Opinion of the Court. Oklahoma city on the 18th of the same month. He at once entered upon the performance of the duties which it was essential should be performed, which pertained to the establishment of and the transaction of business at the new office, which were official in their nature and solely connected with the discharge of the duties of the office to which claimant had been appointed. What is the reason that he had not then, within the meaning of the statute, entered upon the discharge of the duties of his office? It is said that receiving applications and making entries in the public records of the office in regard to the transfer of public land within the district and receiving the moneys of applicants for the purchase of such lands comprise the duties of a register and receiver of a land office at each land district established by law. These are undoubtedly the main duties of an already established land office. Here, however, the office had been but just established by order of the President. The location of chambers in which the business was to be done was part of the duty of the appointee. It was his official duty to see to their being properly furnished and prepared for the transaction of the public business. He had to see or to correspond with the officials of the two land offices from which the one in question had but just been taken. That correspondence was not personal; it was official and it was necessarily connected with the performance of his duties as register and receiver for the newly made district. All of the services performed by the claimant, as found by the Court of Claims and above set forth, were wholly official in their nature, connected solely with the performance of the claimant's duties as an officer, and to our minds were just as much official as would be the entry of an application in the books of the land office or the receipt of money in payment for any portion of the public lands within the district. Doing that which it is necessary to do in order that a newly created land office may be in a proper and fit condition at the time appointed for opening it for the transaction of public business is, as it seems to us, a part of the official duties of the person who is appointed to the office. While it is true that he cannot earn commissions until money Opinion of the Court. has been paid for lands transferred, and that no transfer can be made until after the formal opening of the office for the entry of applications, that fact can have no legitimate bearing upon the question as to when the register and receiver enters upon the discharge of the duties of his office in a newly created land district. It is said that the salary and commissions of a register and receiver commence at the same time, which is the time when they, respectively, enter upon the discharge of their duties, and that as commissions cannot be earned until work is done upon which commissions can be charged, which is not until after the formal opening of the office, it follows that the salary cannot commence until that time. The argument is not sound. The right to both salary and commissions, it is true, commences when the registers and receivers, respectively, enter upon the discharge of their duties, but a register may enter upon the discharge of his duties under such circumstances as the claimant did in this case before the time arrives for the formal and official opening of the land office to the public, and before the receipt of any moneys upon which commissions might be earned. Otherwise if the salary could not commence to run until the receipt of such moneys, the office might have been formally opened for the transaction of public business and the register have been in attendance thereat for a long time before any moneys were received in payment for any part of the public land, and so he would be without a right to compensation by salary during the time succeeding the opening of his office and up to the time of the receipt of such moneys. It is unnecessary to enlarge upon the question, as it seems quite plain to us that upon the facts found by the Court of Claims the services performed by claimant after the creation of the new land district and before the formal opening of the land office were official services, and that as early as the 18th of July, 1890, he had entered upon the discharge of the duties of his office, and was in the continuous performance of such duties until after the 1st of September, 1890. The judgment of the Court of Claims was right, and it is Affirmed. The last clause of section 4 of the act of March 2, 1891, c. 496, 26 Stat. 822, entitled "An act to credit and pay to the several States and Territories and the District of Columbia all moneys collected under the direct tax levied by the act of Congress approved August 5, 1861," does not refer to or cover the cases of those owners who are mentioned in the first clause of the same section. Brewer v. Blougher, 14 Pet. 178, affirmed to the point that it is the duty of the court, in construing a statute, to ascertain the meaning of the legislature from the words used in it, and from the subject-matter to which it relates, and to restrain its meaning within narrower limits than its words import, if satisfied that the literal meaning of its language would extend to cases which the legislature never designed to embrace in it. THE case is stated in the opinion. Mr. W. S. Monteith for appellants. Mr. Leroy F. Youmans was on his brief. Mr. Assistant Attorney General Dodge for appellees. Mr. Assistant Attorney Gorman was on his brief. MR. JUSTICE PECKHAM delivered the opinion of the court. The appellants herein have brought this appeal for the purpose of obtaining a review of a judgment of the Court of Claims dismissing their petition. No opinion was delivered by that court in this case, but it was decided upon the authority of the case of Sams v. United States, 27 C. Cl. 266, which involved the construction of the same statute that is before us in this case. It appears by the finding of the court that one Henry McKee was the owner of certain lands, which are therein described, in the town of Beaufort, in the parish of St. Helena, South Carolina, and that while he was such owner the land was sold for the payment of the direct tax provided for in section 9, and the following sections of the act approved Opinion of the Court. August 5, 1861, c. 45, entitled "An act to provide increased revenue from imports, to pay the interest on the public debt, and for other purposes." 12 Stat. 292. The property was bid in by the United States and was thereafter resold by the government. The direct tax on the property so sold amounted in all to $91.52, and upon the resale of such property there was received into the Treasury of the United States, in excess of the direct tax, the sum of $5003.41. Henry McKee, the legal owner of the property at the time of its sale, died some time thereafter, leaving a will, and the claimants are the beneficiaries thereunder, being his widow and children. These same claimants have heretofore obtained judgment in the Court of Claims against the government for the sum of $5680.60 on account of the same real estate above described. That judgment was obtained, and the claim in this case is founded upon the act approved March 2, 1891, 26 Stat. 822, entitled "An act to credit and pay to the several States and Territories and the District of Columbia all moneys collected under the direct tax levied by the act of Congress approved August 5, 1861.” The act is set forth in full in the margin.1 1 An act to credit and pay to the several States and Territories and the District of Columbia all moneys collected under the direct tax levied by the act of Congress approved August fifth, eighteen hundred and sixty-one. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That it shall be the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury to credit to each State and Territory of the United States and the District of Columbia a sum equal to all collections by set off or otherwise made from said States and Territories and the District of Columbia or from any of the citizens or inhabitants thereof or other persons under the act of Congress approved August fifth, eighteen hundred and sixty-one, and the amendatory acts thereto. SEC. 2. That all moneys still due to the United States on the quota of direct tax apportioned by section eight of the act of Congress approved August fifth, eighteen hundred and sixty-one, are hereby remitted and relinquished. SEC. 3. That there is hereby appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, such sums as may be necessary to reimburse each State, Territory and the District of Columbia for all money found due to them under the provisions of this act; and the Treasurer of the United States is hereby directed to pay the same to the Governors of the States and Territories and to the Commissioners of the District of Colum Opinion of the Court. The judgment which the claimants have already obtained in the Court of Claims was rendered under the first clause in section 4 of the act. The claim now before the court rests upon the last clause of section 4, which reads as follows: "And provided further, That any sum or sums of money received into the Treasury of the United States from the sale of lands bid in for taxes in any State under the laws described bia, but no money shall be paid to any State or Territory until the legislature thereof shall have accepted, by resolution, the sum herein appropriated, and the trusts imposed, in full satisfaction of all claims against the United States on account of the levy and collection of said tax, and shall have authorized the Governor to receive said money for the use and purposes aforesaid: Provided, That where the sums, or any part thereof, credited to any State, Territory or the District of Columbia, have been collected by the United States from the citizens or inhabitants thereof, or any other person, either directly or by sale of property, such sums shall be held in trust by such State, Territory or the District of Columbia for the benefit of those persons or inhabitants from whom they were collected, or their legal representatives: And provided further, That no part of the money collected from individuals and to be held in trust as aforesaid shall be retained by the United States as a set off against any indebtedness alleged to exist against the State, Territory or District of Columbia in which such tax was collected: And provided further, That no part of the money hereby appropriated shall be paid out by the Governor of any State or Territory or any other person to any attorney or agent under any contract for services now existing or heretofore made between the representative of any State or Territory and any attorney or agent. All claims under the trust hereby created shall be filed with the Governor of such State or Territory and the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, respectively, within six years next after the passage of this act; and all claims not so filed shall be forever barred, and the money attributable thereto shall belong to such State, Territory or the District of Columbia, respectively, as the case may be. SEC. 4. That it shall be the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury to pay to such persons as shall in each case apply therefor, and furnish satisfactory evidence that such applicant was at the time of the sales hereinafter mentioned the legal owner, or is the heir at law or devisee of the legal owner of such lands as were sold in the parishes of Saint Helena and Saint Luke's in the State of South Carolina, under the said acts of Congress, the value of said lands in the manner following, to wit: To the owners of the lots in the town of Beaufort, one half of the value assessed thereon for taxation by the United States direct tax commissioners for South Carolina; to the owners of lands which were rated for taxation by the State of South Carolina as being usually cultivated, five dollars per acre for each acre thereof returned on the proper tax book; to the owners of all other lands, VOL. CLXIV-19 |