Cite as: 506 U. S. 194 (1993)
Opinion of the Court
tration by limiting the statutory reach to natural persons. Denying artificial entities the benefits of § 1915 will not in any sense render nugatory the benefits that § 1915 still provides to individuals. Thus, Omaha Tribe and A & P Trucking Co. confirm our focus on context, but turned on contextual indicators not present here.12
V
The Council argues that denying it in forma pauperis status would place an unconstitutional burden on its members' First Amendment rights to associate, to avoid which we should construe § 1915 broadly. See, e. g., NLRB v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago, 440 U. S. 490, 500 (1979) ("[A]n Act of Congress ought not be construed to violate the Constitution if any other possible construction remains available"). We find no merit in this argument. It is true that to file a suit in forma pauperis, not in the Council's name, as such, but under the title "X, Y, and Z, known as the Council v. Rowland," X, Y, and Z would each need to file an affidavit stating that he met the indigency requirements of § 1915. Nothing, however, in § 1915 suggests that the requirements would be less burdensome if the suit were titled "The Council v. Rowland"; even if we held that an association could proceed in forma pauperis, our prior discussion shows that a court could hardly ignore the assets of the association's members in making the indigency determination. Because the extension of § 1915 to artificial entities need not lighten its practi-12 Justice Thomas suggests that our reference to statutory purpose here is inconsistent with our interpretation of "context" in 1 U. S. C. § 1. Post, at 213-214, n. 1. A focus on statutory text, however, does not preclude reasoning from statutory purpose. To the contrary, since "[s]tatutes . . . are not inert exercises in literary composition[, but] instruments of government," United States v. Shirey, 359 U. S. 255, 260 (1959) (per Frankfurter, J.), a statute's meaning is inextricably intertwined with its purpose, and we will look to statutory text to determine purpose because "the purpose of an enactment is embedded in its words even though it is not always pedantically expressed in words," id., at 261.
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