The Sentinel, v.166 no. 10, 1949

              THE SENTINEL
Iw5frb
INSTALL IT
YOURSELF!
... with special
portable antenna.
Assures outstand-ing
performance in
most locations. .j fe the lowest price ever. -
for a full size Federal Tax
$1.85
television console
The wonder television receiver you have been waiting for! Out-performs
any set, anywhere, any time! Pictures clearer than the
movies! They're in with a click when you switch stations . . . tuning
is so simplel Superpowered for outstanding performance.
fThe 9vP f6 £&6. Both Stores
Open Every Evening
'Til 10:00 P.M.
Sundays 10:00 A.M.
To 5:00 P.M.
APPLIANCE £ FURNITURE Co.
North Side
2850 N. CENTRAL AVE.
South Side
3110'W. 63rd STREET
NAtional 2-2120
GRovehill 6-6300
Many people have been led to be-lieve
that a recent Supreme Court
decision, setting aside the conviction
by a lower court of a race-baiting
rabble rouser named Terminiello, gives
fascists and anti-Semites the legal right
to spout vile and unrestrained attacks
against the Jews and other groups. A
careful analysis of the Supreme Court
decision by the Commission on Law
and Social Action of the American
Jewish Congress shows this belief to be
entirely unfounded.
Newspapers and commentators, them-selves
befuddled, have given the public
a false impression that the Supreme
Court verdict of Terminiello makes
the Chicago municipal ordinance un-der
which he was convicted invalid. Ac-cording
to CLSA lawyers (who drafted
the Group Libel Bill pending in the
United States Congress), the Supreme
Court decision does not invalidate the
Chicago law, which says:
"All persons who shall make, aid,
countenance, or assist in making
any improper noise, riot, distur-bance,
breach of the peace, or di-version
tending to a breach of the
peace, within the limits of the
city . . . shall be deemed guilty of
disorderly conduct. . .
Only In This Case
The Supreme Court decision, a read-ing
of the full text of the majority
opinion shows, set aside the conviction
only in the particular case considered
and solely on the basis of improper
instructions to the Chicago jury, given
by the judge in the case, whose in-terpretation
of the law was so broad
as to be unconstitutional.
The decision does not in the least
prohibit punishment for incitement to
violence, nor does it invalidate the
hundreds of disorderly conduct statutes
which have been used, and will con-tinue
to be used, to stop the activities
of the lunatic fringe.
The confustion results from failure
to distinguish between language of a
speaker calculated to stir the listeners
to violence against other people and
language which stirs people to assault
the speaker because they disagree with
him. The Supreme Court majority is-sued
only a very narrow ruling on the
latter type of utterance and did not
deal with the first question at all.
The Terminiello case began on Feb-ruary
7, 1946, when Arthur Terminiello,
a Roman Catholic priest under sus-pension
at the time, addressed a meet-ing
in Chicago under the auspices of
Gerald K. Smith. A disorderly crowd
of more than 1,000 assembled outside
the auditorium in an effort to pre-vent
or break up his speech. More
than 800 persons sympathetic to his
cause met inside the auditorium to
hear him. Terminiello delivered an
anti-Semitic tirade replete with re-ferences
to "slimy scum" and "atheistic,
communistic, Zionistic Jews."
Later, Terminiello was arrested and
convicted by a jury on the ground that
he had violated the Chicago muni-cipal
ordinance quoted above.
The trial judge in Chicago, in the
course of his instructions to the jury,
defined a "breech of the peace" as in-cluding
speech which "stirs the pub-lic
to anger, invites dispute, brings
about a condition of unrest or creates
a disturbance." Terminiello was fined
$100. His conviction was upheld by
the Illinois Supreme Court. He then ap-pealed
to the United State Supreme
Court, which in a 5 to 4 decision set
aside the conviction.
Mr. Justice Douglas, in the majority
opinion of the Supreme Court, pointed
out that the Chicago breach of the
peace law, as intepreted by the Chicago
judge's improper instructions to the
jury, violated the constitution of pun-ishing
not only incitement to physical
violence, but also speech which merely
caused "dispute" or "unrest" as well.
The conviction of Terminiello was set
aside, on the very narrow ground that
the jury may have convicted him
merely because he caused the public
the get "angry."
Convicts Terminiello Properly
Actually, it seems probable that the
jury convicted Terminiello properly ac-cording
to the terms of the law, be-cause
his words incited to violence
those who were listening to him in-side
the hall. The protesting group out-side
the hall did not hear his speech.
The Supreme Court majority's re-versal
of the Terminiello conviction
was vigorously criticized in the opin-ions
of the dissenting judges. Chief
Justice Vinson pointed out that the
majority opinion expressly declined to
consider the issue before the Court:
Whether a properly instructed jury
could constitutionally have found that
the words in Terminiello's speech were
"fighting words" to those inside the
hall who heard them. Justice Frank-furter
was equally sharp. He com-plained
that for the first time in 130
years the United States Supreme Court
was reversing a State Court conviction
on the basis of an irregularity (the
instructions of the trial judge) that was
not questioned by Terminiello or his
attorney either in Chicago, before the
Illinois Supreme Court, or before the
United States Supreme Court itself.
Justice Jackson, in his dissenting opin-ion,
quoted with approval a prior de-cision
of the Supreme Court upholding
the right of a State to punish "fight-ing
words" which "tend to incite an
immediate breach of the peace."
This previous decision of the court
still stands, untouched by the deci-
(Continued on Page 20)
NO PROTECTION FOR BIGOTS
The Real Meaning of the Supreme Court
Decision in the Terminiello Case
By ABEL COHEN
Staff Writer of the Office of Jewish Information of the
American and World Jewish Congress
Based on the Analysis of the Terminiello Case, a report by the Commission
on Law and Social Action of the American Jewish Congress.
.. .