ACCEPTANCE OF VOLUNTARY SERVICES 281 



The two statutory provisions involved read as follows: 



18 U.S.C. Section ig8 (Criniinal Code, section log) 



Officers interested in claims against United States. Whoever, being an officer of 

 the United States, or a person holding any place of trust or profit, or discharging 

 any official function under, or in connection with, any executive department of the 

 Government of the United States, or under the Senate or House of Representatives 

 of the United States, shall act as an agent or attorney for prosecuting any claim 

 against the United States, or in any manner, or by any means, otherwise than in 

 discharge of his proper official duties, shall aid or assist in the prosecution or 

 support of any such claim, or receive any gratuity, or any share of or interest in 

 any claim from any claimant against the United States, with intent to aid or 

 assist, or in consideration of having aided or assisted, in the prosecution of such 

 claim, shall be fined not more than $5,000 or imprisoned not more than one year, 

 or both. ... 



18 U.S.C. Section 20^ (Criminal Code, section ii^) 



Whoever, being elected or appointed a Senator, Member of or Delegate to Con- 

 gress, or a Resident Commissioner, shall, after his election or appointment and 

 either before or after he has qualified, and during his continuance in office, or 

 being the head of a department, or other officer or clerk in the employ of the 

 United States, shall, directly or indirectly, receive, or agree to receive, any com- 

 pensation whatever for any services rendered or to be rendered to any person, 

 either by himself or another, in relation to any proceeding, contract, claim, con- 

 troversy, charge, accusadon, arrest, or other matter or thing in which the United 

 States is a party or directly or indirectly interested, before any department, court- 

 martial, bureau, officer, or any civil, military, or naval commission whatever, 

 shall be fined not more than $10,000 and imprisoned not more than two years; 

 and shall, moreover, thereafter be incapable of holding any office of honor, trust, 

 or profit under the Government of the United States. . . . 



The language of the opinion in the OPA case was broad enough to indi- 

 cate that practically all of the WOC appointees of OSRD might be held to 

 be in technical violation of Section 113 and that a few might also be in 

 technical violation of Section 109. Discussion with members of the staff of 

 the Attorney General confirmed this impression. When a series of hypo- 

 thetical cases was discussed by members of the OSRD legal staff with mem- 

 bers of the staff of the Solicitor General, the view was informally expressed 

 that while most of the cases were not within the spirit of the statute, they 

 were all within the technical language of Section 113. Thus an OSRD 

 appointee who held an administrative post in an educational institution 

 which operated a school for chaplains for the Army was thought to be in 

 technical violation of Section 113 because some part of the payment made 

 by the Government toward the expenses of the school for chaplains might 

 be held to go toward the payment of his salary. While sympathizing with 

 the predicament in which OSRD was placed by virtue of the change in the 

 Attorney General's interpretation of the statutes, the Department of Justice 



