This indictment was returned under section 37 of the Criminal Code (Act March 4, 1909, c. 321, 35 Stat. 1096 [Comp. St. 1916, § 10201]), and charges a conspiracy to violate section 13 of the same Code (section 10177). The former provides that:

*636 The latter provides that:

[1,2] A number of the defendants have interposed demurrers to this indictment, but the majority of them have been submitted without argument. The demurrers argued have been pressed largely, if not solely, upon the ground that the offense denounced by section 13 necessarily and logically requires the concurrence of a plurality of agents for its consummation, and that such agents cannot be charged with conspiracy to commit the offense. In other words, it is claimed that the indictment in substance and effect charges a conspiracy to commit a conspiracy which is not permissible under the law.

This argument is based largely on the rule laid down by Wharton:

But, even in the cases suggested by the author, parties who are not necessary participants in the crime may be indicted for a conspiracy to commit the crime.

I fail to see any analogy between the crimes of adultery, bigamy, incest, dueling, or the giver and receiver of a bribe, and the crime denounced by section 1-3. Doubtless a single individual would not constitute a military expedition, as that term is usually defined, and whether a single individual in an aeroplane, armed with bombs, would constitute a military enterprise, as suggested by one court, I will not inquire.

I see no reason, however, why a single individual may not begin or set on foot a military expedition or enterprise, and more especially why a single individual may not well provide or prepare the means for such an expedition or enterprise. Everything must have a beginning, and this must necessarily be true, if the words “to begin or set on foot” have the broad and comprehensive meaning attributed to them by counsel for the defense. They maintain that an act which would *637 tend to effect the object of a conspiracy would also constitute the beginning or setting on foot of a military expedition or enterprise. I doubt the soundness of this view, but I have no doubt that a single individual may violate section 13 of the Criminal Code. Thus in Wiborg v. United States, 163 U. S. 632, 648 , 16 Sup. Ct. 1127, 1133 ( 41 L. Ed. 289 ), the court said:

Again the court said ( 163 U. S. 655 , 16 Sup. Ct. 1136):

It seems manifest that these acts might be committed without a plurality of agents; indeed, while not controlling, it is a significant fact that, for upwards of 100 years Congress has employed the singular number in defining the crime here denounced. 1 am satisfied, therefore, that there is no inconsistency or repugnancy in charging a conspiracy to violate section 13 of the Penal Code. I have read and examined the authorities cited by the defendants, but have neither the time nor the disposition to review them at length. Suffice it to say I find nothing in them inconsistent with the views here expressed.

[3] Of course, the fact that the object of the conspiracy may have been consummated, if such be the fact, is no defense.

The demurrers are accordingly overruled.