Argument for the United States.

243 U.S. of the general allotment act. The Clapp Amendment, enacted shortly thereafter, contains no indication of an intention to repeal the prior act as to mixed-blood Chippewas. It passed fee simple title to trust allotments held by certain tribal Indians regardless of their competency by declaring that trust deeds "heretofore or hereafter issued to them" should have that effect. The inclusion. of trust instruments "hereafter" to be issued could only have come from a desire to grant full title without granting to incompetents the citizenship which would come under the Act of 1906 by allowing a patent in fee.

The clause "or such mixed bloods upon application shall be entitled to receive a patent in fee simple" is not an absolute direction to issue such patents. Under it adult mixed bloods have the option to apply for citizenship and subjection to state laws (Act of May 8, 1906, supra), or to remain as tribal Indians subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States (ibid.). The clause defining the trust allotments to which fee titles passed to be those "heretofore or hereafter" held by adult mixed bloods is utterly inconsistent with any intention to terminate the guardianship. As no transfer could theretofore have been made, the word "heretofore " referred to allotments of deceased Indians, and the intention was to pass fee title to their heirs. Congress surely did not intend to emancipate such decedents nunc pro tunc or emancipate from federal guardianship all full bloods, minors, or tribal relatives on other Chippewa reservations, who might inherit such allotments. The policy of emancipating individual tribal Indians when they have become and are found capable of managing their own affairs has long been settled, and frequently stated in acts of Congress. See Acts of July 1, 1902, 32 Stat. 636, 639; March 2, 1907, 34 Stat. 1221; May 18, 1916, 39 Stat. 123, 128. The Clapp Amendment purporting to do no more than pass fee title, cannot be held to involve a finding that all

mixed bloods are competent. Consistently with its own language, with other parts of the same act, and every annual Indian act since, mixed bloods were and are treated as dependent Indians, with full bloods.

The capacity of the United States to sue for the protection of its Indian wards exists in every justiciable case of wrong suffered by them. United States v. Kagama, 118 U. S. 375, 384; United States v. Rickert, 188 U. S. 432, 437, 444; Heckman v. United States, 224 U. S. 413, 437, 441; United States v. Noble, 237 U. S. 74, 79; United States v. Nice, 241 U. S. 591, 597; United States v. Gray, 201 Fed. Rep. 291, 293; United States v. Fitzgerald, 201 Fed. Rep. 295, 296. These decisions recognize the right of the United States to sue on behalf of dependent Indians in fulfillment of its obligations springing from its peculiar relation to them.

It is no answer to say that the Indians themselves have a right to sue for the relief to which they are entitled. The same conditions of helpless dependency which operated to deprive them of their property would likewise preclude them from undertaking the litigation necessary to obtain relief. Heckman v. United States, 224 U. S. 413, 438; United States v. Gray, 201 Fed. Rep. 291, 294.

Legislation affecting the Indians is to be construed in their interest, Choate v. Trapp, 224 U. S. 665, 675; United States v. Nice, 241 U. S. 591, 599; a construction of the Clapp Amendment which would deny all relief to these Indians would not be in their interest but in the interest of unscrupulous speculators. United States v. Thurston County, 143 Fed. Rep. 287, 289.

Mr. Marshall A. Spooner for Waller et al.

MR. JUSTICE DAY delivered the opinion of the court.

This case is here upon a certificate from the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, from which it

appears that the United States brought a suit in the District Court of the United States for the District of Minnesota for the purpose of cancelling and annulling a warranty timber deed from Ah-be-daun-ah-quod and Ah-sum, Indian allottees on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota, to Mamie S. Waller, dated November 4, 1907, and a certain warranty deed from the same Indians to L. S. Waller, dated January 6, 1908. The District Court dismissed the bill on the ground that the plaintiff had no capacity to maintain the suit and upon a further ground that the court had no jurisdiction to hear and consider the same.

The Court of Appeals certifies the bill upon which suit was brought in the District Court, wherein it is alleged that the United States brought the action upon behalf of Ah-be-daun-ah-quod and Ah-sum, Indian allottees in the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota. The acts of Congress under which the allotments were made to the Indians named are set forth, and it is averred that these acts provided that the lands in question should be held in trust by the United States for a period of twenty-five years; that the Indians for whom the suit was brought were Chippewa Indians of the White Earth Reservation, residing on the reservation, and were husband and wife and adult mixed-blood Indians.

It is averred that since the establishment of the White Earth Reservation the United States, in pursuance of its treaties and agreements with the tribes and bands of Chippewa Indians in the State of Minnesota, and in pursuance of its laws, has had and exercised through the Department of the Interior and the Office of Indian Affairs the function of guardian, protecting and defending said tribes and bands and the individual members thereof in the enjoyment and possession of their property rights. That before the commission of the acts of the defendants complained of there were duly allotted to Ah-be-daun-ah-quod and

Ah-sum certain tracts of land in the White Earth Reservation, which are described.

That afterwards, in December, 1907, the defendant, Lucky S. Waller, negotiating with these two Indians for the purchase of a portion of the timber upon their allotments, paid to them $50 as partial payment for such timber, and caused them to sign a certain paper, produced by him, by placing their thumb marks thereon. That as an inducement to procuring the execution of this paper, Waller falsely and fraudulently stated that it was merely a receipt for the payment. That neither Indian could read or write, and each was obliged to rely on Waller for understanding and knowledge of the contents of the instrument, and that so relying upon him and upon his false statements, they believed the instrument to be but a receipt for the money paid.

That in January, 1908, a further payment of $75 was made by Waller to the two Indians, and another paper executed by them under similar circumstances and representations. That in June, 1910, and December, 1911, sums of $10 were paid by Waller to the Indians; that such sums aggregating $145, were all paid with the understanding and belief on the part of the Indians that they were part of the purchase price of a part of the timber upon the lands; and that no other or further moneys have been paid by Waller to the Indians.

That in December, 1911, the Indians for the first time learned, and plaintiff was thereafter advised, that the land records in the offices of the registers of deeds of Mahnomen and Clearwater counties, Minnesota, showed that there had been filed for record in said offices, respectively, two instruments in writing; one, an instrument purporting to be a warranty timber deed from Ah-be-daun-ah-quod and Ah-sum to Mamie S. Waller, dated November 4, 1907, reciting the consideration for the property therein conveyed to be $500, and purporting to convey the timber

upon the lands patented to the Indians with the exception of one parcel, and the other an instrument purporting to be a warranty deed from Ah-be-daun-ah-quod and Ahsum to L. S. Waller, dated January 6, 1908, reciting the consideration paid to be $200, and purporting to convey all of the lands patented.

That the instruments so recorded were the instruments executed by the Indians, by their thumb marks in the custom of Indians unable to read or write, and that the instruments which the Indians executed in December, 1907, and January, 1908, were not in truth and in fact the receipts which the defendant Waller falsely and fraudulently represented them to be, but were the instruments so recorded, which the Indians signed in ignorance of their contents, nature and effect, and in reliance upon the false and fraudulent representations in regard thereto made by the defendant Waller, all of which was well known to the defendant.

That Mamie S. Waller is the wife of defendant Lucky S. Waller, and the person mentioned as the grantee in the timber deed; that she gave no consideration for the timber deed or the property purporting to be conveyed thereby; that the deed was caused to be taken in her name as grantee for the mutual benefit of the defendants; that she pretends to have and claims the title to the property therein described by virtue of said timber deed, and thereby seeks to avail herself of the benefit of the fraud perpetrated in securing the timber deed from the two Indians.

That the Indians never had any negotiations with either of the defendants directly or indirectly as to the sale of the lands or of any timber thereon or in any respect other than as set forth in the bill; that they never intended to sell the lands and never did sell them or any part thereof; and that they never knowingly signed or executed any instrument conveying or in any manner alienating the