with the bona fide intention and purpose of appropriating and entering it under the homestead laws of the United States, in the event that the State of Montana did not select the same in accordance with the statute.

On the latter date, relator filed in the Land Office, perfect application for the land as a homestead which the Register and Receiver rejected for the stated reason that on July 16, 1915, they had permitted one George E. Kennedy to make a homestead entry of the lands.

The permission for the entry of Kennedy rested wholly upon an application made May 25, 1915, at a time when the lands were reserved as before stated.

On May 25, 1915, the Register and Receiver rejected Kennedy's application in the following terms: "Rejected May 25, 1915, because land not open to entry until July 17, 1915, except to State of Montana and settlers prior to March 10, 1910."

On June 4, 1915, the Register and Receiver made the following notation upon Kennedy's application: "Suspended June 4, 1915, pending preference right of State of Montana. Rejection of May 25, 1915, hereby revoked."

Theretofore it had been the consistent and uniform practice of the General Land Office to reject any and all filings such as Kennedy's.

Relator appealed from the rejection of his application to the General Land Office and that office affirmed the decision of the Register and Receiver, and relator appealed to the Secretary of the Interior who on July 28, 1916, affirmed the decision of the General Land Office and held that "Kennedy's application being prior in time, is also prior in right."

The Secretary in his decision did not refer to any of the asserted prior decisions or practice, but arbitrarily disregarded the mandate and will of Congress expressed in the Act of August 18, 1894.

Relator at the moment of the expiration of the sixty-day

Opinion of the Court.

254 U. S.

limit was actually residing on the land with the intention of making entry thereof under the homestead laws, and the right to make such entry after the sixty-day period was secured to him by such residence by the provisions of the third section of the Act of May 14, 1880, c. 89, 21 Stat. 140, and the uniform decisions of the Department of the Interior under said act, and the Secretary of the Interior has arbitrarily denied to him the exercise and enjoyment of that right. And in ruling that Kennedy had acquired a right under the homestead laws relator is deprived of the benefit to him of performance by the Secretary of the Interior of a purely ministerial duty, and he prays that a writ of mandamus be issued, directed to the Secretary to approve his, the relator's application, and deliver to him the proper evidence thereof. General relief is also prayed.

An order to show cause against the petition was issued and served on the Secretary to which he made reply affirming the legality of the action of the local land office, and the decision of the General Land Office affirming it, and his decision of concurrence.

He denies that there had been any ruling by the Secretary of the Interior that during the sixty-day period applications for homestead entry must be rejected. Such, however, he admits, may have been the ruling by the local land office and even by the Commissioner of the General Land Office, but he stated that from August 31, 1910, the construction of the act was pending before the Secretary upon an appeal from a decision of the Commissioner, that a decision upon said appeal is reported in 45 L. D. 37, under the title of Northern Pacific Ry. Co. v. Idaho, dated April 12, 1916, and that he decided that selections during such period should not be rejected but held suspended until final adjudication of the rights of the State.

He avers that such is the proper construction of the act, and that the act being one of the land laws of the United States, its construction, as well as the determination of all

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Opinion of the Court.

equitable rights of parties under it, is within the jurisdiction of the Secretary of the Interior so long as the legal title of the land yet remains in the United States, (and that it appears on the face of relator's petition that the legal title of the land in controversy is still in the United States,) and involves the exercise of judgment and discretion, not reviewable by any court on direct proceeding either by mandamus or in equity.

He prays that the rule to show cause be discharged.

Relator demurred to the return and in passing upon it the court observed that there were two questions in the case, one, whether the facts exhibited a case for mandamus of the Secretary, that is, "in apparent defiance of the law, acting capriciously or arbitrarily or beyond the scope of the administrative authority confided to him," the other, the construction of the Act of 1894.

To the first question the court answered negatively, and to the second question replied, that "independently of the question of the propriety of a review of the action of the Secretary of the Interior in the pending case, it would seem that the decision rendered by him was one entirely permissible under the law." The demurrer to the return was therefore overruled. Relator electing to stand upon it, the rule was discharged and the petition dismissed.

This action was affirmed by the Court of Appeals.

It is manifest from this statement that the petition presents a controversy over the true construction of the Act of 1894. From the act, and the Secretary's decision, it is apparent that the latter was not arbitrary or capricious, but rested on a possible construction of the act, and one that the reported decisions of the Land Department show is being applied in other cases. The direction of the act that the lands be reserved "from any adverse appropriation" means necessarily an appropriation adverse to the State, and this gives color to the Secretary's view. He could not administer or apply the act without construing

it, and its construction involved the exercise of judgment and discretion. The view for which the relator contends was not so obviously and certainly right as to make it plainly the duty of the Secretary to give effect to it. The relator, therefore, is not entitled to a writ of mandamus. Riverside Oil Co. v. Hitchcock, 190 U. S. 316; Ness v. Fisher, 223 U. S. 683.

We need not consider the fact that Kennedy, whose application was sustained, is not a party to the petition (see Litchfield v. Register and Receiver, 9 Wall. 575, 578); nor need we consider whether a more appropriate remedy will be open to the relator. See Brown v. Hitchcock, 173 U. S. 473; Minnesota v. Lane, 247 U. S. 243, 249, 250. Judgment affirmed.

VALLELY, AS TRUSTEE IN BANKRUPTCY OF NORTHERN FIRE & MARINE INSURANCE COMPANY, v. NORTHERN FIRE & MARINE INSURANCE COMPANY.

CERTIFICATE FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT.

No. 96. Submitted November 17, 1920.-Decided December 13, 1920.

1. A petition to revise in matter of law under § 246 of the Bankruptcy Act is the proper remedy to review an order of an inferior court of bankruptcy vacating an adjudication and dismissing the bankruptcy proceeding for want of jurisdiction upon the motion of the bankrupt after the expiration of the time for appeal, he having neither contested the involuntary petition against him nor appealed from the adjudication. P. 352.

2. Where it appears from the averments of a petition in involuntary bankruptcy that the person proceeded against is an insurance corporation and therefore within the exceptions of § 46 of the Bank

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Argument for Vallely, Trustee.

ruptcy Act, as amended in 1910, the court of bankruptcy is without jurisdiction and its adjudication, rendered upon due service of process and default, and not appealed from, should be vacated and the proceeding dismissed upon the motion of the company, even after the time for appeal has expired. P. 352.

3. Where an insurance corporation adjudged bankrupt in an involuntary proceeding after the passage of the Act of 1910, upon due service of process and default, does not appeal from the adjudication but acquiesces therein and aids the trustee in the performance of his duties in administering the estate, it is not estopped from thereafter questioning the validity of the adjudication and the power of the court and the trustee to proceed. Id.

THE case is stated in the opinion.

Mr. Rome G. Brown for Vallely, Trustee. Mr. C. J. Murphy and Mr. T. A. Toner were also on the brief:

As soon as a petition is filed, the court has the duty, and the statute gives it the power, to decide whether an alleged bankrupt comes within the class that may be declared bankrupt. The decision of that fact involves the exercise of jurisdiction. The jurisdiction is none the less real and valid because the court might decide the question wrongly. Neither the allegation nor the fact that the alleged bankrupt is an insurance company, and as such exempt, is jurisdictional. If the court in the exercise of that power reached a wrong conclusion, the judgment is not void; it is merely error to be corrected on appeal or by motion to vacate, timely made; but as long as it stands it is binding on everyone. In re Worsham, 142 Fed. Rep. 121; Edelstein v. United States, 149 Fed. Rep. 636; Foltz v. St. Louis & S. F. Ry. Co., 60 Fed. Rep. 316; In re First National Bank, 152 Fed. Rep. 64; In re Broadway Savings Trust Co., 152 Fed. Rep. 152; In re Plymouth Cordage Co., 135 Fed. Rep. 1000.

The following decisions are to the same effect: In re New England Breeders' Club, 169 Fed. Rep. 586; Birch v. Steele, 165 Fed. Rep. 577; In re T. E. Hill Co., 159 Fed.