Four Insights Into Civil Liberties
Feliman, David
Four Insights Into Civil Liberties Felix Frankfurter Reminisces, edited by Harlan B. Phillips. Reynal. 310 pp. $5.75. Freedom in the Balance: opinions of judge henry w. edgerton relating to civil...
...Leonard W. Levy, professor of history at Brandeis University, sheds much light in his new book, Legacy of Suppression, upon the meaning of the concepts of freedom of speech and press in American history from early colonial days down to about 1800...
...Supreme Court...
...Here is an interesting paragraph which suggests Haney's point of view and lively style: "Many-sided though it is, censorship possesses the one unifying emotional response of fear— fear of a world which would, if we faced it, threaten us with the task of becoming individual human beings...
...3.95...
...The reader will learn much about many things from this book, but above all it's fun...
...Miss Bontecou's volume ought to be adequate assurance that this will not happen to Judge Edgerton...
...As the Judge remarked in a security case, "We cannot preserve our liberties by sacrificing them...
...The old common law concept of seditious libel has gone into limbo, which is where it belongs...
...Trial judges, juries, and appellate courts all over the country have been wrestling for some years, and particularly since the beginning of the postwar apprehensions about juvenile delinquency, with problems of censorship relating to publications dealing with sex...
...This stands out clearly in this unusual book...
...278 pp...
...Perhaps this proves that the intent of the Founding Fathers is not an ineluctable rule of interpretation, but only one of many aids to construction...
...Levy makes it abundantly clear that "the persistent image of colonial America as a society in which freedom of expression was cherished is an hallucination of sentiment that ignores history...
...Beacon...
...And we pass on through generations this legacy of fear...
...199 pp...
...Haney's book, Com-stockery in America, is a competent and readable survey and analysis of these problems...
...All the muck and dirt which pornographic literature and photography can pour into our bookstores or onto our newsstands are trivial beside the real damage to the human soul— the systematic production of frightened and inept men and women which goes under the name of censorship...
...Six years ago the Justice agreed to participate in Columbia University's Oral History Research program by reviewing selected aspects of his life in tape-recorded interviews...
...Belknap (Harvard University Press...
...A beautifully written book, based upon exhaustive documentary research, it argues convincingly that contemporary English views regarding the concept of seditious libel as a proper limit upon freedom of political expression prevailed in America throughout the colonial period, and down through the formative constitutional period to the end of the Eighteenth Century...
...The opinions are characterized by fine legal scholarship, clarity and directness of speech, vigorous reasoning, a deep compassion for the weak and the unfortunate, and commitment to enduring constitutional principles...
...It was an equally inspired idea for Eleanor Bontecou to gather together and edit some representative opinions of Judge Henry W. Edgerton, who left his professorship at the Cornell Law School in 1937 to sit on the important Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia, where he still serves with great distinction...
...Whatever one may think of Justice Frankfurter—and like all first-rate public figures he has his detractors as well as admirers—no one has ever suggested that he is not an interesting man...
...Perhaps the most fascinating parts are the Justice's opinions regarding the many distinguished public men whose lives touched his own, ranging from T.R., Bryan, Stimson, and Wilson to Morgenthau and F.D.R...
...The book ends with his appointment to the U.S...
...Comstockery in America, by Robert W. Haney...
...Included in this volume are opinions dealing with freedom of religion, speech, and press, the legislative investigating power, the security programs of the Federal government, fair judicial procedures, the treatment of aliens and Negroes...
...The moral is that we read the Constitution today in the light of our own needs and purposes, and are not slavishly committed to the views of our ancestors...
...The author is opposed to censorship...
...353 pp...
...Justice Frankfurter discusses with remarkable recall many things, his boyhood status as an immigrant, his student years at Harvard, his early work as a lawyer and in the government, his war services, his teaching experience at the Harvard Law School, his connection with various great civil liberties cases, such as those of Tom Mooney and Sacco-Vanzetti, and his New Deal experiences...
...He points out that the colonial legislatures were the worst offenders against freedom of speech, because they did not concede that the individual had a right to criticize them...
...6.50...
...Cornell University Press...
...Haney looks critically into the vexing question of censorship of literature concerned with sex...
...Levy's book is a searching inquiry into the historical background of American legal doctrine regarding the freedom of speech and press...
...Nevertheless, we have read into that Amendment a generous conception of freedom of speech...
...It was not until about 1800 that a truly libertarian theory of free speech began to be stated...
...Legacy of Suppression, by Leonard W. Levy...
...And Justice Frankfurter's book of reminiscences illuminates many salient aspects of the civil liberties history of our country for the past half-century as they came to a focus in the life of this extraordinary man...
...Levy makes it clear that it is un-historical to impute to the authors of the First Amendment intentions which they did not have...
...Judge Edgerton's principal contributions to our public law have been in the civil liberties field...
...Furthermore, Levy concludes that the men who wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights accepted common law concepts on the subject of seditious libel...
...Some of this is high-level gossip, but it is never dull...
...Our blushes and smirks and self-righteous denunciations of four-letter words, lewd pictures, and all the other paraphernalia of obscenity and pornography are little more than the attempt to feel noble when we are really being absurd...
...Since Justice Frankfurter is one of the great conversationalists of our time, these interviews have all the sparkle and wit and movement which characterize the oral speech of an interesting, insightful, and articulate man...
...He dissects the doctrines which have been elaborated by the courts, the methods and purposes of private groups which sponsor non-legal forms of censorship, and the various fields, such as books, magazines, movies, and television, in which censorship has reared its ugly head...
...Supreme Court Justices get so much public attention that able members of the lower courts tend to get lost in the shuffle...
...What is unusual about it is that it was not originally intended for this sort of publication...
...Teachers, books, politicians, lawyers, defendants, causes, elections—these and many others pass in review...
...The collection of Judge Edgerton's opinions explores the mind and record of a distinguished Federal jurist...
...Freedom in the Balance: opinions of judge henry w. edgerton relating to civil liberties, edited by Eleanor Bontecou...
...Reviewed by David Feliman hile the books under review differ a great deal in style and subject-matter, each constitutes a valuable addition to our literature on civil liberties...
Vol. 24 • November 1960 • No. 11
