Free Speech For Whom?

In relative obscurity, almost completely over-shadowed by the colossus of total war effort, a basic concept in the long term meaning of that effort is under fire. In Minneapolis on December 1 seventeen men and one woman were convicted of conspiracy to advocate the overthrow of the U. S. Government. The case, now on its way to the Supreme Court, has resolved itself into a test of the constitutionality of the Smith Act of 1940, which makes it a penal offense to discuss the over-throw of the government, or to criticize the conduct of the armed forces. Stated in abstract terms, the issue at stake is the right of free speech, and as such sounds almost absurdly simple. But in the concrete terms of the Minneapolis convictions, the issue is one that war psychology and a distorted patriotism can easily confuse.

For one thing, the convictions can be confused with a condemnation of the doctrines of the Socialist Workers' Party, to which the defendants belong. Because Marxist and Trotskyist literature was discovered in the Party offices, and because the defendants are believers in the Socialist doctrine of a working class revolution, they were convicted. The prosecution's attempt to pin the threat of immediate armed revolution on them was thrown out of court as an ungrounded farce.

Since many of the defendants were officials in the aggressive and militant Local 544 of the Teamsters' Union, which last June climaxed a running scrap with the AF of L by breaking away to join the CIO, the Minneapolis convictions can also be confused with the problem of labor strife. Thirdly, to allow the matter of attitude towards the war to bear any weight here is a great mistake. The trial was brought forward in November, when the America First, Committee was as vigorous in its anti-war stand as was Local 544.

The basic fact, which individual doctrines must not be allowed to obscure, is that the Smith Act is a denial of the right of free speech. The instance of the Minneapolis convictions is merely a test of the constitutionality of this act, and as such the decision of the Minneapolis Federal Grand Jury should be reversed when the case reaches the Supreme Court.