On a single indictment, containing four counts, the five plaintiffs in error, hereinafter designated the defendants, were convicted of conspiring to violate provisions of the *617 Espionage Act of Congress (§ 3, Title I, of Act approved June 15, 1917, as amended May 16, 1918, 40 Stat. 553).

In October, 1935, the petitioner discharged Morris Watson, an employee in its New York office. The American Newspaper Guild, a labor organization, filed a charge with the Board alleging that Watson's discharge was in violation of § 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, which confers on employees the right to organize, to form, join, or assist labor organizations to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing and to engage in concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection; that the petitioner had engaged in unfair labor practices contrary to subsections (1) and (3) of § 8 by interfering with, restraining, or coercing Watson in the exercise of the rights guaranteed him by § 7, and by discriminating against him in respect of his tenure of employment and discouraging his membership in a labor organization.

Newton Cantwell and his two sons, Jesse and Russell — who identified as Jehovah's Witnesses and claimed to be ordained ministers — were arrested in New Haven, Connecticut after distributing religious literature for inciting a breach of the peace and violating a local ordinance requiring solicitors to obtain a permit.

This case presents the question whether regulations embodied in a municipal ordinance abridge the freedom of speech or of the press secured against state invasion by the Fourteenth Amendment.^[1]

Appellant, Dirk De Jonge, was indicted in Multnomah County, Oregon, for violation of the Criminal Syndicalism Law of that State.^[1] The Act, which we set forth in *357 the margin, defines "criminal syndicalism" as "the doctrine which advocates crime, physical violence, sabotage or any unlawful acts or methods as a means of accomplishing or effecting industrial or political change or revolution." With this preliminary definition the Act proceeds to describe a number of offenses, embracing the teaching of criminal syndicalism, the printing or distribution of books, pamphlets, etc., advocating that doctrine, the organization of a society or assemblage which advocates it, and presiding at or assisting in conducting a meeting of such an organization, society or group. The prohibited acts are made felonies, punishable by imprisonment for not less than one year nor more than ten years, or by a fine of not more than $1,000, or by both.

Eugene V. Debs was indicted on four counts under the Espionage Act of June 15, 1917, c. 30, Tit. 1, § 3, 40 Stat. 219, as amended by the Act of May 16, 1918, c. 75, § 1, 40 Stat. 553. Two counts remained for the Supreme Court to condider. The first alleged that, on or about June 16, 1918, at Canton, Ohio, the defendant caused and incited and attempted to cause and incite insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny and refusal of duty in the military and naval forces of the United States and with intent so to do delivered, to an assembly of people, a public speech. The second alleged that he obstructed and attempted to obstruct the recruiting and enlistment service of the United States and to that end and with that intent delivered the same speech.

The plaintiff in error was tried and convicted in the District Court of Rice County, Kansas, upon an information charging him with violating the Criminal Syndicalism Act of that State. Laws, Spec. Sess. 1920, c. 37. The judgment was affirmed by the Supreme Court of the *382 State, 117 Kan. 69; and this writ of error was allowed by the Chief Justice of that court.

236 U.S. 273 35 S.Ct. 383 59 L.Ed. 573 JAY FOX, Plff. in Err.,v.STATE OF WASHINGTON. No. 134. Submitted January 19, 1915. Decided February 23, 1915. Mr. Gilbert E. Roe for plaintiff in error. [Argument of Counsel from page 274 intentionally omitted] Mr. W. V. Tanner, Attorney General of Washington, and Mr. Fred G. Remann, for defendant in error. Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the court: 1 This is an information for editing printed matter tending to encourage and advocate disrespect for law, contrary to a statute of Washington. The statute is as follows: ‘Every person who shall […]

This is an indictment in thirteen counts. The first alleges a conspiracy between the plaintiff in error and one Carl Gleeser, they then being engaged in the preparation and publication of a newspaper, the Missouri Staats Zeitung, to violate the Espionage Act of June 15, 1917, c. 30, § 3, 40 Stat. 217, 219. It alleges as overt acts the preparation and circulation of twelve articles, &c. in the said newspaper at different dates from July 6, 1917, to December 7 of the same year. The other counts allege attempts to cause disloyalty, mutiny and refusal of duty in the military and naval forces of the United States, by the same publications, each count being confined to the publication of a single date. Motion to dismiss and a demurrer on constitutional and other grounds, especially that of the First Amendment as to free speech, were overruled, subject to exception, and the defendant refusing to plead the Court ordered a plea of not guilty to be filed. There was a trial and Frohwerk was found guilty on all *206 the counts except the seventh, which needs no further mention. He was sentenced to a fine and to ten years imprisonment on each count, the imprisonment on the later counts to run concurrently with that on the first.

A Minnesota statute made it unlawful "to interfere with or discourage the enlistment of men in the military or naval forces of the United States or of the State of Minnesota." The indictment charged that Gilbert, at a time and place designated in the state and with the United States being at war with the kingdom and imperial government of Germany, spoke out publicly against the draft and the nation's involvement in World War I.

Benjamin Gitlow was indicted in the Supreme Court of New York, with three others, for the statutory crime of criminal anarchy. New York Penal Laws, §§ 160, 161.^[1] He was separately tried, convicted, and sentenced to imprisonment. The judgment was affirmed by the Appellate Division and by the Court of Appeals. 195 App. Div. 773; 234 N.Y. 132 and 539. The case is here on writ of error to the Supreme Court, to which the record was remitted. 260 U.S. 703.The contention here is that the statute, by its terms and as applied in this case, is repugnant to the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Its material provisions are:"§ 160. Criminal anarchy defined. Criminal anarchy is the doctrine that organized government should be overthrown by force or violence, or by assassination of the executive head or of any of the executive officials of government, or by any unlawful means. The advocacy of such doctrine either by word of mouth or writing is a felony.

This case pertained to the sale of information on the activities of Japanese-Americans citizens and Japanese residents to Soviet Union intelligence agent Mihail Gorin.

307 U.S. 496 59 S.Ct. 954 83 L.Ed. 1423 HAGUE, Mayor, et al., v. COMMITTEE FOR INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION et al. No. 651. Argued Feb. 27, 28, 1939. Decided June 5, 1939. [Syllabus from pages 496-500 intentionally omitted] Messrs. Charles Hershenstein, Edward J. O’Mara, and James A. Hamill, all of Jersey City, N.J., for petitioners. Messrs. Morris L. Ernst. of New York City, and Spaulding Frazer, of Newark, N.J., for respondents. Mr. Justice BUTLER: The judgment of the court in this case is that the decree is modified and as modified affirmed. Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER and Mr. Justice DOUGLAS took no […]

A California state law required University of California students to take a course in military science and tactics, the validity of which was by the appellants challenged as repugnant to the Constitution and laws of the United States. The appellants are the above-named minors and the fathers of each as his guardian ad litem and individually. These minors are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church and of the Epworth League and connected religious societies and organizations. Appellants, as members of that church, accept and feel themselves morally, religiously, and conscientiously bound by its tenets and discipline, and holds as a part of his religious and conscientious belief that war, training for war, and military training are immoral, wrong, and contrary to the letter and spirit of His teaching and the precepts of the Christian religion. These students, at the beginning of the fall term in 1933, petitioned the University for exemption from military training and participation in the activities of the training corps upon the ground of their religious and conscientious objection to war and to military training. Their petition was denied. They petitioned the regents that military training be made optional, which the regents refused to do. Then, because of their religious and conscientious objections, they declined to take the prescribed course, and, solely upon that ground, the regents, by formal notification, suspended them from the University, but with leave to apply for readmission at any time conditioned upon their ability and willingness to comply with all applicable regulations of the University governing the matriculation and attendance of students. The University afforded opportunity for education such as could not be had at any other institution in California except at a greater cost which these minors were not able to pay. They were also willing to take as a substitute for military training such other courses as may be prescribed by the University.

The appellant claims his conviction in a state court deprived him of his liberty contrary to the guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment. He assigns as error the action of the Supreme Court of Georgia in overruling his claim and refusing him a discharge upon habeas corpus. The petition for the writ, presented to the Superior Court of Fulton County, asserted the appellant was unlawfully detained by the appellee as sheriff under the supposed authority of a judgment pronouncing him guilty of attempting to incite insurrection, as defined in § 56 of the Penal Code, and sentencing him to imprisonment *244 for not less than eighteen nor more than twenty years. Attached were copies of the judgment and the indictment and a statement of the evidence upon which the verdict and judgment were founded. The petition alleged the judgment and sentence were void and appellant's detention illegal because the statute under which he was convicted denies and illegally restrains his freedom of speech and of assembly and is too vague and indefinite to provide a sufficiently ascertainable standard of guilt, and further alleged that there had been no adjudication by any court of the constitutional validity of the statute as applied to appellant's conduct. A writ issued. The appellee answered, demurred specially to, and moved to strike, so much of the petition as incorporated the evidence taken at the trial. At the hearing the statement of the evidence was identified and was conceded by the appellee to be full and accurate. The court denied the motion to strike, overruled the special demurrer and an objection to the admission of the trial record, decided that the statute, as construed and applied in the trial of the appellant, did not infringe his liberty of speech and of assembly but ran afoul of the Fourteenth Amendment because too vague and indefinite to provide a sufficiently ascertainable standard of guilt, and ordered the prisoner's discharge from custody. The appellee took the case to the Supreme Court of Georgia, assigning as error the ruling upon his demurrer, motion, and objection, and the decision against the validity of the statute. The appellant, in accordance with the state practice, also appealed, assigning as error the decision with respect to his right of free speech and of assembly. The two appeals were separately docketed but considered in a single opinion which reversed the judgment on the appellee's appeal and affirmed on that of the appellant,^[1] concluding: "Under *245 the pleadings and the evidence, which embraced the record on the trial that resulted in the conviction, the court erred, in the habeas corpus proceeding, in refusing to remand the prisoner to the custody of the officers."

The appellant, doing business in the name of "Organo Product Company," in his bill prayed for an injunction restraining the Postmaster at Chicago from giving effect to a "fraud order" against him, issued by the Postmaster General on August 15, 1919, pursuant to authority of Rev. Stats., § 3929 and § 4041. The order was in the usual form, prohibiting the delivery of mail or payment of money orders to appellant, and directing the disposition of mail which should be addressed to him. The District Court, refusing the injunction, dismissed the bill, and the Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed its decree. Leach v. Carlisle, 267 Fed. 61.

Appellant, Alma Lovell, was convicted in the Recorder's Court of the City of Griffin, Georgia, of the violation of a city ordinance and was sentenced to imprisonment for fifty days in default of the payment of a fine of fifty dollars. The violation, which is not denied, consisted of the distribution without the required permission of a pamphlet and magazine in the nature of religious tracts, setting forth the gospel of the "Kingdom of Jehovah." Appellant did not apply for a permit, as she regarded herself as sent "by Jehovah to do His work," and that such an application would have been "an act of disobedience to His commandment."

Overruled

Lillian Gobitis, aged twelve, and her brother William, aged ten, were expelled from the public schools of Minersville, Pennsylvania, for refusing to salute the national flag as part of a daily school exercise. The local Board of Education required both teachers and pupils to participate in this ceremony. The Gobitis family are affiliated with "Jehovah's Witnesses," for whom the Bible as the Word of God is the supreme authority. The children had been brought up conscientiously to believe that such a gesture of respect for the flag was forbidden by command of Scripture. The Gobitis children were of an age for which Pennsylvania makes school attendance compulsory. Thus, they were denied a free education, and their parents had to put them into private schools. To be relieved of the financial burden thereby entailed, their father, on behalf of the children and in his own behalf, brought this suit.

Overruled

Complainant directs its argument to three propositions: (1) The statute in controversy imposes an unlawful burden on interstate commerce; (2) it violates the freedom of speech and publication guaranteed by § 11, art. 1, of the constitution of the State of Ohio;^[1] and (3) it attempts to delegate legislative power to censors and to other boards to determine whether the statute offends in the particulars designated.

A Minnesota statute passed in 1925 provided for the "abatement" of a "malicious, scandalous and defamatory newspaper, magazine or other periodical." Near v. State of Minnesota ex rel. Olson, 283 U.S. 697, 701-02 (1931). J.M. Near published a newspaper called The Saturday Press, which contained articles complaining of the mayor, district attorney, and chief of police, among others, and alleging a Jewish gambling conspiracy. As a result, the county attorney filed an action against the paper to prevent it from publishing any more issues. Near argued that the law violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution.