Chapter 387. Authorizing the Secretary of War to make regulations governing the running of loose logs, steamboats, and rafts on certain rivers and streams
588 words·~3 min read·
/statutes-at-large/vol-31/chapter-387-926076·A research copy — for the controlling text, always check the official state or federal source. Not legal advice.
CHAP. 387.— An Act Authorizing the Secretary of War to make regulations governing the running of loose logs, steamboats, and rafts on certain rivers and streams. May 9, 1900. *Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled*, Navigation. Exemption from prohibition against floating sack rafts in streams navigated by steamboats. Vol. 30, p. 1152. That the prohibition contained in section fifteen of the river and harbor Act, approved March third, eighteen hundred and ninety-nine, against floating loose timber and logs, or sack rafts, so called, of timber and logs in streams or channels actually navigated by steamboats, shall not apply to any navigable river or waterway of the United States or any part thereof whereon the floating of loose timber and logs and sack rafts of timber and logs is the principal method of navigation.
But such method of navigation on such river or waterway or part thereof shall be subject to the rules and regulations prescribed by the Secretary of War as hereinafter provided. Sec. 2. Secretary of War to make regulations for floating logs, rafts, etc. That the Secretary of War shall have power, and he is hereby authorized and directed, within the shortest practicable time after the passage hereof, to prescribe rules and regulations, which he may at any time modify, to govern and regulate the floating of loose timber and logs, and sack rafts, (so called) of timber and logs and other methods of navigation on the streams and waterways, or any thereof, of the character, as to navigation, in section one hereof described.
The said rules and regulations shall be so framed as to equitably adjust conflicting interests between the different methods or —publication. forms of navigation; and the said rules and regulations shall be published at least once in such newspaper or newspapers of general circulation as in the opinion of the Secretary of War shall be best adapted to give notice of said rules and regulations to persons affected thereby and locally interested therein. And all modifications of said rules and —force. regulations shall be similarly published.
And such rules and regulations when so prescribed and published as to any such stream or waterway —penalty. shall have the force of law, and any violation thereof shall be a misdemeanor, and every person convicted of such violation shall be punished by a fine of not exceeding two thousand five hundred dollars nor less than five hundred dollars, or by imprisonment (in case of a natural person) for not less than thirty days nor more than one year, or by both such fine and imprisonment, in the discretion of the court: *Proviso*.
Procedure. *Provided*, That the proper action to enforce the provisions of this section may be commenced before any commissioner, judge, or court of the United States, and such commissioner, judge or court shall proceed in respect thereto as authorized by law in the case of crimes or misdemeanors committed against the United States. Sec. 3. Amendment. That the right to alter, amend, or repeal this Act at any time is hereby reserved. Sec. 4. Pending actions unaffected. That this Act shall not, nor shall any rules or regulations prescribed thereunder, in any manner affect any civil action or actions heretofore commenced and now pending to recover damages claimed to have been sustained by reason of the violation of any of the terms of said section fifteen, as originally enacted, or in violation of any other law.
Approved, May 9, 1900.