Public Clearing House v. Coyne

after making the foregoing státement, delivered the opinion of the court.

By section 3929 of the Revised Statutes, as amended by the

By section 4041, the Postmaster General is authorized in similar terms to forbid the- payment by any postmaster of any postal money order drawn in favor of. any person engaged in the prohibited business; aiid by section 4 of the act of March 2, 1895, 28 Stat. 963 , the power thus conferred upon the Postmaster General by the preceding section, 3929, is extended and made applicable to all letters or other matter sent by mail.

These acts apply to two‘classes of cases: First, to schemes for the distribution of money, etc., by lot, chance or drawing of any kind; second, to all schemes or devices for obtaining money or property of any kind by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations or promises.

It seems the Postmaster General,- in issuing the fraud order in this case, acted upon the theory that the complainant, was engaged in conducting a scheme or device for obtaining money through the mails by means of false and fraudulent pretenses, etc., and not in conducting a lottery; but if the order detaining the letters was properly issued, in view of all the evidence introduced in the court below, we do not .think it was vitiated by the fact that the Postmaster General acted upon the hypothesis that the business in which complainant was engaged

We find no - difficulty in sustaining the constitutionality of these sections. The postal service is by no means an indispensable. adjunct to a civil government, and for hundreds, if • not for thousands, -of years the transmission of private letters was either entrusted to the hands of friends or to private enterprise. Indeed, it is only within the last .thrée hundred years that governments have undertaken the work of transmitting intelligence as a branch of their general administration. While it has' been known in this country since colonial times and was recognized in the Constitution' and in some of the earliest acts of Congress, the rates of postage were so high and th¿ methods of transmission so slow and uncertain that. it was not until 1845, when the postage was reduced to five and ten cents, according to; the distance, and a stamp or stamps introduced, that it assumed anything of the importance it now possesses.

It is not, however, a necessary part of the civil government in the same sense in which the protection of life, liberty and property, -the defence of the- government' against insurrection and foreign invasion,' and the administration of public justice are; but is a public function assumed and established by Congress for the general welfare, and in most countries its expenses are paid solely by the persons making use of its facilities; and it returns; or is presumed to return,.a revenue to the government, and really operates as a popular and efficient method of .taxation. Indeed, this seems to have been originally the purpose of Congress. The legislative body in thus establishing a postal service may annex such conditions to it as it chooses.

The' constitutional principles underlying the administration of the Post Office Department were discussed in the ojfinion of the court in Ex parte Jackson, 96 U. S. 727 , in which we held that, the power vested in Congress to establish' post offices and post roads embraced the regulation'of the entire postal system

It is contended, however, that the laws in question are unconstitutional in that they authorize the Postmaster General to seize and return to sender all letters addressed to a particular person, firm or corporation which he is satisfied is making use of the mail for an illegal purpose. Their constitutionality is attacked upon three grounds: First, because they provide no judicial hearing upon the question of illegality; second, because they authorize the seizure of all letters without discriminating between those which may contain arid those which may not contain prohibited matter; and, third, because they empower 'the Postmaster General- to confiscate the money, or the representative of money, of the addressee, which' has become his property by the depositing of the letter in the .mails.

1. It is too late to argue that due process of law is denied whenever the disposition of property is affected by the order of an executive department. Many, if not most, of the matters -presented to these departments require for their proper solution the judgment or discretion, of the head of the department, and in many cases, notably those connected with the disposition of the public lands, the action of the "department is accepted as final by the courts, and even when involving questions of law this action is attended by a strong presumption of its correctness. Bates & Guild Co. v. Payne, 194 U. S. 106 . That due process of law does not necessarily require the -inter.ference of the judicial power is laid down in many cases and

2. Nor do we think the law unconstitutional, because the Postmaster General may seize and detain all letters, which may include letters of a purely personal or domestic character, and having no connection whatever with the prohibited enterprise. In view of tire fact that by. these sections the postmaster is denied permission to open any letters not addressed to himself, there- would seem to be no possible method of enforcing the law except by authorizing him to seize' and detain all such letters. It is true it may occasionally happen that he would detain a letter having no relation to the prohibited, business; but where a person is engaged in an enterprise of this kind, receiving dozens and perhaps hundreds of letters every day containing remittances or correspondence connected with the prohibited business, it is not too much to assume that, prima facie at least, all such letters are identified with such business. A ruling that only such letters as were obviously connected with the enterprise could be ' detained would amount to practically an annullment of the law, as it would be quite • impossible, .without opening and inspecting such letters, which is forbidden, to obtain evidence of the real .facts. Powell v. Pennsylvania, 127 U. S. 678 , 685; Lawton v. Steele, 152 U. S. 133 . Whether, in case a private registered letter was thus seized and.detained, and damage was thereby occasioned to the addressee, an action would lie against the Postmaster General, is not involved in this cáse." It’certainly is not made the basis of the present suit.

Another answer to this argument, which seems to be conclusive, is that the fraud order in this case is not open to this objection, as the Postmaster General only forbids the postmaster'at Chicago to pay any postal money orders, drawn to the order of- the League of Equity and the Public Clearing House, or their officers or agents in their capacity as such, and to inform the remitter of any such postal money order. that payment thereof has been forbidden, etc., and “to return all

3. The objection that the Postmaster General is authorized by statute to "confiscate the money, or the representative of money, of the addressee, is based upon the hypothesis that the monejr or other article of valué contained in a registered letter-becomes-the property of'the addressee as soon as the letter is deposited in the post office. The action-of the Postmaster General in seizing the letter does not operate as.a confiscation of the money, or the determination of the title thereto; but merely as a reftisal to extend the facilities of the Post Office Department to the final delivery of the letter. Congress might undoubtedly have authorized, the postmaster at the depositing office to decline to receive the letter at all if its forbidden character were known to him; but as this would be impossible, we think the power to refuse the facilities of the department to the transmission of such letter attends it at every step from its first deposit in the mail to its final delivery to the addressee, and as the character of the letter cannot be ascertained until it arrives at the ‘ office of delivery, the Government may then act and 'refuse to consummate the transaction. If the letter and its contents become the property of the addressee'when deposited in the mail, the subsequent seizure by the Government would not impair his- title or prevent an action by him for the amount of the remittance. True, this might be ,of- no practical value to him, .but; it is a sufficient reply to show that the title to the letter did not change by its seizure byl the postmaster.

We do not consider it necessary to enter into, the details of the plan, which is a somewhat complicated, one, and the success of which obviously depended upon constantly and rapidly increasing the number of subscribers or cooperators. The only money paid in was a small enrollment fee*of three dollars and a monthly payment of one dollar for five years. The return to the subscribing member, which is called a realization, is not only uncertain in its amount, but depends largely upon the number of new members each subscriber is able to secure, as well as the number of members which his cooperators are able to secure. The return to membérs who have been able to secure a large number of other members, and to pay their own monthly dues, may be very large in comparison with the amount paid in, but the amount of such return depends so largely, and indeed almost wholly, upon conditions which the member is unable to control; that we think it fulfills all the conditions of a distribution of money by chance. In becoming a cooperator each, new member evidently contemplates -that' a large number, probably a large majority, of those subscribing will drop out before the end of five years. That some will and some will not induce others to become members, and that the amount ultimately realized depends not only upon his own prompt payment of dues and his own exertions, but upon a correspondiñg action by other

Counsel for complainant liken the scheme to that of an ordinary life insurance company, which at an early date was thought'by some to involve the elements of chance, but was finally held to be a legitimate business. In such policies there is the payment of a fixed sum which matures either at the death of the assured or upon the happening of some other' contingency expressly provided for in the policy. There is no uncertainty as to the amount to be paid, as in this case, nor does it depend upon the- conduct of other persons insured in the same company, but simply upon payment of premiums by insured. The only contingency is the time as to when the policy is to mature, and the profits are calculated upon,the theory that the premiums paid, with the.interest thereon, will . in the end amount to more than the sum becoming due upon the happening of the contingency.'' There is also a reserve fund provided for the security of policy holders in case no new applications are made for insurance or the business of the company-is abandoned. ■ As- the-only funds provided in'this scheme are small' monthly' payments which are • constantly being dividedfin the shape of monthly realizations; there is no possibility óf a reserve fund for the security of the coSperators. The uncertainty of the amount realized- upon these settlements is evident fropi th'e fact that while a mémber may possibly realize aS high as fifteen dollars for every- dollar invested by him, he may realize be profit at all, or, in case the business is suspended may realize" nothing.

In the-careful and satisfactory report of the'master the plan of the complainant is briefly described “as a plan for securing money, from a constantly increasing 'large number, for the benefit óf a-constantly .increasing'smaller .number;' with an

It is true, as urged by the counsel for complainant, that in investing money in any enterprise the investor takes the chance of small profits, of even of failure, as well as the hope of large profits; but such enterprises, contemplate the personal exertions of the investor, or of his partners, agents or employés, while in the present case' his profits depend principally upon the exertions of others, over whom he has no control and with whom he has no connection. It is in-this sense the amount realized is determinable by chance.

The scheme lacks the elements of a legitimate business enterprise, and we think there was no error in holding it to be a lottery within the meaning of the statute. Indeed, we think that no scheme of investment which must ultimately and inevitably result in failure can be called a.legitimate business enterprise. The cases'upon the'subject of the definition of a lottery are carefully collated and criticised by Mr. Justice Blatchford in Horner v. United States, 147 U. S. 449 , 458, and' are held to extend to all schemes for the 'distribution of prizes by chance, such as policy playing, gift'exhibitions, prize concerts, rafHes at fairs, etc., and various forms of gambling.

■ That the party injured has a rigfyt to invoke the judicial power of the Government whenever his property rights have been invaded by the exercise of such power, was settled by this court in Noble v. Union River Logging Railroad, 147 U. S. 165 , as well as in the McAnnulty case. But as already indicated; it would practically arrest- the executive arm of the Government if the heads' of departments were required to obtain the sanction of the .courts lipón the multifarious questions arising in their departments, before action were taken, in any'matter which might involve the temporary disposition of private

In the view we have taken of this'case, and of the action of the court below, as well as of the course of the argument here, we have not found it necessary to inquire whether the action of the Postmaster General in basing his fraud order upon the theory -that the defendants were engaged, in a scheme for obtaining money or property by means of false representations, was sustainable or not. As already stated, the master found that there had been no false representations of existing facts and no unfair dealing with the cooperators; yet, as we held in Durland v. United States, 161 U. S. 206 , the misrepresentation of existing fac.ts is not necessary to a conviction under a statute applying to “any scheme or artifice to defraud.”. As was observed by Mr. Justice Brewer, (p. 313,) “Some schemes may be promoted through mere' representations and promises as to the future, yet are none,the less schemes and artifices to defraud. ... In the light of this the statute must be read, and so read it includes everything designed .to defraud by representations as to the past or present, or suggestions and promises as to the future. The significant fact is the intent and purpose.”. But, notwithstanding this question, we are satisfied the Postmaster General did not exceed his authority in making the order in this cáse, and the judgment of the court below is therefore

Affirmed.

Mr. Justice Brewer, Mr. Justice White and Mr. Justice Holmes concurred in the result.

Mr. Justice Peckham dissented.