Court Opinion

ID: 9422291
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:01:58.32358+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:35.769484
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Frankfurter,
whom Mr. Justice Harlan joins, dissenting.
Appellant unions were the collective bargaining representatives of the “non-operating” employees of the Southern Railway. Appellees, six individual railway employees, commenced this action in the Superior Court of Bibb County, Georgia, seeking a declaration of invalidity and an injunction to prevent enforcement of a union-shop agreement, made under the authority of § 2, Eleventh of the Railway Labor Act, as amended in 1951, on the ground that the contract was in violation of Georgia law and rights secured by the First, Fifth, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments of the United States Constitution. The suit was brought as a class action on behalf of “all those employees or former employees of the railroad defendants affected by and opposed to the union-shop agreement who are also opposed to the use of the periodic dues, fees and assessments which they have been, are and will be required to pay to support ideological and political doctrines and candidates and legislative programs. . . .” The monthly dues ranged from $2.25 to *798$3. The petition alleged that the plaintiffs opposed and were unwilling voluntarily to support the “ideological and political doctrines and candidates” for which union dues and assessments were collected under the union-shop agreement and would be used “in substantial part ... to support.”
The Georgia trial court’s decision dismissing the complaint for failure to state a cause of action was reversed by the Supreme Court of Georgia. 213 Ga. 279, 99 S. E. 2d 101. Upon remand, the parties stipulated the above allegations, and the plaintiffs offered proof of the amount of union funds which went to the legislative, political, and educational departments of the unions and the controlling organs of the AFL-CIO. The trial court made, inter alia, the following findings: the unions’ funds had been expended in “substantial amounts” to promote political doctrines and legislative programs which the plaintiffs opposed; these funds had been used in “substantial amounts to impose upon plaintiffs . . . conformity to those doctrines”; such use of funds was “not reasonably necessary to collective bargaining or to maintaining the existence and position of said union defendants as effective bargaining agents.” The need of unions to engage in what are loosely described as political activities as means of promoting — if not to achieving — the purposes of their existence, the extent to which this practice has become an essential part of the American labor movement and more particularly of railroad labor unions, the relation of these means to the ends of collective bargaining, were matters not canvassed at trial nor judicially noticed. Nor was it claimed that the slightest barrier had been interposed against the fullest exercise by the plaintiffs of their freedom of speech in any form or in any forum. Since these matters were not canvassed, no findings upon them were made.
*799The trial court permanently enjoined enforcement of the agreement so long as the unions continued to engage “in the improper and unlawful activities described.” It declared § 2, Eleventh of the Railway Labor Act unconstitutional insofar as it permitted the exaction of dues utilized in promoting so-called political activities from union members disapproving such expenditures. The unions were also ordered to repay the dues and assessments previously paid by the individual plaintiffs. The Georgia Supreme Court affirmed this judgment, 215 Ga. 27, 108 S. E. 2d 796, and on appeal to this Court, under 28 U. S. C. § 1257 (1), probable jurisdiction was noted. 361 U. S. 807.
I completely defer to the guiding principle that this Court will abstain from entertaining a serious constitutional question when a statute may fairly be construed so as to avoid the issue, but am unable to accept the restrictive interpretation that the Court gives to § 2, Eleventh of the Railway Labor Act. After quoting the relevant canon for constitutional adjudication from United States v. Jin Fuey Moy, 241 U. S. 394, 401,1 Mr. Justice Cardozo for the whole Court enunciated the complementary principle:
“But avoidance of a difficulty will not be pressed to the point of disingenuous evasion. Here the intention of the Congress is revealed too distinctly to permit us to ignore it because of mere misgivings as to power. The problem must be faced and answered.” Moore Ice Cream Co. v. Rose, 289 U. S. 373, 379.
The Court-devised precept against avoidable conflict with Congress through unnecessary constitutional adjudication *800is not a requirement to distort an enactment in order to escape such adjudication. Respect for the doctrine demands and only permits that we extract an interpretation which shies off constitutional controversy, provided such interpretation is consonant with a fair reading of a statute.
And so the question before us is whether § 2, Eleventh of the Railway Labor Act can untorturingly be read to bar activities of railway unions, which have bargained in accordance with federal law for a union shop, whereby they are forbidden to spend union dues for purposes that have uniformly and extensively been so long pursued as to have become commonplace, settled, conventional trade-union practices. No consideration relevant to construction sustains such a restrictive reading.
The statutory provision cannot be meaningfully construed except against the background and presupposition of what is loosely called political activity of American trade unions in general and railroad unions in particular— activity indissolubly relating to the immediate economic and social concerns that are the raison d’etre of unions. It would be pedantic heavily to document this familiar truth of industrial history and commonplace of trade-union life. To write the history of the Brotherhoods, the United Mine Workers, the Steel Workers, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, the International Ladies Garment Workers, the United Auto Workers, and leave out their so-called political activities and expenditures for them, would be sheer mutilation. Suffice it to recall a few illustrative manifestations. The AFL, surely the conservative labor group, sponsored as early as 1893 an extensive program of political demands calling for compulsory education, an eight-hour day, employer tort liability, and other social reforms.2 The fiercely contested *801Adamson Act of 1916, see Wilson v. New, 243 U. S. 332, was a direct result of railway union pressures exerted upon both the Congress and the President.3 More specifically, the weekly publication “Labor” — an expenditure under attack in this case — has since 1919 been the organ of the railroad brotherhoods which finance it. Its files through the years show its preoccupation with legislative measures that touch the vitals of labor’s interests and with the men and parties who effectuate them. This aspect — call it the political side — is as organic, as inured a part of the philosophy and practice of railway unions as their immediate bread-and-butter concerns.
Viewed in this light, there is a total absence in the text, the context, the history and the purpose of the legislation under review of any indication that Congress, in authorizing union-shop agreements, attributed to unions and restricted them to an artificial, non-prevalent scope of activities in the expenditure of their funds. An inference that Congress legislated regarding expenditure control in contradiction to prevailing practices ought to be better founded than on complete silence. The aim-of the 1951 legislation, clearly stated in the congressional reports, was to eliminate “free riders” in the industry4 — to make possible “the sharing of the burden of maintenance by all of the beneficiaries of union activity.” 5 To suggest that this language covertly meant-to encompass any less than the maintenance of those activities normally engaged in by unions is to withdraw life fro'm law and to say that Congress dealt with artificialities and not with railway unions as they were and as they functioned.
*802The hearings and debates lend not the slightest support to a construction of the amendment which would restrict ■the uses to which union funds had, at the time of the union-shop amendment, been conventionally put. To be sure, the legislative record does not spell out the obvious. The absence of any showing of concern about unions’ expenditures in “political” areas — especially when the issue was briefly raised6 — only buttresses the conclusion that Congress intended to leave unions free to do that which unions had been and were doing. It is surely fanciful to conclude that this verbal vacuity implies that Congress meant its amendment to be read as providing that members of the union may restrict their dues solely for financing the technical process of collective bargaining.
There were specific safeguards protective of minority rights. These safeguards were directed solely toward the protection of those who might otherwise find themselves barred from union membership — viz., Negroes and those who had been long-time opponents of the unions. The only reference to free speech in the record of the enactment was made by the President of the Norfolk & Western Railroad Company during the hearings before the House Subcommittee. His remarks were related to restrictive provisions in some union constitutions which suppressed the right of a dissatisfied member to voice his criticism upon pain of expulsion.7 No such claim is remotely before us.8 The sole reason for clarifying the proviso to the amendment so that payment *803of dues was explicitly declared to be the only legitimate condition of union membership was the continuing fear of lack of protection for unpopular minorities. There is no mention of political expenditures in any of the references. From this wasteland of material it is strange to find not only that “A congressional concern over possible impinge-ments on the interests of individual dissenters from union policies is therefore discernible,” but so discernible that a construction must be placed upon the statute that neither its terms nor the accustomed habits of union life remotely justify.
None of the parties in interest at any time suggested the possibility that the statute be construed in the manner now suggested. Neither the United States, the individual dissident members, the railroad unions, the railroads, the AFL-CIO, the Railway Labor Executives' Association, nor any other amicus curiae suggested that the statute could be emasculated in the manner now proposed. Of course we are not confined by the absence of such a claim, but it is significant that a construction now found to be reasonable never occurred to the litigants in the two arguments here.
I cannot attribute to Congress that sub silentio it meant to bar railway unions under a union-shop agreement from expending their funds in their traditional manner. How easy it would have been to give at least a hint that such was its purpose. The claim that these expenditures infringe the appellees’ constitutional rights under the First Amendment must therefore be faced.
In Railway Employes’ Dept. v. Hanson, 351 U. S. 225, this Court had to pass on the validity of § 2, Eleventh of the Railway Labor Act, which provided that union-shop agreements entered into between a carrier and a duly designated labor organization shall be valid notwithstanding any other “statute or law of the United States, or *804Territory thereof, or of any State.” 9 We held that in its exercise of the power to regulate commerce, “the choice by the Congress of the union shop as a stabilizing force [in industrial disputes] seems to us to be an allowable one,” and that the plaintiffs’ claims under the First and Fifth Amendments were without merit.
The record before the Court in Hanson clearly indi-cáted that dues would be used to further what are normally described as political and legislative ends. And it surely can be said that the Court was not ignorant of a fact that everyone else knew. Union constitutions were in evidence which authorized the use of union funds for political magazines, for support of lobbying groups, and for urging union members to vote for union-approved candidates.10 The contention now raised by plaintiffs *805was succinctly stated by the Hanson plaintiffs in their brief.11 We indicated that we were deciding the merits of the complaint on all the allegations and proof before us. “On the present record, there is no more an infringement or impairment of First Amendment rights than there would be in the case of a lawyer who by state law is required to be a member of an integrated bar.” 351 U. S., at 238.
One would suppose that Hanson’s reasoning disposed of the present suit. The Georgia Supreme Court, however, in reversing the initial dismissal of the action by the lower court, relied upon the following reservation in our opinion: “if the exaction of dues, initiation fees, or assessments is used as a cover for forcing ideological conformity or other action in contravention of the First Amendment, this judgment will not prejudice the decision in that case.” 351 U. S., at 238. The use of union dues to promote relevant and effective means of realizing the purposes for which unions exist does not constitute a utilization of dues “as a cover for forcing ideological conformity” in any fair reading of those words. It will come as startling and fanciful news to the railroad unions and the whole labor movement that in using union funds for promoting and opposing legislative measures of concern to their members they were engaged in under-cover operations. “Cover” implies a disguise, some sham; “forcing . . . conformity” means coercing avowal of a belief not entertained. Plaintiffs here are in no way subjected to such suppression of their true beliefs or sponsorship of views they do not hold. Nor are they forced to join a sham organization which does not participate in collective bargaining functions, but only serves as a conduit of funds for ideological propaganda. A totally different problem than the one before the Court would be presented by provisions of union constitutions which in fact prohibited *806members from sponsoring views which the union opposed,12 or which enabled officers to sponsor views not representative of the union.
Nevertheless, we unanimously held that the plaintiffs in Hanson had not been denied any right protected by the First Amendment. Despite our holding, the gist of the complaint here is that the expenditure of a portion of mandatory funds for political objectives denies free speech — the right to speak or to remain silent — to members who oppose, against the constituted, authority of union desires, this use of their union dues. No one’s desire or power to speak his mind is checked or curbed. The individual member may express his views in any public or private forum as freely as he could before the union collected his dues. Federal taxes also may diminish the vigor with which a citizen can give partisan support to a political belief, but as yet no one would place such an impediment to making one’s views effective within the reach of constitutionally protected “free speech.”
This is too fine-spun a claim for constitutional recognition. The framers of the Bill of Rights lived in an era when overhanging threats to conduct deemed “seditious” and lettres de cachet were current issues. Their concern was in protecting the right of the individual freely to express himself — especially his political beliefs— in a public forum, untrammeled by fear of punishment or of governmental censure.
But were we to assume, arguendo, that the plaintiffs have alleged a valid constitutional objection if Congress had specifically ordered the result, we must con*807sider the difference between such compulsion and the absence of compulsion when Congress acts as platoni-cally as it did, in a wholly non-coercive way. Congress has not commanded that the railroads shall employ only those workers who are members of authorized unions. Congress has only given leave to a bargaining representative, democratically elected by a majority of workers, to enter into a particular contractual provision arrived at under the give-and-take of duly safeguarded bargaining procedures. (The statute forbids distortion of these procedures as, for instance, through racial discrimination. Steele v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 323 U. S. 192.) Congress itself emphasized this vital distinction between authorization and compulsion. S. Rep. No. 2262, 81st Cong., 2d Sess. 2. And this Court in Hanson noted that “The union shop provision of the Railway Labor Act is only permissive. Congress has not . . . required carriers and employees to enter into union shop agreements.” 351 U. S., at 231. When we speak of the Government “acting” in permitting the union shop, the scope and force of what Congress has done must be heeded. There is not a trace of compulsion involved— no exercise of restriction by Congress on the freedom of the carriers and the unions. On the contrary, Congress expanded their freedom of action. Congress lifted limitations upon free action by parties bargaining at arm’s length.13
*808The plaintiffs have, not been deprived of the right to participate in determining union policies or to assert their respective weight in defining the purposes for which union dues may be expended. Responsive to the actualities of our industrial society, in which unions as such play the role that they do, the law regards a union as a self-contained, legal personality exercising rights and subject to responsibilities wholly distinct from its individual members. See United Mine Workers of America v. Coronado Coal Co., 259 U. S. 344. It is a commonplace of all organizations that a minority of a legally recognized group may at times see an organization’s funds used for promotion of ideas opposed by the minority. The analogies are numerous. On the largest scale, the Federal Government expends revenue collected from individual taxpayers to propagandize ideas which many taxpayers oppose. Or, as this Court noted in Hanson, many state laws compel membership in the integrated bar as a prerequisite to practicing law,14 and the bar association *809uses its funds to urge legislation of which individual members often disapprove. The present case is, as the Court in Hanson asserted, indistinguishable from the issues raised by those who find constitutional difficulties with the integrated bar.15 If our statement in Hanson carried any meaning, it was an unqualified recognition that legislation providing for an integrated bar, exercising familiar functions, is subject to no infirmity derived from the First Amendment. Again, under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, Congress specifically authorized the formation of “national securities associations,” membership in which is of practical necessity to many brokers and dealers.16 The Association has urged the passage of *810several legislative reforms17 which one can confidently assume did not represent the convictions of all members. To come closer to the heart of the immediate matter, is the union’s choice of when to picket or to go out on strike unconstitutional? Picketing is still deemed also a form of speech,18 but surely the union’s decision to strike under its statutory aegis as a bargaining unit is not an unconstitutional compulsion forced upon members who strongly oppose a strike, as minorities not infrequently do. Indeed, legislative reform intended to insure the fair representation of the minority workers in internal union politics 19 would be redundant if, despite all precautions, the union were constitutionally forbidden because of minority opposition to spend money in accordance with the majority’s desires.
*811How unrealistic the views of plaintiffs are becomes manifest in light of the purpose of the legislative scheme in authorizing the union shop and the practical necessity for unions to participate in what as a matter of analytical fragmentation may be called political activities. The 1951 Amendment of the Railway Labor Act, which enacted § 2, Eleventh, was passed in an effort to make more equitable the sharing of costs of collective bargaining among all the workers whom the bargaining agent represented. H. R. Rep. No. 2811, 81st Cong., 2d Sess. 4; Hearings, House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce on H. R. 7789, 81st Cong., 2d Sess. 10, 11, 29, 49-50; Hearings, Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare on S. 3295, 81st Cong., 2d Sess. 15-16, 130, 154, 170. Prior to the passage of this Amendment, there was no way in which the union could compel non-union members in the bargaining unit to contribute to the expenses incurred in seeking contractual provisions from the carrier that would redound to the advantage of all its employees. The main reason why prior law had forbidden union shops in the railroad industry is stated in the Senate Report to the 1951 Amendment:
“The present prohibitions against all forms of union security agreements and the check-off were made part of the Railway Labor Act in 1934. They were enacted into law against the background of employer use of these agreements as devices for establishing and maintaining company unions, thus effectively depriving a substantial number of employees of their right to bargain collectively. It is estimated that in 1934 there were over 700 agreements between the carriers and unions alleged to be company unions. These agreements represented over 20 percent of the total number of agreements in the industry.
*812“It was because of this situation that labor organizations agreed to the present statutory prohibitions against union security agreements. An effort was made to limit the prohibition to company unions. This, however, proved unsuccessful; and in order to reach the problem of company control over unions, labor organizations accepted the more general prohibitions which also deprived the national organizations of seeking union security agreements and check-off provisions. . . .
“Since the enactment of the 1934 amendments, company unions have practically disappeared.” S. Rep. No. 2262, 81st Cong., 2d Sess. 2-3. See also H. R. Rep. No. 2811, 81st Cong., 2d Sess. 3.
Nothing was further from congressional purpose than to be concerned with restrictions upon the right to speak. Its purpose was to eliminate “free riders” in the bargaining unit. Inroads on free speech were not remotely involved in the legislative process. They were in nobody's mind. Congress legislated to correct what it found to be abuses in the domain of promoting industrial peace. This Court would stray beyond its powers were it to erect a far-fetched claim, derived from some ultimate relation between an obviously valid aim of legislation and an abstract conception of freedom, into a constitutional right.
For us to hold that these defendant unions may not expend their moneys for political and legislative purposes would be completely to ignore the long history of union conduct and its pervasive acceptance in our political life. American labor’s initial role in shaping legislation dates back 130 years.20 With the coming of the AFL in 1886, labor on a national scale was committed not to act as a
*813class party but to maintain a program of political action in furtherance of its industrial standards.21 British trade unions were supporting members of the House of Commons as early as 1867.22 The Canadian Trades Congress in 1894 debated whether political action should be the main objective of the labor force.23 And in a recent Australian case, the High Court upheld the right of a union to expel a member who refused to pay a political levy.24 That Britain, Canada and Australia have no explicit First Amendment is beside the point. For one thing, the freedoms safeguarded in terms in the First Amendment are deeply rooted and respected in the British tradition, and are part of legal presuppositions in Canada and Australia. And in relation to our immediate concern, the British Commonwealth experience establishes the pertinence of political means for realizing basic trade-union interests.
The expenditures revealed by the AFL-CIO Executive Council Reports emphasize that labor’s participation in urging legislation and candidacies is a major one. In the last three fiscal years, the Committee on Political Education (COPE) expended a total of $1,681,990.42; the AFL-CIO News cost $756,591.99; the Legislative Department reported total expenses of $741,918.24.25 Yet the Georgia trial court has found that these funds were not reasonably related to the unions’ role as collective bargaining agents. One could scarcely call this a finding of fact by which this Court is bound, or even one *814of law. It is a baseless dogmatic assertion that flies in the face of fact. It rests on a mere listing of unions’ expenditures and an exhibit of labor publications. The passage of the Adamson Act26 in 1916, establishing the eight-hour day for the railroad industry, affords positive proof that labor may achieve its desired result through legislation after bargaining techniques fail. See Wilson v. New, supra, at 340-343. If higher wages and shorter hours are prime ends of a union in bargaining collectively, these goals may often be more effectively achieved by lobbying and the support of sympathetic candidates. In 1960 there were at least eighteen railway labor organizations registered as congressional lobby groups.27
When one runs down the detailed list of national and international problems on which the AFL-CIO speaks, it seems rather naive for a court to conclude — as did the trial court — that the union expenditures were “not reasonably necessary to collective bargaining or to maintaining the existence and position of said union defendants as effective bargaining agents.” The notion that economic and political concerns are separable is pre-Victorian. Presidents of the United States and Committees of Congress invite views of labor on matters not immediately concerned with wages, hours, and conditions of employment.28 And this Court accepts briefs as amici from the AFL-CIO on issues that cannot be called industrial, in any circumscribed sense. It is not true in life that political protection is irrelevant to, and insulated from, economic interests. It is not true for *815industry or finance.29 Neither is it true for labor. It disrespects the wise, hardheaded men who were the authors of our Constitution and our Bill of Rights to conclude that their scheme of government requires what the facts of life reject. As Mr. Justice Rutledge stated: “To say that labor unions as such have nothing of value to contribute to that process [the electoral process] and no vital or legitimate interest in it is to ignore the obvious facts of political and economic life and of their increasing interrelationship in modern society.” United States v. CIO, 335 U. S. 106, 129, 144 (concurring opinion joined in by Black, Douglas, and Murphy, JJ). Fifty years ago this Court held that there was no connection between outlawry of “yellow dog contracts” on interstate railroads and interstate commerce, and therefore found unconstitutional legislation directed against the evils of these agreements. Is it any more consonant with the facts of life today, than was this holding in Adair v. United States, 208 U. S. 161, to say that the tax policies of the National Government — the scheme of rates and exemptions— have no close relation to the wages of workers; that legislative developments like the Tennessee Valley Authority do not intimately touch the lives of workers within their respective regions; that national measures furthering health and education do not directly bear on the lives of industrial workers; that candidates who sup*816port these movements do not stand in different relation to labor’s narrowest economic interests than avowed opponents of these measures? Is it respectful of the modes of thought of Madison and Jefferson projected into our day to attribute to them the view that the First Amendment must be construed to bar unions from concluding, by due procedural steps, that civil-rights legislation conduces to their interest, thereby prohibiting union funds to be expended to promote passage of such measures? 30
Congress was not unaware that railroad unions might use these mandatory contributions for furthering their economic interests through political channels. See 96 Cong. Rec. 17049-17050. That such consequences from authorizing compulsory union membership were to be foreseen had been indicated to committees of Congress less than four years earlier when the union-shop provisions of the Taf t-Hartley Act were being debated. Hearings, Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare on S. 55, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 726, 1452, 1455-1456, 1687, 2065, 2146, 2150; Hearings, House Committee on Education and Labor on H. R. 8, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 350, 2260. The failure of the Railway Labor Act amendments to exempt the member who did not choose to have his contributions put to such uses may have reflected difficulties in drafting an exempting clause. See Hearings, Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare on S. 3295,81st Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 173-174. But in 1958, the Senate voted down a proposal to enable an *817individual union member to recover any portion of his dues not expended for “collective bargaining purposes.” 104 Cong. Rec. 11330-11347.
Congress is, of course, free to enact legislation along lines adopted in Great Britain, whereby dissenting members may contract out of any levies to be used for political purposes.31 “At the point where the mutual advantage of association demands too much individual disadvantage, a compromise must be struck. . . . When that point has been reached — where the intersection should fall — is plainly a question within the special province of the legislature. . . . Even where the social undesirability of a law may be convincingly urged, invalidation of the law by a court debilitates popular democratic government. Most laws dealing with economic and social problems are matters of trial and error. . . . But even if a law is found wanting on trial, it is better that its defects should be demonstrated and removed than that the law should be aborted by judicial fiat. Such an assertion of judicial power deflects responsibility from *818those on whom in a democratic society it ultimately rests — the people.” American Federation of Labor v. American Sash & Door Co., 335 U. S. 538, 546, 553 (concurring opinion).
In conclusion, then, we are asked by union members who oppose these expenditures to protect their right to free speech — although they are as free to speak as ever— against governmental action which has permitted a union elected by democratic process to bargain for a union shop and to expend the funds thereby collected for purposes which are controlled by internal union choice. To do só would be to mutilate a scheme designed by Congress for the purpose of equitably sharing the cost of securing the benefits of union exertions; it would greatly embarrass if not frustrate conventional labor activities which have become institutionalized through time. To do so is to give constitutional sanction to doctrinaire views and to grant a miniscule claim constitutional recognition.
In Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U. S. 1, the legislative power of a State to subsidize bus service to parochial schools was sustained, although the Court recognized that because of the subsidy some parents were undoubtedly enabled to send their children to church schools who otherwise would not. It makes little difference whether the conclusion is phrased so that no establishment of religion was found, or whether it be more forthrightly stated that the merely incidental “establishment” was too insignificant. Figures of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare show that the yearly cost of transportation to non-public schools in Massachusetts totals approximately $659,749; in Illinois $1,807,740.32 These are scarcely what would be termed negligible expenditures. Some might consider the resulting “establishment” more *819substantial than the loss of free speech through the payment of $3 per month for union dues, whereby a dissident member feels identified in his own mind with the union’s position.
The words of Mr. Justice Cardozo, used in a different context, are applicable here: “[C]ountless claims of right can be discovered to have their source or their operative limits in the provisions of a federal statute or in the Constitution itself with its circumambient restrictions upon legislative power. To set bounds to the pursuit, the courts have formulated the distinction between controversies that are basic and those that are collateral, between disputes that are necessary and those that are merely possible. We shall be lost in a maze if we put that compass by.” Gully v. First National Bank, 299 U. S. 109, 118.
I would reverse and remand the case for dismissal in the Georgia courts.

 “A statute must be construed, if fairly possible, so as to avoid not only the conclusion that it is unconstitutional but also grave doubts upon that score.”

 Taft, The A. F. of L. in the Time of Gompers, p. 71 (1957).

 Perlman and Taft, History of Labor in the United States, 1896-1932, pp. 380-385.

 S. Rep. No. 2262, 81st Cong., 2d Sess. 2-3.

 Remarks of Mr. Harrison, Hearings, House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, 81st Cong., 2d Sess., p. 253.

 96 Cong. Rec. 17049-17050; Hearings, Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare on S. 3295, 81st Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 173-174.

 Remarks of Mr. Smith, Hearings, House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, 81st Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 115-116.

 Compare Railway Employes’ Dept. v. Hanson, 351 U. S. 225, 236-237, n. 8.

 The pertinent portion of the section follows:
“Notwithstanding any other provisions of this chapter, or of any other statute or law of the United States, or Territory thereof, or of any State, any carrier or carriers as defined in this chapter and a labor organization or labor organizations duly designated and authorized to represent employees in accordance with the requirements of this chapter shall be permitted—
“(a) to make agreements, requiting,'as a condition of continued employment, that within sixty days following the beginning of such employment, or the effective date of such agreements, whichever is the later, all employees shall become members of the labor organization representing their craft or class: Provided, That no such agreement shall require such condition of employment with respect to employees to whom membership is not available upon the same terms and conditions as are generally applicable to any other member or with respect to employees to whom membership was denied or terminated for any reason other than the failure of the employee to tender the periodic dues, initiation fees, and assessments (not including fines and penalties) uniformly required as a condition of acquiring or retaining membership.” 64 Stat. 1238, 45 U. S. C. § 152, Eleventh.

 See the provisions of the constitutions of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees, the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen of America, and the International Association of Machinists before the Court in the Hanson record, pp. 103-143.

 Appellees’ brief, pp. 16-17, 65.

 “B. The Grand Lodge Constitution of the Brotherhood Railway Carmen of America prohibits members from ‘interfering with legislative matters affecting national, state, territorial, dominion or provincial legislation, adversely affecting the interests of our members.’ § 64.” 351 U. S., at 237, n. 8.

 To ignore this distinction would be to go far beyond the severely criticized, indeed rather discredited, case of United States v. Butler, 297 U. S. 1, which found coercive implications in the processing tax of the Agricultural Adjustment Act. The dissenting views of Mr. Justice Stone, concurred in by Brandéis and Cardozo, JJ., may surely be said to have won the day: “Although the farmer is placed under no legal compulsion to reduce acreage, it is said that the mere offer of compensation for so doing is a species of economic coercion which operates with the same legal force and effect as though the *808curtailment were made mandatory by Act of Congress.” 297 U. S., at 81.
For an analysis of the 1951 Amendment leading to a narrow scope of its constitutional implications, see Wellington, The Constitution, the Labor Union, and “Governmental Action,” 70 Yale L. J. 345, 352-360, 363-371.

 The following States have integrated bars: Alabama (Ala. Code, Tit. 46, § 30); Alaska (Alaska Laws Ann. § 35-2-77a to § 35-2-77o); Arizona (Ariz. Code Ann. § 32-302); California (Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 6002); Florida (Fla. Stat. Ann., Vol. 31, pp. 699-713 (court rule)); Idaho (Idaho Code § 3-408 to § 3-417); Kentucky (Ky. Rev. Stat. §30.170); Louisiana (La. Rev. Stat. 37:211; Art. IV, Articles of Incorporation, La. State Bar Assn., 4 Dart, Annotations to La. Stat. 1950, p. 29); Michigan (Mich. Stat. Ann. § 27-101); Mississippi (Miss. Code § 8696); Missouri (Mo. Supreme Court Rule 6, 352 Mo. xxix); Nebraska (Neb. Supreme Court Rule IV, In re Integration of Nebraska State Bar Assn., 133 Neb. 283, 275 N. W. 265); Nevada (Nev. Rev. Stat. 7.270-7.600); New Mexico (N. Mex. Stat. Ann. § 18-1-2 to § 18-1-24); North Carolina (N. C. Gen. Stat. § 84-16); North Dakota (N. D. Rev. Code § 27-1202); Oklahoma *809(In re Integration of the Bar of Oklahoma, 185 Okla. 505, 95 P. 2d 113, amended by Okla. Supreme Court rules approved October 6, 1958, Okla. Stat. Ann., 1960 Cum. Ann. Pocket Part, Tit. 5, c. 1, App. 1); Oregon (Ore. Rev. Stat. §§ 9.010-9.210); South Dakota (S. D. Code § 32.1114); Texas (Vern. Civ. Stat., Art. 320a-l, § 3); Utah (Utah Code Ann. § 78-51-1 to § 78-51-25); Virginia (Va. Code § 54-49); Washington (Wash. Rev. Code § 2.48.020); West Virginia (W. Va. Code Ann. 51-l-4a); Wisconsin (Wis. Stat. § 256.31, 5 Wis. 2d 618, 627, 93 N. W. 2d 601, 605); Wyoming (Wyo. Stat. §5-22; Wyo. Supreme Court Rules for State Bar, Rule 5).

 So far as reported, all decisions have upheld the integrated bar against constitutional attack. Carpenter v. State Bar of California, 211 Cal. 358, 295 P. 23; Herron v. State Bar of California, 24 Cal. 2d 53, 147 P. 2d 543; Petition of Florida State Bar Assn., 40 So. 2d 902; In re Mundy, 202 La. 41, 11 So. 2d 398; Ayres v. Hadaway, 303 Mich. 589, 6 N. W. 2d 905; In re Scott, 53 Nev. 24, 292 P. 291; In re Platz, 60 Nev. 296, 108 P. 2d 858; In re Gibson, 35 N. Mex. 550, 4 P. 2d 643; Kelley v. State Bar of Oklahoma, 148 Okla. 282, 298 P. 623; Lathrop v. Donohue, 10 Wis. 2d 230, 102 N. W. 2d 404, affirmed, post, p. 820.

 The Maloney Act of 1938 added § 15A to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. 52 Stat. 1070, 15 U. S. C. § 78o-3. In order to be registered, a number of statutory standards must be met. The statute specifically requires that an association’s rules provide for democratic representation of the membership and that dues be equitably allocated. See § 15A (b) (5) and (6). Only one association, the National Association of Securities Dealers, Inc., has ever applied *810for or been granted registration. NASD membership comprises roughly three-quarters of all brokers and dealers registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Loss, Securities Regulation 766-67 (1951, Supp. 1955). Sections 15A (i) and (n) of the Act authorize the NASD to formulate rules which stipulate that members shall refuse to deal with non-members with immunity from the antitrust laws. See S. Rep. No. 1455, 75th Cong., 3d Sess. 8-9 (1938); Loss, op. cit., supra, 769-770. The Commission has stated that it is “virtually impossible for a dealer who is not a member of the NASD to participate in a distribution of important size.” National Association of Securities Dealers, Inc., 19.. S. E. C. 424, 441.

 In 1949 Senator Frear introduced a bill which would have greatly expanded the applicability of the registration, proxy, and insider trading provisions of the Securities Exchange Act to small corporations. S. 2408, 81st Cong., 1st Sess. The NASD supported the passage of the proposed legislation, and testified on its behalf before the Senate subcommittee. Hearings Before Subcommittee of Senate Committee on Banking and Currency on S. 2408, 81st Cong., 2d Sess. 53-62 (1950); Loss, op. cit., supra, 620, 621.

 To this extent Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88, 101-106, has survived and was applied in Chauffeurs Union v. Newell, 356 U. S. 341.

 See Cox, Internal Affairs of Labor Unions Under the Labor Reform Act of 1959, 58 Mich. L. Rev. 819, 829-851.

 1 Commons, History of Labor in the United States, 318-325 (1918).

 Taft, The A. F. of L. in the Time of Gompers, 289-292 (1957); Bakke and Kerr, Unions, Management and the Public, 215 (1948).

 3 Cole, A Short History of the British Working Class Movement, 56 (2d ed. 1937).

 Logan, Trade Unions in Canada, 59-60 (1948).

 William v. Hursey, 33 A. L. J. R. 269 (1959).

 These are the totals of the figures for 1957, 1958, and 1959 reported in Proceedings of the AFL-CIO Constitutional Convention, Vol. II, pp. 17-19 (1959) and id., pp. 17-19 (1957).

 39 Stat. 721, 45 U. S. C. §§ 65-66.

 Letters from Clerk of House of Representatives to Supreme Court Librarian, May 5, 1960; May 10, 1961.

 For a recent example, see the statement of Stanley H. Rutten-berg, Director of Research for the AFL-CIO, on pending tax legislation before the House Ways and Means Committee, reported in part in the New York Times, May 12, 1961, p. 14, col. 3.

 A contested question in the corporate field is the legitimacy of corporate charitable contributions. This presents a not dissimilar problem whether the Government may authorize an organization to expend money for a purpose outside the corporate business to which an individual stockholder is opposed. A shareholder who joined prior to the authorization and who therefore cannot be said to have impliedly consented surely is as directly affected as is the member of a union shop. See A. P. Smith Mfg. Co. v. Barlow, 13 N. J. 145, 98 A. 2d 581, which upheld against federal constitutional attack a state statute which authorized New Jersey corporations to make contributions to charity. The amounts involved were substantial.

 See Proceedings of the AFL-CIO Constitutional Convention, Vol. II, pp. 183-192 (1959).
A recent leader of the London Times which reviewed the annual report of the British Trade Unions Council noted that the document concerned itself with “Few . . . political subjects . . . which have not their industrial sides.” The London Times, Aug. 23, 1960, p. 9, col. 2.

 The course of legislation in Great Britain illustrates the various methods open to Congress for exempting union members from political levies. As a consequence of a restrictive interpretation of the Trade Union Act of 1876, 39 & 40 Vict., c. 22, by the House of Lords in Amalgamated Society of Ry. Servants v. Osborne, [1910] A. C. 87, Parliament in 1913 passed legislation which allowed a union member to exempt himself from political contributions by giving specific notice. Trade Union Act of 1913, 2 & 3 Geo. V, c. 30. The fear instilled by the general strike in 1926 caused the Conservative Parliament to amend the “contracting out” procedure by a “contracting in” scheme, the net effect of which was to require that each individual give notice of his consent to contribute before his dues could be used for political purposes. Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act of 1927, 17 & 18 Geo. V, c. 22. When the Labor Party came to power, Parliament returned to the 1913 method. Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act of 1946, 9 & 10 Geo. VI, c. 52. The Conservative Party, when it came back, retained the legislation of its opponents.

 Statistics of State School Systems, 1955-1956: Organization, Staff, Pupils, and Finances, c. 2, p. 70 (U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1959).