This case is here on certiorari, 285 U.S. 535, 52 S.Ct. 457, 76 L.Ed. 929, to review a decree of the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia, 60 App.D.C. 325, 53 F.(2d) 1079. Following its earlier decision in Quinn v. Dougherty, 58 App.D.C. 339, 30 F.(2d) 749, that court affirmed a decree of the Supreme Court of the District, enjoining the petitioners, the District Commissioners, from erecting a fire engine house in Rock Creek Park at a point near the property of some of the respondents, and adjoining that of others.
The Commissioners are directed by act of Congress, 45 Stat. 667, to build the engine house at the designated location within the park. The presence of such a structure will, it is admitted, diminish the attractiveness of respondents' lands for residence purposes, and, in consequence, decrease their exchange value. Respondents contend that they have a valuable right appurtenant to their land, in the nature of an easement, to have the land used for park purposes, and that the act of Congress, directing its use for other purposes, is a taking of their property without just compensation, in violation of the Fifth Amendment.
For present purposes we assume that the proposed building with divert the land from park uses, and address ourselves to the question upon which the other issues in the case depend, whether the respondents, plaintiffs in the trial court, are vested with the right for which they invoke constitutional protection.
There is no contention that such a right arises as an incident to the ownership of neighboring land, as does an easement of light and air, under the law of some states. See Muhlker v. New York & Harlem Railroad Co., 197 U.S. 544, 564, 25 S.Ct. 522, 49 L.Ed. 872. Compare Marchand v. Pennsylvania Railroad, 153 U.S. 380, 14 S.Ct. 894, 38 L.Ed. 751. But it is argued that the right asserted, whether it be regarded as arising from a contract with the government or an interest in its lands, has a definite source in the transaction by which the park was created.
The court below found this source in the first section of the Rock Creek Park Act, 26 Stat. 492 (40 USCA § 83), by which the lands taken for the park by purchase or condemnation were 'perpetually dedicated and set apart as a public park or pleasure ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people of the United States, * * *' and in the assessment under section 6 , of surrounding lands, including those of respondents, to the extent that they were 'specially benefited by reason of the location and improvement' of the park. The question is thus one of construction of the statute; if it did not create the private rights asserted, it is unnecessary to invoke the police power, as petitioners do, to justify the construction of the engine house. Cf. Jackman v. Rosenbaum Co., 260 U.S. 22, 31, 43 S.Ct. 9, 67 L.Ed. 107.
First. The respondents derived no rights against the government from the dedication of the park alone. The park lands purchased or condemned by authority of the Rock Creek Park Act were vested in the United States in fee. Section 3 of the act (26 Stat. 492) twice declares that 'the title' and once that 'the fee' of the condemned lands shall vest in the United States. By dedicating the lands thus acquired to a particular public use, Congress declared a public policy, but did not purport to deprive itself of the power to change that policy by devoting the lands to other uses. The dedication expressed no more than the will of a particular Congress which does not impose itself upon those to follow in succeeding years. See Newton v. Mahoning County Commissioners, 100 U.S. 548, 559, 25 L.Ed. 710; Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Co. v. Spratley, 172 U.S. 602, 621, 19 S.Ct. 308, 43 L.Ed. 569.