Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/312/569.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 00:26:49+00:00

Document:
[312 U.S. 569, 570] Messrs. Hayden Covington and Joseph F. Rutherford, both of Brooklyn, N.Y., for appellants.
Appellants are five 'Jehovah's Witnesses' who, with sixty-three others of the same persuasion, were convicted in the municipal court of Manchester, New Hampshire, for violation of a state statute prohibiting a 'parade or [312 U.S. 569, 571] procession' upon a public street without a special license.
Upon appeal, there was a trial de novo of these appellants before a jury in the Superior Court, the other defendants having agreed to abide by the final decision in that proceeding. Appellants were found guilty and the judgment of conviction was affirmed by the Supreme Court of the State. State v. Cox, 91 N.H. --, 16 A.2d 508.
The provisions for licensing are set forth in the margin. 1 [312 U.S. 569, 572] The facts, which are conceded by the appellants to be established by the evidence, are these: The sixty-eight defendants and twenty other persons met at a hall in the City of Manchester on the evening of Saturday, July 8, 1939, 'for the purpose of engaging in an information march'. The company was divided into four or five groups, each with about fifteen to twenty persons. Each group then proceeded to a different part of the business district of the city and there 'would line up in single-file formation and then proceed to march along the sidewalk, 'single-file', that is, following one another'. Each of the defendants carried a small staff with a sign reading 'Religion is a Snare and a Racket' and on the reverse 'Serve God and Christ the King'. Some of the marchers carried placards bearing the statement 'Fascism or Freedom. Hear Judge Rutherford and Face the Facts'. The marchers also handed out printed leaflets announcing a meeting to be held at a later time in the hall from which they had started, where a talk on government would be given to the public free of charge. Defendants did not apply for a permit and none was issued.
There was a dispute in the evidence as to the distance [312 U.S. 569, 573] between the marchers. Defendants said that they were from fifteen to twenty feet apart. The State insists that the evidence clearly showed that the 'marchers were as close together as it was possible for them to walk'. Appellants concede that this dispute is not material to the questions presented. The recital of facts which prefaced the opinion of the state court thus summarizes the effect of the march: 'Manchester had a population of over 75,000 in 1930, and there was testimony that on Saturday nights in an hour's time 26,000 persons passed one of the intersections where the defendants marched. The marchers interfered with the normal sidewalk travel, but no technical breach of the peace occurred. The march was a prearranged affair, and no permit for it was sought, although the defendants understood that under the statute one was required'.
There appears to be no ground for challenging the ruling of the state court that appellants were in fact [312 U.S. 569, 574] engaged in a parade or procession upon the public streets. As the state court observed: 'It was a march in formation, and its advertising and informatory purpose did not make it otherwise. ... It is immaterial that its tactics were few and simple. It is enough that it proceeded in ordered and close file as a collective body of persons on the city streets'.
It was with this view of the limited objective of the statute that the state court considered and defined the duty of the licensing authority and the rights of the appellants to a license for their parade, with regard only to considerations of time, place and manner so as to [312 U.S. 569, 576] conserve the public convenience. The obvious advantage of requiring application for a permit was noted as giving the public authorities notice in advance so as to afford opportunity for proper policing. And the court further observed that, in fixing time and place, the license served 'to prevent confusion by overlapping parades or processions, to secure convenient use of the streets by other travelers, and to minimize the risk of disorder'. But the court held that the licensing board was not vested with arbitrary power or an unfettered discretion; that its discretion must be exercised with 'uniformity of method of treatment upon the facts of each application, free from improper or inappropriate considerations and from unfair discrimination'; that a 'systematic, consistent and just order of treatment, with reference to the convenience of public use of the highways, is the statutory mandate'. The defendants, said the court, 'had a right, under the act, to a license to march when, where and as they did, if after a required investigation it was found that the convenience of the public in the use of the streets would not thereby be unduly disturbed, upon such conditions or changes in time, place and manner as would avoid disturbance'.
There remains the question of license fees which, as the court said, had a permissible range from $300 to a nominal amount. The court construed the Act as requiring 'a reasonable fixing of the amount of the fee'. 'The [312 U.S. 569, 577] charge', said the court, 'for a circus parade or a celebration procession of length, each drawing crowds of observers, would take into account the greater public expense of policing the spectacle, compared with the slight expense of a less expansive and attractive parade or procession, to which the charge would be adjusted'. The fee was held to be 'not a revenue tax, but one to meet the expense incident to the administration of the act and to the maintenance of public order in the matter licensed'. There is nothing contrary to the Constitution in the charge of a fee limited to the purpose stated. The suggestion that a flat fee should have been charged fails to take account of the difficulty of framing a fair schedule to meet all circumstances, and we perceive no constitutional ground for denying to local governments that flexibility of adjustment of fees which in the light of varying conditions would tend to conserve rather than impair the liberty sought.
The decisions upon which appellants rely are not applicable. In Lovell v. Griffin, supra, the ordinance prohibited the distribution of literature of any kind at any time, at any place, and in any manner without a permit from the city manager, thus striking at the very foundation of the freedom of the press by subjecting it to license and censorship. In Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization, supra ( 307 U.S. 496 , 59 S.Ct. 964), the ordinance dealt with the exercise of the right of assembly for the purpose of communicating views; it did not make comfort or convenience in the use of streets the standard of official action but enabled the local official absolutely to refuse a permit on his mere opinion that such refusal would prevent 'riots, disturbances or disorderly assemblage'. The ordi- [312 U.S. 569, 578] nance thus created, as the record disclosed, an instrument of arbitrary suppression of opinions on public questions. The court said that 'uncontrolled official suppression of the privilege cannot be made a substitute for the duty to maintain order in connection with the exercise of the right'. In Schneider v. State, supra, 308 U.S., page 163, 60 S.Ct. page 151, the ordinance was directed at canvassing and banned unlicensed communication of any views, or the advocacy of any cause, from door to door, subject only to the power of a police officer to determine as a censor what literature might be distributed and who might distribute it. In Cantwell v. Connecticut, supra, 310 U.S., page 305, 60 S. Ct. page 904, 128 A.L.R. 1352, the statute dealt with the solicitation of funds for religious causes and authorized an official to determine whether the cause was a religious one and to refuse a permit if he determined it was not, thus establishing a censorship of religion.
Nor is any question of peaceful picketing here involved, as in Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U.S. 88 , 60 S.Ct. 736, and Carlson v. People of California, 310 U.S. 106 , 60 S.Ct. 746. The statute, as the state court said, is not aimed at any restraint of freedom of speech, and there is no basis for an assumption that it would be applied so as to prevent peaceful picketing as described in the cases cited.

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