which the statute is immediately taken,50 and applies also primarily to decisions in force at the time of adoption. The courts may, however, treat subsequent decisions with respect.51 But the rule that the courts of one state will deem the interpretative decisions of another state a part of a statute adopted from that state is not an absolute one, to be followed under all circumstances. It will not be followed where the construction urged to be adopted is contrary to the obvious meaning of the statute to be construed 52 or would make the statute unconstitutional in the state of adoption.53

Strict or Liberal Construction. The authorities upon the question of whether a taxing statute should be strictly or liberally construed, or whether it should be construed according to some medium between these two extremes, are in some confusion and no broad general rule can be safely stated. Excluding the construction of tax exemp tions, which will be treated hereafter, three general lines of authority can be traced. One line of cases 54 holds that, as stated by the court in a leading case: 55

"In the first place, it is, as I conceive, a general rule in the interpretation of all statutes, levying taxes or duties. upon subjects or citizens, not to extend their provisions,

50 Coulam v. Doull, 133 U. S. 216. 51 Catheart v. Robinson, 5 Pet. 264. 52 Whitney v. Fox, 166 U. S. 637.

53 In re. Swearinger, 23 Fed. Cas. No. 13,683.

54 U. S. v. Wigglesworth, 2 Story 369, 28 Fed. Cas. No. 16,690; U. S. v. Isham, 17 Wall. 504; U. S. v. Watts, 28 Fed. Cas. No. 16,653; Equitable Trust Co. v. Seldon, 8 Fed. Cas. No. 4,507. The court said in Powers v. Barney, 5 Blatch. 202, "Duties are never imposed on the citizen upon vague or doubtful interpretations.'' There are early cases holding to the contrary such as U. S. v. Olney, 27 Fed. Cas. No. 15,918, where a statute imposing a license fee for lottery dealers was being construed and the court said: "A revenue law is not to be strictly construed, but rather the contrary, so as to attain the ends for which it was enacted." See Twenty-Eight Cases, 2 Ben. 63; Rankin v. Hoyt, 4 Hów. 327; Smythe v. Fiske, 23 Wall. 374,

55 U. S. v. Wigglesworth, 2 Story 369, 28 Fed. Cas. No. 16,690.

by implication, beyond the clear import of the language used, or to enlarge their operation so as to embrace matters, not specifically pointed out, although standing upon a close analogy. In every case, therefore, of doubt, such statutes are construed most strongly against the govern ment, and in favor of the subjects or citizens, because burdens are not be imposed, nor presumed to be imposed, beyond what the statutes expressly and clearly import. Revenue statutes are in no just sense either remedial laws or laws founded upon any permanent public policy, and, therefore, are not to be liberally construed."

Since this decision it has been repeatedly held by the United States Supreme Court and the inferior federal courts that the provisions of a tariff act should be liberally construed in favor of the importer, and that in cases of fair doubt as to the construction of a provision in such acts the courts should resolve the doubt in favor of the importer and that in such cases the intention of Congress to impose a higher duty should be expressed in clear and unambiguous language.56 And the same rule has been applied in the construction of other revenue laws,57 in

56 Benziger v. U. S., 192 U. S. 38; American Net & Twine Co. v. Worthington, 141 U. S. 468; Shallus v. U. S., 162 Fed. 653; U. S. v. Tiffany, 160 Fed. 408; Hayes v. U. S., 150 Fed. 63; Hempstead v. Thomas, 122 Fed. 538; U. S. v. Merck & Co., 91 Fed. 639, affirmed 97 Fed. 989; Rice v. U. S. 53 Fed. 910. It has been said that the rule which gives the importer the benefit of a doubt is limited to cases where it relieves all importers of all articles whatsoever of the class concerned; that it probably has no practical use except in cases of extraordinary doubt; that it has a more appropriate application when the question is one of any tax at all; and that the federal reports are full of suits where the courts have not hesitated to perform the duty of determining mere questions of classification where it was admitted some duty was to be imposed, in favor of a higher rate, under circumstances of great difficulty. U. S. v. Wetherell, 65 Fed. 987.

57 Eidman v. Martinez, 184 U. S. 578; Treat v. White, 181 U. S. 264; Gill v. Bartlett, 224 Fed. 927; Rockefeller v. O'Brien, 224 Fed. 541, affirmed 239 Fed. 127; Disston v. McClain, 147 Fed. 114; Wright v. Michigan Central R. Co., 130 Fed. 843; McNally v. Field, 119 Fed. 445; Treat v. Tolman, 113 Fed. 892.

cluding the 1909 law 58 and 1913 law.59 In a comparatively late case construing the war revenue act of June 13, 1898, imposing a special excise tax on sugar the Supreme Court, adopting the language of the dissenting opinion in the Court below, held that where the construction of a tax law is doubtful, the doubt is to be resolved in favor of those upon whom the tax is sought to be laid.60 And in a very recent case arising under the 1913 law in the Supreme Court, the rule quoted above was restated as an established rule of construction.

61

Three recent cases in the lower federal courts have also stated generally with particular reference to the 1909 Corporation Excise Tax Law that revenue laws should be strictly construed against the government,62 and it has been held that this rule applies especially where they impose burdens of a special or unusual character.63

A second line of cases holds that revenue laws are not to be strictly construed in favor of the subject and against the state, but still with reasonable fairness to the citizen. It is stated in U. S. v. Distilled Spirits: 64

"In construing a severe statute, declaring a heavy forfeiture, (and, according to one construction claimed, for small offences,) it is just to say, that those who are called upon to conduct their business affairs in view of all its provisions, ought to be fairly apprised of its requirements,

58 Parkview Building & Loan Ass'n v. Herold, 203 Fed. 876, affirmed 210 Fed. 577.

59 Haiku Sugar Co. v. Johnstone, 249 Fed. 103; U. S. v. Coulby, 251 Fed. 982 (both decided since the Gould case, cited hereafter). 60 Spreckels Sugar Ref. Co. v. McClain, 192 U. S. 397.

61 Gould v. Gould, 245 U. S. 151. It is to be noted that in this case the court used almost identically the language of Judge Story in the old Wigglesworth case; also that Mr. Justice McReynolds makes no reference to the Stowell case (cited hereafter).

62 Mutual Benefit Ins. Co. v. Herold, 198 Fed. 199, affirmed 201 Fed. 918; Anderson v. Morris & E. R. Co., 216 Fed. 83; Penn. Steel Co. v. N. Y. City Co., 198 Fed. 774, affirmed 231 U. S. 144. 63 Lynch v. Union Trust Co., 164 Fed. 161.

64 U. S. v. Distilled Spirits, 27 Fed. Cas. No. 15,960; 10 Blatch. 428.

and of its penalties, of whatever kind. They are bound to know the law, but lawmakers owe to them the duty to make the law intelligible; and those whose business it is to construe or expound a law which is of doubtful or double meaning, should not incline to the harshest possible meaning, when it is obvious that those to whom it is to be applied may well have been led to trust in another which is less severe, but equally satisfying in its terms. This is not saying that laws of the kind in question are to be strictly construed in favor of the subject and against the state but, only, that they should be construed with reasonable fairness to the citizen." 65

A third line of cases announces a rule much more favorable to the government. As stated in the early cases, penalties annexed to violations of the general revenue laws do not make them penal in the sense which requires them to be construed strictly.66 This statement was amplified and further explained in the leading case of U. S. v. Stowell,67

65 The U. S. v. Distilled Spirits case was a penalty case arising under the Internal Revenue Laws and the rule announced in it seems to have been modified by the Stowell case (cited hereafter).

66 U. S. v. Barrels of Spirits, 2 Abb. (U. S.) 305, 314; U. S. v. Cases of Cloth, Crabbe 356; Taylor v. U. S., 3 How. 197; Cliquot's Champagne, 3 Wall. 114, 145; U. S. v. Hodson, 10 Wall. 395, 406.

67 U. S. v. Stowell, 133 U. S. 1. It is to be doubted whether in this case or the case of U. S. v. Hodson, 10 Wall. 395, 406, the Supreme Court meant to overrule Judge Story in the Wigglesworth case. In both cases the court refers as authority to the case of Taylor v. U. S., 3 How. 197, 210, which was decided by Judge Story without mentioning his immediately previous opinion in the Wigglesworth case. It seems highly improbable Judge Story meant to overrule himself in the Taylor case but rather that he had a distinction in mind between revenue laws generally and statutes to prevent fraud upon the revenue. At the time of the Wigglesworth decision Judge Story had also decided the case of U. S. v. Breed, 24 Fed. Cas. No. 14,638 in which he said in part, "Revenue and duty acts are not in the sense of the law penal acts; and are not therefore to be construed strictly. Nor are they, on the other hand, acts in furtherance of private rights and liberty, or remedial; and therefore to be construed with extraordinary liberality. They are to be construed according to the true import and meaning of their terms; and

which was an information on forfeiture of distilling machinery, on the theory that statutes to prevent frauds on the revenue are considered as enacted for the public good and to suppress a public wrong, and therefore, although they impose penalties or forfeitures, are not to be construed, like penal laws generally, strictly in favor of the defendant: but they are to be fairly and reasonably construed, so as to carry out the intention of the Legislature. This case has been cited and followed constantly 68 notably in a recent when the legislative intention is ascertained, that, and that only, is to be our guide in interpreting them. We are not to strain them to reach cases not within their terms, even if we might conjecture, that public policy might have reached those cases; nor, on the other hand, are we to restrain their terms, so as to exclude cases clearly within them, simply because public policy might possibly dictate such an exclusion." See also Rankin v. Hoyt, 4 How. 332; Smythe v. Fiske, 23 Wall. 374, 380. In the last mentioned case the question was the amount of duty on silk ties.

68 In the following cases involving the construction of revenue laws with particular reference to penal forfeitures and criminal provisions for violations: U. S. v. Two Barrels of Whiskey, 96 Fed. 479: U. S. v. 2461⁄2 Pounds of Tobacco, 103 Fed. 791; 581 Diamonds v. U. S., 119 Fed. 556, 561; U. S. v. Cole, 134 Fed. 697; U. S. v. Gallant, 177 Fed. 281; U. S. v. Thompson, 189 Fed. 838. In the following cases with particular reference to bonds to protect the government against violations: U. S. v. Nat. Surety Co., 122 Fed. 904, 909; U. S. v. Zemel, 137 Fed. 989; U. S. v. U. S. Fidelity & G. Co., 144 Fed. 866. In the following cases as authority for the liberal construction of miscellaneous laws: Roberts v. Pacific Nav. Co., 104 Fed. 577; U. S. v. St. Louis S. W. Ry., 189 Fed. 954, 962: U. S. v. Ramsey, 197 Fed. 144, 147; U. S. v. Brown, 224 Fed. 135; Johnson v. Southern Pacific Co., 196 U. S. 1. See also Sesnon Co. v. U. S., 182 Fed. 573, writ of certiorari denied 220 U. S. 609.

Before the Stowell decision there were cases adopting a strict construction even of statutes to prevent frauds in the revenue. See U. S. v. 84 Boxes of Sugar, 7 Pet. 453 (expressly disapproved in the Stowell case); Sixty Pipes Brandy, 10 Wheat. 424; U. S. v. A Lot Silk Umbrellas, 12 Fed. 412 (citing U. S. v. 84 Boxes Sugar); U. S. v. Ten Cases Shawls, 28 Fed. Cas. No. 16,448. One case adopting a strict construction of the statute to prevent frauds on the revenue since the Stowell case is U. S. v. 1,150% Pounds Celluloid, 82 Fed. 634 (citing U. S. v. 84 Boxes of Sugar, supra, and not citing the Stowell case); Sixty Pipes Brandy, 10 Wheat. 424; U. S. v. A Lot theory of ejusdem generis.''

66