Opinion of the Court. 320 U.S. pendent Packing Co., 249 U. S. 479. But its application here is most appropriate by reason of the pattern of this Act. While the Mediation Board is given specified powers in the conduct of elections, there is no requirement as to hearings. And there is no express grant of subpoena power. The Mediation Board makes no "order." And its only ultimate finding of fact is the certificate. Virginian Ry. Co. v. System Federation, supra, p. 562. The function of the Board under § 2, Ninth is more the function of a referee. To this decision of the referee Congress has added a command enforcible by judicial decree. But the "command" is that "of the statute, not of the Board." Id., p. 562. The statutory mandate is that "the carrier shall treat with the representative so certified." § 2, Ninth. But the scheme of § 2, Ninth is analogous to that which existed in Butte, A. & P. Ry. Co. v. United States, 290 U. S. 127. In that case Congress provided compensation to the owners of short-line railroads for losses attributable to federal control of the main systems during the first World War. The Interstate Commerce Commission was directed by § 204 of the Transportation Act of 1920 to ascertain the amount of deficits or losses and to "certify to the Secretary of the Treasury the several amounts payable" to the carriers. And the Secretary of the Treasury was "authorized and directed thereupon to draw warrants in favor of each such carrier upon the Treasury of the United States for the amount shown in such certificate as payable thereto." Payments were made to the Butte company on such a certificate and the United States instituted suit to recover on the theory that the money had been disbursed on an erroneous interpretation of the statute. This Court, speaking through Mr. Justice Brandeis, held that since authority to interpret the statute was "essential to the performance of the duty imposed upon the Commission" and since "Congress did not provide a method of review," the Government, as well as the carrier, was "remediless whether the error be one of fact or of law." Id., pp. 142143. Cf. United States v. Great Northern Ry. Co., 287 U.S. 144. In the present case the authority of the Mediation Board in election disputes to interpret the meaning of "craft" as used in the statute is no less clear and no less essential to the performance of its duty. The statutory command that the decision of the Board shall be obeyed is no less explicit. Under this Act Congress did not give the Board discretion to take or withhold action, to grant or deny relief. It gave it no enforcement functions. It was to find the fact and then cease. Congress prescribed the command. Like the command in the Butte Ry. case it contained no exception. Here as in that case the intent seems plain--the dispute was to reach its last terminal point when the administrative finding was made. There was to be no dragging out of the controversy into other tribunals of law. That conclusion is reinforced by the highly selective manner in which Congress has provided for judicial review of administrative orders or determinations under the Act. There is no general provision for such review. But Congress has expressly provided for it in two instances. Thus Congress gave the National Railroad Adjustment Board jurisdiction over disputes growing out of "grievances or out of the interpretation or application of agreements concerning rates of pay, rules, or working conditions." § 3, First (i). The various divisions of the Adjustment Board have authority to make awards. § 3, First (k)-(o). And suits based on those awards may be brought in the federal district courts. § 3, First (p). In such suits "the findings and order of the division of the Adjustment Board shall be prima facie evidence of the facts therein stated." The other instance in the Act where Congress provided for Opinion of the Court. 320 U.S. judicial review is under § 9. The Act prescribes machinery for the voluntary arbitration of labor controversies. § 5, Third; § 7; § 8. It is provided in § 9 that an award of a board of arbitration may be impeached by an action instituted in a federal district court on the grounds specified in § 9, one of which is that "the award plainly does not conform to the substantive requirements laid down by this Act for such awards, or that the proceedings were not substantially in conformity with this Act." § 9, Third (a). When Congress in § 3 and in § 9 provided for judicial review of two types of orders or awards and in § 2 of the same Act omitted any such provision as respects a third type, it drew a plain line of distinction. And the inference is strong from the history of the Act that that distinction was not inadvertent. The language of the Act read in light of that history supports the view that Congress gave administrative action under § 2, Ninth a finality which it denied administrative action under the other sections of the Act. Shields v. Utah Idaho Central R. Co., 305 U. S. 177, is not opposed to that view. That case involved a determination by the Interstate Commerce Commission under § 1, First of the Act that the lines of the carrier in question did not constitute an interurban electric railway. The result was that the railroad company was a "carrier" within the meaning of the Act and subject to its criminal penalties. The carrier brought a suit in equity against a United States Attorney to restrain criminal prosecutions under the Act. This Court allowed the action to be maintained even though the Railway Labor Act contained no provision for judicial review of such rulings. But the decision was placed on the traditional use of equity proceedings to enjoin criminal proceedings. 305 U. S. p. 183. Moreover, it was the action of the Interstate Commerce Commission which this Court held to be reviewable. Although the authority of the Commission derived from the Railway Labor Act, this Court quite properly related the issue not to railway labor disputes but to those transportation problems with which the Commission had long been engaged. And see Shannahan v. United States, 303 U. S. 596. The latter have quite a different tradition in federal law than those pertaining to carrier-employee relationships. What is open when a court of equity is asked for its affirmative help by granting a decree for the enforcement of a certificate of the Mediation Board under § 2, Ninth raises questions not now before us. See Virginian Ry. Co. v. System Federation, supra, pp. 559–562. Reversed. MR. JUSTICE BLACK and MR. JUSTICE RUTLEDGE took no part in the consideration or decision of this case. MR. JUSTICE REED, dissenting: This is an action by the petitioners, the Switchmen's Union of North America (hereinafter referred to as the Switchmen) and some of its members against the National Mediation Board, its members, the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen (hereafter referred to as the Brotherhood) and the New York Central Railroad Company and the Michigan Central Railroad Company, carrier employers of the members of the before-mentioned unions. The individual petitioners are members and officials of the Switchmen's Union and employees of one or the other of the carriers. Petitioners were plaintiffs in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. A certification of representatives for collective bargaining under § 2, Ninth, of the Railway Labor Act1 was made by the Board to the carriers. This certification followed the invocation of the services of the Board to investigate a dispute among 1 44 Stat. 577, as amended 48 Stat. 1185. the yardmen of the carriers as to their representative. The Brotherhood sought to be the representative for all the yardmen of rail lines, including the Michigan Central, operated by the New York Central Railroad Company and obtained the designation of participants in the election for representative of the employees upon this wide basis. The Switchmen contended that yardmen of certain designated parts of the carrier property should be permitted to choose separately their own representatives instead of being compelled to take part in a carrier-wide election.2 The Board of Mediation is the agency created by statute to designate employees who may participate in the selection of representatives under the Act. The Board under 2 Finding 7 of the District Court shows the distribution of yardmen of the New York Central Lines based upon union affiliation, as follows: "7. There are approximately 6,087 yardmen employed by the Railroad Company. At the time the Board's services were invoked the plaintiff Switchmen's Union represented the yardmen in all but nine yards on the New York Central-Lines West of Buffalo and in all yards on the Michigan Central west of the Detroit River, including the South Bend Transfer Crews. The defendant Brotherhood represented yardmen in yards on the Michigan Central east of the Detroit River, in nine yards on the New York Central-Lines West of Buffalo, and all yardmen on the New York Central-Lines East of Buffalo, the Toledo and Ohio Central, The Big Four, and the Boston and Albany; and at that time no one questioned the right of the Brotherhood to represent the yardmen employed on the four last mentioned lines." 348 Stat. 1185, 1188-9, § 2: "Ninth. If any dispute shall arise among a carrier's employees as to who are the representatives of such employees designated and authorized in accordance with the requirements of this Act, it shall be the duty of the Mediation Board, upon request of either party to the dispute, to investigate such dispute and to certify to both parties, in writing, within thirty days after the receipt of the invocation of its services, the name or names of the individuals or organizations that have been designated and authorized to represent the employees involved in the dispute, and certify the same to the carrier. Upon |