1. The Fourteenth Amendment prohibits punishment under a state
statute for urging and advising that, on religious grounds,
citizens refrain from saluting the flags of the United States and
the State. P.
319 U. S.
588.
2. Conviction under a state statute denouncing as a crime the
disseminating of literature tending to create "an attitude of
stubborn refusal to salute, honor, or respect" the national and
state flags and governments denies the liberty guaranteed by the
Fourteenth Amendment. P.
319 U. S.
589.
3. The Fourteenth Amendment prohibits that a State should punish
the communication of one's views of governmental policies and one's
prophecies of the future of this and other nations when this is
without sinister purpose and is not in advocacy of, or incitement
to, subversive action against the nation or state, and does not
involve any clear and present danger to our institutions or
government. P.
319 U. S.
589.
194 Miss. 1, 59, 74, 11 So. 2d 663, 683, 689, reversed.
Appeals from judgments by an evenly divided court affirming
sentences imposed in three criminal prosecutions.
MR. JUSTICE ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the Court.
March 20, 1942, the Mississippi enacted a statute [
Footnote 1] the title of which declares that
it is intended to
Page 319 U. S. 584
secure the peace and safety of the United States and of the
State of Mississippi during war, and to prohibit acts detrimental
to public peace and safety. The first section, with which alone we
are here concerned, provides:
"That any person who individually, or as a member of any
organization, association, or otherwise, shall intentionally
preach, teach, or disseminate any teachings, creed, theory, or set
of alleged principles, orally, or by means of a phonograph or other
contrivance of any kind or nature, or by any other means or method,
or by the distribution of any sort of literature, or written or
printed matter, designed and calculated to encourage violence,
sabotage, or disloyalty to the government of the United States, or
the State of Mississippi, or who, by action or speech, advocates
the cause of the enemies of the United States, or who gives
information as to the military operations, or plans of defense or
military secrets of the nation or this State, by speech, letter,
map, or picture which would incite any sort of racial distrust,
disorder, prejudices, or hatreds, or which reasonably tends to
create an attitude of stubborn refusal to salute, honor or respect
the flag or government of the United States, or of the State of
Mississippi, shall be guilty of a felony and punished by
imprisonment in the state penitentiary until treaty of peace be
declared by the United States but such imprisonment shall not
exceed ten years."
At the June, 1942, term of the Madison County Circuit Court,
Taylor, the appellant in No. 826, was indicted for orally
disseminating teachings designed and calculated to encourage
disloyalty to the government of the United States and that of the
Mississippi, and for orally disseminating teachings and
distributing literature and printed matter reasonably tending to
create an attitude of stubborn refusal to salute, honor, and
respect the flag and government of the United States and of the
State of
Page 319 U. S. 585
Mississippi, and designed and calculated to encourage disloyalty
to the government of the United States.
At the June, 1942, term of the Marion County Circuit Court,
Betty Benoit, the appellant in No. 827, was indicted for
disseminating and distributing literature and printed matter
designed and calculated, and which reasonably tended, to create an
attitude of stubborn refusal to salute, honor, and respect the flag
and government of the United States.
At the July, 1942, term of the Warren County Circuit Court,
Cummings, the appellant in No. 828, was indicted for distributing
printed matter designed and calculated to encourage disloyalty to
the United States government and to the State of Mississippi, and
tending to create an attitude of stubborn refusal to salute, honor
or respect the flag or the government of the United States and the
State of Mississippi.
Demurrers and motions to quash challenging the constitutional
validity of the statute were overruled. The defendants pleaded to
the indictments and, after trial, were convicted. Each was
sentenced to imprisonment in the state penitentiary for a term to
expire at the end of the existing war, but not to exceed ten years.
Appeals were perfected to the Supreme Court of Mississippi, which,
by an evenly divided court, affirmed the convictions. [
Footnote 2]
The appellants maintained below, and assert here, that their
convictions denied them the rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth and
First Amendments in that, as construed and applied to them, the Act
abridges freedom of press and of speech, and is so vague,
indefinite, and uncertain as to furnish no reasonably ascertainable
standard of guilt.
The evidence was contradictory and conflicting, but the juries
resolved the conflicts against the appellants. We
Page 319 U. S. 586
must therefore examine the questions presented on the basis of
the proofs submitted by the State.
In No. 826, the prosecution offered evidence to show that
Taylor, in the course of interviews with several women, the sons of
two of whom had been killed in battle overseas, stated that it was
wrong for our President to send our boys across in uniform to fight
our enemies; that it was wrong to fight our enemies; that these
boys were being shot down for no purpose at all; that the two
women's sons may have thought they were doing the right thing to
fight our enemies, but it was wrong; that Hitler would rule, but
would not have to come here to rule; that the quicker people here
quit bowing down and worshiping and saluting our flag and
government, the sooner we would have peace. Books and pamphlets
distributed by Taylor were placed in evidence. Certain statements
in these books, said by the Supreme Court of Mississippi to be
typical, are copied in the margin. [
Footnote 3]
Page 319 U. S. 587
In No. 827, it was proved that the appellant Betty Benoit
distributed Volume XXIII, No. 583, of a publication entitled
"Consolation," which contained a reprint of an editorial from a
Lewiston, Maine, newspaper commenting adversely upon the decision
in
Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 310 U.
S. 586, and vigorously asserting that the salute of the
national flag amounted to a contemptible form of primitive idol
worship. The publication also contained an alleged foreign dispatch
which stated that the flag salute ceremony, a daily event in French
schools, originated in the Catholic schools of France; commented
that the type of mind which finds satisfaction in worshiping images
would also be most inclined towards various kinds of emblem
worship, and added that the dispatch confirms the claim that the
flag salute in the United States has been covertly pushed by the
Catholic hierarchy here.
In No. 828, the State proved that the appellant Cummings
distributed a book called "Children." The volume was placed in
evidence. Long excerpts were read to the jury, most of which seem
irrelevant to the charges in the indictment. One passage, however,
appears to be that on which the prosecution especially relied. It
is copied in the margin. [
Footnote
4]
Page 319 U. S. 588
The appellants are all members of Jehovah's Witnesses. There is
nothing in the records to indicate that, in making the statements
and distributing the printed matter in question, they were
communicating and teaching any doctrine in which they did not
sincerely believe.
Section 1 of the Act defines six offenses. The indictments in
Nos. 826 and 828 charge the commission of two of them [
Footnote 5] in a single count -- (1)
teaching and dissemination of printed matter designed and
calculated to encourage disloyalty to the national and state
governments, and (2) distribution of printed matter reasonably
tending to create an attitude of stubborn refusal to honor or
respect the flag or government of the United States or of the State
of Mississippi. In No. 827, the single offense charged is the
dissemination of literature reasonably tending to create the
denounced attitude towards the flag and Government.
In
West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette,
post, p.
319 U. S. 624, the
Court has decided that a state may not enforce
Page 319 U. S. 589
a regulation requiring children in the public schools to salute
the national emblem. The statute here in question seeks to punish
as a criminal one who teaches resistance to governmental compulsion
to salute. If the Fourteenth Amendment bans enforcement of the
school regulation,
a fortiori it prohibits the imposition
of punishment for urging and advising that, on religious grounds,
citizens refrain from saluting the flag. If the state cannot
constrain one to violate his conscientious religious conviction by
saluting the national emblem, then certainly it cannot punish him
for imparting his views on the subject to his fellows and exhorting
them to accept those views.
Inasmuch as Betty Benoit was charged only with disseminating
literature reasonably tending to create an attitude of stubborn
refusal to salute, honor, or respect the national and state flag
and government, her conviction denies her the liberty guaranteed by
the Fourteenth Amendment. Her conviction and the convictions of
Taylor and Cummings, for advocating and teaching refusal to salute
the flag cannot be sustained.
The last mentioned appellants were also charged with oral
teachings and the dissemination of literature calculated to
encourage disloyalty to the state and national governments. Their
convictions on this charge must also be set aside.
The statute, as construed in these cases, makes it a criminal
offense to communicate to others views and opinions respecting
governmental policies and prophesies concerning the future of our
own and other nations. As applied to the appellants, it punishes
them although what they communicated is not claimed or shown to
have been done with an evil or sinister purpose, to have advocated
or incited subversive action against the nation or state, [
Footnote 6] or to have threatened any
clear and present danger to our institutions
Page 319 U. S. 590
or our government. [
Footnote
7] What these appellants communicated were their beliefs and
opinions [
Footnote 8]
concerning domestic measures and trends in national and world
affairs.
Under our decisions, criminal sanctions cannot be imposed for
such communication.
The judgments are
Reversed.
* Together with No. 827,
Benoit v. Mississippi, and No.
828,
Cummins v. Mississippi, also on appeals from the
Supreme Court of Mississippi.
[
Footnote 1]
Chap. 178, General Laws of Mississippi, 1942.
[
Footnote 2]
194 Miss. 1, 59, 74; 11 So. 2d 663, 683, 689.
[
Footnote 3]
"All nations of the earth today are under the influence and
control of the demons. . . . All the nations suffer the same fate
or come to the same end, because all nations of earth are on the
wrong side -- that is, on the losing side. All of such nations are
against the Theocratic Government -- that is, the government of
kingdom of Almighty God . . . , and all are under the control of
the invisible host of demons. . . ."
"But to compel people to salute a flag or any other image is
wrong, and particularly if that person believes on God and Christ
Jesus. For the Christian to salute a flag is in direct violation of
God's specific commandment."
"Almighty God commands that they must remain entirely neutral in
the controversy. Because his covenant people are servants and
representatives of The Theocracy, they must hold themselves
entirely aloof from warring factions of this world."
"Non-Christians may salute the flag without reference to the
foregoing rules. Those who are real conscientious Christians are in
a class entirely different from others of the world. Jehovah's
witnesses are Christians, and in a covenant to be entirely obedient
to God's law. They must teach their children and admonish them to
obey God's law, as he has commanded. They are conscientious, and
they sincerely believe that for them to indulge in the formalism or
ceremony of saluting any flag is a violation of God's specific
commandment. . . ."
In its opinion, the court added:
"Other passages in this literature teach that 'the so-called
democracies' hold out no hope of peace, security, life, or
happiness -- that the only place of safety is in Theocracy; that,
if there is a conflict between state law and what Jehovah's
witnesses conceive to be Jehovah's law, the state law should not be
obeyed; that Jehovah's witnesses take a pledge not to salute the
flag, and that to undertake by law to force a child to salute the
flag is to 'frame mischief by law.'"
[
Footnote 4]
"Satan knows that his time is short, and therefore he is
desperately trying to turn all persons, including the children,
against God. (Revelation 12:12, 17.) Therefore, Satan influences
public officials and others to compel little children to indulge in
idolatrous practices by bowing down to some image or thing, such as
saluting flags and hailing men, and which is in direct violation of
God's commandment. (Exodus 20:1-5.) That is why, in the last few
years, rules are made and enforced in the public schools compelling
children of the Jonadabs, who are in a covenant to do God's will,
to indulge in the idolatrous practice of flag-saluting and hailing
men. It is the influence of that subtle foe, the Devil, that has
brought about this state of affairs, and now Satan's agents cause
great persecution to be brought upon the parents and the children
who insist on obeying the commandments of God. This makes the way
of both parents and children more difficult, but, at the same time,
it puts a test upon them, and affords them the opportunity to prove
their faith and obedience and to maintain their integrity towards
God and his King."
[
Footnote 5]
There is no charge in any of the indictments of (1) preaching,
teaching, dissemination of teachings, or distribution of written or
printed matter designed or calculated to encourage violence or
sabotage; (2) advocacy, by action or speech, of the cause of the
enemies of the United States; (3) the giving of information as to
military affairs; (4) incitement of racial disturbances, disorder,
prejudice or hatred.
[
Footnote 6]
See Schenck v. United States, 249 U. S.
47;
Abrams v. United States, 250 U.
S. 616;
Whitney v. California, 274 U.
S. 357.
[
Footnote 7]
See De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U.
S. 353;
Herndon v. Lowry, 301 U.
S. 242.
[
Footnote 8]
See Stromberg v. California, 283 U.
S. 359;
Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S.
88.