But to come back to the jurisdiction of the Court, and at the risk of some repetition. The jurisdiction of the Court is briefly stated in Section 61 of the Code of Law for the District of Columbia in the following language:

"The said court shall possess the same powers and exercise the same jurisdiction as the circuit and district courts of the United States, and shall be deemed a court of the United States, and shall also have and exercise all the jurisdiction possessed and exercised by the supreme court of the District of Columbia under the Act of Congress approved March third, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, creating that court, and at the date of the passage of this code."

The Act of Congress of March 3, 1863, referred to in the foregoing quotation, is, as has already been stated, the Act which established the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia as the successor of the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia with the same powers and the same jurisdiction as exercised by the Circuit Court. It has complete jurisdiction both at law and in equity, and Congress has also enacted that a Special Term of the Court shall be a District Court of the United States (Section 64 of the District Code), and it has also invested the Justices of said Court with the powers and jurisdiction possessed by the Judges of the District Courts of the United States (Sections 62 and 84 of the Code). It is believed that it is the only Court of original jurisdiction that can issue process against the heads of the Federal Executive Departments and enforce compliance by them with its decrees and judgments.

In the exercise of the dual, varied, and comprehensive jurisdiction thus possessed by the Court, cases in everincreasing numbers are constantly being presented and decided by the Court involving questions of great importance both to the United States and to private litigants, as for instance, cases involving title to the public domain throughout the country, the disbursement of appropriations made by Congress, and cases arising under many important acts of Congress.

As illustrative of the variety and scope of the jurisdic

tion of this Court, allusion is made to the following types of cases brought before the Court:

Under the Trading with the Enemy Act, the Alien Property Custodian has been party to 130 cases brought in this Court to determine the disposition of alien-owned property. Thirty of these claims amounted, in the aggregate, to approximately $21,000,000.00.

Thirteen suits, taken at random from the Civil Docket of the United States District Attorney for the District of Columbia, against the Emergency Fleet Corporation, involve claims approximating $460,000.00.

Among the suits filed in the Court in which the Government is an interested party, are suits:

Against the Postmaster General, to enjoin him from barring matter from the mails, as in Tribond Corporation vs. Postmaster General;

Against the Secretary of the Interior, to compel the issuance of patents to lands of the United States, such as the cases of O'Donnell vs. Work, involving rights in Mare Island, California, and the "Braffet Case," which concerns valuable mineral lands in Utah;

Against the Secretary of State, to test the validity of the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment, as Wiedenham vs. Colby;

Against the Secretary of the Treasury, to determine the constitutionality of the Maternity Act, as Massachusetts vs. Mellon;

Against the Secretary of the Interior and the Commissioner of the General Land Office, presenting the question of the title and ownership as between the Indian Pueblo of Santa Rosa and the Government of the United States of upwards of seven hundred square miles of land in the State of Arizona;

Against the Secretary of the Interior, to settle rights of Indian wards of the Government to tribal lands, etc.;

Against the Secretaries of State, War, and Navy, to prevent them from obstructing or interfering with the plaintiff, the Western Union Telegraph Company, in making a shore connection off the coast of Florida with a newly laid ocean cable between the United States and the Island of Barbados;

Against the Veterans' Bureau, to enjoin or to compel the payment of policies;

Against the Secretary of the Treasury, to enjoin the publication of income tax returns, as in Hubbard vs. Mellon;

Against the Shipping Board, in damage suits, equity suits, and proceedings to test its powers to dispose of ships, as in Hall vs. Shipping Board, Duke vs. Shipping Board, Compagnie Franco-Indochinoise vs. Shipping Board, and Hearst vs. Shipping Board;

Against the Interstate Commerce Commission, for mandamus or injunction, such as the cases brought by the Kansas City Southern R. R. Company, the Abilene and Southern Ry. Company, the Manitou and Pike's Peak Ry. Company, and the Fort Dodge, Des Moines and Southern Ry. Company, and the Minnesota, Northfield and Southern Ry. Company to compel, or to prevent, action on the part of the Commission;

Against the Federal Trade Commission, to determine its powers with reference to requiring monthly statements of the business of various coal and iron corporations, as in Maynard Coal Co. vs. Federal Trade Commission;

Against the Board of Tax Appeals of the United States, to compel the enrollment of an attorney, as in Goldsmith vs. U. S. Board of Tax Appeals;

Against the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, to recover excess payments of taxes, as in the case of the Union Pacific Railway Company vs. Blair, alone, amounting to $42,924.27;

Against the Tariff Commission to require it to permit, to an interested party, access to facts, data, etc., in his possession, as in U. S. ex rel. Norwegian Nitrate Products Company vs. U. S. Tariff Commission;

Against the Commissioner of Patents to compel action in behalf of an applicant for patents, as in U. S. ex rel. Troy Laundry Machine Co. vs. Robertson;

Against the Director General of Railroads to compel him to pay a judgment recovered against him, as in U. S. ex rel. Rauch vs. Davis;

Against the Comptroller General of the United States to compel the transmission of an amount claimed to be

due the petitioner, as in U. S. ex rel. Carroll Electric Co. vs. McCarl;

Against the Comptroller General to secure his action upon a claim growing out of certain government contracts, as in U. S. ex rel. Skinner and Eddy Co. vs. McCarl;

Against the District of Columbia Public Utilities Commission, to compel the setting aside of the valuation placed upon the property of a street railway, as in Capital Traction Co. vs. Utilities Commission;

Against the Secretary of the Treasury, to secure the payment of certificates issued by the Secretary of State for amounts due petitioner for damages claimed against the Venezuelan Republic, as in Lecrone vs. McAdoo;

Against the secretary of Commerce to obtain the issuance of a license for a radio station, as in Intercity Radio Co. vs. Hoover;

And, in the Navy Pay Cases, the Court has before it 120 suits against the Comptroller General and Secretary Wilbur to enjoin them from deducting claims of the United States from the salary of Naval officers.

It was in this Court that suit was brought by the Attorney General in behalf of the United States to enjoin the Swift, Armour, Wilson, Cudahy and Morris meat packing organizations from violations of the Anti-Trust Act.

In Adkins vs. Children's Hospital the Court was called upon to decide the validity of the District Minimum Wage Law; and, in Block vs. Hirsh, to determine the constitutionality of the Ball Rent Act.

It is in this Court that there are pending the criminal cases against Messrs. Fall, Doheny and Sinclair.

Among the other cases of national importance brought before this Court were those known as the "War Fraud Cases," such as the Crowell case, involving the allotment of contracts for army camps; U. S. vs. E. C. Morse; the equity suit against the Newberry Realty Company for alleged war frauds; U. S. vs. Commercial Coal and Globe Indemnity Co., which is still pending, and the criminal prosecution of the Phillips Lumber Co., which took almost three months to try; the pending equity suit against the same Phillips, Stevens, et al., involving about $1,

500,000; and the case of U. S. vs. C. W. Morse, which took 15 weeks to try.

Another duty of the Court is to review, on appeal, the findings of the Public Utilities Commission of the District of Columbia, such as its findings of valuations for ratemaking. This duty or power of the Court has recently been declared by the Supreme Court of the United States, speaking through the Chief Justice, in the case of Keller vs. Potomac Electric Company (261 U. S., 428), to be a legislative power because a rate-making power.

Still another duty of the Court is that all applications for extradition fall to it, mainly, however, through the Chief Justice of the Court, though in his absence or disqualification, by the senior Associate Justice presiding, a purely executive duty, which, in the States, devolves upon the Governors thereof.

It should be added that this Court is also the Probate Court for the District of Columbia, with an ever-increasing volume of business. In the past five calendar years, the Court has dealt with over 9,000 administration and guardianship cases, an average of more than 1,800 a year. Perhaps it is unnecessary to add, it also hears all naturalization proceedings and all bankruptcy cases, and, in addition, it also conducts all lunacy inquiries.

The foregoing paragraphs demonstrate what was written at the beginning of this article, that the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia is an unique tribunal, with no parallel in the United States, and indeed the writer knows of no Court in the world that possesses the variety and scope of jurisdiction that this Court does. The nearest to it is the United States Court for China, a Court composed of a single Judge and no jury, but it does not approach the Supreme Court otherwise in the extent and variety of the powers that the latter exercises. Its power to review the acts of high executive officers in injunction suits and mandamus proceedings are powers invoked with increasing frequency and are not known to be exercised by any other Court of general and original jurisdiction.

It would be singular if the annals of this Court and its predecessor, the old Circuit Court of the District of Co