William O. Douglas

“ If the defendant knowingly gives aid and comfort to one who he knows or believes is an enemy, then he must be taken to intend the consequences of his own voluntary act, and the fact that his motive might not have been to aid the enemy is no defense. In other words, one cannot do an act which he knows will give aid and comfort to a person he knows to be an enemy of the United States, and then seek to disclaim criminal intent and knowledge by saying that one's motive was not to aid the enemy. ”

“ We do not say that if the government completely fails to prove an overt act or proves it by one witness only, the defect can be cured by the testimony of other witnesses or by the admissions of the accused. ”

“ We do say that a meeting with the enemy is an act and may in its setting be an overt act of treason. We agree that overt acts innocent on their face should not be lightly transformed into incriminating acts. But so long as overt acts of treason need not manifest treason on their face, as the Court concedes, the sufficiency of the evidence to establish the treasonable character of the act, like the evidence of trasonable intent, depends on the quality of that evidence whatever the number of witnesses who supplied it. ”

“ But however relevant such particular knowledge may have been to fixing the punishment for Cramer's acts of treason, it surely was not essential to proof of his traitorous intent. A defendant who has aided an enemy agent in this country may not escape conviction for treason on the ground that he was not aware of the enemy's precise objectives. Knowing or believing that the agent was here on a mission on behalf of a hostile government, he could not, by simple failure to ask too many questions, assume that this mission was one of charity and benevolence toward the United States. ”

“ The meetings take on their true character and significance from that setting. They constitute acts. They demonstrate that Cramer had a liking for Thiel's design to the extent of aiding him in it. They show beyond doubt that Cramer had more than a treasonable intent; that that intent had moved from the realm of thought into the realm of action. Since two witnesses proved that the meetings took place, their character and significance might be proved by any competent evidence. ”

“ Cramer can defend only on the ground that the overt act must manifest treason, which the Court rejects, or on the ground that he had no treasonable intent, which the jury found against him on an abundance of evidence. Those are the only alternatives because concededly conferences with saboteurs here on a mission for the enemy may be wholly adequate as overt acts under the treason clause. They were proved by two witnesses as required by the Constitution. ”

“ For Cramer claims he believed the enemy agent's objective was to destroy national morale by propaganda and not to blow up war factories. Propaganda designed to cause disunity among adversaries is one of the older weapons known to warfare, and upon occasion one of the most effective. No one can read this record without concluding that the defendant Cramer knew this. He is an intelligent, if misguided, man. ”

“ The conclusion is irresistible that Cramer believed, if he did not actually know, that Thiel and Kerling were here on a secret mission for the German Reich with the object of injuring the United States and that the money which Thiel gave him for safekeeping had been supplied by Germany to facilitate the project of the enemy. ”

“ The fact that you may believe that his motive in so doing was, for example, merely to help a friend, or possibly for financial gain, would not change the fact that he had a criminal intent.' On that there apparently is no disagreement. A man who voluntarily assists one known or believed to be an enemy agent may not defend on the ground that he betrayed his country for only thirty pieces of silver. ”

“ For the same reasons a man cannot slip through our treason law because his aid to those who would destroy his country was prompted by a desire to 'accommodate a friend.' [2] Loyalty to country cannot be subordinated to the amenities of personal friendship.
Cramer had a traitorous intent if he knew or believed that Thiel and Kerling were enemies and were working here in the interests of the German Reich. ”

“ But as new-fangled and artifical treasons have been the great engines by which violent factions, the natural offspring of free government, have usually wreaked their alternate malignity on each other, the convention have, with great judgment, opposed a barrier to this peculiar danger, by inserting a constitutional definition of the crime, fixing the proof necessary for conviction of it, and restraining the Congress, even in punishing it, from extending the consequences of guilt beyond the person of its author.' The Federalist, No. ”

“ Both of these involved indictments for compassing and adhering, the overt acts being letters of intelligence intercepted before they reached the enemy.↑ In a letter of April 24, 1792, Jefferson, then Secretary of State, wrote: 'Treason, * * * when real, merits the highest punishment. But most codes extend their definitions of treason to acts not really against one's country. They do not distinguish between acts against the government and acts against the oppressions of the government ”