of the Secretary of Agriculture, without additional expense to the Government, be granted leave of absence not to exceed fifteen days in any one year." A like provision was contained in the prior appropriation acts relative to the employees of the Bureau of Forestry outside of the city of Washington. This provision evidently contemplates that the provisions of section 7 of the act of March 15, 1898 (30 Stat. 316), relating to hours of labor in the Executive Departments, and which authorized the head of any Department to grant thirty days' annual leave, with pay, in any one year to each clerk or employee, should apply to employees of the Forest Service in the city of Washington; in other words, that the Forest Service in Washington, at least, was in an Executive Department within the meaning of that statute, otherwise the clerks and employees here would not be entitled to its benefit. To hold that the Forest Service in Washington was not in the Department of Agriculture in the narrower sense of that term might, therefore, work an untoward result to the clerks and employees of such service at Washington. I am aware that Attorney-General Griggs, in 22 Op. 77, held that the statute of 1898, relating to leaves of absence, applied to clerks and employees of an Executive Department outside. of the city of Washington, referring specifically to employees of the customs service, and therefore it may be said that the provisions as to fifteen days' leave for employees of the Forest Service outside of this city was in the nature of a restriction, although it is not so worded as to suggest that idea. Attorney-General Harmon, however, had previously held that the similar statute of 1893 applied only to clerks and employees of the Executive Departments in Washington, in view of the settled executive and legislative construction of the act of 1883 on the same subject. (21 Op. 338.) In any event, it will be observed that the Forest Service must be held to be in an Executive Department in order to entitle the clerks and employees thereof to the benefit of the leave of absence statute, the language of which, in this respect, is like that as to the transfer of clerks and employees from one Executive Department to another.

As above stated, the president of the Civil Service Commission, in his letter of May 10, 1909, said:

"Positions in the Forest Service at Washington have always been treated and regarded as in the Department proper and they have also been treated as within the apportioned service."

In my opinion, therefore, confining myself to the question presented, classified employees on the rolls of the Forest Service in Washington are required by the terms of section 5 of the act of June 22, 1906, to serve three years before their transfer to other Departments is permissible, unless they fall within the familiar rule, to which you call attention, that "a thing may be within the letter of the statute and yet not within the statute, because not within its spirit, nor within the intention of its makers." (Church of the

Holy Trinity v. United States, 143 U. S. 459.)

This suggestion, I presume, is based upon the fact, referred to by Mr. Bonaparte in his opinion of May 17, 1907 (26 Op. 256), that it appeared from the statement of the chairman of the committee in charge of the bill which became the act of June 22, 1906, that section 5 was inserted for the purpose of preventing the Executive Departments from competing against each other by offering to clerks an increase of wages to come from one Department to another, while the transfers you have in view are, I understand, necessary in order to prevent certain clerks and employees. from being dropped from the service entirely because of lack of employment for them in the Forest Service at Washington.

In my judgment the principle of statutory construction referred to and applied in the Holy Trinity Church case has no application to the present case, which, I think, is governed by the equally well-established principle that where the language of the statute is plain and unambiguous there is no room for construction. (United States v. Wiltberger, 5 Wheat. 96; Swarts v. Siegel (C. C. A.), 117 Fed. 18-19.) In the Holy Trinity Church case the language of the statute under consideration, the alien contract labor law, was susceptible of construction. It applied to persons coming into this country under contract to perform labor

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or service of any kind. Had it absolutely prohibited any alien from coming into the United States it would have been parallel to the present statute. As the act in question says no transfer shall be made within three years, there is nothing to construe.

Moreover, applying the principle of the Holy Trinity Church case to its utmost possible extent, there is nothing in the circumstances attending the enactment of the present statute which justifies the assumption that it was not intended to cover a transfer from one Executive Department to another for any other cause than the one above referred to.

The language of the statute is broader than what is supposed to have been the specific reason for its enactment, and must be given its legitimate effect in the absence of any clear and persuasive evidence of a different intention on the part of Congress.

Respectfully,

GEORGE W. WICKERSHAM.

The SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE.

NIAGARA FALLS COMMITTEE OF LANDSCAPE ARCHI

TECTS-AUTHORIZATION-COMPENSATION.

The Secretary of War had ample authority under the act of June 29, 1906 (34 Stat. 626), to appoint the so-called "Niagara Falls Committee of Landscape Architects," and the appropriation made by that act may be used in payment of compensation and expenses of that committee until June 29, 1909, when the act expires by its own limitation.

Congress did not intend by the provisions of section 9 of the act of March 4, 1909 (35 Stat. 945, 1027), which prohibits the payment of compensation or expenses of commissions, etc., unless the creation of the same shall have been authorized by law, to require a specific authorization by a law of the United States, but that it should be sufficient if their appointment were authorized in a general way by law.

Public officers have not only the power expressly conferred upon them by law, but also, by necessary implication, such powers as are requisite to enable them to discharge the duties devolved upon them.

DEPARTMENT of Justice,

June 26, 1909.

SIR: Under date of the 13th ultimo you request my opinion as to your authority to create or continue in existence

an existing committee known as the "Niagara Falls Committee of Landscape Architects," in view of the following provision of the sundry civil appropriation act of March 4, 1909 (35 Stat. 945, 1027):

"SEC. 9. That hereafter no part of the public moneys, or of any appropriation heretofore or hereafter made by Congress, shall be used for the payment of compensation or expenses of any commission, council, board, or other similar body, or any members thereof, or for expenses in connection with any work or the results of any work or action of any commission, council, board, or other similar body, unless the creation of the same shall be or shall have been authorized by law; nor shall there be employed by detail, hereafter or heretofore made, or otherwise personal services from any Executive Department or other Government establishment in connection with any such commission, council, board, or other similar body."

The act of June 29, 1906, entitled "An act for the control and regulation of the waters of Niagara River, for the preservation of Niagara Falls, and for other purposes," imposed upon the Secretary of War certain duties in respect to the use of the waters of the Niagara River for power purposes. Section 2 of that act contains this proviso:

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Provided, That the said Secretary, subject to the provisions of section five of this act, under the limitations relating to time above set forth is hereby authorized to grant revocable permits, from time to time, to such individuals, companies, or corporations, or their assigns, for the diversion of additional amounts of water from the said river or its tributaries to such amount, if any, as, in connection with the amount diverted on the Canadian side, shall not injure or interfere with the navigable capacity of said river, or of its integrity and proper volume as a boundary stream, or the scenic grandeur of Niagara Falls;

Section 5 of that act provides that the provisions thereof shall remain in force for three years from and after the date of its passage.

Section 6 provides:

"That for accomplishing the purposes detailed in this act the sum of fifty thousand dollars, or so much thereof as may be necessary, is hereby appropriated from any moneys in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated."

Referring to the provision of section 2 above quoted, you

say:

"It will be noted that the enactment above cited charges the Secretary of War with the performance of a new and peculiar duty; new in the sense that it contains the first attempt at legislative conservation of the scenic aspects of Niagara Falls, as distinguished from its character as a part of the navigable and boundary waters of the United States; peculiar in that there were no officers of the Department who, unaided, were able to advise the Secretary of War as to what steps were necessary to be taken with a view to prevent impairment of the scenic grandeur of the Falls in the execution of the duty with which he is expressly charged in the statute.

"The Secretary of War has been called upon, from time to time, to perform duties involving a knowledge of the several branches of civil and mechanical engineering, and other duties with which he has been charged by Congress have involved more or less knowledge of art, especially in the forms of sculpture and architecture. In such cases it has been the practice of the Department, if the matters lay outside the professional attainments of the officers of the several staff departments whose duty it is to assist the Secretary of War in that regard, to obtain the necessary expert advice and assistance in the operation of contractual undertakings. Such a course was resorted to in this instance, and the services of Messrs. Charles F. McKim, Frank D. Millet, and F. L. Olmsted were secured, who, for the purpose above specified, were constituted a committee which was to be known as the Niagara Falls Committee of Landscape Architects.' With a view to obtain an expression of the views of the experts above named in respect to such aspects of the case as to which there was unanimity of view among them, they were directed to submit a joint report containing such opinions as were jointly shared by