520
Scalia, J., concurring in judgment
1. The Soldiers' and Sailors' Civil Relief Act of 1918 (1918 Act), 40 Stat. 440; 2. The Soldiers' and Sailors' Civil Relief Act of 1940 (1940 Act or Act), 54 Stat. 1178; 3. The Soldiers' and Sailors' Civil Relief Act Amendments of 1942 (1942 Amendments), 56 Stat. 769; 4. The Selective Service Act of 1948, 62 Stat. 604.
That, of course, cannot be said to be the "complete legislative history" relevant to this provision. Cf. ante, at 515. One of the problems with legislative history is that it is inherently open ended. In this case, for example, one could go back further in time to examine the Civil War-era relief Acts, many of which are in fact set forth in an appendix to the House Report on the 1918 Act, see App. A, H. R. Rep. No. 181, 65th Cong., 1st Sess., 18-32 (1917) (hereinafter 1917 House Report). Or one could extend the search abroad and consider the various foreign statutes that were mentioned in that same House Report. See id., at 4, 13-14 (discussing English and French enactments). Those additional statutes might be of questionable relevance, but then so too are the 1918 Act and the 1940 Act, neither of which contained a provision governing redemption periods. Nevertheless, I will limit my legislative history inquiry to those four statutes for the simple reason that that is the scope chosen by the Court.
The 1918 Act appears to have been the first comprehensive national soldiers' relief Act. See 55 Cong. Rec. 7787 (1917). The legislative history reveals that Congress intended 2 that
2 When I say "Congress intended," here and hereafter in this excursus into legislative history, I am speaking as legislative historians speak, attributing to all Members of both Houses of Congress (or at least to a majority of the Members of each House), and to the President (or, if the President did not sign the bill in question, then to at least two-thirds of the Members of both Houses of Congress) views expressed by the particular personage, or committee of personages, whose statements are being described—in the case of the citation at issue in this sentence, a committee of the House of Representatives. It is to be assumed—by a sort of sus-
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