STOCK DIVIDENDS 
45 
statute, not its constitutionality. It argues that if such a stock dividend is not 
income within the meaning of the Constitution it is not income within the intent 
of the statute, and hence that the meaning of the sixteenth amendment is not 
an immediate issue, and is important only as throwing light on the construction 
of the act. But it is not necessarily true that income means the same thing in 
the Constitution and the act. A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, 
1t is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content aceord- 
ing to the circumstances and the time in which it is used. (Lamar ». United States 
240 U. 8. 60, 65.) Whatever the meaning of the Constitution, the Government 
had applied its force to the plaintiff, on the assertion that the statute authorized 
it to do so, before the suit was brought, and the court below has sanctioned its 
course. The plaintiff says that the statute as it is construed and administered 
is unconstitutional. He is not to be defeated by the reply that the Government 
does not adhere to the construction by virtue of which alone it has taken and keeps 
the plaintiff’s money, if this court should think that the construction would make 
the act unconstitutional. While it keeps the money it opens the question 
whether the act construed as it has construed it can be maintained. The motion 
to dismiss is overruled. (Billings ». United States, 232 U. S. 261, 276; Altman 
& Co. ». United States, 224 U. S. 583, 596, 597.) i 
The case being properly here, however, the construction of the act is open, as 
well as its constitutionality if construed as the Government has construed it by 
its conduct. (Billings ». United States, ubi supra.) Notwithstanding the 
thoughtful discussion that the case received below, we can not doubt that the 
dividend was capital as well for the purposes of the income tax law as for dis- 
tribution between tenant for life and remainderman. What was said by this 
court upon the latter question is equally true for the former. ‘A stock dividend 
really takes nothing from the property of the corporation, and adds nothing to 
the interest of the shareholders. Its property is not diminished, and their inter- 
ests are not increased. * * * The proportional interest of each shareholder 
remains the same. The only change is in the evidence which represents that 
interest, the new shares and the original shares together representing the same 
proportional interest that the original shares represented before the issue of the 
new ones.” (Gibbons ». Mahon, 136 U. 8. 549, 559, 560.) In short, the cor- 
poration is no poorer and the stockholder is no richer than they were before. 
(Logan County ». United States, 169 U. 8. 255, 261.) If the plaintiff gained any 
small advantage by the change, it certainly was not an advantage of $417,450, 
the sum upon which he was taxed. It is alleged and admitted that he receives 
no more in the way of dividends and that his old and new certificates together 
are worth only what the old ones were worth before. If the sum had been carried 
from surplus to capital account without a corresponding issue of stock certificates, 
which there was nothing in the nature of things to prevent, we do not suppose 
that any one would contend that the plaintiff had received an accession to his 
income. Presumably his certificate would have the same value as before. 
Again, if certificates for $1,000 par were split up into 10 certificates each, for $100, 
we presume that no one would call the new certificates income. . What has hap- 
pened is that the plaintifi’s old certificates have been split up in effect and have 
diminished in value to the extent of the value of the new. 
Judgment reversed. 
Mr. Justice McKenna concurs in the result.