The Catholic times. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1951-current, 1959-07-24
JOSEPH BREIG-
Court Off Base
On Movie Verdict

| believe it was George Bernard Shaw who once
described the u. S. Constitution as a charter Of an
archy.
The Constitution is nothing of the kind. But l
can understand how it might give that impression to
an observer in another country, looking at it out of its
historical context, and possessing no broad back
ground of information about IFS real meanings.
The First Amendment, for example, says Sl1nply
that Congress shall make no law abrldglng the
freedom of speech or of the press
Taking the words badly as they stand, without
reference to the intention of the Founding Fathers
who wrote them, it would seem that under the Con-
stitution anything goes"-that anybody may say any,
thing, or publish anything, without hindrance.
THAT. WE KNOW, is emphatcally not true. The
laws of libel, for one thing, abridge freedom in the
sense of license) Of both speech and press.
Further, there is an enormous area IN which free
dom Qicense) of expression is sternly circumScrbed,
either specifically by law, or generally by tradition
and precedent.
That area was broadly described by the late JUS
tice Oliver Wendell Holmes lWho was certainly about
as liberal as they come when he said that freedom
of speech does not include the right to shout fire" IN
a crowded theater when there is no fire.
There is not d newspaper or magazine IN America
that would publish an article in favor of kidnapping.
or murder, or %torturing animals, or arson, or holding
up banks, or blowing up buildings, or assassinatlng
public officials. or debauchlng children.
ADVOCACY Of such. behavior does not come tn-
der the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech
and the press-not unless ! am gravely mistaken about
the meaning of the Constitution.
lUGI6IUIG L Illu uyoGl u1dUIS W 1OLUW LHG
thinking of the US. Supreme Court in the decision up-
setting the New York State ban on the movie, Lady
Chatterley's Lover
Let us make one thing clear. | have not seen the
movie, and have no opinion about it. | am not talking
about the movie, but about the Supreme Courts rul.
ing.
Justice Potter Stewart wrote the majority opin-
ion. He was joined in it by Chief Justice Earl Warren,
and Justices Hugo L. i Black, William 0. Douglas and
William ]. Brennan, Jr.
THE OPINION ASSERTS that New York State
banned the movie because it advocates an idea-that
adultery under certain circumstances may be proper
behavior"
In banning the film for that reason, wrote Justice
Stewart, New York State struck at the very heart Of
constitutionally protected liberty
The Constitutions this opinion argued-"pro-
tects advocacy of the opinion that adultery may some
times be proper, no less than advocacy of socialism or
the single tax
The Supreme Court has been tending in this di-
rection for some years. The reason, in my opinion, is
that the justices are making a literalistic i~nterpreta-
ton of the Constitution apart from its historical con-
text, from the American tradition, from the intentions
Of the Founding Fathers. and from common sense.
IF UNDERSTAND the ruling correctly, anybody
is now conStitutionaly free to advocate such ideas as
human sacrifice, or splitting ON the American Flag, or
purposes, or shooting down of policemen, or massacre
Ia la Hitler of Jews, or any conceivable abomination.
In sharp contrast, the Pennsylvania Senate has
passed. Alb, a bill to ban movies which represent as
acceptable conduct the commission of any crime or
the manifestation of contempt for law"
The pennsylvania Senate understands the Consti-
tuition better than the present Supreme Court does, or
than Bernard Shaw did. The Senate has not forgotten
that a word can be more lethal than a sword.