Clearer and more precise language might have been framed by Congress to express what it meant by "number of employees needed." But none occurs to us, nor has any better language been suggested, effectively to carry out what appears to have been the Congressional purpose. The argument really seems to be that it is impossible for a jury or court ever to determine how many employees a business needs, and that, therefore, no statutory language could meet the problem Congress had in mind. If this argument should be accepted, the result would be that no legislature could make it an offense for a person to compel another to hire employees, no matter how unnecessary they were, and however desirable a legislature might consider suppression of the practice to be.

The Constitution presents no such insuperable obstacle to legislation. We think that the language Congress used provides an adequate warning as to what conduct falls under its ban, and marks boundaries sufficiently distinct for judges and juries fairly to administer the law in accordance with the will of Congress. That there may be marginal cases in which it is difficult to determine the side of the line on which a particular fact situation falls is no sufficient reason to hold the language too ambiguous to define a criminal offense. Robinson v. United States, 324 U. S. 282, 285-286. It would strain the requirement for certainty in criminal law standards too near the breaking point to say that it was impossible judicially to determine whether a person knew when he was wilfully attempting to compel another to hire unneeded employees. See Screws v. United States, 325 U. S. 91; United States v. Ragen, 314 U. S. 513, 522, 524, 525. The Constitution has erected procedural safeguards to protect against conviction for crime except for violation of laws which have clearly defined conduct thereafter to be punished; but the Constitution does not require impossible stand

ards. The language here challenged conveys sufficiently definite warning as to the proscribed conduct when measured by common understanding and practices. The Constitution requires no more.

Second. It is contended that the statute denies equal protection of the laws to radio-broadcasting employees as a class, and, for this reason, violates the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment. This contention, raised by the motion to dismiss, and sustained by the District Court as a ground for holding the statute unconstitutional as written, is properly before us, and we reach this equal protection ground, for the same reason that we decided the question of whether the section was unconstitutionally vague and indefinite.

In support of this contention it is first argued that if Congress concluded that employment by broadcasting companies of unneeded workers was detrimental to interstate commerce, in order to be consistent, it should have provided for the punishment of employers, as well as employees, who violate that policy. Secondly, it is argued, the Act violates due process because it singles out broadcasting employees for regulation while leaving other classes of employees free to engage in the very practices forbidden to radio workers. But it is not within our province to say that, because Congress has prohibited some practices within its power to prohibit, it must prohibit all within its power. Consequently, if Congress believes that there are employee practices in the radio industry which injuriously affect interstate commerce, and directs its prohibitions against those practices, we could not set aside its legislation even if we were persuaded that employer practices also required regulation. See Labor Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U. S. 1, 46.

2 The Act does not prohibit radio broadcasters from voluntarily hiring more employees than they need.

Nor could we strike down such legislation, even if we believed that as a matter of policy it would have been wiser not to enact the legislation or to extend the prohibitions over a wider or narrower area. Here Congress aimed its law directly against one practice-compelling a broadcasting company to hire unneeded workers. There is nothing novel about laws to prohibit some persons from compelling other persons to act contrary to their desires. Whatever may be the limits of the power of Congress that do not apply equally to all classes, groups, and persons, see Steward Machine Co. v. Davis, 301 U. S. 548, 584, we are satisfied that Congress has not transgressed those limits in the provisions of this statute which are here attacked.

Third. Respondent contends here, and the District Court has held, that the statute abridges freedom of speech by making peaceful picketing a crime. It is important to note that the statute does not mention picketing, peaceful or violent. The proposed application of the statute to picketing, therefore, does not derive from any specific prohibition written into the statute against peaceful picketing. Rather it comes from the information's charge that respondent attempted to compel the licensee to hire unneeded employees by placing "a picket in front of the place of business of [the] ... licensee." Yet the respondent's motion to dismiss was made only on the ground that the statute, as written, contravenes the First Amendment. In ruling on this motion, the District Court assumed that because "there [was] in this case no charge of violence. . . the placing of a picket must be regarded . . . as peaceful picketing." From this assumption, it concluded that "the application [of the statute] here sought to be made violates the First Amendment by its restriction upon freedom of speech by peaceful picketing." Thus, rather than holding the statute as written to be an unconstitutional violation of the First

Amendment, the District Court ruled on the statute as it was proposed to be applied by the information as it then read.

We consider it inappropriate to reach the merits of this constitutional question now. As we have pointed out, we have consistently said that we would refrain from passing on the constitutionality of statutes in advance of the necessity to do so. And the provisions for direct appeal from District Courts of certain criminal cases do not require us to pass on constitutional questions prematurely decided by a district court's dismissal of an information.

The information here, up to the place where it alleges the use of particular coercive means, charges in substantially the language of the statute that respondent coerced the licensee. The information's charges up to this point constitute a sufficient basis for a challenge to the statute on the ground that it contravenes the Constitution. Whether this part of the information, or the information as a whole, was adequate definitely to inform the respondent of the nature of the charge against him is another question. See United States v. Lepowitch, 318 U. S. 702, 704; Potter v. United States, 155 U. S. 438; cf. United States v. Hess, 124 U. S. 483. Had the District Court postponed ruling on the First Amendment question raised by the motion to dismiss, or had it denied the motion, respondent could have sought a bill of particulars, apart from attacking the constitutionality of the Act. See Husty v. United States, 282 U. S. 694, 702; Bartell v. United States, 227 U. S. 427, 433-434; Dunbar v. United States, 156 U. S. 185, 192. So also, if the additional allegations describing the means used to accomplish the proscribed purpose were not definite enough for the court to determine whether they were sufficient in law to charge an offense, and if such allegations were not mere surplusage, see United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Company, 310 U. S. 150, 222, a challenge could have been

made to the information, see United States v. Hess, supra, at 487-488, as distinguished from a challenge to the statute on which it rested. In that event, and upon a holding of insufficiency of the information, appeal by the United States would have properly gone, under the Criminal Appeals Act, supra, to the Circuit Court of Appeals, and if inappropriately brought here, that Act, as amended, 56 Stat. 271, would have required us to transfer the cause to the Circuit Court of Appeals. But no such challenge was made to the information.

We therefore have a situation in which we are urged to strike down a statute as violative of the constitutional guarantees of free speech when the statute has not been, and might never be, applied in such manner as to raise the question respondent asks us to decide. For the gist of the offense here charged in the statute and in the information is that respondent "wilfully, by the use of force, intimidation, duress and by the use of other means, did attempt to coerce, compel and constrain" the licensee to hire unneeded employees. If the allegations that this prohibited result was attempted to be accomplished by picketing are so broad as to include action which either is not coercive, compelling or constraining, within the statute's meaning, or could not be constitutionally held to be, the trial court would be free, on motion of the respondent, to strike the particular allegations if they are surplusage. Rules of Criminal Procedure, § 7 (d). Or the Government might amend the information "at any time before verdict or finding if no additional or different offense is charged and if substantial rights of the defendant are not prejudiced." Ibid. § 7 (e).

The foregoing analysis shows that we are asked to rule on constitutional questions that are not yet precisely in issue. The question as it was decided by the District

3 Italics supplied.