Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/968

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932
HARVARD LAW REVIEW
932

932 HARVARD LAW REVIEW FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN WAR TIME "XJEVER in the history of our country, since the Alien and Sedi- ■^ ^ tion Laws of 1798, has the meaning of free speech been the subject of such sharp controversy as to-day.^ Over two hundred 1 Bibliographical Note. — Important decisions under the Federal Espionage Act are printed in the various Federal and United States Supreme Court reports; the Bulletins of the Department of Justice on the Interpretation of War Stat- utes (cited hereafter as Bull. Dept. Just.) contain many nisi prius rulings and charges not otherwise reported. The cases before July, 1918, have been collected by Walter Nelles in a pamphlet, Espionage Act Cases, with certain others on related points, published by the National Liberties Bureau, New York. This has some state cases and gives a careful analysis of the decisions. The Bureau has also published War-Time Prosecutions and Mob Violence, involving the rights of free speech, free press, and peaceful assemblage {from April i, igiy, to March i, igig), containing an annotated list of prosecutions, convictions, exclusions from the mail, etc.; and "The Law of the Debs Case" (leaflet). Mr. Nelles has submitted to Attorney General Palmer "A Memorandum concerning PoUtical Prisoners within the Jurisdiction of the Department of Justice in 1919 " (MS. copy owned by the Harvard Law School Library). The enforcement of the Espionage Act and similar statutes is officially summarized in the Reports of the Attorney Genepj^l for 191 7 (page 75) and 191 8 (pages 17, 20-23, 47-57). A list of prosecutions is given with the results. See, also, Atty. Gen. Gregory's Suggestions to the Executive Committee of the American Bar Association, 4 Am. Bar Assoc. Journ. 305 (1918). The best discussion of the legal meaning of " Freedom of the Press in the United States " will be found in an article under that name by Henry Schofield, in 9 Publica- tions OF the American Sociological Society, 67 (1914). This volume is devoted entirely to "Freedom of Commimication," and contains several valuable papers on different aspects of the problem. Other legal articles not deaUng with the situation in war are: "The Jurisdiction of the United States over Seditious Libel," H. W. Bikle, 41 Am. L. Reg. (n. s.) i (1902); "Restrictions on the Freedom of the Press," 16 Harv. L. Rev. 55 (1902); "Free Speech and Free Press in Relation to the Pohce Power of the State," P. L. Edwards, 58 Cent. L. J. 383 (1904); "Federal Interference with the Freedom of the Press," Lindsay Rogers, 23 Yale L. J. 559 (1914), substantially re- printed as Chapter IV of his Postal Power of Congress, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press, 1916; A. V. Dicey, The Law of the Constitution, 8 ed.. Chap. VI; "Freedom of Speech and of the Press," 65 Univ. of Pa. L. Rev. 170 (1916); Joseph R. Long, "The Freedom of the Press," 5 Va. L. Rev. 225 (1918). Freedom of speech is discussed by Dean Pound as an interest of the individual in his "Interests of Personahty," 28 Harv. L. Rev. 445, 453 (1915); and as an alleged bar to injunctions of libel in his "Equitable Relief against Defamation and Injuries to Personality," 29 Harv. L. Rev. 640, 648 (1916). The situation in war is specifically treated in the following: "Freedom of Speech and pf the Press," W. R. Vance, 2 Minn. L. Rev. 239 (1918); "The Espionage Act