the laws regarding its public lands. Unless taken away by some affirmative provision of law, the Land Department has jurisdiction over the subject." There is in the mineral land law a provision referring to the courts controversies between rival mineral claimants arising out of conflicting mining locations (Rev. Stats., §§ 2325, 2326), but it does not reach or affect other controversies and so is without present bearing. Creede & Cripple Creek Mining Co. v. Uinta Tunnel Mining Co., 196 U. S. 337, 356, et seq.

It is rightly conceded that in the case of a conflict between a mining location and a homestead claim the department has authority to inquire into and determine the validity of both and, if the mining location be found invalid and the homestead claim valid, to declare the former null and void and to give full effect to the latter; and yet it is insisted that the department is without authority, on a complaint preferred in the public interest, to inquire into and determine the validity of a mining location, and, if it be found invalid, to declare it of no effect and recognize the rights of the public. We think the attempted distinction is not sound. It has no support in the terms of the mineral land law, is not consistent with the general statutory provisions before mentioned, and if upheld would encourage the use of merely colorable mining locations in the wrongful private appropriation of lands belonging to the public.

Instances in which this power has been exercised in respect of mining locations are shown in the Yard Case, 38 L. D. 59, and the Nichols-Smith Case (on rehearing), 46 L. D. 20: instances in which its exercise has received judicial sanction are found in Lane v. Cameron, 45 App. D. C. 404, and Cameron v. Bass, 19 Arizona, 246; and an instance in which its existence received substantial, if not decisive, recognition by this court is found in Clipper Mining Co. v. Eli Mining Co., 194 U. S. 220, 223, 234.

The argument is advanced that the department necessarily is without authority to pronounce a mining location invalid, because it has within itself no means of executing its decision, such as dispossessing the locator. But this is not a proper test of the existence of the authority, for the department is without the means of executing most of its decisions in the sense suggested. When it issues a patent it has no means of putting the grantee in possession, and yet its authority to issue patents is beyond question. When it awards a tract to one of two rival homestead claimants it has no means of putting the successful one in possession or the other one out, and yet its authority to determine which has the better claim is settled by repeated decisions of this court. And a similar situation exists in respect of most of the claims or controversies on which the department must pass in regular course. Its province is that of determining questions of fact and right under the public land laws, of recognizing or disapproving claims according to their merits and of granting or refusing patents as the law may give sanction for the one or the other. When there is occasion to enforce its decisions in the sense suggested, this is done through suits instituted by the successful claimants or by the Government, as the one or the other may have the requisite interest.

Whether the tract covered by Cameron's location was mineral and whether there had been the requisite discovery were questions of fact, the decision of which by the Secretary of the Interior was conclusive in the absence of fraud or imposition, and none was claimed. Catholic Bishop of Nesqually v. Gibbon, supra; Burfenning v. Chicago, St. Paul, etc., Ry. Co., 163 U. S. 321, 323. Accepting the Secretary's findings that the tract was not mineral and that there had been no discovery, it is plain that the location was invalid, as was declared by the Secretary and held by the courts below.

450.

Argument for the United States.

Of other complaints made by the defendants, it suffices to say that, in our opinion, the record shows that the Government was entitled to the relief sought and awarded. Decree affirmed.

UNITED STATES v. SIMPSON.

ERROR TO THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO.

No. 444. Submitted March 5, 1920.-Decided April 19, 1920.

The transportation by their owner of five quarts of whiskey for his personal use, in his own automobile, into a State whose laws prohibit the manufacture or sale of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes, is transportation in interstate commerce and violates the Reed Amendment if the liquor is not intended for any of the purposes therein excepted. P. 466.

257 Fed. Rep. 860, reversed.

THE case is stated in the opinion.

Mr. Assistant Attorney General Frierson for the United States:

This case is ruled by United States v. Hill, 248 U. S. 420.

The judgment in the present case rests solely upon the idea that, in order to be transportation in interstate commerce, transportation must be by common carrier. But transportation, in order to constitute interstate commerce, need not be by common carrier, and may be transportation by the owner of the goods. Railroad Company v. Husen, 95 U. S. 465, 469–70; Kirmeyer v. Kansas, 236 U. S. 568, 572; Kelley v. Rhoads, 188 U. S. 1; Pipe Line Cases, 234 U. S. 548, 560; Rearick v. Pennsylvania, 203 U. S. 507, 512.

Opinion of the Court.

252 U.S.

No appearance for defendant in error.

MR. JUSTICE VAN DEVANTER delivered the opinion of the court.

This is an indictment under § 5 of the Act of March 3, 1917, known as the Reed Amendment, c. 162, 39 Stat. 1069, which declares that "whoever shall

cause

intoxicating liquors to be transported in interstate commerce, except for scientific, sacramental, medicinal, and mechanical purposes, into any State . . . . . the laws of which prohibit the manufacture or sale therein of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes shall be punished," etc.; and the question for decision is whether the statute was applicable where the liquor-five quarts of whiskey-was transported by its owner in his own automobile and was for his personal use, and not for an excepted purpose. The District Court answered the question in the negative and on that ground sustained a demurrer to the third count, which is all that is here in question, and discharged the accused. 257 Fed. Rep. 860.

We think the question should have been answered the other way. The evil against which the statute was directed was the introduction of intoxicating liquor into a prohibition State from another State for purposes other than those specially excepted, a matter which Congress could and the States could not control. Danciger v. Cooley, 248 U. S. 319, 323. The introduction could be effected only through transportation, and whether this took one form or another it was transportation in interstate commerce. Kelley v. Rhoads, 188 U. S. 1; United States v. Chavez, 228 U. S. 525, 532-533; United States v. Mesa, 228 U. S. 533; Pipe Line Cases, 234 U. S. 548, 560; United States v. Hill, 248 U. S. 420. The statute makes no distinction between different modes of transportation and we think it was intended to include them all, that being

465.

CLARKE, J., dissenting.

the natural import of its words. Had Congress intended to confine it to transportation by railroads and other common carriers it well may be assumed that other words appropriate to the expression of that intention would have been used. And it also may be assumed that Congress foresaw that if the statute were thus confined it could be so readily and extensively evaded by the use of automobiles, auto-trucks and other private vehicles that it would not be of much practical benefit. See Kirmeyer v. Kansas, 236 U. S. 568. At all events, we perceive no reason for rejecting the natural import of its words and holding that it was confined to transportation for hire or by public carriers.

The published decisions show that a number of the federal courts have regarded the statute as embracing transportation by automobile, and have applied it in cases where the transportation was personal and private, as here. Ex parte Westbrook, 250 Fed. Rep. 636; Malcolm v. United States, 256 Fed. Rep. 363; Jones v. United States, 259 Fed. Rep. 104; Berryman v. United States, 259 Fed. Rep. 208.

That the liquor was intended for the personal use of the person transporting it is not material, so long as it was not for any of the purposes specially excepted. This was settled in United States v. Hill, supra.

We conclude that the District Court erred in construing the statute and sustaining the demurrer.

MR. JUSTICE CLARKE, dissenting.

Judgment reversed.

The indictment in this case charges that the defendant, being in the City of Cheyenne, Wyoming, "bought, paid for and owned" five quarts of whiskey and thereafter, in his own automobile, driven by himself, transported it into the City of Denver, Colorado, intending to there devote it to his own personal use. Colorado prohibited the manu