Warren v. United States
| Decision Date | 21 November 1910 |
| Docket Number | 3,294. |
| Citation | 183 F. 718 |
| Parties | WARREN v. UNITED STATES. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Fred D Warren, Clarence S. Darrow, Boyle & Howell, J. I. Sheppard and J. S. Brooks, for plaintiff in error.
J. S West, Asst. U.S. Atty. (Harry J. Bone, U.S. Atty., on the brief), for the United States.
Before HOOK and ADAMS, Circuit Judges, and REED, District Judge.
The plaintiff in error was indicted for depositing in the post office of the United States at Girard, Kan., for mailing, nonmailable matter, contrary to the act of September 26, 1888 (Act Sept. 26, 1888, c. 1039, 25 Stat. 496 (U.S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 2661)). Among other things the act prohibits the deposit for mailing of all matter, otherwise mailable, upon the envelope or outside cover or wrapper of which is written, printed, or otherwise impressed any language of a scurrilous, defamatory, or threatening character, or calculated by the terms or manner or style of display and obviously intended to reflect injuriously upon the character or conduct of another. The envelope described in the indictment was properly stamped and addressed to another, but on its face there was printed in large red characters the following:
'$1,000 Reward will be paid to any person who kidnaps Ex. Gov. Taylor and returns him to Kentucky authorities.'
The indictment also charged that the words so printed were of a scurrilous, defamatory, and threatening character, and were calculated and obviously intended to reflect injuriously upon the character and conduct of William S. Taylor, a former governor of the state of Kentucky. There was a verdict of guilty as charged, and sentence followed.
When the case arose in this court, the accused appeared in his own behalf, dispensed with counsel who had filed a brief, asserted his right to use the mails in the way described in the indictment, and said the only question he desired considered was whether the printed indorsement on the envelope could make his conduct a public offense. But aside from this concession, an examination of the record and briefs discloses no other question that requires consideration. The other objections to the indictment urged in the brief are, we think, without merit. What purports to be a bill of exceptions in the record is not authenticated by the certificate of the trial judge, and the proceedings at the trial are therefore not open to review.
There is no substantial question of liberty or freedom of speech involved in this case. The unrestricted use of the mails is not one of the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution. Public Clearing House v. Coyne, 194 U.S. 497, 24 Sup.Ct. 789, 48 L.Ed. 1092. No one has a natural or constitutional right to send what he pleases through the mails or to write anything he pleases upon the exterior cover of that which would otherwise be mailable. The power of Congress extends to the regulation of the entire postal system of the country. It may prescribe what can be carried in the mails and what shall be excluded. It may in its wisdom confine the use of the mails to sealed letters, excluding everything else, or it may extend it to papers, periodicals and books and to large packages of merchandise as in the parcel post systems of other countries. It may even prescribe the size, shape, weight, and character of contents of every mailable packet, and limit the superscription to the bare name and address of the person for whom intended; and it may also declare a violation of its regulations a public offense and fix the punishment therefor. Its power over the particular subject is almost without limit except as respects unreasonable searches and seizures and the duty to treat all alike under the same circumstances and conditions. congress undoubtedly possesses, it is idle to say the liberty of the citizen and his freedom of speech in the proper sense of those terms are denied or abridged by a statute forbidding the deposit in the mails of anything upon the exposed surface of which appears language scurrilous, defamatory, or...
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