Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-07-14
THE SENATE AND THE RIVER.

THE SENATE AND THE RIVER.
Senator Stanford-and he had the aid of
several Senators-yigorously defended the
original clause in the river and harbor
bill, appropriating money, and directing
the Secretary of War to use it, to institute
legal proceedings to prevent the destruc
ton of our navigable rivers by hydraulic
mining. The Senate committee reported
against that provision. By reference to
our dispatches this morning it will be seen
that the committees report has been sus-
tanned by the Senate, and the provision di-
recting the Secretary of War to proceed in
law to protect the rivers is lost We do not
propose at this time to comment upon the
unwisdom of the Senate. 1t is unfortunate
that so shortsighted a policy prevailed !;
one that puts the Government in the atti-
tude of emphatically condemning the fill
ing by artificial means of all navigable
streams and harbors owned by it, and yet
refusing to an officer of the Government
the power and means to stop, by legal pro-
cess, the work of destruction. But the
public must not understand that this is a
defeat of the cause of river and harbor
navigation. 1t does not, of necessity, re-
tard it. The situation is this the clauses
defining hydraulic mining remain in the
bill; the clauses declaring it to be unlaw-
full to fill the streams, or contribute thereto
by any artificial washing, dumping, etc,
remain. Such acts are, therefore, about to
be by law expressly determined as unlaw
full acts, thus removing them wholly from
the field of speculation in which they
have been involved so long in the
litigation in this State by which the
result was reached in legal DEGREES declar-
ing them to be acts in commission of a
public nuisance As the bill stands, the
Government is committed to the defense of
navigable streams; to the declaration that
no one has the right to use them as sluice-
ways for any private works tending to in
capacitate the rivers or fill them and re-
duce their nayigable character The
Acknowledgement has already decided that
he can bring actions to prevent such re-
suits, or check acts threatening them. He
so reported to the Secretary of War, but
advised legislation enabling actions to be
brought by the War Department. This
letter the Secretary Of War Endorsed and
sent to Congress. Without direct informa
ton as to what actuated the vote of the
Senate yesterday, we must assume that in
the desire to reduce the sum total of the
river and harbor bill appropriation the
Senate struck out the item, concluding that
the Department of Justice has sufficient
power and means to bring any actions that
may be necessary to enforce the law. Our
friends in the mountains have nothing
with which to reproach Congress in this
matter. 1t could not do less than it has.
They must see, as just men, that Govern
ment worth salvation cannot sit with
folded hands and see its navigable waters
shoaled by artificial processes. Congress;
condemns no industry, it simply propose,
to erect into statutary law the decisions
already made by the Courts, that any sucI
acts tending to hasten the degeneracy of ;
navigable stream are and must always b,
unlawful. The one remaining thing to Dc
is to accept the situation, and turn tn,
energy, vii and genius of the mountains t.
other uses.