treasury Department, who shall be chairman thereof, and said board shall carefully

examine and compare all the proposals so submitted and recommend the acceptance or rejection of any or all of said proposals. And if any or all of such proposals shall be rejected, advertisements for proposals shall again be invited and proceeded with in the same manner."

By section 2 of the act of April 21, 1894 (28 Stat. 62), the said act of January 27, 1894, was so amended"that the provisions thereof shall apply only to advertisements for proposals for fuel, ice, stationery, and other miscellaneous supplies to be purchased at Washington for the use of the Executive Departments and other Government establishments therein named."

Under this legislation, therefore, all contracts for supplies or services in any of the departments of the General Government, except for personal services, wherever to be delivered or performed, were required to be made after advertising for proposals, unless the public exigency should otherwise require; while purchases of fuel, ice, stationery, and other miscellaneous supplies at Washington for the use of the executive departments of the General Government and the other governmental establishments in the city of Washington named in the act of January 27, 1894, including by specific enumeration the government of the District of Columbia, were required to be made after previous advertisement for proposals, to be opened on a day designated by the Secretary of the Treasury, and after the proposals should have been submitted to the board created by that act for its recommendations.

This legislation did not attempt to interfere with the powers and duties conferred by other statutes upon the heads of departments and bureaus with respect to the making of actual contracts for the purchase of supplies or the rendition of services, but merely regulated the method of obtaining proposals, and secured to each department and every branch of the Government mentioned in the act, the benefit of the recommendations of the board created by the act of 1894.

By Executive Order No. 1071, President Taft, on May 13, 1909, in order to systematize the purchase of supplies needed in common by two or more of the several depart