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sion will investigate and determine the right of such party to remain upon such roll as a citizen of such nation: Provided, also, That any one whose name shall be stricken from the roll by such Commission shall have the right of appeal, as provided in the act of June tenth, eighteen hundred and ninetysix.

"That on and after January first, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, all acts, ordinances and resolutions of the council of either of the aforesaid Five Tribes passed shall be certified immediately upon their passage to the President of the United States and shall not take effect, if disapproved by him, until thirty days after their passage: Provided, That this act shall not apply to resolutions for adjournment, or any acts, or resolutions, or ordinances in relation to negotiations with commissioners heretofore appointed to treat with said tribes."

We repeat that in view of the paramount authority of Congress over the Indian tribes, and of the duties imposed on the Government by their condition of dependency, we cannot say that Congress could not empower the Dawes Commission to determine, in the manner provided, who were entitled to citizenship in each of the tribes and make out correct rolls of such citizens, an essential preliminary to effective action in promotion of the best interests of the tribes. It may be remarked that the legislation seems to recognize, especially the act of June 28, 1898, a distinction between admission to citizenship merely and the distribution of property to be subsequently made, as if there might be circumstances under which the right to a share in the latter would not necessarily follow from the concession of the former. But in any aspect, we are of opinion that the constitutionality of these acts in respect of the determination of citizenship cannot be successfully assailed on the ground of the impairment or destruction of vested rights. The lands and moneys of these tribes are public lands and public moneys, and are not held in individual ownership, and the assertion by any particular applicant that his right therein is so vested as to preclude inquiry into his status involves a contradiction in terms.

The judgments in these cases were rendered before the pas

Opinion of the Court.

sage of the act of June 28, 1898, commonly known as the Curtis Act, and necessarily the effect of that act was not considered. As, however, the provision for an appeal to this court was made after the passage of the act, some observations upon it are required, and, indeed, the inference is not unreasonable that a principal object intended to be secured by an appeal was the testing of the constitutionality of this act, and that may have had controlling weight in inducing the granting of the right to such appeal.

The act is comprehensive and sweeping in its character, and notwithstanding the abstract of it in the statement prefixed to this opinion, we again call attention to its provisions. The act gave jurisdiction to the United States courts in the Indian Territory in their respective districts to try cases against those who claimed to hold lands and tenements as members of a tribe and whose membership was denied by the tribe, and authorized their removal from the same if the claim was disallowed; and provided for the allotment of lands by the Dawes Commission among the citizens of any one of the tribes as shown by the roll of citizenship when fully completed as provided by law, and according to a survey also fully completed; and "that if the person to whom an allotment shall have been made shall be declared, upon appeal as herein provided for, by any of the courts of the United States in or for the aforesaid Territory, to have been illegally accorded rights of citizenship, and for that or any other reason declared to be not entitled to any allotment, he shall be ousted and ejected from said lands."

The act further directed, as to the Cherokees, that the Commission should "take the roll of Cherokee citizens of eighteen hundred and eighty, not including freedmen, as the only roll intended to be confirmed by this and preceding acts of Congress, and to enroll all persons now living whose names are found on said roll, and all descendants born since the date of said roll to persons whose names are found thereon; and all persons who have been enrolled by the tribal authorities who have heretofore made permanent settlement in the Cherokee Nation whose parents, by reason of their Cherokee blood,

Opinion of the Court.

have been lawfully admitted to citizenship by the tribal au thorities, and who were minors when their parents were so admitted; and they shall investigate the right of all other persons whose names are found on any other rolls and omit all such as may have been placed thereon by fraud or without authority of law, enrolling only such as may have legal right thereto, and their descendants born since such rolls were made, with such intermarried white persons as may be entitled to citizenship under Cherokee laws." And that the Commission should make a roll of Cherokee freedmen, in compliance with a certain decree of the Court of Claims; and a roll of all Choctaw freedmen entitled to citizenship under the treaties and laws of the Choctaw Nation, and all their descendants born to them since the date of the treaty; and a roll of Chickasaw freedmen entitled to any rights or benefits under the treaty of 1866, and their descendants; and a roll of all Creek freedmen, the roll made by J. W. Dunn, under the authority of the United States, prior to March 14, 1867, being confirmed, and the Commission being directed to enroll all persons now living whose names are found on said roll, and their descendants, with "such other persons of African descent as may have been rightfully admitted by the lawful authorities of the Creek Nation."

The Commission was authorized and directed to make correct rolls of the citizens by blood of all the tribes other than the Cherokees, "eliminating from the tribal rolls such names as may have been placed thereon by fraud or without authority of law, enrolling such only as may have lawful right thereto, and their descendants born since such rolls were made, with such intermarried white persons as may be entitled to Choctaw and Chickasaw citizenship under the treaties and laws of said tribes."

It was also provided that "no person shall be enrolled who has not heretofore removed to and in good faith settled in the nation in which he claims citizenship."

The Commission was authorized to make the rolls descriptive of the persons thereon, so that they might be thereby identified, and to take a census of each of said tribes, "or

Opinion of the Court.

to adopt any other means by them deemed necessary to enable them to make such rolls;" and it was declared that "the rolls so made, when approved by the Secretary of the Interior, shall be final, and the persons whose names are found thereon, with their descendants thereafter born to them, with such persons as may intermarry according to tribal laws, shall alone constitute the several tribes which they represent."

The act provided further for the resubmission of the two agreements, with certain specified modifications, that with the Choctaws and Chickasaws, and that with the Creeks, for ratification to a popular vote in the respective nations, and that if ratified, the provisions of these agreements so far as differing from the act should supersede it. The Choctaw and Chickasaw agreement was accordingly so submitted for ratification August 24, 1898, and was ratified by a large majority, but whether or not the agreement with the Creeks was ratified does not appear.

The twenty-sixth section provided that, after the passage of the act, "The laws of the various tribes or nations of Indians shall not be enforced at law or in equity by the courts of the United States in the Indian Territory;" and the twentyeighth section, that after July 1, 1898, all tribal courts in the Indian Territory should be abolished.

The agreement with the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes contained a provision continuing the tribal government, as modified, for the period of eight years from March 4, 1898; but provided that it should "not be construed to be in any respect an abdication by Congress of power at any time to make needful rules and regulations respecting said tribes."

For reasons already given we regard this act in general as not obnoxious to constitutional objection, but in so holding we do not intend to intimate any opinion as to the effect that changes made thereby, or by the agreements referred to, may have, if any, on the status of the several applicants, who are parties to these appeals.

The elaborate opinions of the United States court in the Indian Territory by Springer, J., Clayton, J., and Townsend, J., contained in these records, some of which are to be found

Statement of the Case.

in the report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1898, page 479, consider the subject in all its aspects, and set forth the various treaties, tribal constitutions and laws, and the action of the many tribal courts, commissions and councils which assumed to deal with it, but we have not been called on to go into these matters, as our conclusion is that we are confined to the question of constitutionality merely.

As we hold the entire legislation constitutional, the result is that all the

Judgments must be affirmed.

MR. JUSTICE WHITE and MR. JUSTICE MCKENNA dissented as to the extent of the jurisdiction of this court only.

OFFICE SPECIALTY MANUFACTURING COMPANY v. FENTON METALLIC MANUFACTURING COMPANY.

APPEAL FROM THE COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE DISTRICT OF

COLUMBIA.

No. 253. Argued April 20, 1899. Decided May 15, 1899.

Every element of the combination described in the first and second claims of letters patent No. 450, 124, issued April 7, 1891, to Horace J. Hoffman for improvements in storage cases for books, is found in previous devices, and, limiting the patent to the precise construction 'shown, none of the defendant's devices can be treated as infringements.

THIS was a bill in equity filed in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia by the Fenton Metallic Manufacturing Company against the appellant to recover for the infringement of letters patent number 450,124, issued April 7, 1891, to Horace J. Hoffman, for improvements in storage cases for books.

In the specification the patentee declares that "the object of my invention is to facilitate the handling and prevent the abrasion and injury of heavy books, etc. It consists, essen