bor no seaman shall be required to do any unnecessary work on Sundays or the following-named days: New Year's Day, the Fourth of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day, but this shall not prevent the dispatch of a vessel on regular schedule or when ready to proceed on her voyage. And at all times while such vessel is in a safe harbor, eight hours, inclusive of the anchor watch, shall constitute a day's work. Whenever the master of any vessel shall fail to comply with this section and the regulation issued thereunder, the owner shall be liable to a penalty not to exceed $500, and the seamen shall be entitled to discharge from such vessel and to receive the wages earned. But this section shall not apply to vessels engaged in salvage operations: Provided, That in all tugs and barges subject to this section when engaged on a voyage of less than six hundred miles, the licensed officers and members of crews other than coal passers, firemen, oilers, and water tenders may, while at sea, be divided into not less than two watches, but nothing in this proviso shall be construed as repealing any part of section 4463 of the Revised Statutes. This section shall take effect six months after the enactment of this Act." [Italics supplied.]

Unless something can be collected from the statute to warrant a different construction, the common and legal signification of the word "day" is the space of time which elapses while the earth makes a complete revolution on its axis, reckoned from midnight to midnight—in other words, a calendar day. Standard Dictionary; Bouvier's Law Dictionary; 2 Bl. Comm. 141; Henderson v. Reynolds, 84 Ga. 159, 162; Zimmerman v. Cowan, 107 Ill. 631; Benson v. Adams, 69 Ind. 353, 354; State v. Michel, 52 La. Ann. 936, 941; Stevenson v. Donnelly, 221 Mass. 161; Pannell v. Glidewell, 146 Miss. 565; Opinion of the Justices, 45 N. H. 607, 610; Serrell v. Rothstein, 49 N. J. Eq. 385, 386; State v. Richardson, 16 N. D. 1, 8; Kane v. Commonwealth, 89 Pa. St. 522. See also Guaranty Trust Co. v. Green Cove Railroad, 139 U. S. 137, 144, 145; Burgess v. Salmon, 97 U. S. 381, 383; Bristol Mfg. Corporation v. United States, 2 F. Supp. 781, 784; 29 Op. A. G. 371.

The act contains no definition of the word "day," and I find nothing in its history to warrant ascription to the Congress of intent to use the word in other than its ordinary sense. Unlike the act of May 11, 1918, c. 72, 40 Stat. 549, providing that no licensed officer on any ocean or coastwise vessel shall be required to do duty to exceed nine hours "of any twenty-four" while in port, including the date of arrival, or more than twelve hours "of any twenty-four" at sea, except in case of emergency, and the act of March 4, 1907, c. 2939, 34 Stat. 1415, making it unlawful for any common carrier to require or permit telegraph operators and others to be or remain on duty for a longer period than nine hours "in any twenty-four hour period," the act here involved is not so phrased. The simple word "day" appears to have been used deliberately and without qualification.

It has been suggested that the day contemplated by the statute is susceptible of reckoning from the time a vessel leaves her berth, or from the time when an affected member of her crew reports for duty. The files transmitted to me, however, show that the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation of your Department is convinced that so to interpret "day" would lead to difficulties such that the enforcement of the eight-hour provision of the act would be impractical, if not impossible. I have considered the suggestions and have arrived at the conclusion that adoption of either would attribute, without justification in law, to the word "day" a sense at variance with that which it ordinarily carries—as well as one which, apparently, would jeopardize in practice the effective administration of the eight-hour provision of the statute.

It is my opinion, therefore, that unless and until the Congress shall manifest a contrary intention, the word "day" in section 2 of the act is to be construed as contemplating a calendar day of twenty-four hours, commencing at midnight.

Respectfully,

HOMER CUMMINGS.

APPLICABILITY OF CIVIL SERVICE RETIREMENT ACT TO UNITED STATES ATTORNEYS, MARSHALS, ETC.

The phrase "officers and employees of the courts of the United States," in sec. 1 of the act of July 13, 1937, amending the Civil Service Retirement Act, includes only officers and employees in the judicial branch.

United States attorneys and marshals are in the executive branch and are not brought within the Civil Service Retirement Act by the act of July 13, 1937.

The PRESIDENT.

OCTOBER 15, 1937.

MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: I have your letter of September 1, 1937, in which you request my opinion upon the question presented to you by the Civil Service Commission in its letter of August 30, 1937, whether the language "officers and employees of any of the courts of the United States," contained in the act of July 13, 1937, c. 494, 50 Stat. 512, brings within the operation of the Civil Service Retirement Act of May 29, 1930 (46 Stat. 468), as amended, the United States attorneys and their employees and the United States marshals, their deputies and other employees who are not already entitled to benefits under the retirement law.

The first section of the act of July 13, 1937, reads as follows:

"That the Act of May 29, 1930 (46 Stat. 468), for the retirement of employees in the classified civil service and in certain positions in the legislative branch of the Government, is hereby amended to include all other employees in the legislative branch and all officers and employees of any of the courts of the United States who are not entitled to the benefits of any other retirement Act whose tenure of employment is not intermittent nor of uncertain duration."

Your question may be substantially answered in the following language of the Supreme Court, used in determining that a deputy United States marshal was a proper protector of an associate justice of that court:

"The ministerial officers through whom its commands must be executed are marshals of the United States, and belong emphatically to the executive department of the

government. They are appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate. They are removable from office at his pleasure. They are subjected by act of Congress to the supervision and control of the Department of Justice, in the hands of one of the cabinet officers of the President, and their compensation is provided by acts of Congress. The same may be said of the district attorneys of the United States, who prosecute and defend the claims of the government in the courts." [Italics supplied.] In re Neagle, 135 U. S. 1, 63.

While the Supreme Court spoke of "marshals," it was really dealing with the case of a deputy marshal, and there is no apparent reason for regarding its language as restricted to marshals and United States attorneys as distinguished from their subordinates. It having been determined that the head of an office belongs to the executive department, it necessarily follows, in the absence of some unusual arrangement based upon law or fact, that the same is true respecting his subordinates.

The title of the act of July 13, 1937, points to the extension of retirement benefits to only certain employees in the legislative and judicial branches; and when the bill was before the House of Representatives the Chairman of the Committee on Civil Service, in explaining the Senate amendment which placed in the bill the language "officers and employees of any of the courts of the United States," stated that the amendment extended the benefits to the judicial employees of the government. (Congressional Record, 75th Congress, p. 6691.)

I have found nothing to indicate that the Congress has regarded the United States attorneys or marshals or their subordinates as within the judicial branch. On the contrary, both the Congress and the Executive heretofore have evidenced acceptance of the view that such officers and employees are in the executive branch. The President, acting under authority conferred upon him by the civil service laws, long since extended those laws to "all officers and employees in the Executive Civil Service of the United States," with specified exceptions, expressly including under

"Department of Justice" positions in the offices of United States marshals and United States attorneys-and the Congress has acquiesced in this executive action, although enlarging the group of "excepted positions" in the offices of United States marshals through providing in the act of October 22, 1913, c. 32, 38 Stat. 208 (U. S. C., title 5, sec. 639), that deputy marshals required to give bond may be appointed without regard to the civil service laws. 27 Op. A. G. 95; 34 Op. A. G. 192; 35 Op. A. G. 413; Civil Service Rules, Rule II and Schedule A.

In view of the foregoing considerations it is my opinion. that the act of July 13, 1937, is not applicable to and does not affect United States attorneys or United States marshals or their deputies or employees. I expressly except from this conclusion, however, the offices of Marshal of the Supreme Court of the United States and Marshal of the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals and any others who may be appointed by and under the supervision of their respective courts, with compensation flowing from such appointment, and distinguishable in these and other particulars from the United States marshals herein considered. Respectfully,

STANLEY REED, Acting Attorney General.

DISPOSITION OF FEDERAL BUILDINGS AND INSTALLATIONS AT TEXAS EXPOSITION

Under Joint Resolutions of February 11, 1936, and April 9, 1937, the United States Greater Texas and Pan American Exposition Commission is authorized, at the conclusion of the exposition, to turn over the Federal buildings and installations, on park premises owned by the City of Dallas, either to the State of Texas or to the City of Dallas-but transfer of the structures to the State would not vest it with any right to maintain them on the city's land after the period for which the use of the land was granted to the United States.

The PRESIDENT.

OCTOBER 29, 1937.

MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: I have the honor to comply with your request for my opinion, upon a question submitted