VETERANS' ADMINISTRATION, OFFICE OF THE ADMINISTRATOR OF VETERANS' AFFAIRS, Hon. OLIN E. TEAGUE, Washington 25, D. C., May 13, 1955. Chairman, Committee on Veterans' Affairs, House of Representatives, Washington 25, D. C. DEAR MR. TEAGUE: This is in reply to your request for a report on H. R. 4727, 84th Congress, a bill to permit the issuance of a flag to a friend or associate of the deceased veteran where it is not claimed by the next of kin. The purpose of the bill is to amend paragraph I of Veterans Regulation No. 9 (a), as amended, to provide that where an honorably discharged veteran of any war, or a person honorably discharged from the United States Army, Navy, Marine Corps, or Coast Guard after having served at least one enlistment or for disability incurred in line of duty, dies after discharge, a flag to drape the casket shall be furnished in all cases, such flag to be given to the next of kin after the burial of the veteran, provided, that in the event no claim is made for the flag by the next of kin, it may be given, upon request, to a close friend or associate of the deceased veteran. The fact that a flag is not immediately claimed by the next of kin of a deceased veteran does not preclude issue, upon request, to the legally entitled next of kin at a later date. If such flag were given to a close friend or associate in the absence of a relative present to claim it at the time of burial, complications could possibly arise if an entitled relative later was made aware of his right to the flag and subsequently presented his claim for it. The bill, if enacted, could increase the administrative costs of the Veterans' Administration in securing evidence to show whether the claimant was in fact a close friend or associate, and could require the Veterans' Administration to determine which of two or more claimants was the closer friend or associate. In view of the foregoing, the Veterans' Administration recommends that the bill be not favorably considered by your committee. Advice has been received from the Bureau of the Budget that there would be no objection to the submission of this report to the committee. Sincerely yours, H. V. HIGLEY, Administrator. CHANGES IN EXISTING LAW In compliance with subsection 4 of rule XXIX of the Standing Rules of the Senate, changes in existing law made by the bill are shown as follows (existing law proposed to be omitted is enclosed in black brackets; new matter is printed in italics; existing law in which no change is proposed is shown in roman): PARAGRAPH I, Veterans Regulation No. 9 (a), as Amended I. Where an honorably discharged veteran of any war, or a person honorably discharged from the United States Army, Navy, Marine Corps, or Coast Guard after serving at least one enlistment or for disability incurred in line of duty, dies after discharge, a flag to drape the casket shall be furnished in all cases; such flag to be given to the next of kin after burial of the veteran: Provided, That in the event no claim is made for the flag by the next of kin, it may be given, upon request, to a close friend or an associate of the deceased veteran: Provided further, That the furnishing of a flag to any person under this proviso will constitute final and conclusive determination of rights under this Veterans Regulation. О 84TH CONGRESS 1st Session SENATE { REPORT No. 1025 PROVIDING FOR THE ABOLITION OF THE 80-ROD RESERVED SPACES BETWEEN CLAIMS ON SHORE WATERS IN ALASKA JULY 19, 1955.-Ordered to be printed Mr. JACKSON, from the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, submitted the following REPORT [To accompany H. R. 605] The Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. 605) to provide for the abolition of the 80-rod reserved spaces between claims on shore waters in Alaska, having considered the same, report favorably thereon without amendment and recommend that the bill do pass. EXPLANATION OF THE BILL The purpose of H. R. 605 is to repeal those provisions of section 10 of the act of May 4, 1898, as amended (48 U. S. C., 1952 ed., secs. 461, 462), which reserve from sale and entry a space of 80 rods (a quarter of a mile) in width between tracts on navigable waters in Alaska sold or entered under provisions of applicable law. The statutory provisions which have been in effect since 1898 were enacted to prevent the appropriation of excessive amounts of valuable shoreline space by a few individuals or groups. However, the need for establishing boundary lines separating privately owned lands by a quarter of a mile has long since passed. In fact, the statutory requirement that entryman or settler on navigable waters had to be a quarter mile distant, in either direction, from his nearest neighbor has hindered development. Each time an entry has been made, such entry has automatically created a new reservation in a Territory already suffering from an excess of reservations and withdrawals. As the Department of the Interior points out in its favorable report on H. R. 605, the public interest is protected adequately under other existing law which permits the Secretary of the Interior to make withdrawals necessary to provide ingress and egress to shoreline space for the use of the public and to segregate sites valuable for harbor and community purposes. H. R. 605 specifically protects rights to shoreline space possessed by Indians, Eskimos, and Aleuts in Alaska under reservations made by the Secretary of the Interior. The Department of Agriculture in its favorable report on H. R. 605 states the proposed legislation would be especially useful and in the public interest in reference to homesite tracts eliminated from the national forests for settlement. The Bureau of the Budget reviewed the report of the Department of the Interior and made no objection to its submission. Official groups and private citizens for years have sought repeal of the statute as detrimental to orderly development of the Territory. At the committee hearings, the popularly elected Delegate from Alaska, Hon. E. L. Bartlett, strongly urged favorable action. The reports of the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture follow: Hon. CLAIR ENGLE, Chairman, Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. MY DEAR MR. ENGLE: This is in reply to your request for the views of this Department on H. R. 605, a bill to provide for the abolition of the 80-rod reserved spaces between claims on shore waters in Alaska. I recommend that H. R. 605 be enacted if amended as suggested below. H. R. 605, if enacted in its present form, would repeal those provisions of section 10 of the act of May 14, 1898, as amended (48 U. S. C., 1952 ed., secs. 461, 462), which reserve from sale and entry spaces at least 80 rods in width between tracts sold on shore waters of Alaska under section 10. The apparent objective of the legislation (both sec. 10 of the 1898 act and other statutes) dealing with the reservation of shore spaces was to prevent monopolization of shorelines in the Territory in order to keep the shores open to the general public as sites for wharves and landings and for such purposes as fishing and general ingress and egress. The advantage of the legislation, particularly in the light of conditions existing at the time of its enactment, was that it automatically prevented appropriation of entire stretches of shore. The law is self-enforcing since no rights can be initiated on lands reserved by its operation. The present law, however, merely prevents the appropriation of long stretches of shore by private interests, and does not prevent the appropriation of the most choice shore areas. So long as there is no other entry within 80 rods of a desirable tract of land, that tract is open to entry. When the entry is made, the adjacent lands become reserved, thus leaving secondary areas, which may not be valuable at all for public purposes, in public ownership. The result has been the reservation of many miles of shorelines which have no value for public purposes and which require the expenditure of public funds for field examination and other activities in order to eliminate the reservations. When the legislation was first enacted, there was a point to the self-enforcing feature. The Territory was then a distant land, sparsely occupied, and with only a rudimentary governmental structure. Today various Federal agencies have skilled staffs in the Territory equipped to protect the public interest in a positive manner, and the Territorial government itself has developed the means and ability to take effective action in many fields and now has its own land agency. Moreover, legislation has been enacted which provides statutory authority for the proper protection of the public interest along the shorelines of Alaska. In particular the Recreation Act of June 14, 1926, as amended by the act of June 4, 1954 (68 Stat. 173; Public Law 387, 83d Cong.), and the Small Tract Act, as amended by the act of June 8, 1954 (68 Stat. 239; Public Law 390, 83d Cong.), authorize the Secretary of the Interior to classify lands for public purposes and to dispose of them to local governmental agencies and nonprofit organizations. Officials of both the Department of the Interior and the Territory of Alaska have been active in investigating shore areas to be certain that, wherever the public interest demands it, areas are reserved for public use. Thus, changing times and new legislation have obviated the original justification for the existing statutes reserving shore spaces. Most of Alaska is unsurveyed. The presence of reserved areas along unsurveyed shores often leads to inequities when an entryman in good faith establishes himself inadvertently on reserved spaces. The reserves also prevent entry on some lands that have no special value for public purposes. I favor the enactment of H. R. 605, but I believe that amendment is needed to achieve the results desired. In particular, I recommend that the bill state specifically the provisions to be repealed. Therefore, I suggest that it be rewritten along the lines of the enclosed draft. If amended as suggested, the various sections of the bill would provide as follows: Section 1 of the bill would strike out those provisions of section 1 of the 1898 act as amended which provide for the reservation of the 80-rod spaces. Section 2 would repeal the proviso to section 10 of the 1898 act which not only reserves to the United States spaces 80 rods in width between tracts sold or entered on shore waters of Alaska, but also gives authority to the Secretary to grant use of shore-space reserves for public landing and wharf purposes. With the elimination of the reserves, the Secretary, of course, will no longer have need for authority relating to their use. The proviso which would be repealed also reserves to the United States a right-of-way for a public highway along the shorelines of the Territory. Section 3 would repeal the provisions of the act of 1920 which gave the Secretary authority to restore shore-space reserves. This authority would be obsolete if the 80-rod reserves were abolished. Section 4 would provide that all lands restored from reservation by the bill would be subject to the public land laws applicable to Alaska, but would also provide that a restoration under the bill would not be construed as a revocation of an order of withdrawal within the meaning of section 4 of the act of September 27, 1944 (58 Stat. 748), as amended (43 U. S. C., 1952 ed., sec. 282). This would mean that the restoration of lands by this bill would not be delayed to afford veterans a preferred right of application. Since most of the reserves are unsurveyed and are widely dispersed, veterans would not gain anything in particular if veterans' preference were retained for those lands, and the chief result would be delay in the opening of some lands to entry. Section 5 would protect the interests of any permitted user of reserved lands released by the act. Our records do not show that any such permits are now in force, but there is no harm in having this savings clause. This section would also protect the natives in their use of reserved landing places. The Bureau of the Budget has advised that there is no objection to the submission of this report to your committee. Sincerely yours, FRED G. AANDAHL, Assistant Secretary of the Interior. A BILL To provide for the abolition of the eighty-rod reserved spaces between claims on shore waters in Alaska and for other purposes Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That section 1 of the Act of May 14, 1898 (30 Stat. 409), as amended by the Act of March 3, 1903 (32 Stat. 1028; 48 U. S. C., 1952 ed., sec. 371), is amended by striking out the following language: "and provided further, That no location of scrip, selection, or right along any navigable or other waters shall be made within the distance of eighty rods of any lands, along such waters, theretofore located by means of any such scrip or otherwise;", and "and along such shore a space of at least eighty rods shall be reserved from entry between all such claims;". SEC. 2. Section 10 of the Act of May 14, 1898 (30 Stat. 413; 48 U. S. C., 1952 ed., sec. 462), is amended by striking out the following language: "Provided further, That there shall be reserved by the United States a space of eighty rods in width between tracts sold or entered under the provisions of this Act on lands abutting on any navigable stream, inlet, gulf, bay, or seashore, and that the Secretary of the Interior may grant the use of such reserved lands abutting on the waterfront to any citizen or association of citizens, or to any corporation incorporated under the laws of the United States or under the laws of any State or Territory. for landings, and wharves, with the provision that the public shall have access to and proper use of such wharves, and landings, at reasonable rates of toll to be prescribed by said Secretary, and a roadway sixty feet in width, parallel to the shoreline as near as may be practicable, shall be reserved for the use of the public as a highway:". SEC. 3. The Act of June 5, 1920 (41 Stat. 1059; 48 U. S. C., 1952 ed., sec. 372), SEC. 4. All lands restored from reservation by this Act shall be restored to all Hon. CLAIR ENGLE, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, Washington, March 4, 1955. Chairman, Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, DEAR CONGRESSMAN ENGLE: Reference is made to your letter of January 18 H. R. 605 would abolish the provision in section 10 of the act of May 14, 1898, The principal interest of this Department concerns homesite tracts which would Homesite tracts in Alaska are smaller than forest homesteads. Yet the act Enactment of H. R. 605 would lead to greater efficiency and economy in han- In view of your subsequent request, we are not awaiting advice from the Bureau Sincerely yours, E. L. PETERSON, Acting Secretary. |