entitled to select within a period of three years after the approval of this act and have patented to it other vacant nonmineral, nontimbered, surveyed public lands of equal area and value situated in the same State, as may be agreed upon by the Secretary of the Interior: Provided, That the total area of land that may be exchanged under the provisions of the act shall not exceed three thousand acres in Arizona, sixteen thousand acres in New Mexico, and five thousand acres in California. JNO. H. STEPHENS, CARL HAYDEN, Managers on the part of the House. PROTECTION OF DOCKS AND HARBOR-DEFENSE FEBRUARY 22, 1913.-Referred to the House Calendar and ordered to be printed. Mr. CLAYTON, from the Committee on the Judiciary, submitted the following REPORT. [To accompany H. R. 28765.] The Committee on the Judiciary, having had under consideration the bill (H. R. 28765) to amend section 44 of an act approved March 4, 1909, entitled "An act to codify, revise, and amend the penal laws of the United States," report the same back with the recommendation that the bill do pass. Your committee believe that the bill proposes wise and needed legislation. The subject matter is treated of in a letter addressed to the chairman of your committee by Assistant Secretary of War Robert Shaw Oliver under date of January 22, 1913, in which he says as follows: Section 44 of the act of March 4, 1909 (35 Stat., 1097), provides that "whoever shall willfully trespass upon, injure, or destroy any of the works or property or material of any submarine mine or torpedo, or fortification or harbor-defense system owned or constructed or in process of construction by the United States, or shall willfully interfere with the operation or use of any such submarine mine, torpedo, fortification, or harbor-defense system, shall be fined not more than $5,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both." The War Department has, nevertheless, experienced considerable difficulty in protecting essential elements of harbor-defense systems. This is particularly true of mine fields and the cable connections necessary in the maintenance of such mine fields. Masters of vessels persist in anchoring within the mine areas, and this often results in the injury or destruction of the cable connections or even in greater damage. Furthermore, the section as it now stands does not serve to protect the harbordefense systems of the United States in the Philippine Islands or in other places subject to the jurisdiction of the United States but in which the Federal Penal Code is not operative. It appears, therefore, that there is need of legislation that will serve to prevent anchoring within areas delimited as necessary for the protection of harbordefense systems, and to extend the protection of the statute to harbor-defense systems situated in all places not within the United States but subject to the jurisdiction thereof. Similar defects in section 45 of the act of March 4, 1909, were remedied by supplementing that section by the act of March 3, 1911 (36 Stat., 1084-1085), which is broader in scope than section 45, in so far as substantive features are concerned, and which is operative not only within the United States, but also in places noncontiguous to the United States but subject to the jurisdiction thereof. * For the reasons indicated above I am of the opinion that section 44 of the act of March 4, 1909, should be broadened in its substantive features, and also in so far as the territory within which it is operative is concerned. * O PUNISHMENT OF CERTAIN CRIMES AGAINST THE UNITED STATES. FEBRUARY 22, 1913.-Referred to the House Calendar and ordered to be printed. Mr. CLAYTON, from the Committee on the Judiciary, submitted the following REPORT. [To accompany H. R. 28809.] The Committee on the Judiciary, having had under consideration H. R. 28809, report the same back with the recommendation that it be amended as follows and that as amended the bill do ass: In line 5, page 1, strike out the words "of or" and insert in lieu thereof the words "of the United States." On pages 2 and 3 strike out all of section 2. The first mendment is proposed for the purpose of making it clear that in the event the bill becomes a law its terms are not to apply to property belonging to private individuals. It is proposed by the second amendment to strike out section 2 entire of the bill, because it is thought that the existing law on the subject mae thereof is ample. The legislation proposed your committee believes to be wise and needed. With regard thereto, the Secretary of the Interior, in a letter addressed to the chairman of your committee under date of February 11, 1913, says as follows: The attention of this department has been directed to the fact that there is at present no general Federal law providing for the punishment of persons guilty of the injury or destruction of reclamation works constructed and operated under the provisions of the act of June 17, 1902 (32 Stat., 388), or guilty of unlawfully taking water from such reclamation works. By direction of the President I am calling the matter to your attention. Chapter 4 of the Criminal Code of the United States, approved March 4, 1909, contains numerous provisions for the punishment of those who interfere with Government military works or cut timber on public lands, who set fire to forests, or who destroy United States telephone, telegraph, or cable lines, or public survey corners, but none of these provisions appear to apply specifically to reclamation works. Section 47 of the code fixes a penalty for stealing money, goods, chattels, records, or property of the United States and would probably cover the taking of materials, but does not specifically cover the unlawful taking of water from the reclamation works constructed by the Government. I am advised by the Director of the Reclamation Service that ditches or other reclamation works have been broken or injured and water unlawfully taken on several projects, and that it has been difficult to secure adequate punishment under the local laws so as to deter a repetition of such offenses. Many of the dams and other structures of the Reclamation Service have involved an expenditure of millions of dollars for their construction, and it is vitally important that adequate protection be extended to these valuable works. O |