Court Opinion

ID: 3517338
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2016-07-05 22:28:45.228+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:19:16.820351
License: Public Domain

Teaching that to salute the national flag is an act of idolatry, and that the consequences of such an act is eternal damnation, is a pointed symptom of the disease which lies at the bottom of the subversive and destructive doctrines which this appellant and his co-workers are seeking to spread in our state in this time of war, the result of which means everything to us as a state and nation. We must look behind technical obscurities and to the substance of things. If appellant may maintain the right so to teach among the civilian population, he has the same right to teach it and urge it among the soldiers and marines wherever access may be had to them; and if our soldiers were to refuse to salute the flag wherever unfurled, and particularly when the military regulations require them to do so, then we would have an army and a navy which would be entitled to no respect at home or *Page 62 
abroad; and whoever teaches that which, if followed, would bring our armed forces into such disrespect ought well to be in the penitentiary, as the statute appropriately declares.