Page:Address of Frederick V. Holman at Oregon Bar Association annual meeting.djvu/20

 which allows the assent of the State to- be exercised except under an act of its Legislative Assembly.

In Cummings v. Chicago, 188 U. S. 411, it was held that under existing legislation the right to erect a structure in a navigable river, wholly within the limits of a State, depends upon the concurrent or joint assent of the State and National Governments acting by their constituted agencies.

In Montgomery v. Portland, 190 U, S. 89, the case of Cummings v. Chicago, supra, was expressly affirmed. On page 106, Mr. Justice Harlan said:

"Upon the authority, then, of Cummings v. City of Chicago and the cases therein cited—to which we may add Willamette Bridge Co. V. Hatch, 125 U. S. 1—we hold that, under existing enactments, the right of private persons to erect structures in a navigable water of the United States that is entirely within the limits of a State, cannot be said to be complete and absolute without the concurrent or joint assent of both the General and State Governments."

It therefore appears that so far as a State is concerned it must in its sovereign capacity as a State and by its Legislature give its assent or authority for the construction of a bridge over a navigable river wholly within its boundaries.

I have thus set forth what I believe to be the law in Oregon on the three subjects, viz.: Eminent Domain, power to grant franchises and control of highways, and relating to bridges across navigable rivers wholly within a State at the time the amendments of 1906 were adopted.

It is now contended that the amendments of 1906 have rendered nugatory and made void and of no effect the law on these three subjects, as they existed at that time. This contention is based on the facts that, by these amendments, the people of a municipality are granted the power "to enact and amend their charter," although no definition is made of what a charter is, and that these amendments give to each city and town in Oregon the right tO' exercise these sovereign powers equal or superior to^ the State itself, at least within their respective corporate limits.

It has, heretofore, been thought that the exercise of these sovereign powers should be granted only after careful