In construing a statute, a word used therein may be given the
meaning it has in common speech, although it may have a narrower
technical meaning.
While the word "export" technically includes the landing in, as
well as the shipment to, a foreign country, it is often used as
meaning only the shipment from this country, and it will be so
construed when used in a statute the manifest purpose of which
would be defeated by limiting the word to its strict technical
meaning.
As used in the joint resolution of March 14, 1912, 37 Stat. 630,
prohibiting exportation of munitions of war to American countries
where conditions of domestic violence exist, the word "export"
refers to any shipment of the prohibited articles from the United
States whether there was a landing thereof in the foreign country
or not.
Personal carriage of prohibited articles from this to a foreign
country does not render inapplicable the prohibition to export such
article under the resolution of March 14, 1912.
The facts, which involve the construction of the Joint
Resolution of March 14, 1912, 37 Stat. 630, relative to shipment of
arms and munitions of war to other American countries during times
of domestic violence therein and what constitutes an exportation
under such resolution, are stated in the opinion.
Page 228 U. S. 527
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.
By virtue of the Act of March 2, 1907, 34 Stat. 1246, c. 2564,
this direct writ of error is prosecuted for the purpose of
reversing the judgment below because of an alleged erroneous
construction given by the court to the Joint Resolution of March
14, 1912, 37 Stat. 630, in consequence of which the indictment in
this case was quashed because stating no defense against the
provisions of the joint resolution.
Page 228 U. S. 528
The charging part of the indictment is as follows:
"That heretofore, to-wit: on the third day of May, A.D. 1912, in
the City and County of El Paso, in the State of Texas, in the
Western District of Texas, and within the jurisdiction of this
Court, one Arnulfo Chavez, alias Arnuto Chavez, late of said
district, did unlawfully, knowingly, willfully, and with intent to
export the munitions of war hereinafter described from the said
City of El Paso to Ciudad Juarez in Mexico, make a certain shipment
of munitions of war, to-wit: two thousand (2,000) Winchester
cartridges of the caliber 30-30, that is to say, did make a
shipment of said munitions of war from said City of El Paso and
with said Ciudad Juarez in Mexico as the destination of said
shipment, by transporting the same on his person from a point the
exact location of which is to your grand jury unknown and hence not
here given, near the intersection of North El Paso and San
Francisco Streets in said City of El Paso to a point, the exact
location of which is to your grand jury unknown, and hence not here
given, but which is near the intersection of South Stanton and
Fifth Streets in the said City of El Paso."
The joint resolution is as follows:
"SECTION 1. That whenever the President shall find that, in any
American country, conditions of domestic violence exist which are
promoted by the use of arms or munitions of war procured from the
United States, and shall make proclamation thereof, it shall be
unlawful to export, except under such limitations and exceptions as
the President shall prescribe, any arms or munitions of war from
any place in the United States to such country until otherwise
ordered by the President or by Congress."
"SEC. 2. That any shipment of material hereby declared unlawful
after such a proclamation shall be punishable by fine not exceeding
ten thousand dollars, or by imprisonment not exceeding two years,
or both. "
Page 228 U. S. 529
The proclamation of the President applying without exception or
limitation the provisions of the resolution to Mexico was issued
April 12, 1912. Proclamations 1912, p. 57.
Considering it to be indisputable that two acts are essential to
constitute export in the legal sense, a shipment from this country
to a foreign country and the landing of the goods in such foreign
country, the court below held that no transgression of the
prohibition of the first section, making it unlawful to export,
could arise from the facts charged, because they alleged -- giving
them the most favorable view to the government -- but a shipment
from this country to Mexico, unconsummated by delivery in the
foreign country. Coming to consider the second section, it was held
that the act punished by that section was the exportation
prohibited by the first section, and hence the charge of shipment
without an averment of landing in the foreign country stated no
offense punishable by the second section. The court said:
"The allegations of the indictment, as understood by the court,
charge in effect that the defendant attempted to export munitions
of war -- nothing more -- and, as the joint resolution is directed
against actual exportation, and not merely the attempt to export,
the acts charged against the defendant are not embraced within the
prohibition. The word 'shipment,' employed in connection with the
words 'material hereby declared unlawful,' can only refer, in the
judgment of the court, to material shipped, exported, to the
country where the disturbance exists; since it is only such
material that is declared to be unlawful by the first section of
the resolution, defining the offense."
In common speech, the shipment of goods from this to a foreign
country without regard to their landing in such country is often
spoken of as an export. It is true also that, for the purposes of
the provisions of § 9,
Article I, of the Constitution, prohibiting the laying by
Congress of
Page 228 U. S. 530
a tax or duty "on articles exported from any state," and § 10,
Article I, forbidding any state, without the consent of Congress,
to "lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports," a shipment is
considered as the initiation of export so as to bring the goods
shipped within the protection of the constitutional safeguards.
Almy v.
California, 24 How. 169;
Fairbank v. United
States, 181 U. S. 283.
Despite, however, the significance given to the words "to export"
in these cases, it is nevertheless certain, as stated by the court
below, that, by a practically unanimous consensus of opinion,
accurately speaking, exportation in the complete sense consists of
two essential ingredients -- the sending of merchandise from this
to a foreign country and its landing in such country. But the
question which we are called upon to solve -- that is, the meaning
of the words "to export," as used in the joint resolution -- may
not be disposed of by any mere abstract consideration of the
meaning of the words, but their signification must be determined
with reference to the text of the resolution itself.
Putting out of view the parenthetical clause in the text of the
resolution concerning the proclamation of the President, it reads
as follows: "It shall be unlawful to export any arms or munitions
of war from any place in the United States to such country" -- that
is, the country brought within the terms of the resolution by a
proclamation of the President. Conceding for argument's sake that
if the words "to export" stood alone in the text -- that is, were
not accompanied by explanatory or defining words -- they would have
to be interpreted with reference to the meaning of export in the
complete sense -- that is, as including landing in the foreign
country -- such concession is not here controlling or persuasive.
We say this because, as we have seen, the words "to export" are
expressly qualified by a clause which serves, in a sense, to define
their meaning, and, at all events, to make clear the nature and
character
Page 228 U. S. 531
of the acts intended to be embraced by the prohibition against
exporting. In other words, the resolution does not say it shall be
unlawful to export, but it adds, "any arms or munitions of war from
any place in the United States to such foreign country." In view of
the accepted significance of the words "to export" when used in
their complete sense, and of the fact that, in the preceding
sentences of the resolution, the causes leading to its adoption are
expressly stated to be the violence and confusion sometimes
promoted in foreign countries "by the use of arms or munitions of
war procured from the United States," the insertion of words of
definition, and the omission from such words of all reference to
landing of the prohibited merchandise, would seem to make it clear
that the prohibition of the resolution was directed against the Act
of sending from this to the foreign and prohibited country, without
reference to the completion of such act by the landing or delivery
of the prohibited merchandise at its destination; in other words,
that the object was to forbid the Act of shipment from the United
States of the prohibited munitions of war to a foreign country,
without reference to the fulfillment of the complete act of export
by the landing of the contraband goods. If there be room for
hesitancy -- that is to say, ambiguity -- as to the correctness of
this construction of the first section, we think there can be no
ground for such doubt if the context of the resolution be
considered -- that is, if the second section be taken into view as
illustrating and making clear the text of the first section. There
can be no doubt that the object of the second section was to make
the prohibition of the first section operative by punishing
violations of its provisions. Now, the second section does not
purport to punish the Act of exporting, but in express terms it
only punishes "any shipment," thus affixing the construction which
we have given to the first section and causing it in reason to be
impossible to say that the first
Page 228 U. S. 532
section simply prohibits export in the completed sense. And this
construction of the second section becomes irresistible when it is
observed that, for the purpose of preventing misconception, the
words "any shipment" are explained and their meaning made more
emphatic by the declaration that they constitute the act "hereby
made unlawful," thus again in express terms affixing a significance
to the first section and confirming the meaning which we have given
it.
And if the legislative intent manifested on the face of the
joint resolution and derived from a consideration of the evil
against which it was obviously intended to provide be taken into
view, it is not difficult to perceive the reasons which led to the
prohibition against and punishment of shipment, instead of export
in the complete sense. As we have previously observed, the terms of
the resolution show that it was the means afforded for the
promotion of turmoil and violence in certain foreign countries by
the use of arms and munitions of war derived from the United States
which gave rise to the passage of the resolution. But to have
merely prohibited and punished the export, in the complete sense,
of arms and munitions would not have served to prevent the
continued future delivery of such arms, etc., except as the
anticipation of punishment might serve as a deterrent. On the other
hand, as shipments from the United States were the source of the
evil, a prohibition against such shipments and punishments for
making them not only exerted all the deterrent influence which
could possibly have arisen from punishing export, but besides would
reach the acts done in the United States which were the generative
source of the trouble, and hence afford the means of putting an
effective stop to the evil which it was the purpose to suppress.
Although no question is raised on the subject, as, in consequence
of the construction we affix to the joint resolution, we shall
reverse and remand, we deem it well to say that merely because
Page 228 U. S. 533
resort was had to personal carriage as a means of moving the
prohibited articles from this to a foreign country would not render
inapplicable the prohibition against any shipment.
Judgment reversed.