For answer to plaintiff's petition they alleged the following: They recovered the judgment in controversy against Frank Bonner for the sum of $2,966.662/3 on January 31, 1901, as damages for the killing of the husband of one of the interpleaders and the father of the others, upon which executions were issued but all returned unsatisfied, and finally on September 29, 1908, the interpleaders caused the execution in controversy to be issued and levied upon the lands described in plaintiff's petition. On February 23, 1906, Bonner became the owner of the lands by allotment of the same as an Indian and the judgment thereupon became a lien upon the lands. Subsequently that part of the Indian Territory and the Southern District where the lands are located became a part of what is now Johnston County, and the judgment is still a lien upon the lands and was a lien at the time of the purchase by Mullen who, at the time of the alleged conveyance to him, had full knowledge and notice of the judgment and knew that an execution had been issued and levied upon the lands and that, therefore, he is not an innocent purchaser of them but took them subject to the judgment.

Mullen demurred to the answer of Simmons and to that of the interpleaders upon the grounds (1) that they did not constitute a defense. (2) They failed to show that the execution was a lien upon the lands, failed to show that the lands were seized by the sheriff prior to the deed to plaintiff, and failed to show that a lien attached by virtue of the execution. (3) The lands, having been taken in allotment by Bonner, were not subject under the law to any debt, deed, contract or obligation of any character made prior to the time at which the lands could be alienated by the allottee; that the judgment was recovered against him more than five years before the lands were alienable and that the lands were not subject to it or to the execution issued upon it.

The judgment of the court was that it "doth overrule

234 U. S.

murrer

Opinion of the Court.

plaintiff's general demurrer and his first special deand doth sustain plaintiff's second special demurrer . and the interpleaders and the defendants elect to stand upon their answer and interplea herein, refuse to plead further and the court finds for the plaintiff and that he is entitled to the relief prayed for in his petition. And it was adjudged that the defendant Simmons, as sheriff of Johnston County, and his deputies, and the interpleaders be enjoined and restrained forever from issuing or causing to be issued any execution or other process upon the judgment rendered against Frank Bonner in favor of the interpleaders, and from levying the same upon the lands described.

The Supreme Court of the State reversed the judgment, deciding "that the lien of interpleader's judgment attached to the allotment as soon as it came into being; that plaintiff took the land subject thereto, and that the same should be enforced and said land sold to satisfy the same, and that, too, notwithstanding the provisions of the 15th section of the act of July 1, 1902, which has no material bearing on the question." 33 Oklahoma, 184, 188.

The section referred to is as follows: "Lands allotted to members and freedmen shall not be affected or encumbered by any deed, debt or obligation of any character contracted prior to the time at which said land may be alienated under this Act, nor shall said lands be sold except as herein provided." c. 1362, 32 Stat. 641, 642.

The Supreme Court of Oklahoma in deciding that this provision did not apply distinguished between the obligations resulting from an Indian's wrongful conduct and the obligations resulting from his contracts, saying, p. 187, "A judgment in damages for tort is not a 'debt contracted"" within the contemplation of § 15. In other words, the court was of the view that the tort retained its identity, though merged in the judgment. However, we need not enter into the controversy of the cases and the

books as to whether a judgment is a contract. Passing such considerations, and regarding the policy of § 15 and its language, we are unable to concur with the Supreme Court of Oklahoma.

This court said, in Starr v. Long Jim, 227 U. S. 613, 625, that the title to lands allotted to Indians was "retained by the United States for reasons of public policy, and in order to protect the Indians against their own improvidence." It was held, applying the principle, that a warranty deed made by Long Jim at a time when he did not have the power of alienation "was in the very teeth of the policy of the law, and could not operate as a conveyance, either by its primary force or by way of estoppel" after he had received a patent for the land.

The principle was applied again in Franklin v. Lynch, 233 U. S. 269, and its strict character enforced against the deed of a white woman who acquired title in an Indian right. It is true, in these cases the act of the Indian was voluntary or contractual, and, it is contended, a different effect can be ascribed to the wrongs done by an Indian and that in reparation or retribution of them the state law may subject his inalienable lands-inalienable by the National law-to alienation. The consequence of the contention repels its acceptance. Torts are of variable degree. In the present case that counted on reached, perhaps, the degree of a crime, but a tort may be a breach of a mere legal duty, a consequence of negligent conduct. The policy of the law is, as we have said, to protect the Indians against their improvidence, and improvidence may affect all of their acts, those of commission and omission, contracts and torts. And we think § 15 of the act of July 1, 1902, was purposely made broadly protective, broadly preclusive of alienation by any conduct of the Indian, and not only its policy but its language distinguishes it from the statute passed on in Brun v. Mann, 151 Fed. Rep. 145. Its language is that "lands allotted

shall not be affected or encumbered by any deed, debt or obligation of any character contracted prior to the time at which" the lands may be alienated, "nor shall said lands be sold except" as in the act provided. The prohibition then is that the lands shall not be "affected by any obligation of any character," and, as we have seen, an obligation may arise from a tort as well as from a contract, from a breach of duty or the violation of a right. Exchange Bank v. Ford, 7 Colorado, 314, 316. If this were not so, a prearranged tort and a judgment confessed would become an easy means of circumventing the policy of the law.

Judgment reversed and case remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

MR. JUSTICE DAY dissents.

INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER COMPANY OF AMERICA v. STATE OF MISSOURI.

ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI.

No. 166. Argued April 29, 1914.—Decided June 8, 1914.

Although the state appellate court may not have referred to the constitutional questions in its opinion, this court cannot regard such silence as a condemnation of the time at, or manner in which, those questions were raised; and, if the record shows that they were raised in that court, this court has jurisdiction. The Fourteenth Amendment does not preclude the State from adopting a policy against all combinations of competing corporations and enforcing it even against combinations which have been induced by good intentions and from which benefit and not injury may have resulted.

The power of classification which may be exerted in the legislation of

Argument for Plaintiff in Error.

234 U. S.

States has a very broad range; and a classification is not invalid under the equal protection provision of the Fourteenth Amendment because of simple inequality.

A state statute prohibiting combination is not unconstitutional as denying equal protection of the law because it embraces vendors of commodities and not vendors of labor and services. There is a reasonable basis for such a classification; and so held as to the Missouri anti-trust Laws of 1899 and 1909.

Questions of policy are for the legislature and not for this court to determine.

As classification must be accommodated to the problems of legislation; it may depend upon degree of evil so long as it is not unreasonable or arbitrary.

237 Missouri, 369, affirmed.

THE facts, which involve the constitutionality of the Missouri Anti-trust Acts of 1899 and 1909, are stated in the opinion.

Mr. Edgar A. Bancroft and Mr. W. M. Williams, with whom Mr. Selden P. Spencer and Mr. Victor A. Remy were on the brief, for plaintiff in error:

A Federal question was raised and was decided by the Missouri Supreme Court adversely to plaintiff in error.

The Missouri anti-trust statute is unconstitutional because it exempts from its operation and penalties all "combinations of persons engaged in labor pursuits" and is limited "to persons and corporations dealing in commodities."

Combinations of laborers, skilled or unskilled, no less than combinations of manufacturers and merchants, may restrain trade.

Anti-trust laws aiming to protect the freedom of trade and resting on the police power must include all persons who are capable of restraining trade.

Although certain state decisions support the exemption of labor and services, they are based on inconsistent and fallacious grounds.