Source: https://www.chanrobles.com/usa/us_supremecourt/339/382/case.php
Timestamp: 2020-03-29 16:03:49
Document Index: 470098292

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 9', '§ 9', '§ 9', '§ 9', '§ 9', '§ 9', '§ 9', '§ 9', '§ 9', '§ 9', '§ 9', '§ 9', '§ 9', '§ 9', '§ 9', '§ 35', '§ 1001', '§ 9', '§ 9', '§ 9', '§ 9', '§ 9']

3. The remedy provided by § 9(h) bears reasonable relation to the evil which it was designed to reach, since Congress might reasonably find that Communists, unlike members of other political parties, and persons who believe in the overthrow of the Government by force, unlike persons of other beliefs, represent a continuing danger of disruptive political strikes when they hold positions of union leadership. Pp. 339 U. S. 390-393. chanrobles.com-red
No. 10. Although the officers of appellant union had not filed with the National Labor Relations Board the affidavit prescribed by § 9(h) of the National Labor chanrobles.com-red
No. 13. On an unfair labor practice complaint filed with the National Labor Relations Board by petitioner unions, the Board found that the employer had violated the National Labor Relations Act in refusing to bargain on the subject of pensions; but the Board postponed the effective date of its order compelling the employer to bargain, pending the unions' compliance with § 9(h). 77 N.L.R.B. 1. The Court of Appeals sustained the Board's action on both counts. 170 F.2d 247. This Court denied certiorari on the pension issue, 336 U.S. 960, but granted certiorari on an issue regarding the constitutionality of § 9(h). 335 U.S. 910. Affirmed, p. 339 U. S. 415. chanrobles.com-red
No. 13 is the outcome of an unfair labor practice complaint filed with the Board by petitioner unions. The Board found that Inland Steel Company had violated the Labor Relations Act in refusing to bargain on the subject of pensions. 77 N.L.R.B. 1 (1948). But the Board postponed the effective date of its order compelling the company to bargain, pending the unions' compliance with § 9(h). Both sides appealed: the company urged that the Act had been misinterpreted; the unions contended that § 9(h) was unconstitutional, and therefore an invalid condition of a Board order. When the court below upheld the Board on both counts, 170 F.2d 247 (1948), with one judge dissenting as to § 9(h), both sides filed petitions for certiorari. We denied the petition pertain chanrobles.com-red
No useful purpose would be served by setting out at length the evidence before Congress relating to the problem chanrobles.com-red
Neither contention states the problem with complete accuracy. It cannot be denied that the practical effect of denial of access to the Board and the denial of a place on the ballot in representation proceedings is not merely to withhold benefits granted by the Government, but to impose upon noncomplying unions a number of restrictions which would not exist if the Board had not been chanrobles.com-red
There can be no doubt that Congress may, under its constitutional power to regulate commerce among the several States, attempt to prevent political strikes and other kinds of direct action designed to burden and interrupt the free flow of commerce. We think it is clear, in addition, that the remedy provided by § 9(h) bears reasonable chanrobles.com-red
The fact that the statute identifies persons by their political affiliations and beliefs, which are circumstances ordinarily irrelevant to permissible subjects of government action, does not lead to the conclusion that such circumstances are never relevant. In re Summers, 325 U. S. 561 (1945); Hamilton v. Regents, 293 U. S. 245 (1934). We have held that aliens may be barred from certain occupations because of a reasonable relation between that classification and the apprehended evil, Clarke v. Deckebach, 274 U. S. 392 (1927); Pearl Assurance Co. v. Harrington, 313 U.S. 549 (1941), even though the Constitution forbids arbitrary banning of aliens from the pursuit of lawful occupations. Truax v. Raich, 239 U. S. 33 (1915); Takahashi v. Fish and Game Commission, 334 U. S. 410 (1948). Even distinctions based solely on ancestry, which we declared "are, by their very nature, odious to a free people," have been upheld under the unusual circumstances of wartime. Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U. S. 81 (1943). [Footnote 7] If accidents of birth and ancestry under some circumstances justify an inference concerning future conduct, it can hardly be doubted that voluntary affiliations and beliefs justify a similar inference when drawn by the legislature on the basis of its investigations. chanrobles.com-red
If no more were involved than possible loss of position, the foregoing would dispose of the case. But the more chanrobles.com-red
The unions contend that, once it is determined that this is a free speech case, the "clear and present danger" test must apply. See Schenck v. United States, 249 U. S. 47 (1919). But they disagree as to how it should be applied. Appellant in No. 10 would require that joining the Communist Party or the expression of belief in overthrow of the Government by force be shown to be a clear and present danger of some substantive evil, since those are the doctrines affected by the statute. Petitioner chanrobles.com-red
Although the First Amendment provides that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, press or assembly, it has long been established that those freedoms themselves are dependent upon the power of constitutional government to survive. If it is to survive it must have power to protect itself against unlawful conduct and, under some circumstances, against incitements to commit unlawful acts. Freedom of speech thus does not comprehend the right to speak on any subject at any time. The important question that came to this Court immediately after the First World War was not whether, but how far, the First Amendment permits the suppression of speech which advocates conduct inimical chanrobles.com-red
Mr. Justice Brandeis, concurring in Whitney v. California, 274 U. S. 357, 274 U. S. 373. By this means, they sought to convey the philosophy that, under the First Amendment, the public has a right to every man's views, and every man the right to speak them. Government may cut him off only when his views are no longer merely views, but threaten, clearly and imminently, to ripen into conduct against which the public has a right to protect itself. chanrobles.com-red
But the question with which we are here faced is not the same one that Justices Holmes and Brandeis found convenient to consider in terms of clear and present danger. Government's interest here is not in preventing the dissemination of Communist doctrine or the holding of particular beliefs because it is feared that unlawful action will result therefrom if free speech is practiced. Its interest is in protecting the free flow of commerce from what Congress considers to be substantial evils of conduct that are not the products of speech at all. Section 9(h), in other words, does not interfere with speech because Congress fears the consequences of speech; it regulates harmful conduct which Congress has determined is carried on by persons who may be identified by their political affiliations and beliefs. The Board does not contend that political strikes, the substantive evil at which § 9(h) is aimed, are the present or impending products of advocacy of the doctrines of Communism or the expression of belief in overthrow of the Government by force. On the contrary, it points out that such strikes are called by persons who, so Congress has found, have the will and power to do so without advocacy or persuasion that seeks acceptance in the competition of the market. [Footnote 11] Speech may be fought with speech. Falsehoods and fallacies must be exposed, not suppressed, unless there is not sufficient time to avert the evil consequences of noxious doctrine by argument and education. That is the command of the First Amendment. But force may and must be met with force. Section 9(h) is designed to protect the public not against what Communists and others identified therein advocate or believe, but against what Congress has concluded they have done and are likely to do again. chanrobles.com-red
So far as the Schenck case itself is concerned, imminent danger of any substantive evil that Congress may prevent justifies the restriction of speech. Since that time, this Court has decided that, however great the likelihood that a substantive evil will result, restrictions on speech and press cannot be sustained unless the evil itself is "substantial" and "relatively serious," Brandeis, J., concurring in Whitney v. California, supra, at 274 U. S. 374, 274 U. S. 377, or sometimes "extremely serious," Bridges v. California, 314 U. S. 252, 314 U. S. 263 (1941). And it follows therefrom that even harmful conduct cannot justify restrictions upon speech unless substantial interests of society are at stake. But, in suggesting that the substantive evil must be serious and substantial, it was never the intention of this Court to lay down an absolutist test measured in terms of danger to the Nation. When the effect of a statute or ordinance upon the exercise of First Amendment freedoms is relatively small and the public interest to be protected is substantial, it is obvious that a rigid test requiring a showing of imminent danger to the security of the Nation is an absurdity. We recently dismissed for want of substantiality chanrobles.com-red
On the contrary, however, the right of the public to be protected from evils of conduct, even though First Amendment rights of persons or groups are thereby in some manner infringed, has received frequent and consistent recognition by this Court. We have noted that the blaring sound truck invades the privacy of the home, and may drown out others who wish to be heard. Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U. S. 77 (1949). The unauthorized parade through city streets by a religious or political group disrupts traffic and may prevent the discharge of the most essential obligations of local government. Cox v. New Hampshire, 312 U. S. 569, 312 U. S. 574 (1941). The exercise of particular First Amendment rights may fly in the face of the public interest in the health of children, Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U. S. 158 (1944), or of the whole community, Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 11 (1905), and it may be offensive to the moral standards of the community, Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145 (1878); Davis v. Beason, 133 U. S. 333 (1890). And Government's obligation to provide an efficient public service, United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U. S. 75 (1947), and its interest in the character of members of the bar, In re Summers, 325 U. S. 561 (1945), sometimes admit of limitations upon rights set out in the First Amendment. @And see 336 U. S. 499-501 (1949). We have never held that such freedoms are absolute. The reason is plain. As Mr. Chief Justice Hughes put it,
On the other hand, legitimate attempts to protect the public not from the remote possible effects of noxious ideologies, but from present excesses of direct, active conduct, are not presumptively bad because they interfere with and, in some of its manifestations, restrain the exercise of First Amendment rights. Reynolds v. United States, supra; Prince v. Massachusetts, supra; Cox v. chanrobles.com-red
It should be emphasized that Congress, not the courts, is primarily charged with determination of the need for regulation of activities affecting interstate commerce. This Court must, if such regulation unduly infringes personal freedoms, declare the statute invalid under the First Amendment's command that the opportunities for free public discussion be maintained. But insofar as the problem is one of drawing inferences concerning the need for regulation of particular forms of conduct from conflicting evidence, this Court is in no position to substitute its judgment as to the necessity or desirability of the statute chanrobles.com-red
When compared with ordinances and regulations dealing with littering of the streets or disturbance of householders by itinerant preachers, the relative significance and complexity of the problem of political strikes and how to deal with their leaders becomes at once apparent. It must be remembered that § 9(h) is not an isolated statute dealing with a subject divorced from the problems of labor peace generally. It is a part of some very complex machinery set up by the Federal Government for the purpose of encouraging the peaceful settlement of labor disputes. Under the statutory scheme, unions which become collective bargaining representatives for groups of employees often represent not only members of the union, but nonunion workers or members of other unions as well. Because of the necessity to have strong unions to bargain on equal terms with strong employers, individual employees are required by law to sacrifice rights which, in some cases, are valuable to them. See J. I. Case Co. v. Labor Board, 321 U. S. 332 (1944). The loss of individual rights for the greater benefit of the group results in a tremendous increase in the power of the representative of the group -- the union. But power is never without responsibility. And when authority derives in part from Government's thumb on the scales, the exercise of that lower by private persons becomes closely akin, in some respects, to its exercise by Government itself. chanrobles.com-red
But we have here no statute which is either frankly aimed at the suppression of dangerous ideas, [Footnote 16] nor one chanrobles.com-red
which, although ostensibly aimed at the regulation of conduct, may actually "be made the instrument of arbitrary suppression of free expression of views." Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization, 307 U. S. 496, 307 U. S. 516 (1939). [Footnote 17] There are here involved none of the elements of censorship or prohibition of the dissemination of information that were present in the cases mainly relied upon by those attacking the statute. [Footnote 18] The "discouragements" of § 9(h) proceed, not against the groups or beliefs identified therein, but only against the combination of chanrobles.com-red
We have previously had occasion to consider other statutes and regulations in which the interests involved were, in large measure, like those now being considered. In United Public Workers v. Mitchell, supra, we upheld chanrobles.com-red
Similarly, in In re Summers, supra, we upheld the refusal of a state supreme court to admit to membership of its bar an otherwise qualified person on the sole ground that he had conscientious scruples against war, and would not use force to prevent wrong under any circumstances. Since he could not, so the justices of the state court found, swear in good faith to uphold the state constitution, which requires service in the militia in time of war, we held that refusal to permit him to practice law did not violate the First Amendment, as its commands are incorporated in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Again, the relation between the obligations of membership in the bar and service required by the state in time of war, the limited effect of the state's holding upon speech and assembly, and the strong interest which every state court has in the persons who become officers of the court were thought sufficient to justify the state action. See also Hamilton v. Regents, supra. chanrobles.com-red
Previous discussion has considered the constitutional questions raised by § 9(h) as they apply alike to members of the Communist Party and affiliated organizations and to persons who believe in overthrow of the Government by force. The breadth of the provision concerning belief in overthrow of the Government by force would raise additional questions, however, if it were read chanrobles.com-red
to apply to persons and organizations who believe in violent overthrow of the Government as it presently exists under the Constitution as an objective, not merely a prophecy. Congress might well find that such persons -- those who believe that the present form of the Government of the United States should be changed by force or other illegal methods -- would carry that objective into their conduct of union affairs by calling political strikes designed to weaken and divide the American people, whether they consider actual overthrow of the Government to be near or distant. It is to those persons that § 9(h) is intended to apply, and only to them. We hold, therefore, that the belief identified in § 9(h) is a belief in the objective of overthrow by force or by any illegal or unconstitutional chanrobles.com-red
If the principle that one may under no circumstances be required to state his beliefs on any subject nor suffer the loss of any right or privilege because of his beliefs be a valid one, its application in other possible situations becomes relevant. Suppose, for example, that a federal statute provides that no person may become a member of the Secret Service force assigned to protect the President unless he swears that he does not believe in assassination chanrobles.com-red
Second, the public interest at stake in ascertaining one's beliefs cannot automatically be assigned at zero without consideration of the circumstances of the inquiry. If it is admitted that beliefs are springs to action, it becomes highly relevant whether the person who is asked whether he believes in overthrow of the Government by force is a general with five hundred thousand men at his command or a village constable. To argue that, because the latter chanrobles.com-red
post, p. 339 U. S. 438, is that that result does not follow "while this Court sits." [Footnote 20] The circumstances giving rise to the inquiry, then, are likewise factors to be weighed by the courts, giving due weight, of course, to the congressional judgment concerning the need. In short, the problem of balancing the conflicting individual and national interests involved is no different from the problem presented by proscriptions based upon political affiliations. Insofar as a distinction between beliefs and political affiliations is based upon absence of any "overt act" in the former case, it is relevant, if at all, in connection with problems of proof. In proving that one swore falsely chanrobles.com-red
Considering the circumstances surrounding the problem -- the deference due the congressional judgment concerning the need for regulation of conduct affecting interstate commerce and the effect of the statute upon rights of speech, assembly and belief -- we conclude that § 9(h) chanrobles.com-red
The only criminal punishment specified is the application of § 35(A) of the Criminal Code, 18 U.S.C. § 1001, which covers only those false statements made chanrobles.com-red
The unions' argument as to bill of attainder cites the familiar cases, United States v. Lovett, 328 U. S. 303 (1946); Ex parte Garland, 4 Wall. 333 (1867); Cummings v. Missouri, 4 Wall. 277 (1867). Those cases and this also, according to the argument, involve the proscription of certain occupations to a group classified according to belief and loyalty. But there is a decisive distinction: in the previous decisions, the individuals involved were, in fact, being punished for past actions, whereas, in this case, they are subject to possible loss of position only because there is substantial ground for the congressional judgment that their beliefs and loyalties will be transformed into future conduct. Of course, the history of the past conduct is the foundation for the judgment as to what chanrobles.com-red
It is obvious that not all oaths were abolished; the mere fact that § 9(h) is in oath form hardly rises to the stature of a constitutional objection. All that was forbidden was a "religious Test." We do not think that the oath chanrobles.com-red
"In 308 U. S. 163) 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 310 U. S. 305), 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."
"Scarcely any political question arises in the United States," observed the perceptive de Tocqueville as early as 1835, "that is not resolved, sooner or later, into a judicial question." 1 Democracy in America 280 (Bradley ed.1948). And so it was to be expected that the conflict of political ideas now dividing the world more pervasively than any since this nation was founded would give rise to controversies for adjudication by this Court. chanrobles.com-red
The central problem presented by the enactment now challenged is the power of Congress, as part of its comprehensive scheme for industrial peace, to keep Communists out of controlling positions in labor unions as a condition to utilizing the opportunities afforded by the National Labor Relations Act, as amended by the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947. [Footnote 2/1] Wrapped up chanrobles.com-red
Thus, stated, it would make undue inroads upon the policymaking power of Congress to deny it the right to protect the industrial peace of the country by excluding from leadership in trade unions which seek to avail themselves of the machinery of the Labor Management Relations Act those who are united for action against our democratic process. This is so not because Congress, in affording a facility, can subject it to any condition it pleases. It cannot. Congress may withhold all sorts of facilities for a better life, but if it affords them, it cannot make them available in an obviously arbitrary way or exact surrender of freedoms unrelated to the purpose of the facilities. Congress surely can provide for certain clearly relevant qualifications of responsibility on the part of leaders of trade unions invoking the machinery of the Labor Management Relations Act. The essential question now is whether Congress may determine that membership of union officers in the Communist Party creates such an obvious hazard to the peace-promoting purposes of the Act that access to the machinery chanrobles.com-red
Congress was concerned with what it justifiably deemed to be the disorganizing purposes of Communists who hold positions of official power in labor unions, or, at the least, what it might well deem their lack of disinterested devotion to the basic tenets of the American trade union movement because of a higher loyalty to a potentially conflicting cause. But Congress did not choose merely to limit the freedom of labor unions which seek the advantages of the Labor Management Relations Act to chanrobles.com-red
In my view, Congress has cast its net too indiscriminately in some of the provisions of § 9(h). To ask chanrobles.com-red
It is not merely the hazard of prosecution for perjury that is dependent on a correct determination as to the implications of a man's belief or the belief of others with whom he may be associated in an organization concerned with political and social issues. It should not be assumed that oaths will be lightly taken; fastidiously scrupulous regard for them should be encouraged. Therefore, it becomes most relevant whether an oath which Congress asks men to take may or may not be thought to touch chanrobles.com-red
If I possibly could, to avoid questions of unconstitutionality, I would construe the requirements of § 9(h) to be restricted to disavowal of actual membership in the Communist Party, or in an organization that is, in fact, a controlled cover for that Party or of active belief, chanrobles.com-red
The answer, for me, is in the decisive differences between the Communist Party and every other party of any importance in the long experience of the United States with party government. In order that today's decision may not be useful as a precedent for suppression of any chanrobles.com-red
To state controlling criteria definitively is both important and difficult, because those Communist Party activities visible to the public closely resemble those of any other party. Parties, whether in office or out, are often irresponsible in their use and abuse of freedoms of speech and press. They all make scapegoats of unpopular persons or classes and make promises of dubious sincerity or feasibility in order to win votes. All parties, when in opposition, strive to discredit and embarrass the Government of the day by spreading exaggerations and untruths and by inciting prejudiced or unreasoning discontent, not even hesitating to injure the Nation's prestige among the family of nations. The Communist Party, at least outwardly, only exaggerates these well worn political techniques, and many persons are thus led to think of it as just another more radical political party. If it were nothing but that, I think this legislation would be unconstitutional. There are, however, contradictions between what meets the eye and what is covertly done which, in my view of the issues, provide a rational basis upon which Congress reasonably could have concluded [Footnote 3/1] that the Communist Party is something different, in fact, from any other substantial party we have known, and hence may constitutionally be treated as something different in law. chanrobles.com-red
From information before its several Committees and from facts of general knowledge, Congress could rationally conclude that, behind its political party facade, the Communist Party is a conspiratorial and revolutionary junta, organized to reach ends and to use methods which are incompatible with our constitutional system. A rough and compressed grouping of this data [Footnote 3/2] would permit Congress to draw these important conclusions as to its distinguishing characteristics. chanrobles.com-red
Goals so extreme and offensive to American tradition and aspiration obviously could not be attained or approached through order or with tranquility. If, by their better organization and discipline, they were successful, more candid Communists admit that it would be to an chanrobles.com-red
Such goals set up a cleavage among us too fundamental to be composed by democratic processes. Our constitutional scheme of elections will not settle issues between large groups when the price of losing is to suffer extinction. When dissensions cut too deeply, men will fight, even hopelessly, before they will submit. [Footnote 3/3] And this is the kind of struggle projected by the Communist Party and inherent in its program. chanrobles.com-red
By lineage and composition, the Communist Party will remain peculiarly susceptible to this alien control. The entire apparatus of Communism -- its grievances, program, propaganda and vocabulary -- were evolved for Eastern and Central Europe, whose social and political conditions bear no semblance to our own. However gifted may have been the Communist Party's founders and leaders -- Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin -- not one of them ever lived in America, experienced our conditions, or imbibed the spirit of our institutions. The Communist chanrobles.com-red
The Old World may be rich in lessons which our statesmen could consult with advantage. But it is one thing to learn from or support a foreign power because that policy serves American interests, and another thing to support American policies because they will serve foreign interests. [Footnote 3/4] In each country where the Communists have seized control, they have so denationalized its foreign policy as to make it a satellite and vassal of the Soviet Union and enforced a domestic policy in complete conformity with the Soviet pattern, tolerating no deviation in deference to any people's separate history, tradition or national interests. chanrobles.com-red
The American Communists have imported the totalitarian organization's disciplines and techniques, notwithstanding the fact that this country offers them and other discontented elements a way to peaceful revolution by ballot. [Footnote 3/5] If they can persuade enough citizens, they may not only name new officials and inaugurate new policies, but, by amendment of the Constitution, they can abolish the Bill of Rights and set up an absolute government by legal methods. They are given liberties of speech, press and assembly to enable them to present to the people their proposals and propaganda for peaceful and lawful changes, however extreme. But instead of resting their case upon persuasion and any appeal inherent in their ideas and principles, the Communist Party adopts the techniques of a secret cabal -- false names, forged passports, code messages, clandestine meetings. To these it adds occasional terroristic and threatening methods, chanrobles.com-red
4. The Communist Party has sought to gain this leverage and hold on the American population by acquiring control of the labor movement. All political parties have wooed labor and its leaders. But what other parties seek is principally the vote of labor. The Communist Party, on the other hand, is not primarily interested in labor's vote, for it does not expect to win by votes. It strives for control of labor's coercive power -- the strike, the sit-down, the slow-down, sabotage, or other means of producing industrial paralysis. Congress has legalized the strike as labor's weapon for improving its own lot. But where Communists have labor control, the strike can be, and sometimes is, perverted to a party weapon. In 1940 and 1941, undisclosed Communists used their labor offices to sabotage this Nation's effort to rebuild its own defenses. Disguised as leaders of free American labor, they were in truth secret partisans of Stalin, who, in partnership with Hitler, was overrunning Europe, sending honest labor leaders to concentration camps, and reducing labor to slavery in every land either of them was able to occupy. No other important political party in our history has attempted to use the strike to nullify a foreign or a domestic policy adopted by those chosen under our representative system. chanrobles.com-red
5. Every member of the Communist Party is an agent to execute the Communist program. What constitutes a party? Major political parties in the United States have never been closely knit or secret organizations. Anyone who usually votes the party ticket is reckoned a member, although he has not applied for or been admitted to membership, pays no dues, has taken no pledge, and is free to vote, speak and act as he wills. Followers are held together by rather casual acceptance of general principles, the influence of leaders, and sometimes by the cohesive power of patronage. Membership in the party carries with it little assurance that the member understands or believes in its principles, and none at all that he will take orders from its leaders. One may quarrel with the party and bolt its candidates, and return chanrobles.com-red
Inferences from membership in such an organization are justifiably different from those to be drawn from membership in the usual type of political party. Individuals who assume such obligations are chargeable, on ordinary conspiracy principles, with responsibility for and participation in all that makes up the Party's program. The conspiracy principle has traditionally been employed to protect society against all "ganging up" or concerted action in violation of its laws. No term passes that this Court does not sustain convictions based on that doctrine for violations of the antitrust laws or other statutes. [Footnote 3/6] chanrobles.com-red
Congress has conferred upon labor unions important rights and powers in matters that affect industry, transport, chanrobles.com-red
I am aware that the oath is resented by many labor leaders of unquestioned loyalty and above suspicion of Communist connections, indeed by some who have themselves taken bold and difficult steps to rid the labor movement of Communists. I suppose no one likes to be compelled to exonerate himself from connections he has never chanrobles.com-red
Congress has, however, required an additional disclaimer which, in my view, does encounter serious constitutional objections. A union officer must also swear that "he does not believe in . . . the overthrow of the United States Government by force or by any illegal or unconstitutional methods." [Footnote 3/8] chanrobles.com-red
That this difference is decisive on the question of power becomes unmistakable when we consider measures of enforcement. The only sanction prescribed, and probably the only one possible in dealing with a false affidavit, is punishment for perjury. If one is accused of falsely stating that he was not a member of, or affiliated with, the Communist Party, his conviction would depend upon proof of visible and knowable overt acts or courses of conduct sufficient to establish that relationship. But if one is accused of falsely swearing that he did not believe chanrobles.com-red
Our Constitution explicitly precludes punishment of the malignant mental state alone as treason, most serious of all political crimes, of which the mental state of adherence to the enemy is an essential part. It requires a duly witnessed overt act of aid and comfort to the enemy. Cramer v. United States, 325 U. S. 1. It is true that, in England of olden times, men were tried for treason for mental indiscretions such as imagining the death of the king. But our Constitution was intended to end such prosecutions. Only in the darkest periods of human history chanrobles.com-red
These suggestions may be discounted as fanciful and far-fetched. But we must not forget that in our country are evangelists and zealots of many different political, economic and religious persuasions whose fanatical conviction is that all thought is divinely classified into two kinds -- that which is their own and that which is false and dangerous. Communists are not the only faction which would put us all in mental straitjackets. Indeed, all ideological struggles, religious or political, are primarily battles for dominance over the minds of people. It is not to be supposed that the age-old readiness to chanrobles.com-red
The men who led the struggle forcibly to overthrow lawfully constituted British authority found moral support by asserting a natural law under which their revolution was justified, and they broadly proclaimed these beliefs in the document basic to our freedom. Such sentiments have also been given ardent and rather extravagant chanrobles.com-red
expression by Americans of undoubted patriotism. [Footnote 3/12] Most of these utterances were directed against a tyranny which left no way to change by suffrage. It seems to me a perversion of their meaning to quote them, as the Communists often do, to sanction violent attacks upon a representative government which does afford such means. But while I think Congress may make it a crime chanrobles.com-red
to take one overt step to use or to incite violence or force against our Government, I do not see how, in the light of our history, a mere belief that one has a natural right under some circumstances to do so can subject an American citizen to prejudice any more than possession of any other erroneous belief. Can we say that men of our time must not even think about the propositions on chanrobles.com-red
Progress generally begins in skepticism about accepted truths. Intellectual freedom means the right to reexamine much that has been long taken for granted. A free man must be a reasoning man, and he must dare to doubt what a legislative or electoral majority may most passionately assert. The danger that citizens will think wrongly is serious, but less dangerous than atrophy from not thinking at all. Our Constitution relies on our electorate's complete ideological freedom to nourish independent and responsible intelligence and preserve our democracy from that submissiveness, timidity and herd-mindedness of the masses which would foster a tyranny of mediocrity. The priceless heritage of our society is the unrestricted constitutional right of each member to think as he will. Thought control is a copyright of totalitarianism, and we have no claim to it. It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the chanrobles.com-red
I adhere to views I have heretofore expressed, whether the Court agreed, West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624, or disagreed, see dissenting opinion in United States v. Ballard, 322 U. S. 78, 322 U. S. 92, that our Constitution excludes both general and local governments from the realm of opinions and ideas, beliefs and doubts, heresy and orthodoxy, political, religious or scientific. The right to speak out, or to publish, also chanrobles.com-red
I think that, under our system, it is time enough for the law to lay hold of the citizen when he acts illegally, or in some rare circumstances when his thoughts are given illegal utterance. I think we must let his mind alone. [Footnote 3/14] chanrobles.com-red
It is unnecessary to set out a comprehensive compendium of the materials which Congress may or could have considered, or to review the voluminous evidence before its several Committees, much of which is already referred to in the Court's opinion. Most of this information would be of doubtful admissibility or credibility in a judicial proceeding. Its persuasiveness, validity and credibility for Legislative purposes are for Congress, see 339 U. S. 1, supra. I intimate no opinion as to its sufficiency for purposes of a criminal trial.
But people can be, and, in less democratic countries, have chanrobles.com-red
Since § 9(h) was passed to exclude certain beliefs from one arena of the national economy, it was quite natural chanrobles.com-red
to utilize the test oath as a weapon. History attests the efficacy of that instrument for inflicting penalties and disabilities on obnoxious minorities. It was one of the major devices used against the Huguenots in France, and against "heretics" during the Spanish Inquisition. It helped English rulers identify and outlaw Catholics, Quakers, Baptists, and Congregationalists -- groups considered dangerous for political as well as religious reasons. [Footnote 4/3] And wherever the test oath was in vogue, spies and informers found rewards far more tempting than truth. [Footnote 4/4] Painful awareness of the evils of thought espionage made chanrobles.com-red
But not the least of the virtues of the First Amendment is its protection of each member of the smallest and most unorthodox minority. Centuries of experience testify that laws aimed at one political or religious group, however rational these laws may be in their beginnings, generate hatreds and prejudices which rapidly spread beyond control. Too often it is fear which inspires such passions, and nothing is more reckless or contagious. In the resulting hysteria, popular indignation tars with the same brush chanrobles.com-red
Today the "political affiliation" happens to be the Communist Party: testimony of an ex-Communist that some Communist union officers had called "political chanrobles.com-red
It is indicated, although the opinion is not thus limited and is based on threats to commerce, rather than to national security, that members of the Communist Party or its "affiliates" can be individually attainted without danger to others because there is some evidence that, as a group, they act in obedience to the commands of a foreign power. This was the precise reason given in Sixteenth Century England for attainting all Catholics unless they subscribed to test oaths wholly incompatible with their chanrobles.com-red
religion. [Footnote 4/7] Yet, in the hour of crisis, an overwhelming majority of the English Catholics thus persecuted rallied loyally to defend their homeland against Spain and its Catholic troops. [Footnote 4/8] And in our own country, Jefferson and his followers were earnestly accused of subversive allegiance to France. [Footnote 4/9] At the time, imposition of civil disability on all members of his political party must have seemed at least as desirable as does § 9(h) today. For at stake, so many believed, was the survival of a newly founded nation, not merely a few potential interruptions of commerce by strikes "political", rather than economic, in origin. chanrobles.com-red
These experiences underline the wisdom of the basic constitutional precept that penalties should be imposed only for a person's own conduct, not for his beliefs or for the conduct of others with whom he may associate. Guilt should not be imputed solely from association or affiliation with political parties or any other organization, however much we abhor the ideas which they advocate. Schneiderman v. United States, 320 U. S. 118, 320 U. S. 136-139. [Footnote 4/10] Like anyone else, individual Communists who commit overt acts in violation of valid laws can and should be punished. But the postulate of the First Amendment is that our free institutions can be maintained without proscribing or penalizing political belief, speech, press, assembly, or party affiliation. [Footnote 4/11] This is a far bolder philosophy chanrobles.com-red
As for the political motivations and objectives of these statutes, see, e.g., the declaration of purpose in 35 Eliz. c. 2, quoted in 339 U. S. @
See 339 U. S. @ And see the comment on such legislation in 2 Hallam, The Constitutional History of England 473 (London, 1829):
As is evidenced by the statute quoted in 339 U. S. @ the test oaths, the drastic restrictions and the punishment imposed on Catholics were