In this case, these people put this salt mine down on dry land belonging to them. From the bottom of that mine they ran out shafts parallel to the surface. They ran one of these shafts under the bed of the lake and mined some one million and a fraction dollars worth of salt from out under the bed of the lake. The State sued them and recovered that amount. They applied to the Supreme Court for a writ of review of the decision of the State Supreme Court on the subject, and it was reviewed, and they paid the judgment.

Now, as Iwas saying, this right to regulate commerce of the United States, or that the United States has, is just as effective on land as it is on water. It is just as effective on my private property on land as it is on the State's property in water.

As far as it is necessary, reasonably necessary, for the United States to regulate interstate and foreign commerce, it may do it on my land just the same as it may do it on the State's land in the water. But it cannot, on either my land or on the State's property, do something else in the guise of exercising that right.

Suppose that I own a railroad running across several States and into Canada. My railroad is my property and the property over which it ran would be subject to regulation by the Federal Government in the interest of the regulation of interstate and foreign commerce. But the Government could not, under the exercise of that right, under the pretense of exercising that right of regulation, bore down and take oil from under my railroad right-of-way. That oil would belong to me. They could not say that because they can regulate my land in the interest of interstate and foreign commerce and they need some oil for the Navy or for the Army, or what not, that they can go down and take the oil from under this land over which they have the power of regulation.

Mr. ROBSION. Except by the exercise of the right of eminent domain.

Mr. LORET. I am not talking about eminent domain. I am talking about taking property without paying for it.

Mr. MICHENER. That is academic, is it not?

Mr. LORET. I do not know. It does not seem to be.

Mr. MICHENER. I think there is a distinction between the low-water mark out to sea and upland. I think there is no question about the upland. This is a new philosophy that is being advocated here in reference to the rights of the Federal Government in submerged lands beyond the low-water mark. It seems to me that is the thing to which you should devote your attention.

Mr. LORET. I was just discussing it from the standpoint of basing the right on the right of regulation of commerce. I will come to these other phases of the question.

Therefore, I submit that the power to regulate commerce does not give authority to the Federal Government to take the oil from the bottom of the sea, that part that belongs to the State, because it is the State's property, and as far as interstate commerce is concerned, or foreign commerce, the regulation that the Federal Government has the right to make is such regulation as is in the interest of interstate and foreign commerce.

The next thing that they say is that the Federal Government may have the right to do it for the national defense. Well, the Federal

Government no doubt has the right to provide for the national defense. But if they want to take my property to provide for the national defense, they ought to pay me for it.

The fifth amendment says that they shall not take private property without compensation. If the State owns that sea bottom and they own the oil, the way for them to get it is to pay for it. If they need it for national defense, let them pay for it, either by agreement or expropriation. That is the way they would have to do if it were upland.

You say, what is the difference? But we say that if the oil belongs to the State, why should not they pay for it.

Mr. ROBSION. There is the question that is at issue. They say that it never did belong to the State.

Mr. LORET. I am proceeding on the assumption that it belongs to the State. I said that I would not go into that in my argument here. Mr. ROBSION. But that is what this whole argument is about. One group says that it never did belong to the State. That is Judge Hobbs' argument, as I understand it. You say it does belong to the State. What I would like to have is some illumination on the question of whether or not it does belong to the State. If it does belong to the State, then I can follow you very well, that the Federal Government could not take it except by the right of eminent domain. Mr. LORET. If that is the case, I want to say that the jurisprudence of the United States Supreme Court

Mr. WALTER. May I interrupt there for a moment?

Mr. Robsion, you were not here when the gentleman started his statement. He said that he agreed with the theory of Mr. Fairchild. We covered that phase of the discussion very thoroughly.

Mr. LORET. Mr. Fairchild covered it and I have covered it in my brief. That is why I did not go into it in detail. We submit, for the reasons Mr. Fairchild gave, and those in my brief, that the State does own the sea bottom within the maritime zone.

Mr. HEALEY. I did not quite get that; will you repeat it?

Mr. LORET. I had not gone into it thoroughly, because it is covered in my brief and it was covered in Mr. Fairchild's argument yesterday. For that reason I did not want to take up too much time with it today.

Mr. HEALEY. But you said something about the State owning this property?

Mr. LORET. We submit, for the reasons given by Mr. Fairchild and for those in my brief, that under the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of the United States it is perfectly clear that the sea bottom within the maritime zone belongs to the individual States. I did not want to present any more argument on that, because I did not want to clutter up the record too much.

Mr. ROBSION. Did Mr. Fairchild take up the California case and the Texas case?

Mr. LORET. The California case and the Texas case particularly, and the case for all the States in general. I have taken up Louisiana's case in my brief. We came into the Union in a very similar way to that of California.

Mr. HEALEY. I was not here yesterday. Would you mind defining the maritime zone for me?

Mr. LORET. I have offered here a little pamphlet that I wrote on the subject that goes into it very thoroughly.

Mr. HEALEY. Could you state it very briefly?

Mr. LORET. Yes. Briefly, back in medieval times, various countries claimed to own large expanses of the sea. England claimed a good deal; Portugal and Spain each claimed a good deal more, and they attempted to exercise control over it. There was quite an opposition to that theory on which those claims were based, particularly by Holland. Grotius wrote a very famous treatise asserting the freedom of the seas, which is the leading work on the subject.

He asserted that the seas belonged to no one, were free to everyone to navigate. And that has come to be recognized. But it is recognized with the qualification that each nation should own a marginal strip along its coast, for its own protection, and other purposes.

That was early recognized. In fact, he impliedly recognized it in his work.

Now, the width of that strip, of course, had to be determined. Another Dutch writer by the name of Bynkershoek, in 1802, wrote a treatise in which he set up the idea that this maritime zone belonged to each nation and should be fixed at such a distance as the nation could protect with its land forces, which was the distance of a cannon shot. A cannon shot was about 3 miles, and under that theory 3 miles came to be accepted as the maritime zone.

Mr. HEALEY. Thank you.

Mr. LORET. We think that that zone, with the increasing range of artillery, can be extended quite a number of miles and a number of writers on international law agree with that. We have extended our line in Louisiana to 27 miles by act of the legislature, and our act, the act of Congress admitting us to the Union, fixed our limit at 3 leagues or approximately 10 miles. We have since extended it to 27.

Mr. GWYNNE. Do you not think that the rights of Louisiana would be fixed by what the state of the international law was at the time the Constitution was adopted? Do you think any additional rights that are asserted might not belong to the Federal Government?

Mr. LORET. NO; I do not think the Federal Government can own a strip that belongs to the Federal Government and is not a part of a State. I discuss that in this pamphlet.

Mr. MICHENER. When did your State declare that right?

Mr. LORET. Last year. Of course, it was fixed in 1812 when we were admitted by act of Congress. It was fixed at 3 leagues, which is about 10 miles. Last year we extended it to 27. We do that under the authority of the decision of the Supreme Court in Manchester v. Massachusetts. That is discussed in this pamphlet, if you are interested in the case.

Mr. ROBSION. If you have changed that distance from 10 miles to 27 miles, will you tell me why you fixed it at 27 and not 29 or 39 miles? Mr. LORET. We consulted a coast-artillery expert and we found that his opinion was that the effective range of coast artillery was about 27 miles.

Mr. ROBSION. Then if you got a bigger gun that would repeal the statute?

Mr. LORET. It would not repeal the statute, but it would give us the right to go out still further. Some of them asked us why we did not

The

go out about 75 miles, which was the range of the Big Bertha. reason we did not do that was because we did not consider the Big Bertha an effective military weapon.

Mr. ROBSION. You did not have a Big Bertha?

Mr. LORET. We did not consider it an effective military weapon. Guns of that kind do not protect; they merely terrorize the civilian populace. They are not of military value.

Mr. HEALEY. Is not this whole question of the maritime zone fixed by international law, custom, and usage of nations?

Mr. LORET. It is fixed by a general understanding. It is not fixed by any treaties or conventions. It is just a general understanding.

Mr. HEALEY. And you think that it has been extended now because of the greater range of coast artillery?

Mr. LORET. Yes. Quite a number of international law writers think the same.

The CHAIRMAN. I do not want to draw you away from your discussion of the main points which you have in mind, but I believe the committee would be interested to know upon what you based the theory, taking into consideration the responsibility of the Federal Government with regard to international relationships, the power to declare war, and so on-on what you based the theory that a State can itself extend the maritime limit?

Mr. LORET. I base it upon a statement of the Supreme Court of the United States in Manchester v. Massachusetts.

The CHAIRMAN. I will not ask you to discuss that any further. That is the basis for your belief?

Mr. LORET. Yes; that is the basis. Of course, I will say this, that if the Federal Government refused to back us up in it and some other nation attacked us, we would not be able to maintain it.

The CHAIRMAN. Is not the whole maritime jurisdiction based upon the force and the strength and the ability to maintain primarily? Mr. LORET. Certainly.

The CHAIRMAN. I do not want to take up your time any further on this question. The question might come up sometime in the committee, and it is a very important matter. May I withdraw my question, so it will not take up your time any further?

Mr. LORET. Yes.

Mr. ROBSION. We have a great many States bordering on the ocean. Louisiana may fix one distance for these purposes of maritime jurisdiction, Rhode Island another, Maine another, and Massachusetts another. It occurs to me that these foreign countries would have to carry their surveyors with them to find out what the maritime jurisdiction limits were.

Mr. LORET. They do, to find out where the 3-mile limit is.

The CHAIRMAN. I want to apologize for having opened up that subject.

Mr. MICHENER. It would depend upon the expert that they used, too.

Mr. LORET. I will say that the United States has done that same thing itself. It admitted us in 1812 and fixed our limit at 3 leagues, which is about 10 miles. After that it admitted California and fixed its limit at 3 miles. So that the Congress extended that limit itself.

I have discussed this theory that this proposal is based on the matter of the national defense.

Another theory that the proponents of this measure advance is that this oil can be taken because of the Government's right, given to it by the Constitution, to build and maintain a navy. Well, they have that right and I am glad that they do. We need a navy. But if the Government is going to build a navy and it needs something with which to build it or maintain it, and that belongs to me, and they want it, I think they ought to pay me for it. I do not think that the right to build a navy and maintain a navy can be considered to be of such a force as to permit the Government to take other persons' property without paying them in doing that.

Mr. WALTER. We are not bothered very much by that. What we want to know is how that person owns this property and whether he actually does own it. That is the thing we are interested in.

Mr. LORET. As I say, I did not go into that very much on account of the fact that the other party did, and I just wanted to answer these contentions.

Those three rights are asserted under the Constitution. I submit that there is no basis for that, there is no basis for taking the State's oil under any of those bases.

Mr. ROBSION. If the committee should come to the conclusion that this property belong to the State-for instance, that the property to which you refer belongs to the State of Louisiana-then this resolution has no standing, has it?

Mr. LORET. Certainly it has not. Now, something has been said about the United States having exclusive control, and I have shown you that if they had exclusive control the State could not have title, because the United States already would have all of the attributes of ownership. You could not have me owning something with you having exclusive control of it. If you did, I would not own it; you would own it. So there is no basis for that argument.

The Federal Government has the right to exercise control in order to perform the functions that are entrusted to it, but no further. To that extent, all of our property, everyone's property in the United States, is subject to the exercise of the Federal Government of the authority vested in it.

Mr. MASSINGALE. May I ask a question there? You say that the Legislature of Louisiana extended its boundaries 27 miles out into the sea; is that correct?

Mr. LORET. Yes.

Mr. MASSINGALE. Suppose that the law should be that the Government of the United States owned, absolutely owned, all that part of the sea for 50 miles out or 10 miles out, or any other number of miles beyond low tide. I am speaking now as applicable to this maritime zone that you speak of. Do you think that that title can be canceled by an action of the Legislature of the State of Louisiana, so far as the ownership is concerned off the shore of Louisiana?

Mr. LORET. If you proceed on the assumption that they own it, which I do not admit, and contend that they do not

Mr. MASSINGALE. I made the question hypothetical.

Mr. LORET. I want to say, first, that my contention is that the United States does not own it. But if it did own it, I do not think