ARGUMENT IV

THE DELEGATION OF POWER BY THE UNITED STATES ·
CONGRESS TO THE SECRETARY OF COMMERCE AS
EXPRESSED IN TITLE 13, UNITED STATES CODE,
CHAPTER V, IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL IN THAT IT
LACKS AN INTELLIGIBLE STANDARD TO WHICH
ADMINISTRATIVE ACTION MUST CONFORM

That portion of Chapter V, Title 13, United States Code which

relates most directly to the defendant is Subchapter II entitled "Population, Housing, Agriculture, Irrigation, Drainage and Unemployment."

The Subsections contained therein read as follows:

"141. Population, unemployment, and housing

(a) The Secretary shall, in the year 1960 and every
ten years thereafter, take a census of population, unemploy-
ment, and housing (including utilities and equipment) as of
the first day of April, which shall be known as the census date.

(b) The tabulation of total population by States as ⚫required for the apportionment of Representatives shall be completed within eight months of the census date and reported by the Secretary to the President of the United States."

"§ 142. Agriculture, irrigation, and drainage

(a) The Secretary shall, beginning in the month of October 1959, and in the same month of every fifth year thereafter, take a census of agriculture, provided that the censuses directed to be taken in October 1959 and each tenth year thereafter, may, when and where deemed advisable by the Secretary, be taken instead in conjunction with the censuses provided in section 141 of this title.

(b) The Secretary shall, in conjunction with the census of agriculture directed to be taken in October 1959 and each tenth year thereafter, take a census of irrigation and drainage.

ARGUMENT III

THE STATUTE UPON WHICH THE CHARGE
IS BASED, I. E. TITLE 13 UNITED STATES
CODE, SECTION 221(a) IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL
IN THAT IT IS VAGUE AND INDEFINITE

In the instant case the statute upon which the charge is

based is Title 13, United States Code, Section 221(a). It reads as

follows:

"Whoever, being over eighteen years

of age, refuses or wilfully neglects, when
requested by the Secretary, or by any other
authorized officer or employee of the Depart-
ment of Commerce or bureau or agency
thereof acting under the instructions of the
Secretary or authorized officer, to answer,
to the best of his knowledge, any of the
questions on any schedule submitted to him
in connection with any census or survey
provided for by subchapters I, II, and IV of
Chapter 5 of this title, applying to himself
or to the family to which he belongs or is
related, or to the farm or farms of which he
or his family is the occupant shall be fined
not more than $100 or imprisonment not more
than sixty days, or both.

In order for a person to know whether he has violated the

statute above, he would, of necessity, have to know the provisions of subchapters I, II, and IV of Chapter 5 of Title 13 U.S. C. A. as well as subchapter 225 of Chapter 7 of Title 13 U.S. C. A. The latter statute is

even more vague than Section 221(a). It states the applicability of penal provisions in certain cases.

At present the census taker can conceivably ask questions

of the most intimate nature. Where are we headed? What questions will the federal government ask next? How intimate, how revealing will they be? The answers to such questions should be found in subsections 141 and 142 of Subchapter II of Chapter V above. But those subsections give little or no preview of what is to come, for there is no standard and practically no limit to the inquiry to which the citizens of the United States can be subjected by the census taker.

To allow the census taker to pry at will into the most intimate aspects of individual and family life affords little or none of the privacy guaranteed by the United States Constitution. The Superior Court has reflected on Congress's power of inquiry in the case of Harriman v. Interstate Commerce Commission, 211 U.S. 407, 29 S. Ct. 115, 117, 53 L.Ed. 253, wherein it said:

"How far Congress could legislate on the
subject matter of the questions put to the wit-
nesses was one of the subjects of discussion,
but we pass it by. Whether Congress itself
has the unlimited power claimed by the Com-
mission, we also leave on one side. It was
intimated that there was a limit in Interstate
Commerce Commission v. Brimson, 154 U.S. 447,
478, 479, 38 L. Ed. 1047, 1057, 1058, 4 Inters.
Com. Rep. 545, 14 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1125. Whether
it could delegate the power, if it possesses it,
we also leave untouched, beyond remarking that
so unqualified a delegation would present the
constitutional difficulty in most acute form."

Mr. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes delivered the opinion

of the court in McBoyle v. U. S., 283 U.S. 25, 51 S. Ct. 34, wherein

it was said, inter alia:

"Although it is not likely that a criminal
will carefully consider the text of the law
before he murders or steals, it is reason-
able that a fair warning should be given to
the world in language that the common world
will understand, of what the law intends to do
if a certain line is passed. To make the
warning fair, so far as possible the line should
be clear...'

The defendant in the present case contends that the statute which charges him "lacks an ascertainable standard of guilt" and is not

"adequate to inform persons accused of violations thereof of the nature

and cause of the accusations against them." See United States v. L. Cohen Grocery Co. (1921) 255 U.S. 81.

In the case at bar the statutes cited above lack a stated

purpose which could in some way resemble a "standard to which

administrative action (could conform." And, if such statutes are

allowed to remain in effect, the inquiry incident to the exercise of such broad powers can take almost any form and can invade the privacy of individual citizens with the apparent approval of Congress.