Court Opinion

ID: 9642141
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:49:49.614513+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:43.465531
License: Public Domain

MADDEN, Judge
(dissenting).
As I see it, our problem is not to ascertain the dictionary meaning of the expression “the federally recognized National Guard prior to 1933.” It is to find the statutory meaning. The words, without any setting, might have any one of a number of different meanings. But as Congress used them, they must have been intended to have a certain meaning, because important consequences to the Government and to individuals were to flow from them. I think it is quite clear that, as used, the words referred to a process that could not have occurred prior to the adoption of the National Defense Act of 1916. That Act, in its Section 74, first used the word “recognition” and used it as describing a procedure which could only take place in the future, because it required the taking of an oath which was prescribed by that very Act. The National Guard Regulations, issued by the Secretary of War in 1919, in its Title E, contained the heading “Organization of New Units and Procedure Governing the Extending of Federal Recognition Thereto.” Section 145 of Title E refers expressly to units “recognized by the War Department as National Guard under the provisions of the Act of Congress of June 3, 1916.” Section 147 refers to troops which “have specifically qualified for, and have received, recognition as National Guard by the War Department.” Section 148 is as follows: “ ‘Federal recognition’ is defined as the acceptance by the Federal Government as National Guard, of officers or a body of enrolled officers and men who have complied with the provisions of the Act of June 3, 1916 and who are entitled to the benefits of the act.” Sections 149, 150, 152, 153 (d), 153 (f), and Paragraph 95, as modified by Changes No. 1, all use the expression “Federal recognition,” referring to a procedure taking place pursuant to the 1916 Act.
*318The Act of June 15, 1933, was ah amendment to the National Defense Act of 1916. When it used the expression “federally recognized” as applicable to the National Guard, it must have done so with the meaning which the 1916 Act, and the Regulations issued thereunder, attributed to it. Thus, by what seems to me to be a peculiarly clear chain of descent, an expression which, taken by itself, would be unclear, acquires a'clear statutory meaning. ' With that meaning there was not, and could not have been any “federally recognized National Guard” prior to 1916 because in that year, for the first time, did Congress define and authorize the taking of the steps leading to “recognition.”