The Federal Reporter with Key-Number Annotations, Volume 250: Cases Argued and Determined in the Circuit Courts of Appeals and District Courts of the United States, August-October, 1918. Page: 764
xv, 1025 p. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this legislative document.
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250 FEDERAL REPORTER
side. See Ayer & Lord Co. v. Kentucky, 202 U. S. 425, 26 Sup. Ct.
679, 50 L. Ed. 1082, 6 Ann. Cas. 205.
From what has been said it appears that the word "port" is a some-
what indefinite term; that its meaning is not exact, but depends upon
the connection in which it is used; that it has been employed to des-
ignate a place where ships are accustomed to load and unload goods,
or to take on and let off passengers, and where persons and merchan-
dise are allowed to pass into and out of the realm. We find nothing
in the cases examined which leads us to believe that a place on the
high seas, where ships are not accustomed to stop, or to discharge or
to take on cargoes, where vessels cannot anchor, and which is not a
place of safety for either ship or goods, can be regarded as a port.
[11] It does not follow, however, that because the German war-
ships were not a port the defendants did not defraud the United
States, if they caused manifests to be presented to the collector which
falsely stated that the cargoes were to be carried to ports which it
was intended the cargoes should never reach. If these warships
could be regarded as ports the United States would have been de-
frauded because the manifests falsely stated other ports as those in
which the cargoes were "truly intended to be landed." And if the
ships cannot be regarded as ports the United States has been defraud-
ed, as the ports stated are not those in which the cargoes were "truly
intended to be landed." So that upon either theory the jury would be
entitled to find that defendants unlawfully, willfully, corruptly, and
feloniously conspired to defraud the United States by means of false
master's and shipper's manifests, as charged in the indictment.
[12] The defendants are not helped by the fact that the parties
who swore to the manifests were innocent of the real plans of the
conspirators, and supposed that the coal and supplies were to be car-
ried to the ports named therein. In Hyde v. United States, 225 U. S.
347, 360, 32 Sup. Ct. 793, 56 L. Ed. 1114, Ann. Cas. 1914A, 614,
which was a case of conspiracy, the action of the officers of the gov-
ernment was to be induced or influenced, and the court held that it
might be through deception, or through fraud, or through innocent
agents and acts of themselves having no illegality, but effectually
causing and moving official action to the consummation of the end de-
signed and contemplated.
The uncontradicted evidence shows that these defendants under-
took to send ships, with cargoes of coal, provisions, and other sup-
plies, from American ports to places on the high seas indicated by the
admiralty division of the German government, with the intention of
meeting German warships to which the cargoes were then to be trans-
ferred. The successful accomplishment of this purpose made it nec-
essary for the defendants to obtain clearance papers for the ships,
and to obtain these documents the evidence shows that manifests
were presented to the collectors of the ports which stated as "the
foreign port or country" in which the cargoes were "truly intended to
be landed" ports to which the defendants never intended the cargoes
should be taken, unless there was a failure of the enterprise for the
accomplishment of which the combination was formed.
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The Federal Reporter with Key-Number Annotations, Volume 250: Cases Argued and Determined in the Circuit Courts of Appeals and District Courts of the United States, August-October, 1918., legislative document, 1918; Saint Paul, Minnesota. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc38821/m1/779/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.