396
Opinion of the Court
could give security under § 45 of the National Bank Act of 1864, 13 Stat. 113, 309 U. S., at 523-524. Justice Frankfurter wrote for the Court:
"So far as the powers of a national bank to pledge its assets are concerned, the form which Government takes—whether it appears as the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of War, or the Inland Waterways Corporation—is wholly immaterial. The motives which lead Government to clothe its activities in corporate form are entirely unrelated to the problem of safeguarding governmental deposits . . . ." Id., at 523.
Even Congress itself appeared to acknowledge, at least until recent years, that Government-created and -controlled corporations were part of the Government. The GCCA, discussed above, which brought to an end the era of uncontrolled growth of Government corporations, provided that, without explicit congressional authorization, no corporation should be acquired or created by "any officer or agency of the Federal Government or by any Government corporation for the purpose of acting as an agency or instrumentality of the United States . . . ." § 304(a), 59 Stat. 602 (emphasis added). That was evidently intended to restrict the creation of all Government-controlled policy-implementing corporations, and not just some of them. And the companion provision that swept away many of the extant corporations said that no wholly owned government corporation created under state law could continue "as an agency or instrumentality of the United States," § 304(b), 59 Stat. 602. Once again, that was evidently meant to eliminate policy-implementing government ownership of all state corporations, and not just some of them. From the 1930's onward, many of the statutes creating Government-controlled corporations said explicitly that they were agencies or instrumentalities of the United States, see, e. g., Act of June 9, 1947, § 1, 61 Stat. 130, as amended, 12 U. S. C. § 635 (creating the
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