Louisiana Law Review Volume 2 | Number 2 January 1940 Marginal Seas Around the States Gordon Ireland Repository Citation Gordon Ireland, Marginal Seas Around the States, 2 La. L. Rev. (1940) Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.lsu.edu/lalrev/vol2/iss2/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Reviews and Journals at LSU Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Louisiana Law Review by an authorized editor of LSU Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Marginal Seas Around the States GORDON IRELAND* THE CONTROVERSY Our Navy, which admits that for a delightful period in the West Indies it "made not one single mistake,"1 is not always equally fortunate in home waters, and on the coast of California seems to be particularly unlucky. There is no question this time of piling up a destroyer squadron on jagged gray rocks; but an attempt to take advantage of a fight among local oil and political interests to gain for itself property and power ran headlong into legislative and legal reefs which are as yet uncleared. The gold striped arms dropped the melon halfway to the fence, and the loud resulting squash aroused not only the owners but some of the neighbors. The Board of Strategy (Domestic) stands at atten- tion beside its blackboard, wondering glumly where the cus- tomary rote formula of first-line-of-defense-brave-and-bold-grab- it went astray, and is still foggily trying to perceive how ques- tions of constitutional and international law could possibly have obtruded themselves into the issue.