Fiske v. State of Kansas
| Decision Date | 16 May 1927 |
| Docket Number | No. 48,48 |
| Citation | 71 L.Ed. 1108,274 U.S. 380,47 S.Ct. 655 |
| Parties | FISKE v. STATE OF KANSAS |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. A. M. Harvey and Randal C. Harvey, both of Topeka, Kan., and Chas. L. Carroll, of Great Bend, Kan., for plaintiff in error.
Messrs. C. B. Griffith and Roland Boynton, both of Topeka, Kan., for the State of Kansas.
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 Sp. Sess. 1920, c. 37. The judgment was affirmed by the Supreme Court of the State, 117 Kan. 69, 230 P. 88; and this writ of error was allowed by the Chief Justice of that court.
The only substantial Federal question presented to and decided by the State court, and which may therefore be re-examined by this Court, is whether the Syndicalism Act as applied in this case is repugnant to the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The relevant provisions of the Act are:
'Section 1. 'Criminal syndicalism' is hereby defined to be the doctrine which advocates crime, physical violence, arson, destruction of property, sabotage, or other unlawful acts or methods, as a means of accomplishing or effecting industrial or political ends, or as a means of effecting industrial or political revolution, or for profit. * * *
* * *'
The information charged that the defendant did 'by word of mouth and by publicly displaying and circulating certain books and pamphlets and written and printed matter, advocate, affirmatively suggest and teach the duty, necessity, propriety and expediency of crime, criminal syndicalism, and sabotage by * * * knowingly and feloniously persuading, inducing and securing' certain persons 'to sign an application for membership in * * * and by issuing to' them 'membership cards' in a certain Workers' Industrial Union, 'a branch of and component part of the Industrial Workers of the World organization, said defendant then and there knowing that said organization unlawfully teaches, advocates and affirmatively suggests: 'That the working class and the employing class have nothing in common, and that there can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of working people and the few who make up the employing class have all the good things of life.' And that 'Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the World organize as a class, take possession of the earth and the machinery of production and abolish the wage system.' And that: 'Instead of the conservative motto, 'A fair day's wages for a fair day's work,' we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, 'Abolition of the wage system.' By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old."
The defendant moved to quash the information as insufficient, for the reason, among others, that it failed to specify the character of the organization in which he was alleged to have secured members. This was overruled.
On the trial the State offered no evidence as to the doctrines advocated, suggested or taught by the Industrial Workers of the World organization other than a copy of the preamble to the constitution of that organization containing the language set forth and quoted in the information. The defendant, who testified in his own behalf, stated that he was a member of that organization and understood what it taught; that while it taught the matters set forth in this preamble it did not teach or suggest that it would obtain industrial control in any criminal way or unlawful manner, but in a peaceful manner; that he did not believe in criminal syndicalism or sabotage, and had not at any time advocated, suggested or taught the duty, necessity, propriety and expediency of crime, criminal syndicalism or sabotage, and did not know that they were advocated, taught or suggested by the organization; and that in taking the applications for membership in the organization, which contained the preamble to the constitution, he had explained the principles of the organization so far as he knew them by letting the applicants read this preamble.
The jury was instructed that before the defendant could be convicted they must be satisfied from the evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the Industrial Workers of the World was an organization that taught criminal syndicalism as defined by the Syndicalism Act.
The defendant moved in arrest of judgment upon the ground, among others, that the evidence and the facts stated did not constitute a public offense and substantiate the charges alleged in the information. And he also moved for a new trial upon the grounds, among others, that the verdict was contrary to the law and the evidence and wholly unsupported by the evidence. Both of these motions were overruled.
On the appeal to the Supreme Court of the State, among the errors assigned were, generally, that the court erred in overruling his motions to quash the information, his demurrer to the evidence-which does not appear in the record-and his motions in arrest of judgment and for a new trial; and specifically, that the 'court erred in refusing to quash the information, in overruling the demurrer to the evidence, and in overruling the motion in arrest of judgment, because the information and the cause of action attempted to be proved were based upon' the Kansas Syndicalism Act, 'which, in so far as it sustains this...
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