Majority Opinion: Debs. v. United States, Justice
Oliver Wendell Holmes [1919]
This
is an indictment under the Espionage Act of June 15, 1917. . . . The defendant
was found guilty and was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment on each of the
two counts, the punishment to run concurrently on both.
The
main theme of the speech was Socialism, its growth, and a prophecy of its
ultimate success. With that we have nothing to do, but if a part or the
manifest intent of the more general utterances was to encourage those present
to obstruct the recruiting service and if in passages such encouragement was
directly given, the immunity of the general theme may not be enough to protect
the speech. The speaker began by saying that he had just returned from a visit
to the workhouse in the neighborhood where three of their most loyal comrades
were paying the penalty for their devotion to the working class-these being Wagenknecht, Baker and Ruthenberg,
who had been convicted of aiding and abetting another in failing to register
for the draft. . . .
There
followed personal experiences and illustrations of the growth of Socialism, a
glorification of minorities, and a prophecy of the success of the international
Socialist crusade, with the interjection that "you need to know that you
are fit for something better than slavery and cannon fodder." The rest of
the discourse had only the indirect thought not necessarily ineffective bearing
on the offences alleged that is to be found in the usual contrasts between
capitalists and laboring men, sneers at the advice to cultivate war gardens,
attribution to plutocrats of the high price of coal, &c., with the
implication running through it all that the working men are not concerned in
the war, and a final exhortation, "Don't worry about the charge of treason
to your masters; but be concerned about the treason that involves
yourselves." The defendant addressed the jury himself, and while
contending that his speech did not warrant the charges said, "I have been
accused of obstructing the war. I admit it. Gentlemen, I abhor war. I would
oppose the war if I stood alone." The statement was not necessary to
warrant the jury in finding that one purpose of the speech, whether incidental
or not does not matter, was to oppose not only war in general but this war, and
that the opposition was so expressed that its natural and intended effect would
be to obstruct recruiting. If that was intended and if, in
all the circumstances, that would be its probable effect, it would not be
protected by reason of its being part of a general program and expressions of a
general and conscientious belief.