The Confidence vs. the Disillusionment of the 1920s

Kantorek would say that we stood on the threshold of life. And so it would seem. We had as yet taken no root. The war swept us away. For the others, the older men, it is but an interruption. They are able to think beyond it. We, however, have been gripped by it and do not know what the end may be. We know only what the end may be. We know only that in some strange and melancholy way we have become a wasteland… We are forlorn like children, and experienced like old men, we are crude and sorrowful and superficial- I believe we are lost…

[Two years later]. It is autumn. There are not many of the old hands left. I am the last of the seven fellows from our class. Everyone talks of peace and armistice. All wait. If it again proves an illusion, then they will break up; hope is high, it cannot be taken away again without an upheaval. If there is not peace, then there will be revolution.

I have 14 days’ rest, because I have swallowed a bit of gas; in a little garden I sit the whole day long in the sun. The armistice is coming soon, I believe it now too. Then we will go home. Here my thoughts stop and will not go any further. All that meets me, all that floods over me are but feelings- greed of life, love of home, yearning of the blood, intoxication of deliverance. But no aims. Had we returned home in 1916, out of the suffering and the strength of our experiences, we might have unleashed a storm. Now if we go back we will be weary, broken, burnt out, rootless, and without hope. We will not be able to find our way anymore.

And men will not understand us- for the generation that grew up before us, though it has passed there years with us here, already had a home and a calling; now it will return to its old occupations, and the war will be forgotten- and the generation that has grown up after us will be strange to us and push us aside. We will be superfluous even to ourselves, we will grow older, a few will adapt themselves, some others will merely submit, and most will be bewildered; the years will pass by and in the end we shall fall into ruins.

But perhaps all this that I think is mere melancholy and dismay, which will fly away as the dust, when I stand once again beneath the poplars and listen to the rustling of their leaves. It cannot be that it has gone, the yearning that made our blood unquiet, the unknown, the perplexing, the oncoming things, the thousand faces of the future, the melodies from dreams and from books, the whispers and divinations of women, it cannot be that this has vanished in bombardment, in despair…

Here the trees show gay and golden, the berries of the rowan stand red among the leaves, country roads run white out to the skyline, and the canteens hum like beehives with rumors of peace.

I stand up. I am very quiet. Let the months and years come, they bring me nothing more, they can bring me nothing more. I am so alone, and so without hope that I can confront them without fear. The life that has borne me through these years is still in my hands and my eyes. Whether I have subdued it, I know not. But so long as it is there it will seek its own way out, heedless of the will that is within me.

He fell in October 1918, on a day that was so quiet and still on the whole front, that the army report confined itself to the single sentence: All quiet on the Western Front.

He had fallen forward and lay on the earth as though sleeping. Turning him over one say that he could not have suffered long; his face had an expression of calm, as though almost glad the end had come.

The great wealth created by our enterprise and industry, and saved by our economy, has had the widest distribution among our own people, and has gone out in a steady stream to serve the charity and the business of the world. The requirements of existence have passed beyond the standard of necessity into the region of luxury. Enlarging production is consumed by an increasing demand at home and an expanding commerce abroad. The country can regard the present with satisfaction and anticipate the future with optimism. The main source of these unexampled blessings lies in the integrity and character of the American people. They have had great faith, which they have supplemented with mighty works. They have been able to put trust in each other and trust in their government. Their candor in dealing with foreign governments has commanded respect and confidence. Yet these remarkable powers would have been exerted almost in vain without the constant cooperation and careful administration of the Federal Government…

When we turn from our domestic affairs to our foreign relations, we likewise perceive peace and progress… One of the most important treaties ever laid before the Senate of the US will be that which the 15 nations recently signed at Paris, and to which 44 other nations have declared their intention to adhere, renouncing war as a national policy and agreeing to resort only to peaceful means for the adjustment of international differences. It is the most solemn declaration against war, the most positive adherence to peace, that it is possible for sovereign nations to make. It does not supersede our inalienable sovereign right and duty of national defense or undertake or commit us before the event to any mode of action which the Congress might decide to be wise if ever the treaty should be broken. But it is a new standard in the world around which can rally the informed and enlightened opinion of nations to prevent their governments from being forced into hostile action by the temporary outbreak of international animosities. The observance of this covenant, so simple and so straightforward, promises more for the peace of the world than any other agreement ever negotiated among the nations…

The end of government is to keep open the opportunity for a more abundant life. Peace and prosperity are not finalities; they are only methods. It is too easy under their influence for a nation to become selfish and degenerate. This test has come to the United States. Our country has been provided with the resources with which it can enlarge its intellectual, moral, and spiritual life. The issue is in the hands of the people. Our faith is man and God is the justification for the belief in our continuing success.

2. 
   THE CONFLICT OF IDEAS IN THE 1920s:
   

… Darwinism is a definite hypothesis. In his “Descent of Man” and “Origin of Species” Darwin has presumed to outline a family tree that begins, according to his estimate, about 200 million years ago with marine animals. He attempts to trace man’s line of descent from this obscure beginning up through fish, reptile, bird and animal to man… Darwin set fort two (so-called) laws by which he attempts to explain the changes which he thought had taken place in the development of life from the earlier forms to man. One of these is called “natural selection” or “survival of the fittest,”… The second law that he assumed to declare was called “sexual selection,” by which he attempted to account for every change that was not accounted for by natural selection…

The first objection to Darwin is that it is only a guess and was never anything more. It is called a “hypothesis,” but the word “hypothesis,” though euphonious, dignified and high-sounding, is merely a scientific synonym for the old-fashioned word “guess.” If Darwin had advanced his views as a guess they would not have survived for a year, but they have floated for a half century, buoyed up by the inflated word “hypothesis”…

The second objection to Darwin’s guess is that it has not one syllable in the Bible to support it. This ought to make Christians cautions about accepting it without thorough investigation. The Bible not only describes man’s creation, but gives a reason for it; man is a part of God’s plan and is placed on earth for a purpose. Both the Old and New Testament deal with man and with man only. They tell of God’s creation of him, of God’s dealings with him and of God’s plans for him. Is it not strange that a Christian will accept Darwinism as a substitute for the Bible when the Bible not only does not support Darwin’s hypothesis but directly and expressly contradicts it?

Third- neither Darwin nor his supporters have been able to find a fact in the universe to support their hypothesis. With millions of species, the investigators have not been able to find one single instance in which one species has changed into another, although, according to the hypothesis, all species have developed from one or a few germs of life, the development being through the action of “resident forces” and without outside aid. Wherever a form of life, found in the rocks, is found among living organisms, there is no material change from the earliest form in which it is found. With millions of examples, nothing imperfect is found- nothing in the process of change…

Fourth- Darwinism is not only without foundation, but it compels its believers to resort to explanations that are more absurd than anything found in the “Arabian Nights.” Darwin explains that man’s mind became superior to woman’s because, among our brute ancestors, the males fought for their females and thus strengthened their minds. If he had lived until now, he would not have felt it necessary to make so ridiculous an explanation, because woman’s mind is now not believed to be inferior to man’s.

Darwin also explained that the hair disappeared from the body, permitting man to become a hairless animal because, among our brute ancestors, the females preferred the males with the least hair and thus in the course of ages, bred the hair off. It is hardly necessary to point out that these explanations conflict; the males and the females could not both select at the same time… I simply mention these explanations to show what some people can believe who cannot believe the Bible. Evolution seems to close the heart of some to the plainest spiritual truths while it opens the mind to the wildest of guesses advanced in the name of science.

Guesses are not science. Science is classified knowledge, and a scientist ought to be the last person to insist upon a guess being accepted until proof removes if from the field of hypothesis into the field of demonstrated truth. Christianity has nothing to fear from any truth; no fact disturbs the Christian religion or the Christian. It is the unsupported guess that is substituted for science to which opposition is made, and I think the objection is a valid one.

But, it may be asked, why should one object to Darwinism even though it is not true?... The objection to Darwinism is that it is harmful, as well as groundless. It entirely changes one’s view of life and undermines faith in the Bible. Evolution has no place for the miracle or the supernatural… Evolution attempts to solve the mystery of life by suggesting a process of development commencing “in the dawn of time” and continuing uninterrupted up until now. Evolution does not explain creation: it simply diverts attention from it by hiding it behind eons of time. If a man accepts Darwinism, or evolution applied to man, and is consistent, he rejects the miracle of the supernatural as impossible. He commences with the first chapter of Genesis and blots out the Bible story of man’s creation, not because the evidence is insufficient, but because the miracle is inconsistent with evolution. If he is consistent, he will go through the Old Testament step by step and cut out all the miracles and all the supernatural- the virgin birth of Christ, His miracles and His resurrection, leaving the Bible a storybook without binding authority upon the conscience of man…

… Those who teach Darwinism are undermining the faith of Christians; they are raising questions about the Bible as an authoritative source of truth; they are teaching materialistic views that rob the life of the young of spiritual values… The Bible has in many places been excluded from the schools on the ground that religion should not be taught by those paid by public taxation. If this doctrine is sound, what right have the enemies of religion to teach irreligion in public schools? If the Bible cannot be taught, why should Christian taxpayers permit the teaching of guesses that make the Bible a lie?...

We stamp upon our coins “In God We Trust;” we administer to witnesses an oath in which God’s name appears, our President takes his oath of office upon the Bible. Is it fanatical to suggest that public taxes should not be employed for the purpose of undermining the nation’s God? When we defend the Mosaic account of man’s creation and contend that man has no brute blood in him, but was made in God’s image by separate act and placed on earth to carry out a divine decree, we are defending the God of the Jews as well as the God of the Gentiles, the God of the Catholics as well as the God of the Protestants. We believe that faith in a Supreme Being is essential to civilization as well as to religion and that abandonment of God means ruin to the world and chaos to society.

Let these believers in “the tree man” come down out of the trees and meet the issue. Let them defend the teachings of agnosticism or theism if they date. If they deny that the natural tendency of Darwinism is to lead many to a denial of God, let them frankly point out the portions of the Bible which they regard as consistent with Darwinism, or evolution applied to man… As religion is the only basis of morals, it is time for Christians to protect religion from is most insidious enemy.

EDWIN GRANT CONKLIN:

Mr. Bryan makes much of the idea that evolution is only a hypothesis, or as he prefers to call it, a guess. But unless he uses the word “guess” in the Yankee sense of practical certainty, this is an enormous and misleading statement. Evolution is a guess in the same sense as is the doctrine of universal gravitation, or any other great generalization of science. Can one honestly call that doctrine a guess which is supported by all the evidence available, which continually receives additional support from new discoveries and which is not contradicted by any scientific evidence? It is true that we do not know as much as we should like about the causes of evolution (though we know a good deal more than Mr. Bryan assumes), but the same may be said with regard to the causes of gravitation, light, electricity, chemical affinity, life or any other natural phenomenon. The problem of cause is never finally solved by science, for no sooner is one cause discovered than it gives rise to questions concerning the cause of this cause. Strange as it may seem, it is only the causes of supernatural phenomena that are supposed to be fully known.

… When he [Mr. Bryan] says, as he does repeatedly in his article in the New York Times, that there are no evidences of the evolution of man; that “neither Darwin nor his supporters have been able to find a fact in the universe to support their hypothesis,” it is hard to understand what he means. Darwin’s works are filled with facts in support of evolution. They are composed of little except such facts, and multitudes of similar facts have been accumulated since Darwin’s day… The evidences for the major transformations in the evolution of man are not personal demonstrations, since they do not fall within the lifetime of a single individual, but they are the same sort of evidence as those for mountain building, stream erosion, glacial action or any other secular change.

The minor stages in evolution, known as mutations and elementary species, have been repeatedly observed in plants, animals, and man. DeVries, Morgan, and many others have demonstrated that sudden and very great changes or mutations sometimes occur, that these mutations may be combined to form races or elementary species, and there can be no reasonable doubt that these elementary species are combined to form Linnaean species. Among our domestic animals and cultivated plants such changes have been wrought as amount to specific differences. Darwin says that any naturalist, if he should find our races of domestic pigeons wild in nature, would classify them in not less than 20 species and 3 different genera. A similar statement could be made regarding fowls and dogs, as well as many fruits, grains and vegetables. In short, evolution has occurred under domestication. Everything which speaks for the evolution of plants and animals speaks plainly for the evolution of man. In the structure of the human body there is scarcely a bone, muscle, nerve, or any other organ that does not have its counterpart in the higher primates and especially the anthropoid apes…

Not only the structure but the functions of the human body are fundamentally like those of other animals. We are born, nourished and develop, we reproduce, grow old and die, just as do other mammals. Specific functions of every organ are the same; drugs, diseases, injuries affect man as they do animals, and all the wonderful advances of experimental medicine are founded upon this fact. Development from a fertilized egg to birth goes through the same stages in man and other mammals even to the repeating of fish-like gill slits, kidneys, heart and blood vessels. Indeed, development from the egg recapitulates some of the main stages of evolution- in it we see evolution repeated before our eyes… If we admit the fact of the development of the entire individual from en egg, surely it matters little to our religious beliefs to admit the development or evolution of the race. The discovery of fossil remains of man have proved conclusively that other species of men, more brute-like than any existing at the present time, preceded the present species, and the older these species are the more ape-like they are. Likewise their handiwork, implements and flints, are coarser and cruder the earlier they occur…

Against all this mountain of evidence which Mr. Bryan tries to blow away by a word, what does he bring in support of his view of special creation? Only this, that evolution denies the Biblical account of the creation of man. What is that account? Here it is in a sentence: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” Observe, ye literalists, that this does not say that God spoke man into existence, as when He said, “Let there be light; and there was light.” But a process is described by which man was formed or molded from the dust, as the Egyptian and Babylonian deities are said to have molded man from clay on a potter’s wheel, and then to have breathed life into his nostrils…

Is it any more degrading to hold that man was made through a long line of animal ancestry than to believe that he was made directly from dust? Surely the horse and the dog and the monkey belong to higher orders of existence than do the clod and the stone. Whether we accept the teachings of evolution or the most literal interpretation of the Biblical account we are compelled to recognize the fact that our bodily origin has been a humble one; as Sir Charles Lyell once said, “It is mud or monkey.” But this lowly origin does not destroy the dignity of man; his real dignity consists not in his origin but in what he is and in what he may become…

Scientific investigators and productive scholars in almost every field have long since accepted evolution in the broadest sense as an established fact. Science now deals with the evolution of the elements, of the stars and solar system of the earth, of life upon the earth, of various types and species of plants and animals, of the body, mind and society of man, of science, art, government, education, and religion. In the light of this great generalization all sciences, and especially those which have to do with living things, have made more progress in the last half century than in all the previous centuries of human history. Even progressive theology has come to regard evolution as an ally rather than as an enemy. In the face of all these facts, Mr. Bryan and his kind hurl their medieval theology. It would be amusing if it were not so pathetic and disheartening to see these modern defenders of the faith beating their gongs and firing their giant crackers against the ramparts of science.

When the state declares, as it used to in the old Puritan days, that a man shouldn’t kiss his wife between sunrise and sunset on Sunday, when the state prescribes that a woman must wear her skirts not more than 6 inches or 7 inches from the ground, when the state undertakes to prescribe that a man’s neck-tie shall be red and not black or black and not red- when the states does things of that kind, it passes sumptuary legislation [legislation regulating personal habits for moral or religious reasons], it invades the sanctities of the individual life and deals with those habits and standards of the individual life which limit themselves absolutely to the conduct and ideas of the individual… But when we go on and analyze this question, we discover this interesting fact: that there are a whole lot of habits of individual life, things which individuals may do, which affect other people and therefore affect society, habits and standards which cannot be confined within the borders of the individual life but overflow and run out into the precincts of society.

Whether a man shall smoke or not is of no concern to anybody, but whether a man shall smoke or not in a garage is the business of the state- and the state legislature prohibits smoking in garages. Whether a man shall drink a cup of tea or coffee or even water is of no concern to anyone but himself. If any legislation is passed concerning that, it is sumptuary legislation. But when a man drinks poisoned water, when the Health Commissioner discovers that a certain part of the water in the town is poisoned, the citizens of that town are prohibited from drinking that poisoned water- and all the power of the law is behind the prohibition of the Health Commissioner. Now you see the conclusion to which I am coming in the presentation of my case. We all approve of social legislation. We all agree, do we not, that the liberty of the individual must bow in a complex society to the safety and the happiness of all of us together?

We all agree to that. That being the case, where is there any difference between us? Mr. Darrow believes, if I understand his writings upon the question, that prohibition is an instance of sumptuary legislation; it is the invasion of the private precincts of the individual life and the denial to a man of the liberty of the control of his individual life which belongs to him as a citizen of a free democracy. To that definition of the Prohibition Amendment, I say briefly, to the point- “tommyrot.” The 18^th Amendment to the Constitution is not sumptuary legislation. It has nothing to do with sumptuary legislation. From beginning to end, it is social legislation.

You say, “Why has the state any right to dictate to me what I shall drink?” The State hasn’t any right to dictate to you what you shall drink, provided that what you drink affects yourself alone and does not affect society at large. If any man should say to me or prove to me upon the basis of social experience and laboratory experiments that the drinking of a cup of coffee does to society what the drinking of a glass of whiskey does, then I should say that legislation against coffee, like legislation against whiskey, was justified- justified by its social effects, justified by the fact that the safety and happiness of us all must be protected from the invasion of the one or the two…

Liquor, in the first place, is dangerous to the public safety… We are living in the automobile age. Great automobiles are driven at rapid speed through the streets of our cities and the highways of our country. Do you think it is compatible with public safety to allow the driver of an automobile, under any circumstances, to get liquor? Not at all!... Liquor is dangerous to public safety because it creates poverty, it cultivates crime, it establishes social conditions generally which are a burden to society.

Secondly, liquor legislation is social legislation because liquor constitutes a deliberate exploitation of the weak by the strong. The real thing that the 18^th Amendment was after- the real thing- was the liquor business, the manufacturing of liquor, the distribution of liquor, the sale of liquor under a public license- a business in the hands of a few for the amassing of great millions which preyed upon the weaknesses of the people as a tenement-house owner would prey upon the weaknesses of the people if he were allowed to do so in the absence of tenement-house legislation.

For these two reasons- because liquor is a menace to public safety, and an exploitation of the weak- we have got to get rid of it. And if you show me any way of doing that thing apart from what we did to the slave trade, to chattel slavery, to the white slave trade, to the opium trade, I would like to know what it is… I believe in liberty- absolute liberty of speech, absolute liberty of assembly, absolute liberty of the press- all of these essential liberties. But I have never believed that democracy involved the liberty to guzzle when that liberty to guzzle was a menace to me and to all other men and to the integrity of that society which constitutes the America we love together.

CLARENCE DARROW:

… What is sumptuary law? A law regulating your personal habits or your personal conduct. He [Mr. Holmes] says it would be a sumptuary law if you passed a law against drinking coffee. Then why not if you passed one against drinking beer? It is a sumptuary law if it is against drinking coffee, but it is not a sumptuary law if it is against drinking beer. Why didn’t he tell us why that was? Nobody could tell us which of the two is better or worse for the constitution. And if it is worse, what of it? I might take a little chance on my constitution for something I wanted to do. What is the use of taking such good care of your constitution anyhow?

Let’s see about this question of liquor. It has always been on the earth and always been used- many times to excess, of course. Food has also been on the earth and also used, generally to excess. I never say anybody that didn’t eat too much, if he could afford it. And if you go down to the graveyard and look them over and learn their history, I will guarantee you will find that there are ten funerals pulled off where the corpses would have lived longer if they hadn’t had so much to eat, to everyone that would have lived longer if it hadn’t drank so much.

In this world it is a pretty good thing to mind your own business, if you have any. The first instinct of everyone is to do what he wants to do. Now, I am not going to argue that the collective organization [government] shouldn’t at some time keep him from doing what he wants to do, in order to protect his own life. I am not going to argue that, but every human being ought to be left to follow his own inclinations and his own emotions, unless he clearly interfered with the rest to an extent that was so injurious that it would be manifest to most anybody else.

There are certain things that for long periods of time, in all countries, have been considered criminal- like murder. Suppose the question were put up to the community. There probably wouldn’t be one in a thousand who would say it shouldn’t be the subject of a criminal statute. There is almost a universal agreement on that, with regard to burglary, larceny and murder. Suppose the question of eating certain kinds of food or drinking certain kinds of liquid were put up to the community and 40% of the people thought it was right. Who are the other 60% who would have the audacity to send those 40% to jail for doing something that 60% didn’t believe in. On how many questions do two people think alike? They can go only a certain way, when they branch off and leave each other. Men ought to hesitate a long time before they vote that a certain thing is a crime- and prohibition means crime…

If the doctrine should prevail that when 60% of the people of a country believe that certain conduct should be a criminal offense and for that conduct they must send the 40% to jail, then liberty is dead and freedom is gone… In this world of ours we cannot live with our neighbors without a broad tolerance. We must tolerate their religion, their social life, their customs, their appetites of eating and drinking, and we should be very slow, indeed, when we make criminal conduct of what is believed by vast numbers of men and women to be honest and fair and right.

This Prohibition Law has filled our jails with people who are not criminals, who have no conception of feeling that they are doing wrong. It has turned our Federal Courts into Police Courts, where important business is put aside for cases of drunkenness and disorderly conduct. It has made spies and detectives, snooping around doors and windows. It has made informers of thousands of us. It has made grafters and bootleggers of men who otherwise would be honest. It is hateful, it is distasteful, it is an abomination, and we ought to get rid of it, and we will if we have the courage and the sense.


Edward Sanford and Oliver Wendell Holmes on Freedom of Speech:

During the “red scare” after WWI, several cases which involved the issue of freedom of speech came before the Supreme Court of the US. One of the most famous cases was the case of Schenck v. US in 1919, in which Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, giving the opinion of the court, stated that a person cannot be punished for criticizing the government or even advocating revolution unless there is “a clear and present danger of some substantial evil” which would result from the speech or writing. In the case of Gitlow v. NY in 1925, however, the Supreme Court, in a stricter interpretation of the rights involved under freedom of speech, ruled that the defendant, Gitlow, could be convicted under the NY Criminal Anarchy Act of 1902, because his revolutionary writings, while they had no visible effects, could tend toward an evil effect. In the following excerpts from the opinions rendered in the case, Justice Edward Sanford delivers the opinion of the court, while Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, known as “The Great Dissenter,” gives his dissenting opinion.
JUSTICE SANFORD:

The indictment was in two counts. The first charged that the defendants had advocated, advised, and taught the duty, necessity, and propriety of overthrowing and overturning organized government by force, violence, and unlawful means, by certain writings therein set forth, entitled, “The Left Wing Manifesto”; the second, that the defendants had printed, published, and knowingly circulated and distributed a certain paper called “The Revolutionary Age,” containing the writings set forth in the first count, advocating, advising, and teaching the doctrine that organized government should be overthrown by force, violence, and unlawful means…

There was no evidence of any effects resulting from the publication and circulation of the Manifesto… The precise question presented… is whether the [New York] statute, as construed and applied in this case by the state courts, deprived the defendant of his liberty of expression, in violation of the due process clause of the 14^th Amendment.

The statue does not penalize the utterance or publication of abstract “doctrine” or academic discussion having no quality of incitement to any concrete action. It is not aimed against mere historical or philosophical essays. It does not restrain the advocacy of changes in the form of government by constitutional and lawful means. What it prohibits is language advocating, advising, or teaching the overthrow of organized government by unlawful means…

The Manifesto, plainly, is neither the statement of abstract doctrine nor, as suggested by counsel, mere prediction that industrial disturbances and revolutionary mass strikes will result spontaneously in an inevitable process of evolution in the economic system. It advocates and urges in fervent language mass action which shall progressively foment industrial disturbances, and, through political mass strikes and revolutionary mass action, overthrow and destroy organized parliamentary government…

The means advocated for bringing about the destruction of organized parliamentary government, namely, mass industrial revolts usurping the functions of municipal government, political mass strikes directed against the parliamentary state, and revolutionary mass action for its final destruction, necessarily imply the use of force and violence, and in their essential nature are inherently unlawful in a constitutional government of law and order. That the jury was warranted in finding that the Manifesto advocated not merely the abstract doctrine of overwhelming organized government by force, violence, and unlawful means, but action to that end, is clear…

It is a fundamental principle, long established, that the freedom of speech and of the press which is secured by the Constitution does not confer an absolute right to speak or publish, without responsibility, whatever one may choose, or an unrestricted and unbridled license that gives immunity for every possible use of language, and prevents the punishment of those who abuse this freedom…

That a state, in the exercise of its police power, may punish those who abuse this freedom by utterances inimical to the public welfare, tending to corrupt public morals, incite to crime, or disturb the public peace, is not open to question…

And, for yet more imperative reasons, a State may punish utterances endangering the foundations of organized government and threaten its overthrow by unlawful means. These imperil its own existence as a constitutional state. Freedom of speech and press, said [Justice] Story… does not protect disturbances of the public peace or the attempt to subvert or imperil the government, or to impede of hinder it in the performance of its governmental duties. It does not protect publications prompting the overthrow of government by force; the punishment for those who publish articles which tend to destroy organized society being essential to the security of freedom and the stability of the state…

By enacting the present statute the State has determined, through its legislative body, that utterances advocating the overthrow of organized government by force, violence, and unlawful means, are so inimical to the general welfare, and involve such danger of substantial evil, that they may be penalized in the exercise of its police power. That determination must be given great weight. Every presumption is to be indulged in favor of the validity of the statute… That utterance inciting to the overthrow of organized government by unlawful means present a sufficient danger of substantive evil to bring them punishment within the range of legislative discretion is clear. Such utterances, by their very nature, involved danger to the public peace and to the security of the state. They threaten breaches of peace and ultimate revolution… A single revolutionary spark may kindle a fire that, smoldering for a time, may burst into a sweeping and destructive conflagration. It cannot be said that the state is acting arbitrarily or unreasonably when, in the exercise of its judgment as to the measures necessary to protect the public peace and safety, it seeks to extinguish the spark without waiting until it has enkindled the flame or blazed into conflagration. It cannot reasonably be required to defer the adoption of measure for its own peace and safety until the revolutionary utterances lead to actual disturbances of the public peace or imminent and immediate danger of its own destruction; but it may, in the exercise of its judgment, suppress the threatened danger in its incipiency…

We cannot hold that the present statute is an arbitrary or unreasonable exercise of the police power of the state, unwarrantably infringing the freedom of speech or press; and we must and do sustain its constitutionality.

JUSTICE HOLMES:

Mr. Justice Brandeis and I are of opinion that this judgment should be reversed… I think that the criterion sanctioned by the full court in Schenck v. US… applies: “The question in every case is whether the words are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that [the state] has a right to prevent”… If what I think the correct test is applied, it is manifest that there was no present danger of an attempt to overthrow the government by force on the part of the admittedly small minority who shared the defendant’s views. It is said that this Manifesto was more than a theory, that it was an incitement. Every idea is an incitement. It offers itself for belief, and, if believed, it is acted on unless some other belief outweighs it, or some failure of energy stifles the movement at its birth. The only difference between the expression of an opinion and an incitement in the narrower sense is the speaker’s enthusiasm for the result. Eloquence may set fire to reason. But whatever may be thought of the redundant discourse before us, it had no chance of starting a present conflagration.

If the publication of this document had been laid as an attempt to induce an uprising against government at once, and not some indefinite time in the future, it would have presented a different question. The object would have been once with which the law might deal, subject to the doubt whether there was any danger that the publication could produce any result; or, in other words, whether it was not futile and too remote from possible consequences. But the indictment alleges the publication and nothing more.

Timeline: Remembering the Scopes Monkey Trial by Noah Adams July 5, 2005