The Court and Civil Liberty
P., S.
"They'se wan thing about th' supreme coort, if ye lave annything to thim, ye lave it to thim. Ye don't get a check that entitles ye to call f'r it in an hour. The supreme coort iv th' United...
...tradition-based in the sense that they accept the fundamental philosophy of 34, "constitutional equilibrium" as expressed by the "founding fathers...
...Its hearings must be confined to gathering information for legislative purposes and not to expose witnesses' beliefs or associations...
...Ye don't get a check that entitles ye to call f'r it in an hour...
...It don't have to make th' las' car...
...As a matter of taste, or of principle...
...Westin seem only partly correct...
...rather, what it does is to compel the government to make available those reports made privately by a witness now testifying in court for the government...
...The Communists, reeling under the blow they had received from Mr...
...Writing in the New Republic, David Riesman calls the decisions "the best news the friends of freedom in this country have had for a long time...
...DooLEY IN Now & FoeEvER...
...The language of the decisions is weighty...
...v. Jencks) that the defendant was entitled to see statements about his alleged Communist affiliations made to the FBI by testifying witnesses...
...This is a tenuous alliance, of course, and contradicts the idea that any clearcut ideological reversal of positions has taken place...
...and traditional Jeffersonian and Populist rhetoric has always found a popular target in the "nine old men...
...I'd back th' Aujitoroom again it anny day f'r a foot race...
...Teachers and students must always remain free to inquire, to study and to evaluate, to gain new maturity and understanding...
...the Court dismissed the cases against five on the grounds that advocacy of force and violence had not been proved and ordered a retrial for the remaining nine...
...IN THE SOMEWHAT related cases of two union officials, Jencks of the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Union and labor organizer John T. Watkins, now of the United Auto Workers, it was decided (U.S...
...First, the Court is not attempting anything startling or novel—"usurpation" is the term employed by its critics—in its reassertion of traditional liberal values...
...They'se wan thing about th' supreme coort, if ye lave annything to thim, ye lave it to thim...
...In the case of Paul Sweezy, held in contempt by the New Hampshire Supreme Court, the U.S...
...If we accept this general interpretation of the Court's actions, then other conclusions follow...
...the Court held that "the very concept, purpose and raison d'être of the political inquiry committees are in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens...
...The struggle over civil liberties is, of course, an unending one whose upsanddowns depend far more upon the activities of the whole American society than on any court, no matter how exalted...
...Further, what credit can organized liberals claim in recent years so far as civil liberties issues are concerned...
...Supreme Court (Sweezy v. New Hampshire) held that questions put to him by the State AttorneyGeneral violated his academic freedom and his political rights as exercised under the First Amendment...
...People must be urged to do something, rather than merely believe in something...
...It is important that it did make these particular decisions in its own self-defense...
...True, as the Nation writer has stated, "there is nothing new in principle in all of this...
...MR...
...Do they form a significant pattern if considered that way...
...Power run amuck, it has said, must be checked...
...In pulling up so sharply the reins of congressional investigating power, the Court compels such bodies to state clearly the subject under inquiry and the pertinency of the questions about to be asked...
...What, first of all, do the three decisions say precisely—and what don't they say...
...Strenuous efforts to hamstring and nullify the effects of this decision have already succeeded in part with the passage by Congress—and with Eisenhower's backing— of a hastily-drawn bill whose intent is to restrict the defense by revealing only selected materials...
...Although the Court's decision turned upon a technicality, it stated that, "Scholarship cannot flourish in an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust...
...Precisely this has been the most difficult to curb, or for the courts to get at...
...The abuse of executive power has been, of course, the most startling development since the time of FDR...
...In that sense, the Supreme Court—in attempting to redress the balance somewhat—aimed its principal blow at the executive through the legislative (Congress...
...The concrete meaning of the recent decisions will be clearer within the next year or so, although so far the effect is definitely disappointing...
...The June decisions of the Supreme Court were major decisions...
...the whole has an air of solemn warning about it...
...It is an appeal to the elements of democratic tolerance in our heritage and thus aimed against ideological conformity...
...v. Yates et al...
...THIS GROUP OF DECISIONS is clearly intended to fit together...
...And where lies the responsibility for the widespread apathy and lack of public mobilization over freedom of speech and expression...
...more important, however, is the fact that the Court in a series of decisions reasserted the Constitution as the foundation of civil liberties...
...If ye're looking f'r a game iv quick decisions an' base hits, ye've got to hire another empire...
...till th' crowd has dispersed an' th' players have packed their bats in th' bags an' started f'r home...
...Is it true, as Alan F. Westin writes in the New Leader of August 5, 1957, that conservative and reactionary groups in the population are leading the antiCourt crusade, whereas the liberals have become its supporters...
...v. Watkins...
...what this country needs most today is a Supreme Court of lawyers with a reasonable amount of common sense and who will apply it in deliberations rather than follow untenable detours into a strange philosophy and unsound logic to make the wrong decisions"—Senator John L. McClellan, Chairman of the Senate Investigations Subcommittee and, lately, a top TV personality), it is the Watkins decision that certain quarters find most obnoxious...
...It is merely the reassertion of traditional principles against a type of attack to which they have only recently been subjected...
...it was further decided that a witness cannot be held in contempt if the questions put to him by an investigating body transgress the range of properly defined relevance (U.S...
...the substance concerns basic principles...
...Dooley so well understood, never permits itself to become the center of ideological clashes, the insights of Mr...
...If our condition of "institutionalized anxiety" goes on, the reinterpretation of the Court's fine print will leave little left beyond the fine rhetoric...
...It niver gives a decision...
...Radical constitutional critics have always challenged the concept of a non-elective federal court system...
...Congress, Chief Justice Warren wrote, has extremely broad but "not unlimited" powers to conduct investigations...
...Has such an "ideological reverse" taken place...
...To be sure, in the Jencks case the Court did not say that the entire FBI, or other, dossier relating to the accused must be disclosed...
...otherwise our civilization will stagnate and die...
...To the layman, unqualified to judge the decisions from a legal standpoint, it would appear so...
...This may have helped the Supreme Court to speak up finally...
...Judging from the howl that went up...
...Have times changed now so that the Court has become a a bulwark of civil liberties...
...There must be proof that "the conspiracy is the work...
...David Riesman acknowledges they have achieved "only a modicum of solidarity" and greater disagreement in principle over the problem...
...this is so even if those to whom the decisions applied directly, or who had initiated the actions that led through the federal courts, have already left the scene...
...APART FROM THE FACT that the Court by its very nature, as Mr...
...That it could hardly have failed to make any other type of decisions without further weakening its own position in government is not the point...
...Finally, in the most elaborate and technical decision of all, involving the conviction of 14 West Coast Communist leaders under the Smith Act (U.S...
...Unfortunately, the Court drew back before the indicated conclusion that the Smith Act itself is unconstitutional...
...But the very emphasis of reassertion leads to the conclusion that the Court intended an appeal both to the American government and the public for a return to constitutional fundamentals which have largely disappeared in recent years...
...In a word, there should be no more performances such as we have been subjected to for the past ten years...
...Khrushchev, and Joseph McCarthy are no longer members of the American audience...
...the Supreme Court, it says, "has placed itself squarely on the side of the individual citizen's rights of free speech and association and warned legislative investigating committees that their powers of inquiry were not unlimited...
...All this is, by and large, true, but more needs to be done than to fling one's hat in the air jubilantly...
...This is no place to analyze our constitutional system of "checks and balances" with particular reference to the modern world, but it is incontestable that the Constitution was drawn up so that such power would never be left unchecked and uncontrolled...
...Taking their lead from the President himself ("I don't get it," he remarked at a press conference), the attack has centered upon this decision...
...The decisions do represent, as he suggests, an aIliance between the active, more politicalminded members of the court (Black, Douglas, Warren) and what may be called the classic or traditionbased liberals (Frankfurter, Harlan...
...And the Nation writer states that ". -. political inquisition has received a blow from which it may never fully recover...
...the question of the constitutionality and good sense of the Smith Act," he adds, "can be argued either way...
...any resounding echo it may have expected has not yet been heard...
...The Supreme Court, then, appears to have raised its voice largely in the wilderness...
...In effect, the Court has sounded an alarm over the deterioration of the democratic process in the country...
...Historians who have approached our history from the viewpoint of examining the constant tug-of-war between the three governmental branches for more power at the expense of each other have always found that such an analysis yields fruitful results...
...The Civil Liberties Union calls them "spectacular...
...Further, the highly important factor of governmental power is involved...
...The supreme coort iv th' United States ain't in anny hurry about catchin' th' mails...
...In a clear, if incomplete, return to the former Holmes "immediate danger" doctrine, the Court held that even Communist Party membership or the "philosophical advocacy" of violent overthrow of the government could not be held illegal...
Vol. 4 • September 1957 • No. 4
