Court Opinion

ID: 9417934
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 20:44:56.083351+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:53.147998
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Harlan
(with whom concurred the Chief Justice) dissenting. •
The Chief Justice and myself are unable to concur in the opinion of the court.
*101It was admitted at the bar that for more than sixteen years prior to' May 5, 1902, the Post Office Department had acted upon the identical construction of the statute for which the appellants contend. During that period many different Postmasters General aske.d Congress to amend the statute so as to exclude from the mails, as second class matter, such publications as those issued by the appellant, and which, under the present ruling of the Department, are declared not to belong to that class of mailable matter. Again and again Congress refused to so amend the statute, although earnestly urged by the Department to do so.
Representative Cannon,'now. Speaker of the House of Representatives, in a speech in opposition to the proposed change of the statute, explained the reasons that induced Congress to pass the act of March 3, 1879, c. 180, Rev. Stat. Supp.- 454. He said: “Before speaking on the merits of this bill, I wish to say to the gentleman from Georgia that, according tó my recollection,' by legislation advisedly had, prior to 1879,' while I was a member of the Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads, this class of literature wás allowed to pass through the mails; the policy of that legislation being to encourage the dissemination of sound and desirable reading matter among the masses of the people of the. country at cheap rates, both as to the cost of the books themselves and as to the postage. The question was discussed,- unless my memory greatly misleads me, and the legislation was advisedly had. Under this legislation the best classes of literature, for instance, the Waverley Novels, Dickens’s works, and the new translation of the Bible, have been sent by publishing houses unbound, stitched, so that they could be sold to the people at ten cents a volume. As a consequence of this you may now find - in the homes of our farmers and laboring men throughout the length and breadth of the country in this cheap form, issued at ten cents per volume, a class of literature to which, prior to the adoption of this policy, some people in very good circumstances could ecareely have access.” Cong. Rec. vol. 19, p. 911,.
*102The result, is that after the Department had for sixteen years construed the statute to mean' what the appellants say it plainly means, and after Congress had uniformly refused, upon full investigation, to comply with the requests of Postmasters General to so amend the statute that, it could be interpreted as the- Government now .insists it should always have been interpreted, the Post Office Départment ruled, on May 5, 1902, that the appellants’ publications, known as the “Rivérside Literature Series,” could not go through, the mails as second class matter. This ruling was made notwithstanding a Post Office official, having power to act in the premises, had issued to the appellants a certificate declaring that the “Riverside Literature Series ” had been determined, by the Third Assistant Postmaster General to be a publication entitled to admission into the mails'" as second class matter.
Thus, by a mere order of the Department that has been accomplished which different Postmasters General had held could not be accomplished otherwise than by a change in the language of the statute itself, which change, as we have said, Congress deliberately refused to. make after hearing all parti.es concerned and after extended debate in each House.
It has long been the established doctrine of this court that the practice of an Executive Department through a series of years should not be overthrown, unless such practice was obviously* and clearly forbidden by the language of the statute under, which it proceeded. In United States v. Finnell, 185 U. S. 236, 244, which case.related to certain.fees claimed by a clerk of a court of the United State's, this court said: “It thus appears that the Government has for many years construed the statute of 1887 as meaning what we have said it may fairly be interpreted to mean, and. has settled and closed the accounts of felerks upon the basis of such construction. If 'the construction thus acted upon by accounting officers for . so many years should be overthrown, we apprehend that much - confusion might arise". Of .course, if the • departmental construction-of the statute in question w;ere obviously or clearly wrong, it *103would be the duty of the court to so adjudge. United States v. Graham, 110 U. S. 219; Wisconsin C. R’d Co. v. United States, 164 U. S. 190. But if there simply be doubt as to the soundness of that construction — and that is the utmost that can be asserted by the Government — the action during many ■years of the department charged with the execution of.the statute should be respected, and not overruled except for cogent reasons. Edwards v. Darby, 12 Wheat. 206, 210; United States v. Philbrick, 120 U. S. 52, 59; United States v. Johnson, 124 U. S. 236, 253; United States v. Alabama G. S. R’d Co., 142 U. S. 615, 621. Congress can enact such legislation as may be necessary to change the existing practice, if it deems that ccurse conducive to the public interests.”
In our judgment, the appellants properly construe the statute. We think it obviously means just what the Department held it to mean for more than sixteen years. But the very utmost that the Government can claim is that the statute in question is doubtful in its meaning and scope. The rule in such a case is not to disturb the long-continued practice of the • Department in its execution of a . statute, leaving to Congress to change it, when the public interests require that to be done. But the Department, after being informed repeatedly by Congress that the change asked by Postmasters General would not be made, concluded to effect the change by a mere order that would make the statute' mean what the practice of sixteen years, and the repeated action of Congress, had practically said it did not mean and was never intended to mean. This is a mode of amending and making laws which ought not to be encouraged or approved.
It is suggested that the ruling of the Department. was changed because of the increased expense attending the carrying, as second class mailable matter, of such publications as those of the appellants. . But how could the fact of such expense justify a change in the settled construction of a statute? That was a matter to which the attention of Congress was specially and frequently called, and yet it refused to modify *104the language of the statute; It was not the function of the Postmaster General to sit in judgment on the policy of legislation and to determine the extent to which Congress should authorize the expenditure of public moneys. The question of expense was entirely for the legislative branch of the Government.
Something has also been said as to the discretion committed to the Post Office Department in determining what is and what is not second class mailable matter. But what about the discretion with which previous Postmasters General had been invested, when for. many years they uniformly, held that such publications as the plaintiffs’ were second .class mailable matter? Is the discretion of one Postmaster General to be deemed of more importance than the discretion of five of his predecesr sors in office?
In our opinion the law is for the appellants, and it should have been so adjudged.