The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1919-06-25
RIPARLAH RIGHTS
(Continued/from First Page

for .,~asasure and on the hundreds of
| oS0d citizens of this state who make
their living by fishing. Under the
act as above, all such beaches as
Pablo, Atlantic, Ormond and dozens
of others along our coast line, where
hundreds of our people go every year
for sport and pleasure during vaca-
ton periods, would be taken from the
whole people and vested in the rip
arian owner | do not believe that
our people want to surrender their
rights and privileges and become sub
iect to an act that makes it impossi-
BILE for them to get to the channel of
our streams and tide waters without
a flying machine, except on pain of
being trespassers. The supreme courr
of the United States, in Pollard's
Lessee V. eHagan, reported in How
ard 219, in effect, held that these wa.
tiers and tide lands were the property
Of the various states, their principal
use being for all the citizens thereof,
and that to undertake to convey the
same to individual ownership would,
in many instances, embarrass the
state in the enforcement of its police
regulations.
There are many places along the
tide waters and streams of our state
where the distance from high water
mark to the edge of the channel runs
into miles, the intervening space be-
ing mud flats or shallow bottoms that
are not valuable for boating, bathing
and fishing purposes, but in many
instances such mud flats and shallow
bottoms are becoming very valuable
for subdivision, island and filling-in
purposes. Such lands being the
property of all the people in common,
should not be given away for specu-
lative purposes, as the late act seeks
to do, but should be sold and the
moneys received therefor placed to
the credit of the permanent school
fund of the state where all the people
would be benefited thereby.
in my judgment it would be just
as proper for the legislature to pass
an act giving to those persons who
happen to be adjacent owners to the
. sixteenth section of school land, ever
glades land or other public lands be-
longing to the state, the right to ex-
tend their lines into such lands, as to
give water front owners exclusive
privilege to extend their lines from
| high water mark out to the edge OF
the channel and thereby, in many in
stances, donate to them hundreds and
thousands of acres of mud flats and
shallow bottoms that never could
have been contemplated in their pur-
chase of the uplands, and which in
the course of time. if properly con-
served, could be made to yield mill
ions of dollars to the permanent
school fund of this state.
The law of this state amply pro-
tects every riparian owner in his rip
arian ownership and all rights accru-
| ing therefrom, our supreme court
having recently said that such rights
are property rights that cannot be
taken from any citizen without du
process of law. No one could buy in
front of him or be permitted to fill-in
In front of him. He has the common
law rights as are above mentioned in
common with every other citizen of
the state in the waters in front of his
| lands. Why now undertake to pass
an act giving him exclusive right to
such privileges at the expense of eve
ry other citizen in the state? Such a
proceeding being without precedent
in the history of this country.
l consider these water bottoms and
privileges among the great and val
liable assets of the people of Florida
which should, in the main, be retain
ed for all the people of the state. AS
counsel for the trustees of the intern
al improvement fund the state is my
client and / would certainly be dere-
lict in my duty to sit silent when this
great asset was about to be parceled
out to a fortunate few. / might state
further that so far as bill to con-
fiscate any rights that riparian own
ers may have in the water bottoms in
front of their lands, and about which
the Tribune has had so much to say
in the past two or three months, the
trustees of the internal improvement
fund nor their counsel know anything
about such act, and in fact it has al
ways been my understanding that
property rights could not be taken
without due compensation therefor.
This whole riparian agitation has
come from a few points over the
state where citizens have filled-in
and built on such water bottoms as
are above described, thinking that
they owned them under the act of
1856, as above referred to. Such a
presumption of ownership was mex
cusable for the reason that our su-
preme court, in the Black River
Phosphate case, reported in 80 Flor
ida 81, 13 Southern $40, construed
every provision of the act in a very
able and elaborate opinion contrary
to such view. think, however, that
in the face of all of this, these citi-
| ZenS should he given Gonna rnnnsr,rn