Court Opinion

ID: 9725823
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 12:13:27.388154+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:20.336602
License: Public Domain

NEVILLE, District Judge.
I concur in the action taken by the court since it grants purely temporary relief. Personal disagreement on my part with the philosophy and teachings of Communism obviously does not furnish an answer to the question presented in this lawsuit. Assuming, as I do, the validity and truth of the findings made by Congress and recited in the Communist Control Act of 1954, the court nevertheless is urged by plaintiffs to declare the Act unconstitutional. Congress declared the Communist Party to be “an instrumentality of a conspiracy to overthrow the Government of the United States,” whose policies and programs “are secretly prescribed for it by the foreign leaders of the world Communist movement.” Its existence was found to be “a clear present and continuing danger to the security of the United States” and the statute concludes “Therefore, the Communist Party should be outlawed.” 1 The question of the validity of the Communist Control Act goes to the very bowels of our constitutional framework.
I would prefer to bottom jurisdiction on 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act) and 28 U.S.C. § 1343 rather than on 28 U.S.C. § 1331. Although in voting cases, proof of the monetary value of the denial of the right to vote to one or to many people perhaps can or at least might well be presumed to be worth the jurisdictional $10,000 amount, sections 1983 and 1343 require no financial amount to be involved. It seems clear to me that the Secretary of State here acted “under color of [a] statute” of Minnesota. The action of the Secretary of State determining that a statute permitting filing as a political candidate by petition 2 did not apply, for whatever reason, is acting under color of state law. Failure or refusal to apply a law is as much “action under color of law” as is the reverse. Also I agree that a three-judge court is proper.
I take issue with the court’s opinion insofar as it expresses grave doubts as to the constitutionality of the Communist Control Act. I do not mean to say that it is free from all doubt. Further I believe that the United States Supreme Court, if and when it considers this case, may well conclude that if it permits the Communist Party to be on the ballot little, if anything, will be left of the Communist Control Act. Nevertheless I subscribe to the temporary relief grant*647ed by this court because of the shortness of time, the inability fully to study the problem and all its facets, and the belief that, balancing the equities, less harm results from granting the temporary relief than denying it.
Philosophically in a true democracy the majority should rule and whatever it votes or determines should prevail. Yet inherent in this concept are the seeds of self-destruction. Should the majority vote into power persons who avowedly urge and effect the otherthrow of the present form of government, then no longer is there a democracy or the Republican Form of government guaranteed to the states by the United States Constitution.3 Under the “clear and present danger” test prescribed by Holmes,4 Congress found, or at least expressed the fear, that such might happen.
Philosophers and political scientists have pointed to the “paradox of freedom” and have held to the view that the principle of freedom cannot require that one can make the decision not to be free. It is not freedom to be allowed to destroy freedom.5 It has been said that the best test of truth is the power of thought to get itself accepted in the marketplace. Many contend, however, that a democratic form of government should protect its freedom from those who disbelieve in its theory and would abandon and deny traditional civil liberties.
The court’s opinion herein notes that the Supreme Court has held restrictions on the activities of individual Communists unconstitutional in situations where the statute attempted to prohibit an avowed Communist from working in a defense plant;6 from holding an office in a labor union;7 from obtaining a passport ;8 and in another case where benefits were sought to be denied the Communist Party as an employer under state unemployment laws.9 These cases are, it seems to me, distinguishable, and relate to the movement and civil rights of particular individuals and are quite separate from and not precedent for the question of whether by the ballot we should give our democracy the right by democratic process to vote to destroy itself.
This most difficult question need not be and is not now decided. I feel, however, that while doubts as to constitutionality are not nearly as grave as the court’s opinion would indicate,10 small harm can come from permitting the candidates to be on the ballot for this particular election; whereas if they are ex-*648eluded and the court should be in error in such a decision some persons will have been deprived of their right to be candidates and others of their right to vote for such candidates. Therefore, I concur.

. 50 U.S.C. § 841.

. Minn.Stat. § 202.09.

. U.S.Const. art. IV, § 4.

. Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 52, 39 S.Ct. 247, 63 L.Ed. 470 (1919).

. See Auerbach, The Communist Control Act of 1954, 23 U.CHI.L.RBV. 173 (1956) containing a discussion at 188 et seq. on the freedom to abdicate liberty. A number of writers holding generally to this view are cited and quoted. See also Comment, The Communist Control Act of 1954, 64 YALE L.J. 712, 738 (1955).

. United States v. Robel, 389 U.S. 258, 88 S.Ct. 419, 19 L.Ed.2d 508 (1967).

. United States v. Brown, 381 U.S. 437, 85 S.Ct. 1707, 14 L.Ed.2d 484 (1965).

. Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U.S. 500, 84 S.Ct. 1659, 12 L.Ed.2d 992 (1964).

. Communist Party of U. S. A. v. Catherwood, 367 U.S. 389, 81 S.Ct. 1465, 6 L.Ed.2d 919 (1961).

. Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494, 509, 71 S.Ct. 857, 867, 95 L.Ed. 1137 (1951), wlierein the Court said:
“If Government is aware that a group aiming at its overthrow is attempting to indoctrinate its members and to commit them to a course whereby they will strike when leaders feel the circumstances permit, action by the Government is required.”
But see Communist Party of United States v. Subversive Activities Control Board, 367 U.S. 1 (1961), dissenting opinion of Justice Black at 137, 81 S.Ct. 1357, at 1431, 6 L.Ed.2d 625:
“I do not believe that it can be too often repeated that the freedoms of speech, press, petition and assembly guaranteed by the First Amendment must be accorded to the ideas we hate or sooner or later they will be denied to the ideas we cherish. * * * ”