Opinion ID: 1494037
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Showdown with Hague.

Text: Carney added: Our plans for a showdown between CIO and I-Am-The-Law-Hague have been completed. We will go to Jersey City to organize in a peaceful manner. Whether this will be possible in the face of denials of civil rights in that city I am unable to say at this time. Workers in Hudson County have even been denied the right to strike. Police of Jersey City have tried to stop picketing without a court injunction, so easily obtained in Hudson County. When our organizers enter Jersey City they are stopped by police, threatened and searched. The contents of their cars are strewn over the highway. At our organization meetings police even threaten the workers wot attend. Hague has gotten away with this too long. The Acts of various Jersey City officials may very well come within the scope of prosecution and indictment by the Federal Government. Various acts committed by Jersey City officials are crimes under the United States Criminal Code, punishable by a heavy fine and imprisonment up to ten years. Section 51 of the code [18 U.S.C.A. § 51] prohibits conspiracy to injure persons in exercise of civil rights. Section 7 of the Wagner Act [29 U.S.C.A. § 157] says employees shall have the right to join or assist labor organizations and to engage in concerted activities for mutual aid and protection. Hague may be the law in Jersey City, but he is not the law of the country. The plaintiffs now say that these accounts were only headlines and no such numbers invaded Jersey City as the papers stated. However that may be, it might be pertinent to ask who was responsible for the headlines and statements, for such papers as the Newark Evening News are not in the habit of publishing unreliable information and the Director did not and could not know what was going to happen for it evidently was not he who informed the newspapers of the reported invasion. He was justified in believing and seriously considering what such newspapers said. The newspapers circulated in Jersey City at this time carried pictures of Norman Thomas and other socialists and communists at the May Day Celebration in New York City giving the communistic clenched-fist salute and singing the Internationale. These things show only in part what was going on in and about Jersey City. All of this had the tendency to excite and doubtless did excite, incite and inflame the people of Jersey City and especially the veterans. The Director had a serious situation with which to contend. The responsibility rested upon him. He was urged on every hand to refuse the permit under threatened violence. Finally after investigating the facts and circumstances pertinent to the application, he wrote the following letter, on December 30, 1937, to the attorney of the plaintiffs refusing the permit: Department of Public Safety City Hall Jersey City, N. J. December 30, 1937 Spaulding Frazer, Esq., 744 Broad Street, Newark, New Jersey Dear sir: I hereby answer your letter of December 23, 1937, addressed to me as Director of Public Safety, in which you make application for a permit to hold an open air meeting in Jersey City, which meeting will, according to you, be addressed by Congressman Jerry O'Connell, Roger N. Baldwin, William J. Carney, Al. Barkin, Sam Macri and John Kiesler. On receipt of your letter, I sent you a communication, dated December 27, 1937, in which I informed you that I would, as required by ordinance, make prompt investigation of all of the facts and circumstances pertinent to your application before deciding whether to grant or refuse the issuance of the permit requested. On the same day, December 27, 1937, I received a communication written on behalf of certain Veterans' organizations of Jersey City, protesting against the granting of a permit to Roger N. Baldwin or to any members of the group he represents, to hold a meeting. The letter demanded that I withhold action on your application. I attach a copy of the Veterans' letter to this communication. On the evening of December 28, 1937, a great mass meeting was held in the Armory at Jersey City, attended by over three thousand persons, all of whom were veterans. At that meeting a resolution of opposition was passed against the granting of the permit. Violent disorder was threatened on the part of the veterans in case the meeting was held. Announcements were made from the floor  and these announcements had the approval of the meeting  that if I should refuse to honor the Veterans' protest and grant a permit for the meeting, the Veterans would take the matter into their own hands and see to it that the meeting would be broken up. I refer you to copies of the local papers of Jersey City, which give an account of this meeting. I also enclose a copy of the resolution passed by the Veterans at the meeting. The Chamber of Commerce, representing the business interest of Jersey City, have gone on record against the granting of this permit. The Central Labor body of Hudson County has gone on record against the granting of this permit. Other bodies of citizens have opposed it, and individuals of influence in the community have protested to me against the holding of the meeting. Other facts and circumstances pertinent to your meeting, in addition to those herein called to your attention, convince me that the granting of the permit you request would lead to riots, disturbances and disorderly assemblage. Therefore, I hereby refuse to issue the permit for an open air meeting requested by you in your letter of December 27, 1937, and my refusal is for the purpose of preventing riots, disturbances and disorderly assemblage. Very truly yours, Daniel Casey, Director The refusal of the permit was a ministerial act on the part of the Director and unless he grossly abused the discretion and authority which the ordinance vested in him, his action should not be reversed and the judgment of the court substituted for his. Gaines v. Thompson, 74 U.S. 347, 7 Wall. 347, 19 L.Ed. 62; Ness v. Fisher, 223 U.S. 683, 32 S.Ct. 356, 56 L.Ed. 610; Louisiana v. McAdoo, 234 U.S. 627, 633, 34 S.Ct. 938, 58 L.Ed. 1506; Work v. U. S. ex rel. Rives, 267 U.S. 175, 183, 45 S.Ct. 252, 69 L.Ed. 561; Proctor & Gamble Co. v. Coe, 68 App.D.C. 246, 96 F.2d 518, 520. The Supreme Court of New Jersey found in the Thomas case, supra, that he had not abused his discretion or authority. Mr. Justice Bodine who wrote the opinion in that case said, The Director of Public Safety knows the temper of the people he serves. He represented Jersey City and if a riot, disturbance or disorderly assemblage had resulted from the granting of the permit the city would have been responsible. The Statute of New Jersey on this subject provides that: Any person who, by reason of mob violence as defined and stated in sections 2:152-1 to 2:152-3 of this title, suffers material damage to his property or injury to his person shall have an action against the city in which such damage is suffered or injury inflicted, or, if not in a city, then against the county in which such damage is suffered or injury inflicted for such damages as he may sustain, to an amount not exceeding five thousand dollars. Revised Statutes of New Jersey, 2:63-10. Under similar statutes or ordinances, municipalities in many states have been held liable for large damages caused by mobs, riots and disorderly assemblages. Right now the Apex Hosiery Company is suing the City of Philadelphia for more than $3,000,000 damages resulting from riots, disturbances or disorderly assemblage. In honestly administering this ordinance, who could say with any degree of certainty that as the result of the issuance of the permit in question, a mob, riot or disorderly assemblage would not have occurred and that considerable damage to persons or property or both would not have been done. Whose judgment under these circumstances was to be followed, the Director's, the District Court's or this court's? The ordinance says the Director's. The Supreme Court of New Jersey said the Director's. The Supreme Court of the United States in the Davis case said the Director's and every other court in the country which has considered the question under similar ordinances and circumstances, has said the Director's and not the court's. I have not forgotten that the plaintiffs charged that the officials of Jersey City influenced and intimidated the owners of private halls against the plaintiffs so that they would not rent them for meetings; and further that they incited and stirred up the various organizations to protest against granting permits for public meetings. All of this the defendants denied. The learned trial judge who saw all the witnesses and was in the atmosphere of the trial for weeks refused to find that the evidence sustained the charge that the officials of Jersey City influenced and intimidated the owners of private halls. He also refused to find that they or any of them had incited or stirred up the people to protest. Yet this court, in effect overruling the learned trial judge, and in the face of the statement of counsel for the plaintiffs, when arguing this case, that Mayor Hague was one of the most honest witnesses he had ever seen on the stand, found that the defendants, notwithstanding the Mayor's denial, endeavored to build up a dangerous situation, one in which sympathizers of the appellees could not safely speak though it had never seen or heard a single witness testify. Thousands of permits, we are told, were issued in the past, but the Director refused to issue a permit to plaintiffs. This alone shows discrimination in the opinion of this court, but this is a non sequitur. The facts and circumstances under which a meeting is to be held determine whether a permit should be issued or refused and whether or not discrimination has been practiced. The Director may grant one permit and refuse another the same day without denying any person the equal protection of the laws as required by the Fourteenth Amendment. If the Director had reasonable grounds to believe that the meeting for which he refused a permit would have resulted in riots, disturbances or disorderly assemblage, or any one of these, and that those meetings for which he granted permits would not, his refusal did not discriminate against any person, or deny to him the equal protection of the laws. We do not have in this case the naked question of the right of free speech or free assembly within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States. The issue here is not primarily free speech at all, but the plaintiffs are seeking to make it such. We have here a number of individuals and organizations which have combined and are masquerading under the flag of free speech as though this were the sole issue. If the primary question here were the maintenance of free speech, the defense of the Constitution of the United States or the principles upon which democracies are founded, can anyone doubt where these protesting organizations  The American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Hudson County American Legion, and others  would stand? Many of these men have risked their very lives in the service of their country, to make democracy safe for the world, to defend free speech, the Constitution of the United States and the principles upon which democracies are built. The defendants contend that the District Court was without jurisdiction in this case. The plaintiffs, on the contrary, say that it has jurisdiction under sections 24 (1) and 24 (14) of the Judicial Code, 28 U.S.C.A. § 41(1, 14). This was averred in paragraphs 6 and 7 of the bill. It is alleged in paragraph 6 that this is a suit of a civil nature, in equity, arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States, in which the amount in controversy exceeds $3,000 exclusive of interest and costs. This allegation was based upon Title 28 U.S.C.A. § 41 (1), Sec. 24 (1) Judicial Code. Did the value of the civil rights of which the plaintiffs alleged they were deprived exceed $3,000, exclusive of interest and costs? There is no allegation as to the value of these rights except the bald statement that they exceed $3,000. Of course, as the majority opinion says, in tort actions, the jury in a proper case, when the damnum is sufficiently laid, may award exemplary damages which may be added to the actual damages suffered in order to make up the jurisdictional amount. Barry v. Edmunds, 116 U.S. 550, 6 S.Ct. 501, 29 L.Ed. 729; Scott v. Donald, 165 U.S. 58, 89, 17 S.Ct. 265, 41 L.Ed. 632. Where the plaintiff in good faith claims the jurisdictional amount in damages, it is sufficient, if not traversed, to give the court jurisdiction. Wiley v. Sinkler, 179 U.S. 58, 21 S.Ct. 17, 45 L.Ed. 84; Smithers v. Smith, 204 U.S. 632, 27 S. Ct. 297, 51 L.Ed. 656. But where the sufficiency of the jurisdictional amount is timely and appropriately challenged, as was done in the case at bar, the plaintiff must support the allegations by competent proof. The burden of establishing the jurisdictional facts is on the plaintiff throughout the litigation. KVOS, Inc., v. Associated Press, 299 U.S. 269, 57 S.Ct. 197, 81 L.Ed. 183. This the plaintiffs did not do. There is not a word showing the pecuniary value of the rights of which they complain they were deprived and the finding of fact as to this value was a mere guess. However, I think that the court had jurisdiction under section 24 (14) of the Judicial Code as this court found. The decree of the District Court should be affirmed as to A. 1, 2, and 3, and B. 1, 2 and 3, but reversed as to B. 4 (a), (b), (c) and (d).