the limits of the fifty foot strip. Under these conditions it seems to me that wherever it is made to appear to the satisfaction of the Secretary of the Interior that the establishment of a pumping station in a public domain in connection with such a pipe line is reasonably necessary for the operation of the pipe line, he has authority to authorize the grantee to construct such a pumping station and provide the site reasonably necessary for that purpose. Any other construction of the Act would render the grant of a right of way for pipe line purposes entirely useless. Congress must have intended that the rights of way granted should be of practical use and that pipe lines when laid would be useful instrumentalities for the transportation of oil and gas. It is not reasonable to suppose Congress intended to enact legislation which could not effect the purpose for which it was intended and which would require supplemental legislation in order to make it effective. The arguments for and against this construction of the Act are fully set forth in the opinion of the Solicitor of the Department of the Interior, dated July 24, 1931, and the opinion of the Acting Solicitor of the Department of Agriculture, dated July 13, 1931. The conclusions I have reached seem to be adequately supported by United States v. Denver and Rio Grande Rwy. Co., 150 U. S. 1; Russell v. Sebastian, 233 U. S. 195; Imperial Irrigation Company v. Jayne, 138 S. W. 575. Of course cases can be imagined where the distance traversed by a pipe line across the public domain is short, and that fact taken in connection with the location of pumping stations along the pipe line outside of the public domain would show the absence of any reasonable necessity for the construction of a pumping station in the public domain. These are all matters to be taken into consideration by the Secretary of the Interior. He has power to use a reasonable discretion in determining whether in any particular case it is necessary that a pumping station be located in the public domain. The request for my opinion indicates that the question has recently arisen in connection with the application for grant of a right over 14.72 acres to be used as the site of a pumping station in connection with the pipe line through the Santa Barbara National Forest. There are no facts presented which afford any basis for my opinion as to whether an area of that size is reasonably necessary, and I am expressing no opinion on that point. It is enough to say that the tract of land for a pumping station should be limited in size to what the Secretary of the Interior, on the facts of the particular case, deems necessary. Because the power to grant a right for pumping stations is one necessarily implied on the ground of necessity to make the pipe line operative, it follows that the reasonable necessities incident to the operation of the pipe line and not merely the convenience of the grantee should form the basis for the exercise of the Secretary's judgment. It appears that for more than eight years past the Secretary of the Interior has administered the Act on the assumption it authorizes him to grant rights for pumping stations on tracts in addition to the fifty-foot strip, and from time to time grants have been made in accordance with that construction of the statute. It is well settled that the practical construction given to a statute by the officer charged with the duty of enforcing and administering it is entitled to great weight. It is fair to assume that if the Congress had been dissatisfied with this construction of the Act by the Secretary of the Interior it would have taken legislative steps to overturn it. Conceding that the question was a debatable one, it would not be consistent with well-established principles to overturn at this date an administrative construction in reliance on which grantees have acted in good faith. Respectfully, WILLIAM D. MITCHELL. To The SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR. LEASE OF THE STATE CAMP FOR VETERANS AT BATH, N. Y. The State Camp for Veterans at Bath, N. Y., was leased for a term of years by the State of New York to the Board of Managers of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, without rental or charge, upon condition that the same be maintained as a home for veterans of the wars of the United States and that the veterans of the Civil and Spanish-American Wars, who were inmates at the time of the lease, should be maintained therein during the term of the lease, subject to reasonable rules and regulations of the lessee. Held, that while the lease did not create any obligation upon the lessee, it did give the lessee the right to remain in possession of the property so long as the Congress should see fit to appropriate funds to maintain it, not beyond the extended term specified, and that whether or not this right belonged to the United States prior to the Act of July 3, 1930 (46 Stat. 1016), by virtue of the fact that the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers was a governmental agency, that Act has operated to vest all the rights of the lessee in the United States. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, SIR: I have the honor to reply to your letter of April 29, 1931, asking my opinion "as to the validity of a contract dated February 26, 1929, between the State of New York and the Board of Managers of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, whereby the State Camp for Veterans at Bath, New York, was leased to the United States for a term not exceeding ten years, without rental or charge, upon condition that the same be maintained as a home for veterans of the wars of the United States and that the veterans of the Civil and Spanish-American Wars, who were inmates at the time of the lease, should be maintained therein during the term of the lease, subject to reasonable rules and regulations of the lessee." You state in your letter that " on June 27, 1930, the State of New York, upon application by the Board of Managers, extended the term of this lease to forty years from the date of the expiration of the first lease upon the same condition." You further state that "the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers with its branches was transferred to and consolidated in the Veterans' Administration under the Executive Order of July 21, 1930, in accordance with the provision of Public 536, 71st Congress." (46 Stat. 1016.) By the Act of March 5, 1928 (c. 240, Laws of New York, 1928), the New York Legislature created a temporary commission "to negotiate with the proper authorities of the United States, for the transfer of title or the surrender of the possession and use to the United States, State camp for veterans at Bath, such transfer or surrender to be made * of the แ "only on the condition that the United States, through its proper and authorized authorities, shall agree that such camp shall be perpetually maintained and used as a camp or home for veterans of the wars of the United States, Apparently as a direct result of this statute Congress enacted the Act of May 26, 1928 (c. 767, 45 Stat. 758), which provided in part: "That the Board of Managers of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, when directed by the President, is authorized to accept on behalf of the United States, free from all encumbrances and without cost to the United States, title in fee simple to the land, including buildings and structures, constituting the camp for veterans at Bath, New York. Upon acceptance of such land by such Board of Managers, such land, buildings, and structures shall become a branch home of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers." The Act of May 26, 1928, supra, was adopted upon the recommendation of the Board of Managers of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers that additional domiciliary facilities in the northeast part of the United States were necessary to take care of the constantly increasing membership in the Home. (See House Report No. 1611, and Senate Report No. 1222, 70th Cong., 1st Sess.) Shortly after the passage of the Act of May 26, 1928, supra, the Chief Coordinator of the United States called a conference between representatives of the State of New York and of various establishments and Departments of the United States to effectuate the proposed transfer. A representative of this Department was present at that con ference, and others which followed, in an advisory capacity to the Chief Coordinator. Reference to files of this Department discloses that the parties to these conferences were of the opinion that the New York statute and the Federal statute above quoted were in conflict, and that the Federal statute did not authorize or permit the transfer to the United States of the fee simple title to the camp at Bath upon the condition of perpetual maintenance annexed to the transfer by the New York statute. But although the conferees deemed the transfer of the fee simple title to the United States to be legally impossible, they were of the opinion that, wholly apart from the Act of May 26, 1928, the Board of Managers of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers had authority to take a lease of the camp if the New York authorities had power to make it. Apparently as a result of these conferences the authority of the New York commission above referred to was extended by the Act of February 26, 1929 (c. 33, Laws of New York, 1929), and the commission was authorized * * "to lease to the United States or to the board of managers of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, a corporation created by act of Congress *, without rental or charge, the state camp for veterans at Bath, New York, for a term not exceeding ten years, upon the condition that such camp shall be maintained by the lessee during the term of such lease as a camp or home for veterans of the wars of the United States, and that the veterans of the Civil war and the veterans of the Spanish-American war, who are inmates of such camp at the time of the transfer of possession under such lease shall be maintained therein by the lessee during the term of such lease, *" (Italics supplied.) This Act further provided that: * * "Upon the surrender of possession and use of the state camp for veterans at Bath, under such lease, jurisdiction of the land included in such camp shall be ceded to the United States by this state, upon condition that the jurisdiction so ceded shall not prevent the execution thereon of any process, civil or criminal, issued under the authority of the state, except as such process might affect the property of the United States therein, and that such jurisdiction shall continue in |