Court Opinion

ID: 9419329
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:48:50.282076+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:17.651951
License: Public Domain

*641Mr. Justice Murphy,
dissenting:
As a people our dealings with the Indian tribes have been too often marked by injustice, neglect, and even ruthless disregard of their interests and necessities. As a nation we have incurred moral and political responsibilities toward them and their descendants, which have been requited in some measure by treaties and statutes framed for the protection and advancement of their interests. Those enactments should always be read in the light of this high and noble purpose, in a manner that will give full scope and effect to the humane and liberal policy that has been adopted by the Congress to rectify past wrongs.1
Each railway company whose road was constructed under the Act of 19022 was required by § 16 of that Act to pay to the Secretary of the Interior, for the benefit of the particular tribe through whose lands the road passed, an annual charge of fifteen dollars for each mile of road constructed. By the Act of 1906 it was provided that all revenues accruing to the Five Civilized Tribes “shall . . . be collected by an officer appointed by the Secretary of the Interior,” and the Secretary was authorized to bring suit in the name of the United States for the use of any one of the five tribes to collect any moneys claimed by it.3 For failure of the Secretary of the Interior to collect these mileage charges for the Creek and Seminole tribes, among other things, this action is brought under jurisdictional acts4 which authorize the Court of Claims to hear and *642determine all legal and equitable claims arising under or growing out of any treaty or agreement between the United States and those tribes, or out of any act of Congress relating to Indian affairs.
We have held that the Government in its relations with the Indian tribes occupies the position of a fiduciary, that the relationship is similar to that of guardian and ward, and that the duties and responsibilities of the United States toward its wards require a generous interpretation.5 If it is the duty of a guardian or trustee, as I conceive it to be, to exercise diligence to conserve and protect the interests of his trust, and collect moneys due to the estate of his ward, then such a duty may well have arisen under § 16 of the Act of 1902, a duty which, it is alleged, the Secretary of the Interior failed to discharge. In other words, if the railroads failed to pay to the Secretary the required annual charges for each mile of road constructed, it was the Secretary’s duty to act to protect the Indian beneficiaries who should not be expected to assume the burden of acting on their own behalf, especially when the payments were to be made to the Secretary and not to them. Cf. United States v. Creek Nation, 295 U. S. 103, 110. To read the Act of 1902 otherwise is to take too restricted a view of the obligations of the United States toward a dependent people. But if there were any doubt, the duty of the Secretary of the Interior to collect the mileage charges was made plain and unmistakable by the Act of 1906, which required him to collect all revenues accruing to the tribes and specifically authorized him to bring suit on their behalf. The present claim to mileage charges undoubtedly is an equitable one arising out of those statutes and is therefore within the scope and purpose of the jurisdictional acts.
*643In my opinion the petitioners state a cause of action with respect to these mileage claims, and the judgment of the Court of Claims should accordingly be reversed.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter agrees with these views.

 Choctaw Nation v. United States, 119 U. S. 1, 27-28; Seminole Nation v. United States, 316 U. S. 286, 296-97.

 Act of February 28, 1902, 32 Stat. 43.

 §§ 11 and 18 of the Act of April 26, 1906, 34 Stat. 137, 141, 144.

 Act of May 20, 1924, 43 Stat. 133 (Seminole), and Act of May 24, 1924, 43 Stat. 139 (Creek).

 See Note 1, ante.