Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“ If they are construed the other way, it would have been less arbitrary to provide that every question of law could be taken up. That they were not to be understood as the applicants contend is to be inferred not only from the sense of the thing, but from clause first: 'In cases where the jurisdiction of the trial court is in issue,' with provision for certifying that question alone. It is difficult to imagine a case in which the jurisdiction of the trial court is in issue where the construction of a special law of the United States would not be drawn in question. ”

“ In the case at bar, if the words 'construction of any law of the United States' are confined to the construction of laws having general application throughout the United States, the jurisdiction given to this court by § 250 is confined to what naturally and properly belongs to it. ”

“ We do not stop to consider whether any question of construction properly can be said to have been raised, rather than a question of general law in the application of words that were colorless so far as the point in controversy was concerned. ”