Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/37

 BERGER V. COM'RS OF DOUGLAS COUNTY. 25

All the evils (and they are very serious) which congress intended to prevent by the inhibition of suits by assignees in the cases specified, are made not only possible, but easy, under the removal act, if it is to receive the literal construction con- tended for by plaintiff 's counsel. It is impossible to imagine a case in which suit in this court, by an assignee, is prohibited by the first section of the act of March 3, 1875, and in which the same suit may not be indirectly brought here under the second section of the same act, if the two sections are not construed together, or if it be held that a non-resident assignee may, in all cases of suits founded on contract, remove the cause on the ground of his citizenship. By this construction of the act of 1875 we would point out the mode whereby one citizen of Nebraska, holding a claim against another citizen of that state for more than $500, may assign his claim to a citizen of a neighboring state, who can bring his suit thereon into this court provided only he comes through a state court. When we consider that the federal courts are few in number and widely separated from each other; that many citizens reside at places far distant from them; that their dockets are overcrowded with cases, and that litigation in them is tedious and sometimes ruinously expensive, we perceive at once the wisdom of those provisions of the statute which have stood from 1789 until the present, which were intended to confine our jurisdiction, in cases where it depends upon the citizenship of the parties, to bona fide controversies between citizens of different states. And in order to secure this end it is necessaiy to prohibit the assignment of causes of action to non-residents, for the purpose of bringing suit either directly or indirectly in the federal courts. I am, therefore, of the opinion that the first and second sections of the act of March 3, 1875, should be construed together as in pari materia, and, being so construed, the right of removal should not be allowed in a case where the plaintiff is an assignee, unless his assigner might have sued in this court. It is insisted, in the second place, that the case involves a question arising under the laws of the United States. It is