4 Opinion of the Court. Appellant, while particularly insistent upon the New York law and the absence of power to imprison elsewhere than in a New York institution, however, contends that the imprisonment in the Essex County jail is at hard labor because the conduct or discipline of that jail requires or permits the imposition of hard labor, and thereby constitutes the crime infamous. If that can be so held it gives the court power to transcend the statute which, as we have said, does not include hard labor in its punishment. But such peremptory requirement cannot be assigned to the New Jersey law-neither employment at hard labor nor any labor. The law is made adaptive to circumstances, made so by committing its administration to the judgment of the freeholders of the county, and it is limited to prescribing suitable employment of prisoners to accomplish the purpose of the law. Laws of New Jersey of 1917, page 888. The law gives no indication that the employment is or may be prescribed as punishment. It proceeds along other lines. It follows that the sentence of the court was not intended to be and could not have been to imprisonment at hard labor. We find no error in the decision of the court in discharging the writ and its action is Affirmed. MR. JUSTICE MCREYNOLDS and MR. JUSTICE BRANDEIS concur in the result. Opinion of the Court. 263 U.S. WYMAN v. UNITED STATES. ERROR TO THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK: No. 140. Argued October 4, 1923.-Decided October 22, 1923. Decided upon the authority of Brede v. Powers, ante, 4. ERROR to the District Court for the Eastern District of New York, to review a judgment sentencing the plaintiff in error to imprisonment for 45 days in the Essex County Jail, Newark, New Jersey, for the offense of selling whisky for "beverage purposes," in violation of § 3, Title II, of the National Prohibition Act, 41 Stat. 305, 308. The prosecution was by information. Mr. Otho S. Bowling, with whom Mr. Robert H. Elder was on the briefs, for plaintiff in error. Mr. Solicitor General Beck and Mrs. Mabel Walker Willebrandt, Assistant Attorney General, appeared for the United States. MR. JUSTICE MCKENNA delivered the opinion of the Court. Plaintiff in error was proceeded against by an information for the violation of a section of the National Prohibition Act. A motion was made to dismiss the information on the ground that the crime charged was an infamous one within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, in that by reason of the statutes of the United States and those of New York and New Jersey, the court had power to impose an infamous punishment, namely imprisonment at hard labor and imprisonment at involuntary labor, and that, therefore, Wyman could not be held to answer for such crime except upon presentment or indictment by a grand jury. The motion was denied and after trial plaintiff in error was found guilty and sentenced to imprisonment for a term of 45 days in the Essex County jail, Newark, New Jersey. To review this conviction and sentence is the purpose of this writ of error. It will be observed that the case is identical in its legal aspects with Brede v. Powers, just decided, ante, 4. For the reasons stated in the opinion in that case, the proceedings, action and judgment are Affirmed. MR. JUSTICE MCREYNOLDS and MR. JUSTICE BRANDEIS concur in the result. UNITED STATES v. WALTER. ERROR TO THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA. No. 20. Argued October 3, 1923.-Decided October 22, 1923. 1. The Act of October 23, 1918, so amending § 35 of the Criminal Code as to make it a crime to make or present, for payment, a fraudulent claim against "any corporation in which the United States of America is a stockholder," should be construed to refer only to corporations, like the Fleet Corporation, that are instrumentalities of the Government and in which, for that reason, it owns stock. P. 17. 2. The act, so construed, is constitutional. Id. 3. A conspiracy to "defraud the United States in any manner," as denounced by § 37 of the Criminal Code, includes a conspiracy to defraud the Fleet Corporation, which, if successful, would result directly in pecuniary loss to the United States (holding all the stock) and impair the efficiency of the corporation as a governmental instrumentality. P. 18. 291 Fed. 662, reversed. Opinion of the Court. 263 U.S. ERROR to a judgment of the District Court sustaining a demurrer to an indictment. Mr. Solicitor General Beck for the United States. Mr. Jno. W. Dodge, for defendant in error, submitted. The courts cannot limit the meaning of the words used so as to carve out a crime, by construing the statute to mean that it applies only under certain conditions of fact which are not expressed, and thus render it constitutional. United States v. Wiltberger, 5 Wheat. 76; Hackfield & Co. v. United States, 197 U. S. 442; Burton v. United States, 202 U. S. 377; United States v. Hartwell, 6 Wall. 385; Cherokee Tobacco Co. v. United States, 11 Wall. 616; Texas v. Chiles, 21 Wall. 488; Trade-Mark Cases, 100 U. S. 82; Poindexter v. Greenhow, 114 U. S. 270; Baldwin v. Franks, 120 U. S. 678; United States v. Fox, 95 U. S. 670; McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 421; United States v. Reese, 92 U. S. 214; United States v. Harris, 106 U. S. 629. MR. JUSTICE HOLMES delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an indictment in three counts. The first charges a conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States by making and presenting for payment a fraudulent claim against the United States Emergency Fleet Corporation, a corporation formed under the laws of the District of Columbia, of which the United States owned all the stock. The second count charges a like conspiracy to obtain the payment of fraudulent claims against the same corporation. The third count charges a conspiracy to defraud the United States. All the counts are based upon the same facts, and the first two are brought under the Act of October 23, 1918, c. 194; 40 Stat. 1015; amending § 35 of the Criminal Code and, 15 Opinion of the Court. taken with § 37, making it a crime to conspire to present for, or to obtain, payment of a fraudulent claim against any corporation in which the United States of America is a stockholder." The third count is based upon § 37 of the Criminal Code, Act of March 4, 1909, c. 321; 35 Stat. 1088, punishing conspiracy "to defraud the United States in any manner or for any purpose.' ." A demurrer to all the counts was sustained by the District Court on the grounds that the Act of 1918 must be taken literally, as embracing any corporation in which the United States owned a single share of stock, and so construed went beyond the power of Congress, and that under United States v. Strang, 254 U. S. 491, the fraud alleged was not a fraud upon the United States. Taking up first the Act of 1918, it was enacted after Congress contemplating the possibility of the war that ensued had authorized the formation of the Fleet Corporation under laws deriving their authority from earlier statutes of the United States. We are not informed whether at that time the United States owned stock in corporations other than the instrumentalities created with reference to the needs of that war, but we cannot doubt that the act was passed with a special view to them. United States v. Bowman, 260 U. S. 94, 101, 102. The United States can protect its property by criminal laws, and its constitutional power would not be affected if it saw fit to create a corporation of its own for purposes of the Government, under laws emanating directly or indirectly from itself, and turned the property over to its creature. The creator would not be subordinated to its own machinery. That is the case before us. If the law in terms dealt only with the Emergency Fleet Corporation it would be beyond question. See United States Grain Corporation v. Phillips, 261 U. S. 106, 113. It is said however that the words "any corporation in which 74308°-24- -2 |