State v. Townley

• Citation: 168 N.W. 591,140 Minn. 413
• Decision Date: 05 July 1918
• Docket Number: 20,926,20,927
• Parties: STATE v. A. C. TOWNLEY AND ANOTHER; STATE v. SAME
• Court: Supreme Court of Minnesota (US)

168 N.W. 591

140 Minn. 413

STATE v. A. C. TOWNLEY AND ANOTHER; STATE v. SAME

Nos. 20,926, 20,927

Supreme Court of Minnesota

July 5, 1918

A. C Townley and Joseph Gilbert were indicted by the grand jury of Martin county under Laws 1917, p. 764, c. 463, of the crime of publishing and circulating a certain pamphlet which advocated that men should not enlist in the military or naval forces of the United States, and that citizens of Minnesota should not assist in prosecuting the war with public enemies of the United States. The case was tried in the district court for that county before Tifft, J., who overruled defendants' demurrer to the indictment, and certified the case to the supreme court upon the questions set out in the first paragraph of the opinion. Reversed and remanded.

SYLLABUS

Discouragement of enlistment -- violation of act.

1. Defendants indicted jointly, charged with violations of chapter 463, Laws 1917, joined in a general demurrer to the indictment, which was overruled and the proceeding certified to this court for determination. The matter set forth in the indictment considered and held not to constitute a violation of the statute.

Discouragement of enlistment -- title of act.

2. The subject matter of section 3 is within the title of the act.

Clifford L. Hilton, Attorney General, James E. Markham, Assistant Attorney General, and Albert R. Allen, County Attorney, for the state.

The essential question is: Is the natural and reasonable effect of the language such as to deter men from enlisting? As said in the Holm case, ^[1] if it impugns the motives which induced the President and Congress to enter into the war and attempts by unfounded and unwarranted assertions to incite opposition to the war and to create a feeling that we have been brought into it for mercenary and unworthy purposes, it is within the statute. It should be clear, almost without discussion, that the whole tenor of the article, like the article in the Holm case, is calculated to incite opposition to the war and to deter men from enlisting or otherwise aiding in carrying on the war.

To approach an American citizen, particularly one who is within the selective draft or one outside the draft who is contemplating voluntary enlistment, and state to that person that this war is largely a convulsive effort on the part of the adroit rulers of the warring nations for control of a constantly diminishing market, surely tends to dampen the ardor of the hearer and cause him to hesitate before enlisting. To state further to such person that this war is caused by rival groups of monopolists playing a deadly game for commercial supremacy, is surely calculated to deter the hearer from engaging in such a pernicious and deadly game. To continue and state to that person, that the war is a horrible slaughter and that above all its contributory causes rise preeminent the ugly incitings of an economic system based upon exploitation, is not only calculated to frighten such person from enlisting, but attempts by unfounded and unwarranted assertions to incite opposition to the war and to create a feeling that we have been brought into it by unworthy motives. Add to all this the statement that men are being conscripted while blood-stained wealth, coined from the suffering of humanity, is exempted, contrary to the spirit of America and contrary to the ideals of democracy, is surely calculated to impugn the motives of the President and Congress and incite opposition to the war.

Frederic A. Pike, Thomas V. Sullivan, H. A. Paddock and Arthur Le Sueur, for defendants.

Section 3 of the 1917 act is void, as not being within the subject matter expressed in its title. Cooley, Const. Lim. (7th ed.) 212.

The acts alleged in the indictment as having been committed by the defendants, i.e., the publication of the matters set forth therein, are within the rights of the defendants as defined and established by the Constitution of the United States and by the Constitution of Minnesota.

It was the intention of the framers of the Federal Constitution that the pre-existing rights of liberty of the press and freedom of speech should be protected against limitation, abridgement or violation. The assertion of the inherent rights of free utterance meant a denial of the right of control of speech or press not only to kings and royal governors, but just as fully a denial of such control to any who should wield official power in representative governments chosen by the people themselves. In Massachusetts, Virginia and Pennsylvania and elsewhere, one or another group of colonists had in the early days attempted and enforced such repression on their fellow colonists. Such repression was to cease utterly in the full recognition by the new government of the universal inherent rights of man. In a word, it was the universal intent, the unanimous desire of the American people, that their new experiment in government, being an experiment in self-government, should be so constituted that every individual should be absolutely free, and absolutely secure in freedom, from the discarded restraints upon the right to discuss governmental affairs, and that this security in freedom should obtain alike against the one or the many, alike against individuals in office and majorities at the polls, to the end that every sovereign citizen of the republic should be freely heard to praise, to counsel or to condemn. This is seen in the several Constitutions adopted after the Declaration of Independence:

In 1776. Maryland, Const. art. 38; North Carolina, Const. arts. 15, 18; Pennsylvania, Const. Declaration of Rights, art. 12; Virginia, Bill of Rights, sec. 12. In 1777. Georgia, Const. art. LXI; Vermont, Const. Declaration of Rights, 14. In 1778. South Carolina, Const. art. 43. In 1780. Massachusetts, Const. Part 1, art. 16; New Hampshire, Const. Part 1, art. 22. 1789. Georgia, Const. art. 4, § 3. In 1790. Pennsylvania, Const. art. 9; South Carolina, Const. art. 9, § 6.

In view of these developments it follows necessarily that the English common law of indictment for libel of government or court was not adopted in the several states. "If we are correct in this it would not be in the power of the state legislature to pass laws which should make mere criticism of the Constitution or of the nature of government a crime, however sharp, unreasonable and intemperate it might be." Cooley, Const. Lim. (7th ed.) 614.

OPINION

QUINN, J.

These two prosecutions involve the same questions and are considered and disposed of together in one opinion. Defendants were jointly indicted by the grand jury of Martin county and thereby charged by two separate indictments of violations of chapter 463, p. 764, Laws 1917. Defendants joined in general demurrers to each indictment, which were overruled by the trial court. Whereupon, at the instance of defendants, the proceedings were certified to this court for the determination of two questions, applicable to both, namely: (1) Is section 3 of the statute on which the indictments are founded invalid as not within the subject of the act as expressed in its title? and (2) Do the facts stated in the indictment constitute a violation of the statute?

In the view we take of the second question, we make but brief mention of the first. The title to the act names as the subject thereof the interference with or discouragement of enlistments in the military or naval forces of the United States, or of the state of Minnesota. Section 3 declares it unlawful to advocate or teach by written or printed matter or by oral speech that citizens of this state "should not aid or assist the United States in prosecuting or carrying on war." The contention is that the prohibition against advocating that the citizen should not aid or assist in the prosecution of the war is not within the title of the act, which names only the interference with enlistment, and is therefore invalid. Whether the provisions of section 3 have reference only to the sale of bonds and stamps, or include as well interference by written or printed matter or by oral speech, otherwise than prohibited by the former sections of the act, we think the substance of the provisions of section 3 within the scope of the title to the act, and we so hold. Without further reference thereto we come directly to the second question, namely, whether the facts stated in either indictment show a violation of the statute, considering that they are founded in part at least upon section 3.

1. The indictment in case No. 20,927 charges that at the time and place stated therein the defendants wilfully and unlawfully advocated that citizens of the state should not aid the United States in carrying on the war with the public enemies thereof, and to that end and for that purpose did publish and circulate a certain printed leaflet or folder containing, among other things, the following:

"The moving cause of this world war was and is Political Autocracy used to perpetuate and extend Industrial Autocracy. It is the struggle of political overlords to extend and perpetuate their power to rob and exploit their fellowmen. Autocratic rulers who have robbed and exploited the fathers and mothers now slaughter the children for the single purpose of further entrenching themselves in their infamous position and securing and legalizing their possession of the fruits of others' toil and thrusting the world under the yoke of political autocracy, which is ever the shield and the mask of Industrial Autocracy."

This language and the statements or assertions thereof are to be considered and construed in connection with facts of general notoriety and of common knowledge, and in that atmosphere and light we are to determine whether the natural tendency thereof is the...