w:Supreme Court of the United States

“ It is for Congress, under the Constitution, to regulate the right of navigation by all appropriate means, to declare what is necessary to be done in order to free navigation from obstruction, and to prescribe the way in which the question of obstruction shall be determined. ”

“ The power to approve implies the power to disapprove and the power to disapprove necessarily includes the lesser power to condition an approval. In the light of this general assumption by Congress of control over the subject and of the large powers delegated to the Secretary, the condition imposed by that officer cannot be considered otherwise than as an authoritative determination of what was reasonably necessary to be done to insure free and safe navigation so far as the obstruction in question was concerned. ”

“ Subsequent to the removal of the piles the government of the United States constructed a wing dam above and carried on dredging operations immediately below the bridge, so that the bed of the river was gradually lowered until, in 1918, when the injury in question occurred, the surface of the water was about 7 feet lower than at the time the piles were destroyed, although the depth of the water remained approximately the same with the result that the old stumps protruded several feet above the then existing bed of the river. ”