Opinion of the Court.

Without questioning the doctrine that debates in Congress are not appropriate sources of information from which to discover the meaning of a statute passed by that body, United States v. Trans-Missouri Freight Association, 166 U. S. 290, 318, it is nevertheless interesting to note that efforts were made in the Senate to amend the bill by the addition of sections which, while making alcohol used in the arts free from the tax, sought to secure the Government from fraud by provisions for the methylating of such spirits so as to render them unfit for use as a beverage; that these proposed amendments were rejected, 26 Cong. Rec. 6935, 6936; and that subsequently section 61 was adopted as an amendment, it being urged in its support that "if the Secretary of the Treasury and the Commissioner of Internal Revenue think they cannot adopt any regulations which will prevent fraud, then nothing will be done under it; but if they conclude they can adopt such regulations as will prevent fraud in the use of alcohol in the manufactures and the arts, then there will be relief under it." 26 Cong. Rec. p. 6985.

As soon as the act of August 28, 1894, became a law, without the approval of the President, Congress adjourned, and at its first meeting thereafter the Secretary reported a draft of the regulations he desired to prescribe, stating that their enforcement would cost at least half a million of dollars annually, for which no appropriation was available, and that therefore he could not execute the section until Congress took further action, and he transmitted the correspondence between himself and the Commissioner, including his letter of October 6, 1894, instructing the Commissioner to take no action regarding the matter.

Congress was thus distinctly informed that no claims for rebate would be entertained in the absence of further legislation, but none such was had, and finally, on June 3, 1896, section 61 was repealed, and the appointment of a joint select committee was authorized to "consider all questions relating to the use of alcohol in the manufactures and arts free of tax, and to report their conclusions to Congress on the first Monday in December, eighteen hundred and ninety-six," with

Opinion of the Court.

power to "summon witnesses, administer oaths, print testimony or other information." 29 Stat. 195, c. 310.

Numerous other provisions of the act called for regulations by the Secretary of the Treasury, such as those relating to the collection of customs duties and the free list; to the importation or manufacture in bond or withdrawal from bond free of tax; to drawbacks on imported merchandise; to the collection of internal revenue, and some others; but these related to matters for whose efficient regulation the Secretary of the Treasury was invested with adequate power, and their subject-matter was different from that of section 61.

If the duty of the Secretary to prescribe regulations was merely ministerial, and a mandamus could, under circumstances, have issued to compel him to discharge it, would not the judgment at which he arrived, the action which he took, and his reference of the matter to Congress, have furnished a complete defence? But it is insisted that by reason of the exercise of discretionary power necessarily involved in prescribing regulations as contemplated, the Secretary could not have been thus compelled to act. We think the argument entitled to great weight, and that it demonstrates the intention of Congress to leave the entire matter to the Treasury Department to ascertain what would be needed in order to carry the section into effect. Nothing could have been further from the mind of Congress than that repayment must be made on the unregulated use of alcohol in the arts, if in the judgment of the Department, as the matter stood, such use could not be regulated.

All this, however, only tends to sustain the conclusion of the Court of Claims that this was not the case of a right granted in præsenti to all persons who might, after the passage of the law, actually use alcohol in the arts, or in any medicinal or other like compounds, to a rebate or repayment of the tax paid on such alcohol, but that the grant of the right was conditioned on use in compliance with regulations to be prescribed, in the absence of which the right could not vest so as to create a cause of action by reason of the unregulated use. The decisions bearing on the subject are examined and

Opinion of the Court.

discussed in the opinion of the Court of Claims, and we do not feel called on to recapitulate them here.

Judgment affirmed.

MR. JUSTICE BROWN, MR. JUSTICE WHITE, MR. JUSTICE PECKHAM and MR. JUSTICE MCKENNA dissented.

UNITED STATES v. NAVARRE.

APPEAL FROM THE COURT OF CLAIMS.

No. 898. Submitted January 9, 1899.- Decided February 20, 1899.

Claims for depredations on the Pottawatomie Indians committed by Indians were properly allowed by the Secretary of the Interior under the treaty of August 7, 1868, and are valid claims.

THE case is stated in the opinion.

Mr. Charles C. Binney and Mr. Assistant Attorney General Pradt for the United States.

Mr. J. H. McGowan and Mr. John Wharton Clark for Navarre.

MR. JUSTICE MCKENNA delivered the opinion of the court.

Claims for depredations committed on members of the Pottawatomie tribe of Indians were referred to the Court of Claims for adjudication by the acts of Congress hereafter quoted.

The appellees in pursuance of said acts of Congress filed a petition setting forth claims for depredations committed on them by white men, and prayed judgment therefor.

The proof showed depredations committed by Indians as well as by white men, and the Court of Claims gave judg ment accordingly, and the United States appealed.

Only the claims allowed for property taken by Indians are contested. They amount to the sum of $5890.

Opinion of the Court.

The right to recover was based on the tenth article of the treaty with the Pottawatomie Indians, proclaimed August 7, 1868. 15 Stat. 531, 533. It provided as follows: "It is further agreed that upon the presentation to the Department of the Interior of the claims of said tribe for depredations committed by others upon their stock, timber or other property, accompanied by evidence thereof, examination and report shall be made to Congress of the amount found to be equitably due, in order that such action may be taken as shall be just in the premises."

The court below found that "under said treaty these claims were by the Secretary of the Interior transmitted, with the evidence in support thereof, to Congress for its action thereon; and by Congress, under the acts of March 3, 1885, c. 341, and March 3, 1891, c. 543, said claims, with all evidence, documents, reports and other papers pertaining to same, were referred to this court to be adjudicated and determined." 23 Stat. 362, 372; 26 Stat. 989, 1011.

Nothing was done under the act of March 3, 1885. It seems to be conceded that the reason was because the act required strictly legal evidence of the claims.

The act of March 3, 1891, is as follows:

"That the claims of certain individual members of the Pottawatomie Nation of Indians, their heirs or legal representatives, for the depredations committed by others upon their stock, timber or other property, reported to Congress under the tenth article of the treaty of August 7, 1868, be, and the same are hereby, referred to the Court of Claims for adjudication. And said court shall, in determining said cause, ascertain the amounts due and to whom due by reason of actual damage sustained.

"And all papers, reports, evidence, records and proceedings relating in any way to said claims now on file or of record in the Department of the Interior or any other Department, or on file or of record in the office of the secretary of the Senate or the office of the clerk of the House of Representatives, shall be delivered to said court, and in considering the merits of the claims presented to the court all testimony and reports

Syllabus.

of special agents or other officers and other papers now on file or of record in the departments of Congress shall be considered by the court, and such value awarded thereto as in its judgment is right and proper."

The contention of the United States depends on iue ineaning of the words in the act, "for the depredations committed by others." Exactly the same words are used in article 10 of the treaty, and the Secretary of the Interior, exercising his duty, reported claims for depredations, by both Indians and white men, to Congress for its action. They were, therefore, claims for depredations "reported to Congress under the tenth article of the treaty of August 7, 1868." But it is argued, and ably so, that claims for depredations by other Indians were improperly reported.

We do not think it necessary to review the argument in detail. It is sufficient to say that Congress had before it when it legislated all the claims, and did not discriminate between them. If the meaning of the treaty was doubtful, it was competent for Congress to resolve the doubt and accept responsibility for all claims. It was natural enough for it to adopt the interpretation of the Interior Department. At any rate, it did not distinguish between the claims. Its language covers those which came from the acts of Indians as well as those which came from the acts of white men.

Judgment affirmed.

COLLIER v. UNITED STATES.

APPEAL FROM THE COURT OF CLAIMS.

No. 252. Submitted January 9, 1899. — Decided February 20, 1899.

There is nothing in this case to take it out of the settled rule that the findings of the Court of Claims in an action at law determine all matters of fact.

Marks v. United States, 164 U. S. 297, followed to the point that when a petition, filed in the Court of Claims, alleges that a depredation was committed by an Indian or Indians belonging to a tribe in amity with the