Joseph McKenna

“ Whether the certificates or the stamps be considered individual or composite obligations of the United States necessarily the alteration of both or either is within section 148 of the Criminal Code. Their purpose is defeated and perhaps perverted by alteration. They are but instruments of the law and the law is to be considered. It provided an opportunity of investment for persons of small means, and the power to prescribe ways adequate to the purpose was given to the Secretary of the Treasury. ”

“ And exercising the power, he included as a condition to the validity of the certificate as an obligation of the United States, the affixing of a stamp thereto, and that not more than 20 stamps of the series of 1918 might be affixed, and that no one person could at any one time hold certificates of an aggregate amount exceeding $1,000. ”

“ Further detail of the act is not necessary except to say that the amount of certificates sold to any one person at any one time shall not exceed $100-nor shall any one person at any one time hold more than $1,000. ”