EDITORIAL 353 



This is possible for Washington on an even larger scale as becomes the capital 

 of this great nation. The project appeals both to the imagination and to 

 everyday business sense. The environs of Washington today are not a credit 

 to the city or the nation. While we are spending millions for public buildings, 

 why not designate a very few of these millions to make a fit setting for the 

 national city we are building? 



THE SUPREME COURT DECISIONS 



CHE recent decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in the 

 California and Colorado grazing cases are an important milestone in 

 our national development. For a long time the interests inimical to 

 the national forests have been looking forward to a possible victory on the 

 issues involved in these cases, which would give the control of the national 

 forests over to the states in which they lie. So much hope for this did the 

 state authorities of Colorado see in the Light case that the attorney general 

 of the state came on and aided the appellant. At the first hearing of the 

 California cases the court divided, but when the cases were reopened the 

 court held unanimously for the government on every point. So thoroughly 

 were the issues gone into that the court itself undoubtedly gained a much 

 fuller appreciation of their gravity than it had at the beginning. Every 

 possible point was raised against federal control, with the idea of making 

 these test cases. 



In the California cases the main question at issue was the right of the 

 Secretary of Agriculture to make regulations for the management of the 

 national forests and the authority of these regulations when made, the 

 defendants Grimaud, Carajous, and Inda claiming that these regulations 

 usurped the powers of Congress, which could not delegate its legislative 

 powers, and were therefore void. 



The court admitted the difficulty of drawing the line in many cases, 

 between legislative and administrative functions, but found no diflSculty in 

 these cases, the exercise of powers by the Secretary of Agriculture being purely 

 administrative and fully sanctioned by the various acts creating the forests 

 and giving him authority over them. ''The authority to make administrative 

 rules," says the Court, ''is not a delegation of legislative power, nor are such 

 rules raised from an administrative to a legislative character, because the 

 violation thereof is punished as a public offence." The decision of the lower 

 court, which sustained the demurrer of the defendant, was reversed. 



Every forest oflScer can breathe a little easier for this decision, knowing 

 that the highest judicial authority in the land has sustained the legality of the 

 rules he is administering. 



The Light case, which came up on appeal of Light, a Colorado ranchman, 

 convicted in the circuit court of wilfully violating the regulations governing 

 the national forests and turning his cattle into the Holy Cross forest without 

 a permit, involved the question of state or federal control of the public 

 lands, since the defendant claimed the benefit of the Colorado statute requiring 

 the owner of land to erect and maintain a fence of a given height and strength, 

 and it was further contended that Congress could not withdraw large bodies 

 of land from settlement without the consent of the state in which such lands 

 are located. This claim, of course, struck at the very foundation of the 

 national forest system, but the disposition of it by the Court was sweeping 

 and complete. The United States is an owner with full control over its own 



