17 



charges, and for electric light and power, fuel, gas, ice, washing towels, 

 and traveling and other necessary expenses, one million seven hundred 

 and fifty-six thousand eight hundred dollars, of which sum not to exceed 

 forty thousand dollars may be used for rent. * * * 



This appropriation expressly provides for the employment of " fiscal and 

 other agents, clerks, assistants, and other labor required in practical forestry, 

 in the administration of national forests," whether they are employed " in the 

 District of Columbia or elsewhere." 



I am of the opinion that either this appropriation or that for administration, 

 etc., of national forests is applicable to the compensation of a supervisor of a 

 national forest. 



The particular question for consideration in the case presented is whether 

 the Luquillo Forest Reserve in Porto Rico is a " national forest " within the 

 meaning of the above appropriations. Section 24 of the act of March 3, 1891 

 (26 Stat, 1095, 1103), provides as follows: 



That the President of the United States may, from time to time, set 

 apart and reserve in any State or Territory having public land bearing 

 forests, in any part of the public lands wholly or in part covered with 

 timber or undergrowth, whether of commercial value or not, as public 

 reservations, and the President shall, by public proclamation, declare the 

 establishment of such reservations and the limits thereof. 



Prior to the passage of the act of March 4, 1907, supra, the reservations of 

 public lands made under the above section were known as " forest reserves." 

 But the said act of March 4, 1907, in the paragraph making appropriation for 

 general expenses, quoted above, provides that forest reserves should there- 

 after be known as " national forests." I think, therefore, the appropriations 

 made in said act are applicable only to expenses incurred in connection with 

 national forests established under said section 24 of the act of March 3, 1891. 

 (13 Comp. Dec., 219.) That section authorizes the reservation of national 

 forests only in a " State or Territory." 



In the absence of a legislative construction of the word " territory " as used 

 in said section 24 of the act of March 3, 1891, I should be inclined to hold that 

 Porto Rico is not a Territory within the meaning of said act authorizing the 

 President to set aside forest reservations in the States and Territories, and that 

 the Territories therein mentioned are such as have a civil government estab- 

 lished by Congress as a Territorial government and directly under the laws of 

 the United States. But Congress in the last appropriation act for the general 

 expenses of the Forest Reserve has recognized the fact that forest reservations 

 may be carried out in Alaska, which is no more a Territory of the United States, 

 in the technical sense in which the word " territory " is commonly used in the 

 statutes, than is Porto Rico, by providing that the Secretary of Agriculture 

 may permit timber and other forest products to be cut or removed from national 

 forests of the United States, except the Black Hills National Forest or the Dis- 

 trict of Alaska. To be enabled to enforce this exception presupposes the fact 

 that forest reservations may be made in Alaska, and that the Secretary may 

 appoint such officers as are necessary to maintain and administer such forest 

 reservations in Alaska, and to enforce such exception. 



You state that the President made the forest reserve in question under the 

 act of July 2, 1902, quoted by you, which I do not think is either amendatory 

 of said section 24, or modifies its provisions; but if authorized to make such 

 forest reserve under the act providing for forest reservations in the States and 

 Territories, it is immaterial under what statute he claimed to act. Having 

 the authority to make a forest reserve in Porto Rico, and having made one, 



