Note 177 — Chapter II · The Power of Congress to Establish Postoffices

“It must also be borne in mind that the idea of the fraud order law is not punitive, but is simply protective. It is to prevent the use of the mails to defraud the public. The theory is that by the stopping of the mail privileges in the initiating stages of the fraud, the consummation of the scheme will be prevented. It would be utterly impossible to fulfill this purpose by a trial in court, for the necessary legal evidence could not generally be obtained until the scheme had run its course.” Ibid., p. 6.