Joseph McKenna

“ There may, indeed, be greater risk to the owner of property in one form or purpose of its bailment than in another, but wrong cannot be imputed to him by reason of the form or purpose. It is the illegal use that is the material consideration, it is that which works the forfeiture, the guilt or innocence of its owner being accidental. If we should regard simply the adaptability of a particular form of property to an illegal purpose, we should have to ascribe facility to an automobile as an aid to the violation of the law. ”

“ Congress must have taken into account the necessities of the government, its revenues and policies, and was faced with the necessity of making provision against their violation or evasion and the ways and means of violation or evasion. In breaches of revenue provisions, some forms of property are facilities, and therefore it may be said, that Congress interposes the care and responsibility of their owners in aid of the prohibitions of the law and its punitive provisions, by ascribing to the property a certain personality, a power of complicity and guilt in the wrong. ”

“ It is, hence, plausibly urged that such could not have been the intention of Congress; that Congress necessarily had in mind the facts and practices of the world and that in the conveniences of business and of life, property is often and sometimes necessarily put into the possession of another than its owner. And it follows, is the contention, that Congress only intended to condemn the interest the possessor of the property might have to punish his guilt, and not to forfeit the title of the owner who was without guilt. ”