the expression "officers, clerks, and employees" or "officers and employees" occurs in numerous statutes. In case of ambiguity, the courts look to the debates in Congress for light. In this case, there were elaborate hearings before a committee of Congress. The bill then ur.der consideration provided compensation to employees, but this term was expressly defined as including all “civilian officers and employees." That officers were thus included was the subject of much discussion. And, in the bill as finally reported and passed, the words "officers and " were stricken from this definition, which, as above shown, was made to read simply "all civil employees." It is very clear that this change was the result of the discussion referred to, and I can not doubt that the purpose and intent of Congress was to draw a distinction between mere employees and officers, both of the United States and of the Panama Railroad Co., and to entirely exclude the latter from the benefits of the act. Dr. von Ezdorf, having been appointed by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, was an officer of the United States (Const. of U. S., Art. II, sec. 2; United States v. Germaine, 99 U. S. 508, 509, 510; United States v. Mouat, 124 U. S. 303, 307), and therefore not within the operation of the United States employees' compensation act. Respectfully, JOHN W. DAVIS, Acting Attorney General. TO THE PRESIDENT. NATIONAL BANKS-FIDUCIARY PERMITS. The Federal Reserve Board has no authority to grant to national banks located in New York the power to act as trustee, executor, and administrator. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, November 26, 1917. SIR: I have your letter dated November 16, 1917, with reference to the authority of the Federal Reserve Board to grant to national banks located in New York the power to act as trustee, executor, and administrator. I am of opinion that the reserve board has no such authority under existing laws. Section 11 (k) of the Federal reserve act of December 23, 1913 (38 Stat. 262, c. 6), empowers the reserve board— "SEC. 11 (k). To grant by special permit to national banks applying therefor, when not in contravention of State or local law, the right to act as trustee, executor, administrator, or registrar of stocks and bonds under such rules and regulations as the said board may prescribe." The congressional enactment therefore authorizes the special permit only "when not in contravention of State or local law." The act of April 16, 1914, Article V, section 223, Laws of New York, 1914, chapter 369, page 1371, provides: "No corporation other than a trust company organized under the laws of this State shall have or exercise in this State the power to receive deposits of money, securities or other personal property from any person or corporation in trust, or have or exercise in this State any of the powers specified in subdivisions one, four, five, sir, seven and eight of section one hundred eighty-five of this article, nor have or maintain an office in this State for the transaction of, or transact, directly or indirectly, any such or similar business, except that a Federal reserve bank may exercise the powers conferred by subdivision one of such section if authorized so to do by the laws of the United States Subdivisions 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 of section 185 of Article V referred to confer authority upon trust companies to act as registrar of stocks and bonds, as executor and administrator, and as trustee in various capacities. The laws of New York empower only trust companies organized under the laws of that State to act as trustee, executor, and administrator. This is not a case where the local law simply authorizes State banks to assume trust company functions. Attorney General v. First National Bank, 192 Mich. 640. Corporations other than those organized in New York are expressly prohibited from exer cising such powers. Since the national banks in question are not organized under the laws of New York, a special permit to act as trustee would be plainly in contravention of the State law. I find nothing in the opinion of Mr. Chief Justice White in First National Bank v. Fellows (244 U. S. 416), which would justify, in the present matter, a different construction of the unambiguous provisions of the controlling statutes. The language of the present Chief Justice demonstrates the power of the National Legislature to confer authority upon national banks to act as trustee, executor, and administrator, where such powers are exercised by State trust companies, even though the State law discriminates against the national agencies in this regard. The power of Congress to determine how far national banks may be subject to State control is settled, and State regulations which conflict with the congressional enactments are invalid. (Davis v. Elmira Bank, 161 U. S. 275; Easton v. Iowa, 188 U. S. 220; Van Reed v. National Bank, 198 U. S. 554.) But in this case Congress has not exerted its power. By section 11 (k) it has explicitly constituted the local statutory provisions as the criterion of the corporate capacity of national banks. The New York statute, therefore, can not fairly be said to deny to national banks operating in New York a power Congress intended they should have. Very respectfully, TO THE PRESIDENT. T. W. GREGORY. WAR RISK INSURANCE. The privilege of applying for insurance under section 400 of the amendment of October 6, 1917, to the War Risk Insurance Act (40 Stat. 409), is confined to persons in the military or naval service of the United States, including of course their duly authorized representatives. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, SIR: I have your letter of November 23, 1917, in which you ask for my opinion as to whether or not dependents and associations may apply for insurance under the recent War Risk Insurance Act (40 Stat. 398, 409), covering persons in the military or naval service. You state: "Section 400 of the act of October 6, 1917 (Public No. 90), entitled An act to amend an act entitled "An Act to authorize the establishment of a Bureau of War Risk Insurance in the Treasury Department,' approved September second, nineteen hundred and fourteen, and for other purposes," reads as follows: "That in order to give to every commissioned officer and enlisted man and to every member of the Army Nurse Corps (female) and of the Navy Nurse Corps (female) when employed in active service under the War Department or Navy Department greater protection for themselves and their dependents than is provided in Article III, the United States, upon application to the bureau and without medical examination, shall grant insurance against the death or total permanent disability of any such person in any multiple of $500, and not less than $1,000 or more than $10,000, upon the payment of the premiums as hereinafter provided.' "This Department proposes to issue regulations under the authority of the foregoing quoted section of the act which will permit a person other than the person to be insured, or an association, to make an application for insurance on behalf of a person in the military or naval service." Section 400, quoted above, does not specify by whom the application must be made. If, therefore, that section stood alone, it might reasonably be contended that the application could be made not only by every officer, enlisted man, . etc., specified in the section (hereafter referred to as persons in the military or naval service), but also by their dependents. For the section expressly states the object. to be to give protection not only to persons in the military and naval service but also to their dependents. But the section does not stand alone. It is closely related to and must be construed in connection with the provisions of the Act which immediately follow, Section 401 provides in part as follows: "That such insurance must be applied for within one hundred and twenty days after enlistment or after entrance into or employment in the active service and before discharge or resignation, except that those persons who are in the active war service at the time of the publication of the terms and conditions of such contract of insurance may apply at any time within one hundred and twenty days thereafter and while in such service. Any person in the active service on or after the sixth day of April, nineteeen hundred and seventeen, who, while in such service and befcre the expiration of one hundred and twenty days from and after such publication, becomes or has become totally and permanently disabled or dies, or has died, without having applied for insurance, shall be deemed to have applied for and to have been granted insurance, payable to such person during his life in monthly installments of $25 each." [Italic ours.] The italicized words tend to the view that Congress contemplated that only persons in the military or naval service of the United States should be entitled to make the application. Section 402 provides in part as follows: "That the director, subject to the general direction of the Secretary of the Treasury, shall promptly determine upon and publish the full and exact terms and conditions of such contract of insurance. The insurance shall not be assignable, and shall not be subject to the claims of creditors of the insured or of the beneficiary. It shall be payable only to a spouse, child, grandchild, parent, brother or sister, and also during total and permanent disability to the injured person, or to any or all of them * *. Subject to regulations, the insured shall at all times have the right to change the beneficiary or beneficiaries of such insurance without the consent of such beneficiary or beneficiaries, but only within the classes herein provided." · * The last clause of this provision strongly indicates that Congress did not intend to authorize applications by any but the persons to be insured. It expressly gives the in |