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or indirectly, contingent or absolute, near or remote, in any contract made, or under negotiation, with the Government or with the Indians, for the purchase or transportation or delivery of goods or supplies for the Indians The violation of any of the provisions of this section shall be a misdemeanor, and shall be punished by a fine of not less than $500 nor more than $5,000, and by removal from office; and, in addition thereto, the court shall, in its discretion, have the power to punish by imprisonment of not more than six months."

These statutes have been broadly construed to prohibit Government employees from in any way being connected with or concerned in "trade in articles bought for, supplied to, or received from the Indians." United States v. Douglas, 190 Fed. 482, 488. They are also broad enough to prohibit the ownership by such employees of any stock or other interest in a corporation engaged in trading with the Indians. Bluejacket v. Ewert, 265 Fed. 823, 829.

In your supplemental letter of July 7, 1937, you state that the cooperative associations to which your proposed order or regulation is intended to apply will be corporations organized under the laws of the appropriate states. You cite as an example the He Dog Community Cooperative Association of the Rosebud Sioux Reservation of South Dakota. You state that this association is incorporated under the laws of the State of South Dakota, and that its charter declares that one of the purposes of the corporation is "to promote the welfare of the members by buying and distributing commodities for the members and marketing the products of the members." Enclosed with your supplemental letter is a copy of the by-laws of the He Dog Community Cooperative Association. These by-laws provide that members of the association shall be persons who hold one or more shares of stock in the corporation, which stock has a par value of $2.00. A person becomes a member by subscribing to one share and paying into the treasury onefourth of the par value thereof, but is not entitled to vote until full payment of the par value has been made. The corporation is managed by a board of five directors, elected

annually from the membership by a majority of the voting members. The Directors are authorized to "exercise all the powers of an incorporated cooperative association recognized by the laws of South Dakota." The net profits of the corporation, if any, after setting aside certain reserve funds, are disbursed (1) in payment of interest at 3 per cent per annum on the paid-up capital stock, and (2) by distribution among the members in the form of dividends, such distribution to be in proportion to the patronage of the members. The officers of the corporation are elected by the Board of Directors from their membership, and are authorized to "perform all the usual duties of their positions."

The corporation is designed for the purpose of trading "in articles bought for, supplied to, or received from the Indians," and membership therein would create a financial interest in and connection with such trade.

Moreover, Government employees in the Indian service would be eligible for appointment to the Board of Directors. It might result, therefore, that the corporation would come to be controlled and managed by Government employees, acting as directors and officers thereof. The potentialities of the situation are thus apparent.

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In Bluejacket v. Ewert, supra, the Circuit Court of Appeals, referring to section 68, said (p. 829): "One purpose of the statute is to prevent the possible play of official influence over the mind of the Indian in his consideration of any proposed trade with him. Another purpose is to preserve loyalty, or at least disinterestedness toward the Indian's interests by those employed in Indian affairs. * The statute is not confined in terms to trade with the Indians, when an effect upon the trade by the use of his official position is demonstrated, On appeal of the case to the Supreme Court, Mr. Justice Clarke, speaking for that Court, said (Ewert v. Bluejacket, 259 U. S. 129, 136): “The purpose of the section clearly is to protect the inexperienced, dependent and improvident Indians from the avarice and cunning of unscrupulous men in official position and at the same time to prevent officials from being tempted, as they otherwise might be, to specu

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late on that inexperience or upon the necessities and weaknesses of these 'Wards of the Nation.”” Also in United States v. Hutto, No. 1, 256 U. S. 524, 528, Mr. Justice Pitney, speaking for the Court, said: "In its original setting, and more emphatically when grouped in the Revised Statutes with other provisions having to do with the supervision and management of the affairs of the Indians, it manifestly was and is designed to insure integrity of conduct on the part of all persons employed in Indian affairs, and an impartial attitude towards the Indians, by excluding from persons so employed all motives of personal gain, so that the duty of the United States as trustee for these dependent peoples, recognized wards of the Government, might be performed with a single regard for their interests appropriate to the fiduciary relation. The purpose was to protect the Indians from their own improvidence; relieve them from temptations due to possible cupidity on the part of persons coming into contact with them as representatives of the United States; and thus to maintain the honor and credit of the United States, *

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The following statement of the Circuit Court of Appeals in United States v. Douglas, supra, is also worthy of note (pp. 490-491):

"The government in its capacity as quasi guardian ought not to allow its agents to be tempted to overreach its wards. * * * We sustain a trust relation with the Indians imposed by the laws of the land, if not by an even higher law; and when Congress, recognizing this, forbade its agents to trade with the Indians, no strained effort should be made to construe trade in some unusual way,

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For the reasons above given, it is my opinion that the order proposed incorrectly construes the statutes mentioned therein, and that Government employees participating in Indian cooperative associations in the manner outlined by you would not be protected by its issuance against prosecution and conviction under the statutes. As stated by Mr. Justice Clarke in Ewert v. Bluejacket, supra (p 138): "The mischief sought to be prevented by the statute is grave Any error by the department in the inter

pretation of the statute can not confer legal rights inconsistent with its express terms."

Respectfully,

HOMER CUMMINGS.

CITIZENSHIP OF FILIPINOS-PRIORITY IN EMPLOYMENT ON WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION PROJECTS

The phrase "American citizens" in a proviso of the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1937 is synonymous with the phrase "citizens of the United States," which has received a settled construction as excluding "citizens of the Philippine Islands." Natives of the Philippine Islands are not entitled to preference in employment on Works Progress Administration projects unless they have acquired citizenship in the United States or fall within the provision of law respecting war veterans.

THE PRESIDENT.

JULY 16, 1937.

MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: I have your letter of July 12 transmitting a request from the Honorable Harry L. Hopkins, Works Progress Administrator, for my opinion as to whether or not Filipinos are entitled to preference in employment on projects of the Works Progress Administration in view of the following proviso in the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1937, approved June 29, 1937, 50 Stat. 352, 355.

"Provided, That preference shall be given to American citizens who are in need of relief in employment by the Works Progress Administration and next those aliens who are in need of relief and who have declared their intention to become citizens prior to the enactment of this joint resolution: Provided further, That veterans of the World War and Spanish War who are in need of relief shall be given preference for employment by the Works Progress Administration."

It has heretofore been concluded that natives of the Philippine Islands are not citizens of the United States. 23 Op. A. G. 370, 371; id. 400, 402; 38 Op. A. G. 525; Foreign Relations of the United States, 1900, pp. 894-895. I quote from the two opinions first mentioned:

"The undisputed attitude of the executive and legislative departments of the Government has been and is that the native inhabitants of Puerto Rico and the Philippine Islands did not become citizens of the United States by virtue of the cession of the islands by Spain by means of the treaty of Paris." (23 Op. 370–371.)

"Seamen born in the Philippine Islands, being persons whose civil and political status is by the treaty, which is the latest expression of the supreme law of the land, declared to be a matter for future determination by Congress, are not citizens of the United States within the meaning of any statutes concerning seamen or any other statute or law of the United States. That is to say, from the standpoint of our Government they are not citizens of the United States in any sense. They are persons who are not subjects of any foreign power, and are, from an international standpoint, subjects of the United States, or, to use a term that has been suggested, 'nationals.'" (23 Op. 400, 402.)

The inhabitants of the Philippine Islands who did not elect to preserve their Spanish allegiance were declared to be “citizens of the Philippine Islands,” and distinguished from "citizens of the United States," by section 2 of the act of August 29, 1916, c. 416, 39 Stat. 545, 546 (U. S. C., title 48, sec. 1002):

"SEO. 2. That all inhabitants of the Philippine Islands who were Spanish subjects on the eleventh day of April, eighteen hundred and ninety-nine, and then resided in said islands, and their children born subsequent thereto, shall be deemed and held to be citizens of the Philippine Islands, except such as shall have elected to preserve their allegiance to the Crown of Spain in accordance with the provisions of the treaty of peace between the United States and Spain, signed at Paris December tenth, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, and except such others as have since become citizens of some other country: Provided, That the Philippine Legislature, herein provided for, is hereby authorized to provide by law for the acquisition of Philippine citizenship by those natives of the Philippine Islands who do not come within the foregoing provisions, the natives of the