1. A state can not, consistently with the freedom of religion
and the press guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments,
impose criminal punishment on a person for distributing religious
literature on the sidewalk of a company-owned town contrary to
regulations of the town's management, where the town and its
shopping district are freely accessible to and freely used by the
public in general, even though the punishment is attempted under a
state statute making it a crime for anyone to enter or remain on
the premises of another after having been warned not to do so. Pp.
326 U. S. 502,
326 U. S.
505.
Page 326 U. S. 502
2. Whether a corporation or a municipality owns or possesses a
town, the public in either case has an identical interest in the
functioning of the community in such manner that the channels of
communication remain free. P.
326 U. S.
507.
3. People living in company-owned towns are free citizens of
their State and country, just as residents of municipalities, and
there is no more reason for depriving them of the liberties
guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments than there is for
curtailing these freedoms with respect to any other citizen. P.
326 U. S.
508.
21 So. 2d 558, reversed.
APPEAL from the affirmance of a conviction for violation of a
state statute challenged as invalid under the Federal Constitution.
The State Supreme Court denied certiorari, 246 Ala. 539, 21 So. 2d
564.
MR. JUSTICE BLACK delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this case, we are asked to decide whether a State,
consistently with the First and Fourteenth Amendments, can impose
criminal punishment on a person who undertakes to distribute
religious literature on the premises of a company-owned town
contrary to the wishes of the town's management. The town, a suburb
of Mobile, Alabama, known as Chickasaw, is owned by the Gulf
Shipbuilding Corporation. Except for that, it has all the
characteristics of any other American town. The property consists
of residential buildings, streets, a system of sewers, a sewage
disposal plant, and a "business block" on which business places are
situated. A deputy of the Mobile County Sheriff, paid by the
company, serves as the town's policeman. Merchants and service
establishments have rented the stores and business places on the
business block, and
Page 326 U. S. 503
the United States uses one of the places as a post office, from
which six carriers deliver mail to the people of Chickasaw and the
adjacent area. The town and the surrounding neighborhood, which
cannot be distinguished from the Gulf property by anyone not
familiar with the property lines, are thickly settled, and,
according to all indications, the residents use the business block
as their regular shopping center. To do so, they now, as they have
for many years, make use of a company-owned paved street and
sidewalk located alongside the store fronts in order to enter and
leave the stores and the post office. Intersecting company-owned
roads at each end of the business block lead into a four-lane
public highway which runs parallel to the business block at a
distance of thirty feet. There is nothing to stop highway traffic
from coming onto the business block, and, upon arrival, a traveler
may make free use of the facilities available there. In short, the
town and its shopping district are accessible to and freely used by
the public in general, and there is nothing to distinguish them
from any other town and shopping center except the fact that the
title to the property belongs to a private corporation.
Appellant, a Jehovah's Witness, came onto the sidewalk we have
just described, stood near the post office, and undertook to
distribute religious literature. In the stores the corporation had
posted a notice which read as follows:
"This Is Private Property, and Without Written Permission, No
Street, or House Vendor, Agent or Solicitation of Any Kind Will Be
Permitted."
Appellant was warned that she could not distribute the
literature without a permit, and told that no permit would be
issued to her. She protested that the company rule could not be
constitutionally applied so as to prohibit her from distributing
religious writings. When she was asked to leave the sidewalk and
Chickasaw, she declined. The deputy sheriff arrested her, and she
was charged in the state court with violating Title
Page 326 U. S. 504
14, § 426 of the 1940 Alabama Code, which makes it a crime to
enter or remain on the premises of another after having been warned
not to do so. Appellant contended that to construe the state
statute as applicable to her activities would abridge her right to
freedom of press and religion contrary to the First and Fourteenth
Amendments to the Constitution. This contention was rejected, and
she was convicted. The Alabama Court of Appeals affirmed the
conviction, holding that the statute, as applied, was
constitutional because the title to the sidewalk was in the
corporation and because the public use of the sidewalk had not been
such as to give rise to a presumption under Alabama law of its
irrevocable dedication to the public. 21 So. 2d 558. The State
Supreme Court denied certiorari, 246 Ala. 539, 21 So. 2d 564, and
the case is here on appeal under § 237(a) of the Judicial Code, 28
U.S.C. § 344(a).
Had the title to Chickasaw belonged not to a private, but to a
municipal, corporation, and had appellant been arrested for
violating a municipal ordinance, rather than a ruling by those
appointed by the corporation to manage a company town, it would
have been clear that appellant's conviction must be reversed. Under
our decision in
Lovell v. Griffin, 303 U.
S. 444, and others which have followed that case,
[
Footnote 1] neither a State
nor a municipality can completely bar the distribution of
literature containing religious or political ideas on its streets,
sidewalks and public places or make the right to distribute
dependent on a flat license tax or permit to be issued by an
official who could deny it at will. We have also held that an
ordinance completely prohibiting the dissemination of ideas on the
city streets cannot be justified on the ground that the
Page 326 U. S. 505
municipality holds legal title to them.
Jamison v.
Texas, 318 U. S. 413. And
we have recognized that the preservation of a free society is so
far dependent upon the right of each individual citizen to receive
such literature as he himself might desire that a municipality
could not, without jeopardizing that vital individual freedom,
prohibit door to door distribution of literature.
Martin v.
Struthers, 319 U. S. 141,
319 U. S. 146,
319 U. S. 147.
From these decisions, it is clear that, had the people of Chickasaw
owned all the homes, and all the stores, and all the streets, and
all the sidewalks, all those owners together could not have set up
a municipal government with sufficient power to pass an ordinance
completely barring the distribution of religious literature. Our
question then narrows down to this: can those people who live in or
come to Chickasaw be denied freedom of press and religion simply
because a single company has legal title to all the town? For it is
the State's contention that the mere fact that all the property
interests in the town are held by a single company is enough to
give that company power, enforceable by a state statute, to abridge
these freedoms.
We do not agree that the corporation's property interests settle
the question. [
Footnote 2] The
State urges, in effect, that
Page 326 U. S. 506
the corporation's right to control the inhabitants of Chickasaw
is coextensive with the right of a homeowner to regulate the
conduct of his guests. We cannot accept that contention. Ownership
does not always mean absolute dominion. The more an owner, for his
advantage, opens up his property for use by the public in general,
the more do his rights become circumscribed by the statutory and
constitutional rights of those who use it.
Cf. Republic
Aviation Corp. v. Labor Board, 324 U.
S. 793,
324 U. S. 798,
324 U. S. 802,
n. 8. Thus, the owners of privately held bridges, ferries,
turnpikes and railroads may not operate them as freely as a farmer
does his farm. Since these facilities are built and operated
primarily to benefit the public, and since their operation is
essentially a public function, it is subject to state regulation.
[
Footnote 3] And, though the
issue is not directly analogous to the one before us, we do want to
point out by way of illustration that such regulation may not
result in an operation of these facilities, even by privately owned
companies, which unconstitutionally interferes with and
discriminates against interstate commerce.
Port Richmond Ferry
v. Hudson County, supra, 234 U.S. at
234 U. S. 326,
and cases cited, pp.
234 U. S.
328-329;
cf. South Carolina Highway Dept. v.
Barnwell Bros., 303 U. S. 177. Had
the corporation here owned the segment of the four-lane highway
which runs parallel to the "business block" and operated the same
under a state franchise, doubtless no one would have seriously
contended that the corporation's property interest in the highway
gave it power to obstruct through traffic or to discriminate
against interstate commerce.
See
Page 326 U. S. 507
County Commissioners v. Chandler, 96 U. S.
205,
96 U. S. 208;
Donovan v. Pennsylvania Co., supra, 199 U.S. at
199 U. S. 294;
Covington Drawbridge Co. v.
Shepherd, 21 How. 112,
62 U. S. 125.
And even had there been no express franchise, but mere acquiescence
by the State in the corporation's use of its property as a segment
of the four-lane highway, operation of all the highway, including
the segment owned by the corporation, would still have been
performance of a public function, and discrimination would
certainly have been illegal. [
Footnote 4]
We do not think it makes any significant constitutional
difference as to the relationship between the rights of the owner
and those of the public that here the State, instead of permitting
the corporation to operate a highway, permitted it to use its
property as a town, operate a "business block" in the town, and a
street and sidewalk on that business block.
Cf. Barney v.
Keokuk, 94 U. S. 324,
94 U. S. 340.
Whether a corporation or a municipality owns or possesses the town,
the public in either case has an identical interest in the
functioning of the community in such manner that the channels of
communication remain free. As we
Page 326 U. S. 508
have heretofore stated, the town of Chickasaw does not function
differently from any other town. The "business block" serves as the
community shopping center, and is freely accessible and open to the
people in the area and those passing through. The managers
appointed by the corporation cannot curtail the liberty of press
and religion of these people consistently with the purposes of the
Constitutional guarantees, and a state statute, as the one here
involved, which enforces such action by criminally punishing those
who attempt to distribute religious literature clearly violates the
First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.
Many people in the United States live in company-owned towns.
[
Footnote 5] These people, just
as residents of municipalities, are free citizens of their State
and country. Just as all other citizens, they must make decisions
which affect the welfare of community and nation. To act as good
citizens, they must be informed. In order to enable them to be
properly informed, their information must be uncensored. There is
no more reason for depriving these people of the liberties
guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth
Page 326 U. S. 509
Amendments than there is for curtailing these freedoms with
respect to any other citizen. [
Footnote 6]
When we balance the Constitutional rights of owners of property
against those of the people to enjoy freedom of press and religion,
as we must here, we remain mindful of the fact that the latter
occupy a preferred position. [
Footnote 7] As we have stated before, the right to
exercise the liberties safeguarded by the First Amendment "lies at
the foundation of free government by free men," and we must in all
cases "weigh the circumstances and . . . appraise the . . . reasons
. . . in support of the regulation . . . of the rights."
Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147,
308 U. S. 161.
In our view, the circumstance that the property rights to the
premises where the deprivation of liberty, here involved, took
place were held by others than the public is not sufficient to
justify the State's permitting a corporation to govern a community
of citizens so as to restrict their fundamental liberties and the
enforcement of such restraint by the application of a state
statute. Insofar as the State has attempted to impose criminal
punishment on appellant for undertaking to distribute religious
literature in a company town, its action cannot stand. The case is
reversed,
Page 326 U. S. 510
and the cause remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent
with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON took no part in the consideration or
decision of this case.
[
Footnote 1]
Hague v. CIO, 307 U. S. 496;
Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147;
Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88;
Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296;
dissent of Chief Justice Stone in
Jones v. Opelika,
316 U. S. 584,
316 U. S. 600,
adopted as the opinion of the Court,
319 U. S. 319 U.S.
103;
Largent v. Texas, 318 U. S. 418;
Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105;
Follett v. McCormick, 321 U. S. 573.
[
Footnote 2]
We do not question the state court's determination of the issue
of "dedication." That determination means that the corporation
could, if it so desired, entirely close the sidewalk and the town
to the public, and is decisive of all questions of state law which
depend on the owner's being estopped to reclaim possession of, and
the public's holding the title to, or having received an
irrevocable easement in, the premises.
Demopolis v. Webb,
87 Ala. 659, 6 So. 408;
Hamilton v. Town of Warrior, 215
Ala. 670, 112 So. 136;
Town of Leeds v. Sharp, 218 Ala.
403, 405, 118 So. 572;
Forney v. Calhoun County, 84 Ala.
215, 4 So. 153;
Cloverdale Homes v. Cloverdale, 182 Ala.
419, 62 So. 712. The "dedication" of a road to the public may also
be decisive of whether, under Alabama law, obstructing the road
constitutes a crime,
Beverly v. State, 28 Ala.App. 451,
185 So. 768, and whether certain action on or near the road amounts
to a tort.
Thrasher v. Burr, 202 Ala. 307, 80 So. 372. But
determination of the issue of "dedication" does not decide the
question under the Federal Constitution here involved.
[
Footnote 3]
Clark's Ferry Bridge Co. v. Public Service Commission,
291 U. S. 227;
American Toll Bridge Co. v. Railroad Commission,
307 U. S. 486;
Mills v. St. Clair
County, 8 How. 569, 581;
Port Richmond Ferry v.
Hudson County, 234 U. S. 317,
234 U. S. 327,
234 U. S.
331-332;
Covington & L. Turnpike Road Co. v.
Sandford, 164 U. S. 578;
Norfolk & S. Turnpike Co. v. Virginia, 225 U.
S. 264;
Donovan v. Pennsylvania Co.,
199 U. S. 279, and
cases cited on pp.
199 U. S.
293-295.
[
Footnote 4]
And certainly the corporation can no more deprive people of
freedom of press and religion than it can discriminate against
commerce. In his dissenting opinion in
Jones v. Opelika,
316 U. S. 584,
316 U. S. 600,
which later was adopted as the opinion of the Court,
319 U. S. 319 U.S.
103,
319 U. S. 104,
Mr. Chief Justice Stone made the following pertinent statement:
"Freedom of press and religion, explicitly guaranteed by the
Constitution, must at least be entitled to the same freedom from
burdensome taxation which it has been thought that the more general
phraseology of the commerce clause has extended to interstate
commerce. Whatever doubts may be entertained as to this Courts
function to relieve, unaided by Congressional legislation, from
burdensome taxation under the commerce clause,
see Gwin, White
& Prince v. Henneford, 305 U. S. 434,
305 U. S.
441,
305 U. S. 446-55;
McCarroll v. Dixie Lines, 309 U. S.
176,
309 U. S. 184-85, it cannot
be thought that that function is wanting under the explicit
guaranties of freedom of speech, press and religion."
316 U.S. at
316 U. S.
610-11.
[
Footnote 5]
In the bituminous coal industry alone, approximately one-half of
the miners in the United States lived in company-owned houses in
the period from 1922-23. The percentage varied from 9 percent in
Illinois and Indiana and 64 percent in Kentucky, to almost 80
percent in West Virginia. U.S. Coal Commission, Report, 1925, Part
III, pp. 1467, 1469 summarized in Morris, The Plight of the Coal
Miner, Philadelphia 1934, Ch. VI, p. 86. The most recent statistics
we found available are in Magnusson, Housing by Employers in the
United States, Bureau of Labor Statistics Bulletin No. 263 (Misc.
Ser.) p. 11.
See also United States Department of Labor,
Wage and Hour Division, Data on Pay Roll Deductions, Union
Manufacturing Company, Union Point, Georgia, June, 1941; Rhyne,
Some Southern Cotton Mill Workers and Their Villages, Chapel Hill,
1930 (Study completed under the direction of the Institute for
Research in Social Science at the University of North Carolina);
Comment, Urban Redevelopment, 54 Yale L.J. 116.
[
Footnote 6]
As to the suppression of civil liberties in company towns and
the need of those who live there for Constitutional protection,
see the summary of facts aired before the Senate Committee
on Education and Labor, Violations of Free Speech and Rights of
Labor, Hearings pursuant to S.Res. 266, 74th Cong., 2d Sess., 1937,
summarized in Bowden, Freedom for Wage Earners, Annals of The
American Academy of Political and Social Science, Nov.1938, p. 185;
Z. Chafee, The Inquiring Mind (New York, 1928), pp. 173-174;
Pamphlet published in 1923 by the Bituminous Operators' Special
Committee under the title The Company Town; U.S. Coal Commission,
Report,
supra, Part III, p. 1331.
[
Footnote 7]
Jones v. Opelika, supra, 316 U.S. at
316 U. S. 608;
Murdock v. Pennsylvania, supra, 319 U.S. at
319 U. S. 115;
Follett v. McCormick, supra, 321 U.S. at
321 U. S.
577.
MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER, concurring.
So long as the views which prevailed in
Jones v.
Opelika, 319 U. S. 103, in
connection with
316 U. S. 316 U.S.
584,
316 U. S. 600;
Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105;
Martin v. Struthers, 319 U. S. 141,
express the law of the Constitution, I am unable to find legal
significance in the fact that a town in which the Constitutional
freedoms of religion and speech are invoked happens to be
company-owned. These decisions accorded the purveyors of ideas,
religious or otherwise, "a preferred position,"
Murdock v.
Pennsylvania, supra, at
319 U. S. 115,
even to the extent of relieving them from an unhampering and
nondiscriminatory duty of bearing their share of the cost of
maintaining the peace and the other amenities of a civilized
society. Constitutional privileges having such a reach ought not to
depend upon a State court's notion of the extent of "dedication" of
private property to public purposes. Local determinations of such
technical matters govern controversies affecting property. But when
decisions by State courts involving local matters are so interwoven
with the decision of the question of Constitutional rights that one
necessarily involves the other, State determination of local
questions cannot control the Federal Constitutional right.
A company-owned town gives rise to a network of property
relations. As to these, the judicial organ of a State has the final
say. But a company-owned town is a town. In its community aspects,
it does not differ from other towns. These community aspects are
decisive in
Page 326 U. S. 511
adjusting the relations now before us, and more particularly in
adjudicating the clash of freedoms which the Bill of Rights was
designed to resolve the freedom of the community to regulate its
life and the freedom of the individual to exercise his religion and
to disseminate his ideas. Title to property, as defined by State
law, controls property relations; it cannot control issues of civil
liberties which arise precisely because a company town is a town,
as well as a congeries of property relations. And similarly, the
technical distinctions on which a finding of "trespass" so often
depends are too tenuous to control decision regarding the scope of
the vital liberties guaranteed by the Constitution.
Accordingly, as I have already indicated, so long as the scope
of the guarantees of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment, by absorption of the First, remains that which the Court
gave to it in the series of cases in the October Term, 1942, the
circumstances of the present case seem to me clearly to fall within
it. And so I agree with the opinion of the Court, except that
portion of it which relies on arguments drawn from the restrictions
which the Commerce Clause imposes on State regulation of commerce.
It does not seem to me to further Constitutional analysis to seek
help for the solution of the delicate problems arising under the
First Amendment from the very different order of problems which the
Commerce Clause presents. The latter involves an accommodation
between National and State powers operating in the same field.
Where the First Amendment applies, it is a denial of all
governmental power in our Federal system.
MR. JUSTICE REED, dissenting.
Former decisions of this Court have interpreted generously the
Constitutional rights of people in this land to
Page 326 U. S. 512
exercise freedom of religion, of speech and of the press.
[
Footnote 2/1] It has never been
held, and is not now by this opinion of the Court, that these
rights are absolute and unlimited, either in respect to the manner
or the place of their exercise. [
Footnote 2/2] What the present decision establishes as a
principle is that one may remain on private property against the
will of the owner and contrary to the law of the state so long as
the only objection to his presence is that he is exercising an
asserted right to spread there his religious views.
See Marrone
v. Washington Jockey Club, 227 U. S. 633.
This is the first case to extend by law the privilege of religious
exercises beyond public places or to private places without the
assent of the owner.
Compare Martin v. Struthers,
319 U. S. 141.
As the rule now announced permits this intrusion, without
possibility of protection of the property by law, and apparently is
equally applicable to the freedom of speech and the press, it seems
appropriate to express a dissent to this, to us, novel
Constitutional doctrine. Of course, such principle may subsequently
be restricted by this Court to the precise facts of this case --
that is to private property in a company town where the owner, for
his own advantage, has permitted a restricted public use by his
licensees and invitees. Such distinctions are of degree. and
require new arbitrary lines, judicially drawn, instead of those
hitherto established by legislation and precedent. While the
power
Page 326 U. S. 513
of this Court, as the interpreter of the Constitution, to
determine what use of real property by the owner makes that
property subject, at will, to the reasonable practice of religious
exercises by strangers, cannot be doubted, we find nothing in the
principles of the First Amendment, adopted now into the Fourteenth,
which justifies their application to the facts of this case.
[
Footnote 2/3]
Both Federal and Alabama law permit, so far as we are aware,
company towns. By that, we mean an area occupied by numerous
houses, connected by passways, fenced or not, as the owners may
choose. These communities may be essential to furnish proper and
convenient living conditions for employees on isolated operations
in lumbering, mining, production of high explosives and large-scale
farming. The restrictions imposed by the owners upon the occupants
are sometimes galling to the employees, and may appear unreasonable
to outsiders. Unless they fall under the prohibition of some legal
rule, however, they are a matter for adjustment between owner and
licensee, or by appropriate legislation.
Compare Western Turf
Assn. v. Greenberg, 204 U. S. 359.
Alabama has a statute generally applicable to all privately
owned premises. It is Title 14, § 426, Alabama Code 1940, which, so
far as pertinent, reads as follows:
"Trespass after warning. -- Any person who, without legal cause
or good excuse, enters into the dwelling house or on the premises
of another, after having been warned, within six months preceding,
not to do so; or any person, who, having entered into the dwelling
house or on the premises of another without having been warned
within six months not to do so, and fails or refuses, without
legal
Page 326 U. S. 514
cause or good excuse, to leave immediately on being ordered or
requested to do so by the person in possession, his agent or
representative, shall, on conviction, be fined not more than one
hundred dollars, and may also be imprisoned in the county jail, or
sentenced to hard labor for the county, for not more than three
months."
Appellant was distributing religious pamphlets on a privately
owned passway or sidewalk thirty feet removed from a public highway
of the State of Alabama, and remained on these private premises
after an authorized order to get off. We do not understand from the
record that there was objection to appellant's use of the nearby
public highway, and, under our decisions, she could rightfully have
continued her activities a few feet from the spot she insisted upon
using. An owner of property may very well have been willing for the
public to use the private passway for business purposes and yet
have been unwilling to furnish space for street trades or a
location for the practice of religious exhortations by itinerants.
The passway here in question was not put to any different use than
other private passways that lead to privately owned areas,
amusement places, resort hotels or other businesses. There had been
no dedication of the sidewalk to the public use, express or
implied. Alabama so decided, and we understand that this Court
accepts that conclusion. Alabama, also, decided that appellant
violated by her activities the above-quoted state statute.
The Court calls attention to the fact that the owners of public
utilities, bridges, ferries, turnpikes and railroads are subject to
state regulation of rates, and are forbidden to discriminate
against interstate commerce. This is quite true, but we doubt if
the Court means to imply that the property of these utilities may
be utilized, against the companies' wishes, for religious exercises
of the kind in question.
Page 326 U. S. 515
A state does have the moral duty of furnishing the opportunity
for information, education and religious enlightenment to its
inhabitants, including those who live in company towns, but it has
not heretofore been adjudged that it must commandeer, without
compensation, the private property of other citizens to carry out
that obligation. Heretofore, this Court has sustained the right of
employees, under an appropriate statute, protecting full freedom of
employee organization, to solicit union membership in nonworking
time on the property of an employer and against his express
prohibition. This is because the prohibition is an impediment to
the right of organization which is protected by a statute which
governs a relation between employers and employees if and when the
latter are admitted to the employers' premises as licensees. It was
recognized in the opinion that the freedom of solicitation was the
result of a regulatory statute, and was not a Constitutional right.
Republic Aviation Corp. v. Labor Board, 324 U.
S. 793,
324 U. S. 803
. In the area which is covered by the guarantees of the First
Amendment, this Court has been careful to point out that the owner
of property may protect himself against the intrusion of strangers.
Although, in
Martin v. Struthers, 319 U.
S. 141, an ordinance forbidding the summonsing of the
occupants of a dwelling to receive handbills was held invalid
because in conflict with the freedom of speech and press, this
Court pointed out at page
319 U. S. 147
that, after warning, the property owner would be protected from
annoyance. [
Footnote 2/4]
Page 326 U. S. 516
The very Alabama statute which is now held powerless to protect
the property of the Gulf Shipbuilding Corporation, after notice,
from this trespass was there cited, note 10, to show that it would
protect the householder, after notice. The right to communicate
ideas was expressed by us in
Jamison v. Texas,
318 U. S. 413,
318 U. S. 416,
as follows:
"But one who is rightfully on a street which the state has left
open to the public carries with him there, as elsewhere, the
Constitutional right to express his views in an orderly
fashion."
Our Constitution guarantees to every man the right to express
his views in an orderly fashion. An essential element of "orderly"
is that the man shall also have a right to use the place he chooses
for his exposition. The rights of the owner, which the Constitution
protects as well as the right of free speech, are not outweighed by
the interests of the trespasser, even though he trespasses in
behalf of religion or free speech. We cannot say that Jehovah's
Witnesses can claim the privilege of a license, which has never
been granted, to hold their meetings in other private places merely
because the owner has admitted the public to them for other limited
purposes. Even though we have reached the point where this Court is
required to force private owners to open their property for the
practice there of religious activities or propaganda
distasteful
Page 326 U. S. 517
to the owner because of the public interest in freedom of speech
and religion, there is no need for the application of such a
doctrine here. Appellant, as we have said, was free to engage in
such practices on the public highways, without becoming a
trespasser on the company's property.
The CHIEF JUSTICE and MR. JUSTICE BURTON join in this
dissent.
[
Footnote 2/1]
Lovell v. Griffin, 303 U. S. 444;
Hague v. CIO, 307 U. S. 496;
Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147;
Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88;
Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296;
dissent of Chief Justice Stone in
Jones v. Opelika,
316 U. S. 584,
316 U. S. 600,
adopted as the opinion of the Court,
319 U. S. 319 U.S.
103;
Jamison v. Texas, 318 U. S. 413;
Largent v. Texas, 318 U. S. 418;
Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105;
Martin v. Struthers, 319 U. S. 141;
Follett v. McCormick, 321 U. S. 573.
[
Footnote 2/2]
Schenck v. United States, 249 U. S.
47;
Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.
S. 652;
Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.
S. 697;
Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.
S. 296;
Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire,
315 U. S. 568;
Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U. S. 158.
[
Footnote 2/3]
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging
the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people
peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress
of grievances."
First Amendment to the Constitution.
[
Footnote 2/4]
"The dangers of distribution can so easily be controlled by
traditional legal methods, leaving to each householder the full
right to decide whether he will receive strangers as visitors, that
stringent prohibition can serve no purpose but that forbidden by
the Constitution, the naked restriction of the dissemination of
ideas."
"Traditionally, the American law punishes persons who enter onto
the property of another after having been warned by the owner to
keep off. General trespass after warning statutes exist in at least
twenty states, while similar statutes of narrower scope are on the
books of at least twelve states more. We know of no state which, as
does the Struthers ordinance, in effect, makes a person a criminal
trespasser if he enters the property of another for an innocent
purpose without an explicit command from the owners to stay away.
The National Institute of Municipal Law Officers has proposed a
form of regulation to its member cities which would make it an
offense for any person to ring the bell of a householder who has
appropriately indicated that he is unwilling to be disturbed. This
or any similar regulation leaves the decision as to whether
distributers of literature may lawfully call at a home where it
belongs -- with the homeowner himself."
Martin v. Struthers, 319 U. S. 141,
319 U. S.
147-148.