he term, "activities," as used in the Act described, was
held to be nothing less "than all of the functions of the
Commission."[96]

ROYALTIES; A JUDICIAL ANTICLIMAX

In 1928 the Court went so far as to hold that a State could not tax as
income royalties for the use of a patent issued by the United
States.[97] This proposition was soon overruled in Fox Film Corp. _v._
Doyal,[98] where a privilege tax based on gross income and applicable to
royalties from copyrights was upheld. Likewise a State may lay a
franchise tax on corporations, measured by the net income from all
sources, and applicable to income from copyright royalties.[99]

IMMUNITY OF LESSEES OF INDIAN LANDS

Another line of anomalous decisions conferring tax immunity upon lessees
of restricted Indian lands was overruled in 1949. The first of these
cases, Choctaw O. & G.R. Co. _v._ Harrison,[100] held that a gross
production tax on oil, gas and other minerals was an occupational tax,
and, as applied to a lessee of restricted Indian lands, was an
unconstitutional burden on such lessee, who was deemed to be an
instrumentality of the United States. Next the Court held the lease
itself a federal instrumentality immune from taxation.[101] A modified
gross production tax imposed in lieu of all _ad valorem_ taxes was
invalidated in two _per curiam_ decisions.[102] In Gillespie _v._
Oklahoma[103] a tax upon the net income of the lessee derived from sales
of his share of oil produced from restricted lands also was condemned.
Finally a petroleum excise tax upon every barrel of oil produced in the
State was held inapplicable to oil produced on restricted Indian
lands.[104] In harmony with the trend to restricting immunity implied
from the Constitution to activities of the Government itself, the Court
overruled all these decisions in Oklahoma Tax Comm'n _v._ Texas Co. and
held that a lessee of mineral rights in restricted Indian lands was
subject to nondiscriminatory gross production and excise taxes, so long
as Congress did not affirmatively grant them immunity.[105]

SUMMATION AND EVALUATION

Although McCulloch _v._ Maryland and Gibbons _v._ Ogden were expressions
of a single thesis--the supremacy of the National Government--their
development after Marshall's death has been sharply divergent. During
the period when Gibbons _v._ Ogden was eclipsed by the theory of dual
federalism, the doctrine of McCulloch _v._ Maryland was not merely
followed but greatly ex