510
Stevens, J., dissenting
1945) (L. Hand, J.) The Court's approach to questions of statutory construction has changed significantly since that time.11 The textual lens through which the Court views the work product of the 1948 revisers is dramatically different from the contemporary legal context in which they labored. In 1948, it was entirely reasonable for Congress and the revisers to assume that the Judiciary would imply a materiality requirement that was a routine aspect of common-law litigation about false statements.
Indeed, subsequent history confirms the reasonableness of such an assumption: The vast majority of judges who have confronted the question have found an implicit materiality requirement in § 1014. As the Court recognizes, all but one of the Courts of Appeals have so held. Ante, at 486, n. 3. Moreover, both in this case and in Gaudin the prosecutor initially proceeded on the assumption that a nonexplicit statute contained an implicit materiality requirement. Only after it failed to convince us in Gaudin that the materiality issue should be resolved by the judge rather than the jury did the Government switch its position and urge us to reject that assumption entirely.
III
Because precedent and statutory history refute the Court's position, its decision today must persuade, if at all, on the basis of its textual analysis. But congressional silence cannot be so convincing when the resulting interpretation is so unlikely.12 Even the Court's recent jurisprudence affirms
11 See Middlesex County Sewerage Authority v. National Sea Clam-mers Assn., 453 U. S. 1, 24-26 (1981) (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part).
12 In fact, the text of § 1014 supports the conclusion that "false statement" was intended to cover only material false statements. That statute forbids a person, in the relevant circumstances, to make "any [1] false statement or [2] report, or willfully overvalu[ing] any [3] land, [4] property or [5] security." 18 U. S. C. § 1014. The four covered actions other than "false statement[s]" are inherently material. Obviously the overvaluing
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