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Opinion of the Court
related to it revealed that the statute's purpose was "to protect Indians from claims made by non-Indian squatters on their lands," id., at 665, and we recognized that construing the disability placed on "white persons" by the statute as extending only to individuals would virtually frustrate this purpose. "[I]n terms of the protective purposes of the Acts of which [the property dispute provision was] a part, it would make little sense to construe the provision so that individuals, otherwise subject to its burdens, could escape its reach merely by incorporating and carrying on business as usual." Id., at 666.
United States v. A & P Trucking Co., 358 U. S. 121 (1958), is a comparable case, involving two criminal statutes applying to truckers, one of which expressly applied to partnerships, and the other of which imposed criminal liability on "whoever" knowingly violated Interstate Commerce Commission regulations on transporting dangerous articles. The issue was whether partnerships could violate the statutes. We noted that the statutes required proof of knowing violations, and that a partnership at common law was deemed not to be a separate entity for purposes of suit. Id., at 124. Nonetheless, given that "[t]he purpose of both statutes [was] clear: to ensure compliance by motor carriers, among others, with safety and other requirements laid down by the Interstate Commerce Commission in the exercise of its statutory duty to regulate the operations of interstate carriers for hire," id., at 123-124, we concluded that it would make no sense if motor carriers could avoid criminal liability for violating the trucking regulations "merely because of the form under which they were organized to do business," id., at 124 (footnote omitted).
Thus, in both Omaha Tribe and A & P Trucking Co., we found that the statutes in question manifested a purpose that would be substantially frustrated if we did not construe the statute to reach artificial entities. Section 1915, however, manifests no such single purpose subject to substantial frus-
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