OCR Text |
Show 6 I would like to outline briefly the scope of the Government's evidence, as it will be presented in the progress of this case. As your Honor already knows, this case turns upon the question of the navigability of this river, or its non- naviga-bility. I think that all of us have in our minds some idea of what is navigable and what is not navigable. But in order that your Honor may understand the purport of the Govern-ment's testimony and the target at which we are directing our evidence, I want to briefly call your Honor's attention to what is navigable, as defined by the supreme Court of the United States, Because that will have considerable bearing upon our evidence and what I may say later in my opening stat-ement. In the first place, it was decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of United States Vs. Holt State Bank, 270 U. S., 49, that the question of navigability is to be tested, not by the state law, but by the law as de-clared by the Supreme Court of the United States. In that particular case, which came up from Minnesota, the district court, and also the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, held to the view that the question of navigability was to be determined by the law as in effect in the State of Minnesota. While the conclusion re ached in the Supreme Court of the United States on the General result of the case was the same as it was in the courts below, the Supreme Court took occasion in that case to say pointedly what I have just 1967 |