GOVERNMENTAL SERVICES 159 



115. State and National Officers, at Same Time. 

 Because of the conflict of jurisdiction in matters 

 pertaining to health, between state and national 

 officers, and the consequent complication which 

 may arise ; and also sometimes in order to gain the 

 advantage of the experience of those of wide 

 observation, it is sometimes arranged to make 

 national officers deputy state officials (or less fre- 

 quently, perhaps, to give a state officer the posi- 

 tion of a deputy of the federal official). In such 

 cases it must be remembered that in maintaining 

 a quarantine within a state, or in enforcing local 

 measures for the stamping out of a disease, the 

 officer is really working as a state officer. It would 

 seem proper, therefore, that all legal actions be- 

 gun by or prosecuted against an officer so work- 

 ing should be in state courts. Owing to the pres- 

 ence of plague in New Orleans an ordinance was 

 passed requiring the rat-proofing of the entire 

 city. Assistant Surgeon General Rucker of the 

 U. S. Public Health Service, a man with a wide 

 experience in this line of work, took charge of 

 the work of extermination. Action was brought 

 against him by certain citizens, alleging that he 

 was overzealous, arbitrary and unreasonable in 

 his enforcement of the rat-proofing ordinance ; and 

 an injunction was asked to restrain his activity. 

 The U. S. District Court, before whom the mat- 

 ter was brought, claimed jurisdiction on the 

 ground that he was a federal officer. With due 

 humility we are forced to differ with the learned 

 court, although it is a duty of federal officers, 

 according to the Statutes of the United States, 

 to assist in the enforcement of state quarantine 



