the national government. It was, in our judgment, never the intent of Congress to deprive itself of the authority which it had always exercised to adopt such measures as in its judgment were wise for the protection of the Indian in his rights among the more highly developed members of the white race. Conceding the Indians to be citizens of the United States and of the state of their residence, this court still said in the case of United States v. Thurston County, 143 Fed. 287, 288, 74 C. C. A. 425, 426: "Their civil and political status, however, does not condition the power, authority, or duty of the United States to exert its powers of government to control their property, to protect them in their rights, to faithfully discharge its legal and moral obligations to them, and to execute every trust with which it is charged for their benefit. They are still members of their tribes and of an inferior and dependent race." Clothing them with citizenship did not change their character or invest them with full industrial capacity. These records are eloquent on that subject. An intent to destroy the authority of the national government to protect the Indian ought not to be deduced as a mere speculative inference from the definition of citizenship. Such a radical change of national policy should emanate only from express and unequivocal language.

Section 1 of the act of May 27, 1908, removes all restraints upon alienation as to several classes of allotments. Section 6 of that act provides for the appointment of representatives of the Secretary of the Interior to counsel and advise Indian allottees having restricted lands, with reference to the same, and also authorizes these agents to bring suits in the name of the allottee to cancel and annul any conveyance or incumbrance thereof made in violation of any act of Congress. These provisions standing alone would afford a strong implication against the right of the government to maintain these suits in its own name as to lands that are freed from restriction by section 1. The Indian as a citizen of the United States has a clear right to maintain any suit necessary to set aside illegal conveyances of his property. By section 1 of the act he is vested in certain cases with an unrestricted right to dispose of his allotment. How can the Attorney General contend that as to lands thus freed from restriction by the government he is truthfully representing its present policy by prosecuting these suits in its name? Again, it might well be urged that, inasmuch as Congress has authorized the agents of the Secretary of the Interior to maintain suits in the name of allottees to cancel any instrument executed in violation of law, it has thereby indicated its intent that no other governmental agency should institute such suits. These contentions, in our judgment, would be controlling were it not for the last paragraph of section 6 of the act. It reads as follows:

"Nothing in this act shall be construed as a denial of the right of the United States to take such steps as may be necessary, including the bringing of any suit, and the prosecution and appeal thereof, to acquire or retain possession of restricted Indian lands, or to remove cloud therefrom, or clear title to the same, in cases where deeds, leases or contracts of any other kind or character whatsoever have been or shall be made contrary to law with respect to such lands prior to the removal therefrom of restrictions upon the alienation thereof."

"Nothing in this act" includes the provisions from, which the implication is drawn against the right of the government to maintain these suits. The later language of the paragraph extends that right to all conveyances which "have been made contrary to law with respect to said lands. prior to the removal therefrom of restrictions upon the alienation thereof." According to the averments of the bills, every conveyance here involved falls clearly within these words. To deny the right of the government to maintain these suits is to repudiate the plain language and manifest object of the paragraph which we have quoted. The Indians and their lands were subject to the supervision of the Secretary of the Interior, and the act provides that the suits shall only be brought on his recommendation. The power of Congress to confer such an authority is beyond question. Whether the suits should be brought presents a question of administrative rather than judicial discretion. If Congress saw fit to reinvest allottees with a clear title to their allotments before freeing them from restraint by section 1 of the act, that is clearly a subject with whose wisdom the courts cannot interfere. It is our duty to give effect to the intent of Congress as declared by the statute. The Supreme Court in the case of United States v. Celestine, 215 U. S. 278, 30 Sup. Ct. 93, 54 L. Ed. —, again enforces the duty of the courts to construe legislation of Congress in relation to the Indians so as to promote their interest. Applying that canon, we entertain no doubt of the right of the government to maintain these suits. They are brought in the name of the United States to enforce a right created by federal law. The jurisdiction of the Circuit Court is therefore plain.

Is there a defect of parties? The rule as to parties in equity was early stated by Mr. Justice Curtis in language so accurate and comprehensive that it has since been accepted by all federal courts. He says that parties are:

"(1) Formal parties. (2) Persons having an interest in the controversy, and who ought to be made parties in order that the court may act on that rule which requires it to decide on, and finally determine, the entire controversy, and do complete justice, by adjusting all the rights involved in it. These persons are commonly termed necessary parties; but if their interests are separable from those of the parties before the court, so that the court can proceed to a decree, and do complete and final justice, without affecting other persons not before the court, the latter are not indispensable parties. (3) Persons who not only have an interest in the controversy, but an interest of such a nature that a final decree cannot be made without either affecting that interest, or leaving the controversy in such a condition that its final termination may be wholly inconsistent with equity and good conscience." Shields v. Barrow, 17 How. 130, 139, 15 L. Ed. 158.

Th Supreme Court in Waterman v. Canal Louisiana Bank Co., 215 U. S. 33, 49, 30 Sup. Ct. 10, 54 L. Ed. —, after quoting the above language with approval, condenses the rule as to indispensable parties as follows:

"The relation of an indispensable party to the suit must be such that no decree can be entered in the case which will do justice between the parties actually before the court, without injuriously affecting the rights of such absent party."

That is the real ground of the decision of the Supreme Court in Minnesota v. Northern Securities Company, 184 U. S. 199, 22 Sup. Ct. 308, 46 L. Ed. 499. The decree there could not be enforced against the Northern Securities Company without destroying the rights of the Northern Pacific and Great Northern Railroad Companies, and their stockholders, who were not parties. See, also, Rogers v. Penobscott Mining Co., 154 Fed. 615, 83 C. C. A. 380. The allottees in the present case do not come within the class of indispensable parties as thus defined. The cause of action set up in the bill is not theirs but the government's. True, if the government succeeds, their titles will be cleared of clouds; but, if it does not succeed, they will be left with their personal causes of action unaffected by what is done in the present litigation. It may be said that this very fact makes the presence of the allottees necessary to complete justice to the defendants. While the measure of justice in their favor would be more complete if the allottees were present, that fact does not render the allottees indispensable parties. It is not the mere convenience of the parties before the court which renders absent parties indispensable, but the protection of the rights of those absent parties. Looking at the entire litigation, justice to the defendants will also be promoted by this practice. The Indians have already parted with their lands by deed. While they have the legal right to assail the conveyances if they were made in violation of the statute against alienation, the exercise of that right by the Indians after a decision against the government in the present suit, is so problematical that it would be oppressive to compel the plaintiff to bring all allottees before the court, and would also add unnecessarily to the costs of the defendants in case the suits shall go against them. Again, the allottees, if present, would have no control over the suits. Their consent to a judgment in favor of the defendants would not defeat the right of the government. In our judgment, therefore, there is no defect of parties.

The defense of multifariousness is without merit. That defense, as the Supreme Court has frequently declared, is "very largely a matter of convenience." United States v. Bell Telephone Co., 128 U. S. 315, 352, 9 Sup. Ct. 90, 91, 32 L. Ed. 450; Graves v. Ashburn, 215 U. S. 331, 335, 30 Sup. Ct. 108, 54 L. Ed. —. It is addressed to the sound discretion of the court. The convenience both of the defendants and the government is conserved by joining in one action all such conveyances as the government claims are invalid because made in violation of a specific statute.

Only one question remains for consideration. The statutes imposing restraints upon alienation were changed from time to time between the year 1893, when the allotment of the lands in severalty began, and the time of their completion some 15 years later. It is earnestly contended by the defendants that after allotments had been made subject to a specific limitation, the government was without power to enlarge the period of that limitation; that the Indian obtained a vested right in his allotment, subject only to the restriction which was imposed upon it at the time the allotment was made, and that to enlarge the period of the restriction would be an impairment of his vested rights, in violation of the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution. So long

as the lands were held by the Indian allottee, or by an Indian who claimed under him by inheritance, we do not think this contention is sound. The grant of citizenship to the Indian did not destroy the right of the federal government to regulate and restrict his use of these lands. Though a citizen of the United States, he did not cease to be an Indian, and both he and his property remained subject to the national government. Congress has from time to time asserted this authority, and to hold that its enactments in that regard are unconstitutional, would be disastrous to the Indian, and would probably still further confuse the already complicated title to lands in Oklahoma. The extension of the period of restriction under the general allotment act is referred to with approval in U. S. v. Celestine, 215 U. S. 291, 30 Sup. Ct. 93, 54 L. Ed. —. It is, of course, true that conveyances of allotments to third parties in accordance with the law in force at the time the conveyances were made, could not be impaired by subsequent legislation on the part of Congress enlarging the period of restriction against alienation.

The whole scheme of allotment of lands in severalty to the Indians is an experiment. Congress, in the case of the Five Nations, has attempted to reserve to itself power to deal with the subject in the light of experience. If the plan proves a failure, after a fair trial, it would be disastrous, indeed, if the mere grant of citizenship to the Indian had placed him beyond the power of the federal government to adopt such measures for his welfare as experience should show to be necessary. The decrees are reversed, and the trial court is directed to proceed with the suits in accordance with the views here expressed.

ADAMS, Circuit Judge (dissenting). I am unable to agree with my Associates that the United States can of its own motion, without the request or consent of the Indians whose rights are involved, maintain these suits to remove a cloud from their title. When the suits were instituted the individual Indians held title in fee simple absolute to their several allotments. The undivided interests which they originally owned in tribal property had been effectually partitioned in the process of allotment provided by the act of March, 1893 (Act March 3, 1893, c. 209, 27 Stat. 612), and subsequent acts supplemental thereto. Any reversionary interest of the United States dependent upon possible abandonment of the land or extinction of the tribe had been relinquished. The United States, therefore, had no proprietary right legal or equitable to protect or safeguard by suit or otherwise. Moreover, the Indians had become citizens of the United States and of the state of Oklahoma, and had become entitled to all the rights, privileges, and immunities of such citizens. As a result of all these things guardianship of the government over them had ceased, and the Indians had become completely emancipated from federal control. Laws restricting alienation, hereafter referred to, had been passed for their protection, but this fact does not militate against the completeness of their emancipation. Matter of Heff, 197 U. S. 488, 25 Sup. Ct. 506, 49 L. Ed. 848.

With no title legal or equitable to protect, and no duty of a trust character to perform, a new head of equity jurisdiction had to be dis

covered to justify the maintenance of these suits by the government; and this, it is claimed, is found in the obligation of the government to enforce a great national policy. The Debs Case, 158 U. S. 564, 15 Sup. Ct. 900, 39 L. Ed. 1092, and others of that character are cited in support of this discovery; but they do not, as I understand them, justify governmental intervention, in behalf of private citizens except in the discharge of duties intrusted to the care of the nation by the Constitution. The intervention of the government in the Debs Case appears to be justified on the ground that power over interstate commerce and the transportation of the mails was vested in the national government by the Constitution. Conceding, however, without admitting, that the government may intervene as complainant to redress the wrongs of a limited number of citizens arising out of matters not committed to its control by the Constitution, I think the national policy with respect to the Five Civilized Tribes is entirely inconsistent with the right or duty of the United States to institute suit in its own name for their benefit. The majority opinion dwells largely upon that part of the Indian policy which prevailed before the cessation of the national guardianship, that part of it which concerned the treatment of the Indians before emancipation, when a duty rested upon the government to protect them and prepare them for citizenship; but that time and that duty have passed away. Congress in its wisdom has determined that the Indians of the Five Civilized Tribes are now fit for citizenship and qualified to perform its duties and carry its responsibilities. It has accordingly modified its former policy to meet the new conditions. It has endowed the Indians with rights and responsibilities intended. and calculated to develop self-reliance, independence, and thrift. Citizenship has been conferred upon them and title to lands in fee simple has been vested in them with the expectation that the responsibilities incident thereto-the defense of their rights, the redress of their wrongs, the establishment of homes, the support of themselves and their families, and generally speaking, the practice of the arts of civilized life—may aid them in their social and economic development. In view, doubtless, of the cupidity of men, and of their own natural improvidence, Congress with a view of encouraging and aiding them in their upward progress enacted (35 Stat. 312) that "All allotted lands of enrolled fullbloods, and enrolled mixedbloods of three-quarters or more Indian blood, including minors of such degrees of blood, shall not be subject to alienation, contract to sell, power of attorney, or any other incumbrance prior to April twenty-sixth, nineteen hundred and thirty-one" except by permission of the Secretary of the Interior.

The foregoing considerations, in my opinion, indicate that Congress has adopted a new policy concerning these Indians, namely: the promotion of self-reliance, self-respect, economy, and thrift, and to this end after making the special provision above indicated and perhaps others of like character, has left them otherwise subject to general laws governing all citizens. Equality of opportunity is all an American citizen ought to demand; and this and more in the respects just indicated Congress has given the members of the Five Civilized Tribes. With these special provisions made in their behalf the legislative intent and purpose seems to have been to leave them to justify their