The Revised Statutes fix the annual salary of an interpreter at
four hundred dollars. In 1877, Congress appropriated in gross for
such offices "at
Page 109 U. S. 147
hundred dollars per annum," and repeated the appropriation in
like form down to and including the appropriation Act of March 3d,
1881. A served as such interpreter from July, 1878, to November,
188a, and was paid at the rate of $300 per annum. In a suit to
recover at the rate fixed by the Revised Statutes,
held
that Congress had expressed its purpose to reduce for the time
being the salaries of interpreters, and that the claimant could not
recover.
This was a suit by the appellee, Charles Mitchell, to recover a
balance which he claimed to be due him as Indian interpreter at the
Santee agency in the State of Nebraska under section 2070, title
XXIII, of the Revised Statutes.
That section, and section 2076, which constitutes part of the
same title, and also relates to the compensation of interpreters,
are as follows:
"SEC. 2070. The salaries of interpreters lawfully employed in
the service of the United States in Oregon, Utah, and New Mexico
shall be five hundred dollars a year each, and of all so employed
elsewhere four hundred dollars a year each."
"SEC. 2076. The several compensations prescribed by this title
shall be in full of all emoluments and allowances whatsoever."
It appeared from the findings of the Court of Claims that the
appellee was an interpreter at the Santee Indian agency in the
Nebraska, duly appointed under section 2068 of the Revised
Statutes, and that he held the office and discharged its duties for
several periods between July 1, 1878, and November 22, 1882, his
whole term of service amounting to three years and seven
months.
During all this time, instead of the salary of $400 per annum as
provided in section 2070, he was paid only at the rate of $300 per
annum, for which he gave a receipt in full for his services,
Congress having appropriated that sum only for his yearly
compensation during his term of service.
The appellee, contending that he was entitled to a salary at the
rate of $400 per annum, brought this suit to recover the difference
between his salary at that rate and the sum which he was actually
paid. The Court of Claims rendered judgment in his favor for
$353.33, from which the United States appealed.
Page 109 U. S. 148
MR. JUSTICE WOODS delivered the opinion of the Court.
It is contended on behalf of the United States that by the
appropriation acts which cover the period for which the appellee
claims compensation, Congress expressed its purpose to suspend the
operation of section 2070 of the Revised Statutes, and to reduce
for that period the salaries of the appellee and other interpreters
of the same class from $400 to $300 per annum. We think this
contention is well founded.
The law fixing the salaries of interpreters, as found in section
2070 of the Revised Statutes, was first passed in the Indian
Appropriation Act of February 27, 1851, 9 Stat. 587. That act
appropriated a gross sum for the pay of interpreters authorized by
the Act of June 30, 1834, 4 Stat. 735, and declared that the
salaries of interpreters employed in certain named territories
should be $500, and in all others $400 per annum. From the passage
of that act down to the passage of the Indian Appropriation Act of
March 3, 1877, 19 Stat. 271, the appropriations for the salaries of
interpreters were made at those rates. The act last mentioned
specifically appropriated for the pay of Indian interpreters the
uniform sum of $300 each. This course of legislation was continued
for five consecutive years until the passage of the Indian
Appropriation Act of May 17, 1882, 22 Stat. 68, which appropriated
the gross sum of $20,000 for the payment of necessary interpreters,
to be distributed in the discretion of the Secretary of the
Interior, and repealed section 2070 of the Revised Statutes. A like
appropriation was made in the same terms by the Indian
Appropriation Act of March 1, 1883, 22 Stat. 433.
An examination of this legislation, especially of the Indian
appropriation acts, beginning with that of March 3, 1877, down to
and including the Act of March 3, 1881, which are all similar in
their provisions, will clearly reveal the purpose of Congress. The
Act of March 3, 1877, opens with this provision:
"That the following sums be, and they are hereby, appropriated .
. .
Page 109 U. S. 149
for the purpose of paying the current and contingent expenses of
the Indian Department and fulfilling treaty stipulations with the
various tribes. . . ."
Then follow the specific appropriations, and among them the
following:
"For the pay of seventy-six interpreters, as follows: . . .
Seven for the tribes in Nebraska, to be assigned to such agencies
as the Secretary of the Interior may direct at three hundred
dollars per annum, two thousand one hundred dollars."
After the specific appropriation for salaries of interpreters
the following clause appears: "For additional pay of said
interpreters, to be distributed in the discretion of the Secretary
of the Interior, six thousand dollars." All the subsequent Indian
appropriation acts, down to and including the Act of March 3, 1881,
make in the same language the same appropriation for salaries of
interpreters, and contain a similar clause for their additional
compensation.
We find, therefore, this state of legislation: by the Revised
Statutes, the salaries of interpreters were fixed, some at $400 and
some at $500 per annum, with a provision that such compensation
should be in full of all emoluments and allowances whatsoever. By
the acts in force during the appellee's term of service, the
appropriation for the annual pay of interpreters was $300 each, and
a large sum was set apart for their additional compensation, to be
distributed by the Secretary of the Interior at his discretion.
This course of legislation, which was persisted in for five
years, distinctly reveals a change in the policy of Congress on
this subject -- namely that instead of establishing a salary for
interpreters at a fixed amount and cutting off all other emoluments
and allowances, Congress intended to reduce the salaries and place
a fund at the disposal of the Secretary of the Interior
Page 109 U. S. 150
from which, at his discretion, additional emoluments and
allowances might be given to the interpreters. The purpose of
Congress to suspend the law fixing the salaries of interpreters in
Nebraska at $400 per annum is just as clear as its purpose to
suspend the section forbidding any further emoluments and
allowances. Our opinion is therefore that the intention of Congress
to fix, by the appropriation acts to which we have called
attention, the annual salaries of interpreters for the time covered
by those acts at $300 each is plain upon the face of the
statute.
The whole question depends on the intention of Congress as
expressed in the statutes. Whether a simple failure by Congress to
appropriate any or a sufficient sum to pay the salary of an officer
fixed by previous law is of itself an expression of purpose by
Congress to reduce the salary we do not now decide. That is not
this case. On the contrary, in this case, Congress has in other
ways expressed its purpose to reduce for the time being the
salaries of the interpreters.
This purpose is, of course, irreconcilable with the provisions
of the Revised Statutes on the same subject, and those provisions
must be considered as having been suspended until they were finally
repealed by the Act of May 17, 1882. As the appellee has been paid
in full his salary as fixed by the later acts, which were in force
before and during and continued in force after his term of service,
he has no cause of action against the United States. It follows
that the judgment of the Court of Claims in his favor must be
reversed,
And it is so ordered.
