"The section does not alone make it an offense to solicit or receive from any officer or employee of the United States within the prohibited places. Under its plain langauge it is an offense to solícit or receive from any person within these places." (United States v. Thayer, 154 Fed., 508.) "The purpose is wider than that of a notice prohibiting book peddling in a building. It is not, even primarily, to save employees from interruption or annoyance in their business. It is to check a political abuse, which is not different in kind, whether practiced by letter or by word of mouth." (United States v. Thayer, 209 U. S., 39.) V. The purpose was political. These contributions were solicited in the same manner that other political contributions are ordinarily solicited, by the agent of a political committee, the Republican State executive committee of Tennessee. It will no doubt be contended in this case that as the statute is a criminal one it must be given a strict construction. An early case in the Supreme Court in which this question was involved was decided February 18, 1820, Chief Justice Marshall delivering the opinion of the court. "It has been said, that although penal laws are to be construed strictly, the intention of the legislature must govern in their construction. That if a case be within the intention it must be considered as if within the letter of the statute. So, if it be within the reason of the statute. The rule that penal laws are to be construed strictly is perhaps not much less old than construction itself. It is founded on the tenderness of the law for the rights of individuals; and on the plain principle that the power of punishment is vested in the legislative not in the judicial department. It is the legislature, not the court, which is to define a crime and ordain its punishment. "It is said that, notwithstanding this rule, the intention of the law-maker must govern in the construction of penal as well other statutes. This is true. But this is not a new independent rule, which subverts the old. It is a modification of the ancient maxim, and amounts to this, that though penal laws are to be construed strictly, they are not to be construed so strictly as to defeat the obvious intention of the legislature. The maxím is not to be so applied as to narrow the words of the statute to the exclusion of cases, which those words in their ordinary acceptation or in that sense in which the legislature has obviously used them, would comprehend." (United States v. Wiltberger, 5 Wheat. (U. S.) 76, 95.) "Though penal laws are to be construed strictly, yet the intention of the legistature must govern in the construction of penal as well as other statutes, and they are not to be construed so strictly as to defeat the obvious intention of the legislature." (United States v. Lacher, 134 U. S., 624, 628.) See also Johnson v. United States (196 U. S., 1), and United States v. Bitty (208 U.S., 393). As stated by Chief Justice Marshall in United States v. Wiltberger, the rule of strict construction of penal statutes "is not to be so applied as to narrow the words of the statute to the exclusion of cases, which those words, in their ordinary acceptation, or in that sense in which the legislature has obviously used them, would comprehend." It may be noted that the statute under consideration broadly forbids solicitation of funds in a public building "for any political purpose whatever." In Ex parte Čurtis (106 U. S., 371), Justice Bradley in a dissenting opinion discussed the scope of this term: "At the present time any efficient connection with an association in favor of a prohibitory liquor law, or of a protective tariff, or of greenback currency, or even for the repression of political assessments, would render any government official obnoxious to the penalties of the law under consideration. For all these questions have become political in their character, and any contributions in aid of the cause would be con tributions for political purposes." The broad ground covered by this prohibition is well illustrated by the following argument of counsel for defendant in the Glick case, who attacked the constitutionality of the statute: "As regards the purpose of such solicitation or receiving also, the statutory provision has no necessary or obvious relation to the public service of the United States. The prohibition is as wide as the political activities of the country and as narrow as the smallest political division of the people. It bears equally upon a presidential election, and upon a State, county, township, municipal, or school district election. Under the section in question no distinction is made between an election for Congressman, members of the general assembly, county officers, officers of a township or city or a school committeeman, and it extends to a local option movement or a referendum, as well as to other elections and political operations. In the pursuance of this law the solicitation of funds among the friends of a candidate for dog catcher to promote his political aspiration to hold that office stands on the same level as the solicitation of funds to promote the chances of election of a candidate for the presidency. The prohibited solicitation or receiving need not have any immediate relation with any election whatever; they may be done in an off year, for the purpose of operating a committee headquarters, or a political club, for the maintenance of a political organization in the interim between elections. *** No discrimination is made in the statute as to the character of the political uses to which money so solicited or received is to be put; soliciting and receiving funds to hire speakers, bands, carriages, and halls, to pay the expenses of disseminating campaign literature or political arguments, to print primary or election tickets, to promote reforms or moral ideas involved in public controversies, to do the thousand and one perfectly proper and absolutely necessary things connected with politics, are, under this law, upon the same plane as the solicitation and receiving of funds to buy votes; the words, for any political purpose whatever,' are all-embracing. The just and unjust are within the same condemnation. The words any political purpose whatever' envelop or may directly impinge upon nearly every public interest of the citizen, and the exercise of his most fundamental, protected, and sacred rights." As stated before, the courts have uniformly, in the Glick as well as other cases, held that Congress has the constitutional power to prohibit such acts in a Federal building, and the section under discussion was enacted in the exercise of that power. A purpose is "the particular thing that any object or course of action is intended to effect or attain" (Webster). Among the definitions of "political" and "politics" are the following: "Relating to or concerned in public policy and the management of the affairs of the State or Nation; of or pertaining to civil government, or the enactment of laws and the administration of civil affairs." (Century Dictionary.) "Pertaining to public policy; concerned in the administration of government; belonging to the enactment and administration of the laws." (Standard Dictionary.) "Pertaining to or connected with a party or parties controlling government in a State." (Standard Dictionary.) "Pertaining to policy, or to civil government and its administration; pertaining to measures or affairs that respect the government of a nation, state, or body politic." (Webster.) "Pertaining to a party or parties, with respect to government.' (Webster.) "In a narrower and more usual sense, the art or vocation of guiding or influencing the policy of a government through the organization of a body among its citizens including, therefore, not only the ethics of government, but more especially, and often to the exclusion of ethical principles, the art of influencing public opinion, attracting and marshalling voters, and obtaining and distributing public patronage, so far as the possession of offices may depend upon the political opinions or political services of individuals; hence, in the evil sense, the schemes or intrigues of political parties, or of cliques of individual politicians." (Century Dictionary.) "Political affairs in a party sense; the administration of public affairs in the conduct of political matters so as to carry elections and secure public office; party intrigues; political wire-pulling, trickery." (Standard Dictionary.) "In a looser sense, political affairs, or the contests of parties for power; the management and conduct of a political party, which includes the advancement of candidates to office." (Webster.) The last three definitions above given are of the word "politics." The word "polítical" is defined in Bouvier's Law Dictionary as "pertaining to policy, or the administration of the government." The same definition is given in People v. Morgan (90 Ill., 563). A political party is a company or number of persons ranged on one side or united in opinion or design in opposition to others in the community; those who favor or are united to promote certain views or opinions. (Schafer v. Whipple, 25 Colo., 403.) Legislation has always been so intimately connected with politics and with political parties and affairs that no great amount of reasoning is necessary to reach the conclusion that it is a political question, and that the solicitation of funds for the purpose of directly or indirectly influencing legislation is a solicitation for a political purpose, in the ordinary acceptation of the term "political" and in the sense in which this term is used in the statute. All political parties, factions, or organizations have as their ultimate object the control or administration of government or of some portion thereof. In the administration of the government they are guided by certain policies favored by the individuals by whose support they are established in office or power. The principal and indeed practically the only method by which they seek or are able to put such policies or measures into effect is through the enactment or defeat of legislation. The payment of the expenses of partisan members of a legislative body absenting themselves from its jurisdiction for the purpose of preventing a quorum therein and thereby preventing or defeating certain pending legislation is clearly a payment for a political purpose, and the political nature of the purpose is the more emphasized by the fact that the legislation in question was an important change in the election laws of the state and a partisan measure. It is difficult to conceive anything more directly connected with public policy and the management or administration of the affairs or government of a state than public legislation, and especially is this true of legislation relating to elections. "Political rights are those which may be exercised in the formation and administration of the government. (Bouvier's Law Dictionary.) "The chief political right is that of suffrage." (Cooley on Torts, 2d Ed., 349.) Surely a solicitation of funds for the purpose of preventing legislation relating to the most important political right is a solicitation for a political purpose. In the Senate debate preceding the enactment of the civil-service act, Senator Hawley, of Connecticut, who was chairman of the Civil Service Committee, referred to this section as follows: "Our object was to prevent any and every man who got any money from the United States for his work collecting or assessing anything of any value whatever from any other man in the United States who got a cent from the United States for his work. That of itself will remove a vast deal of the evil. But we went further and said that no human being could, inside of Uncle Sam's buildings or grounds, solicit in any way anybody for a cent. Then we said that no officer should promote or remove or degrade a man because he did or did not give, and he is liable to a heavy fine and heavy imprisonment if he does anything of that sort." (Cong. Rec., vol. 14, pt. 1, p. 639.) The statements made in the debates preceding the enactment of the law and the use of the phrases "solicit in any manner whatever" and "for any political purpose whatever" clearly indicate the allembracing intent of Congress to prohibit solicitation of funds in Federal buildings in any conceivable manner for any conceivable political purpose. A gross abuse had grown up of compelling public servants to contribute to the support and maintenance in power of the party for the time being in control of the disposal of subordinate public offices and places. They were continually coerced under peril or fear of loss of place or official favor and on all sorts of pretexts to make contributions for all sorts of purposes, rarely for legitimate campaign expenses, often for corruption funds, and frequently for a fund which never left the hands of the solicitor and his political intimates. Against this evil the civil-service law was aimed and its prohibitions were intended to be all-inclusive. The statute is not confined to primary preconvention or preelection expenses, or to the expense of purchasing votes or paying workers at the polls; it is not confined to the expense of disseminating copies of speeches or other literature calculated to influence voters, or the expense of delegates to nominating conventions; it is not confined to "campaign contributions," and is not limited to those expenses of which candidates for political office in certain jurisdictions are required to file accounts; it is not confined to the campaign expenses of a candidate for election to the legislature, and is not limited to the amounts which may be spent by a legislator in rebuilding his political fences; it is not confined to the expense of an organized campaign of publicity in favor of or against pending or proposed legislation, or to the cost of influencing legislators in their official acts; but it is directed at solicitation of funds in Federal buildings for "any political purpose whatever" and includes within its broad prohibition any solicitation by the agent of a political committee and on its behalf of funds for the purpose of paying the expense of an organized and partisan effort to defeat legislation such as this. So far as the commission is informed no action was taken to prosecute Mr. True within the period of the statute of limitations. Oliver Springs, case of James E. Taylor, substitute railway mail clerk. Charge: Candidacy for nomination for county court clerk. Date of charge: March 3, 1914. Result: Upon investigation by a representative of the commission it was found that Mr Taylor was absent from duty engaged in a campaign for the nomination of his party for county court clerk, and that he had been warned by the postmaster at Oliver Springs, where he had been employed as a rural carrier, that his candidacy was in violation of the rule prohibiting political activity. In view of his continued violation of the rule in disregard of the warning given him, the commission requested that he be removed and this action was taken. Sneedville, case of John H. Alder, rural carrier. Charge: Handling campaign money and aiding in the buying of votes; writing a letter intended to injure the prospects of a candidate for political office. Date of charge: July 15, 1913. Result: A joint investigation was made by representatives of the Post Office Department and the commission, who found no evidence that the carrier had received or disbursed political funds or trafficked in votes. It was found that he had written a letter to a reputed former political leader indorsing a candidate for appointment as county judge, and for writing this letter the investigators recommended that he be suspended 10 days without pay, in which recommendation the commission concurred. This action was taken. TEXAS. Wharton, case of Covey M. Hughes, postmaster (second class). Charge: Pernicious political activity. Date of charge: August 30, 1913. Result: On the above date the Postmaster General transmitted to the commission a report of a post-office inspector recommending the removal of this postmaster, with the request that this report be reviewed by the commission and returned with such suggestions as the commission might wish to submit. From the evidence obtained it appeared that this postmaster permitted himself to be used by the State chairman in inducing the county chairman to call a district convention which the district chairman had refused to call, an act as to the legality of which there was a question; that he was the moving spirit in a so-called meeting of the county executive committee which authorized the county chairman to call this convention, the only two persons present with any power being the county chairman and the postmaster, and the latter drafting the important resolutions adopted; that although he was not present at a county convention (so-called) held to select delegates to the district convention, he was elected a delegate by the five or six participants in this convention, none of whom was competent to act as secretary, and wrote the minutes of the convention some days afterwards from notes supplied to him by a participant; and that as such a delegate he took a most prominent and conspicuous part in the district convention held at Victoria, Tex. All of these proceedings were of doubtful legality and were the outcome of a factional contest in Texas which, whatever the merits of the case, created intense bitterness and much public scandal, not only locally but nationally. Mr. Hughes became the de facto leader of a political faction in his county if not the entire congressional district, and by accepting election as delegate from this district to the national convention he brought upon himself all the criticism directed at the acts of the faction which elected him. He wrote to other postmasters in his county endeavoring to induce them to support the candidate favored by him, which was most reprehensible, as such a request, coming from a person so well known to be high in the councils of the State chairman and other leaders of his faction could hardly be regarded otherwise than in the nature of an order. It was clear that Mr. Hughes had disobeyed the regulations as to political activity of unclassified officers, in that his activities had been such as to cause public scandal and to bring the service into disrepute. The commission accordingly recommended that he be removed, which action was taken. VIRGINIA. Clarendon, case of Walter W. Caton, carpenter (temporary), Geological Survey. Charge: Service as special police officer. Date of charge: June 8, 1913. Result: The charge was brought to the attention of the department for appropriate action, the department being informed that temporary employees are within the prohibitions contained in section 1 of Rule I prohibiting political activity, and that the Executive order of February 14, 1912, excepting from this rule and from the operation of the order forbidding the holding of local office employees residing in municipalities adjacent to the District of Columbia applies only to municipal politics and offices, and not to such county offices as that named. It was requested that Mr. Caton be asked to resign the office mentioned, which he did. Richmond, case of James G. Jennings, post office carrier. Charge: Solicitation of political support in connection with an application for promotion. Date of charge: May 16, 1913. Result: It was found upon investigation that Mr. Jennings had solicited indorsements and support from persons outside the postal service and under whose supervision he had not served, contrary to section 3 of Rule XI. With one possible exception, it did not appear that in soliciting indorsements he based such solicitation upon political grounds. He ceased to solicit support when advised by the postmaster that his action in seeking support from outside the service was in violation of the civil-service rules, and a petition circulated by him in furtherance of his desire for promotion was not presented. As a penalty for his violation of the rules the salary of Mr. Jennings was reduced from $1,200 to $1,100 for a period of three months, on recommendation of the commission. Sycamore, case of James D. Pickerell, rural carrier. Charge: Political activity, and violations of the postal laws and regulations. Result: The Post Office Department having advised the commission that an investigation of various charges against this carrier had been ordered, a representative of the commission was directed to cooperate in the investigation as the charges included that of political activity. It was found that Mr. Pickerell had interested himself in securing the attendance at a political convention of one of his fellow carriers and had paid this carrier's transportation expense out of personal funds or political funds delivered to him for that purpose, and that he had made overtures to various political leaders for the purpose of securing political funds to use in his community, but had been unsuccessful, so far as appeared from the evidence. Other charges of violation of departmental regulations were fully proved. The commission advised the department that in its opinion the political activity of Mr. Pickerell taken alone did not warrant removal, which was recommended by the investigators, but that should the department after considering the other charges decide to retain him in the service the commission was of the opinion that he should be suspended 60 days without pay and reprimanded. The department replied that his removal had been ordered for deviating from and curtailing his route, carrying unauthorized persons in the mail vehicle, and interesting himself perniciously in political matters. WISCONSIN. Oshkosh, case of David R. Williams, janitor, custodian service. Charge: Candidacy for nomination for sheriff. Date of charge: April 25, 1914. Result: The facts in the case are shown in the following extract from the commission's letter of June 11, 1914, to the Secretary of the Treasury: "A news item having referred to Mr. Williams as a 'possible' candidate for the county office of sheriff and other reports of his candidacy having reached this commission's local secretary at Oshkosh, the local secretary immediately notified Mr. Williams that such candidacy was in violation of the civil-service rules, and reported the matter to the commission's district secretary in accordance with instructions, by whom it was in turn reported to the commission. It appears that in addition to the news item mentioned Mr. Williams and his friends have been interviewing voters and endeavoring in other ways to work up sentiment in his behalf, without becoming an avowed candidate in the sense that his candidacy has been formally announced. Upon receipt of the warning from the local secretary Mr. Williams addressed this commission in the matter of his candidacy. A letter was written him under date of May 18, 1914, a copy of which is inclosed. In this letter he was advised that the prohibition against political activity extends not merely to formal announcement of candidacy, but also to the preliminaries leading to such announcement, and to canvassing or soliciting support or doing or permitting to be done any act in furtherance of candidacy, and that if an employee acquiesces in the efforts of friends in furtherance of such candidacy and does nothing to prevent them the rule is violated. Mr. Williams was further advised that in view of the publicity given to the matter of his proposed candidacy he should either declare publicly and formally that he is not and will not be a candidate and require his friends to cease their efforts in that connection, or resign from the service, and that action should be taken promptly. "The commission is now informed that Mr. Williams has declined to resign his candidacy, but has tendered his resignation as janitor, making it effective July 1, 1914, or before at the pleasure of the department, this date being that, as he states, on which it was his original purpose to make formal announcement of his candidacy and to resign. A report of the acceptance of his resignation, effective June 30, has just been received from the department. "The actual, though not formally, announced candidacy of Mr. Williams is in violation of section 1 of Rule I, and he has been warned that he should either cease such candidacy or resign from the service promptly. His attempted resignation to take effect at a future date is not sufficient to take his case out of the operation of the rule, nor does it constitute compliance with the warning delivered to him. An employee who is known to be violating the civil-service rules should not be retained in the service, and it is therefore respectfully requested that his resignation be accepted to take effect immediately.” In compliance with the request of the commission the acceptance of his resignation was amended to take effect June 17 instead of June 30, 1914. EXAMINATIONS HELD FOR HIGH-SALARIED POSITIONS, JULY 1, 1913, TO JUNE 30, 1914. Senior structural engineer, Interstate Commerce Commission..... Senior railway signal engineer, Interstate Commerce Commission. 4,800 4,800 Professor of chemistry, Public Health Service... Senior telegraph and telephone engineer, Interstate Commerce Commission.. 4,800 4,800 Professor of pharmacology, Public Health Service.. 4,500 Chief mine surgeon, Bureau of Mines.. Chemist, Bureau of Chemistry, Department of Agriculture.. Assistant Chief, Bureau of Chemistry, Department of Agriculture. Metallurgist (for work with smelter fumes), Bureau of Mines. Metallurgical engineer (for work in iron and steel), Bureau of Mines. Metallurgical engineer (for work in iron blast-furnace operations), Bureau of 4,000 4,000 4,000 4,000 4,000 Specialist in cooperative organization, Department of Agriculture.. Senior inspector of car equipment, Interstate Commerce Commission. Associate physicist, (qualified in engineering, with special reference to the Pulp and paper engineer, Forest Service.. Assistant chemist, Bureau of Mines.. Assistant metallurgist, Bureau of Mines. Electrometallurgist, Bureau of Mines.. Entomological assistant, Department of Agriculture.. Examiner of accounts, Interstate Commerce Commission.. Mechanical engineer, Office of Public Roads... Quarry technologist, Bureau of Mines.... Senior highway engineer, Department of Agriculture.... 3, 600 3, 600 3,600 3, 600 Specialist in marketing perishable products, Department of Agriculture. 3,000 Specialist in transportation of farm products, Department of Agriculture. Chemist in forest products, Forest Service.. Barn architect, Department of Agriculture.. Associate physicist in theoretical and experimental optics, Bureau of Standards..... 2,500 Oil and gas inspector, Bureau of Mines.... Chief, Office of Information, Department of Agriculture.. 2,500 2,500 Sanitary chemist, Public Health Service.. 2,500 Sanitary engineer, Public Health Service.. 2,500 2,500 |