262
Opinion of the Court
The Advisory Report's explicit concern with the limited jurisdiction of the federal courts indicates that the recommended change, which prompted the amendment to the "sue and be sued" provision, spoke to jurisdiction rather than capacity to sue. Against this, respondents argue only that the Advisory Report's use of the words "can" and "power" indicate concern with the latter, not the former. See Brief for Respondents 25. This is fine parsing, too fine to overcome the overall jurisdictional thrust of the Report's recommendation.
In a final look toward the text, respondents speculate that the 1947 amendment can be explained as an attempt to clarify the Red Cross's capacity to enter the federal courts under their diversity jurisdiction. See Brief for Respondents 25- 26, 29. The argument turns on the theory that federally chartered corporations are not citizens of any particular State, and thus may not avail themselves of diversity jurisdiction. See id., at 26 (quoting Walton v. Howard University, 683 F. Supp. 826, 829 (DC 1987)). Respondents completely fail, however, to explain how the addition of the words "State or Federal" to the "sue and be sued" provision might address this claimed jurisdictional problem. Indeed, the 1947 amendment, by specifying the particular courts open to the Red Cross, as opposed to the Red Cross's status as a party, seems particularly ill-suited to rectifying an asserted party-based jurisdictional deficiency.14
14 At oral argument respondents carried the suggestion a further step by speculating that the 1947 amendment could be explained as an attempt to ensure the Red Cross's access to federal courts when diversity jurisdiction existed, due to concern, presumably present until our 1949 decision in National Mut. Ins. Co. v. Tidewater Transfer Co., 337 U. S. 582, about the constitutionality of the 1940 statute giving District of Columbia-chartered corporations the same rights to sue in diversity as state-chartered corporations. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 30-31. But the speculation, if sound, would prove too much. For on this theory Congress would have been hedging against a constitutional problem of diversity jurisdiction by resorting to a special grant of jurisdiction to cover the Red Cross, which is
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