Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“ At times the argument seemed to suggest that any testimony, although not incriminating, if relevant to the later charge, brought the amnesty into play. In favor of the broadest construction of the immunity act, it is argued that when it was passed there was an imperious popular demand that the inside working of the trusts should be investigated, and that the people and Congress cared so much to secure the necessary evidence that they were willing that some guilty persons should escape, as that reward was necessary to the end. ”

“ Again it is said that if the evidence proved the petitioner guilty of a conspiracy, it proved him guilty of the substantive offense. It may be that there has been an abuse of indictment for conspiracy, as suggested by Judge Holt in United States v. Kissel, 173 Fed. 823, 828, but it hardly is made clear to us that this is an instance. At all events, the liability for conspiracy is not taken away by its success,-that is, by the accomplishment of the substantive offense at which the conspiracy aims. ”

“ So the admission of his signature to certain checks, although it furnished a possible standard of the petitioner's handwriting if there had been any dispute about it, which there was not, in the circumstances of this case, at least, had neither connection nor criminating effect. When the statute speaks of testimony concerning a matter it means concerning it in a substantial way, just as the constitutional protection is confined to real danger, and does not extend to remote possibilities out of the ordinary course of law. ”