Popular Law-making: A study of the origin, history, and present tendencies of law-making by statuteStimson, Frederic Jesup
History
Popular Law-making: A study of the origin, history, and present tendencies of law-making by statute
Stimson, Frederic Jesup
Legislation -- United States
Legislation concerning freedom of speech and its limitations, the
law of slander and libel, hardly exists in America, except only
the efforts of newspapers to be free of the consequences of libels
published by them, provided they publish a retractation; and the
efforts of the people to protect their reputation and right to
privacy, as by laws like that of the State of Pennsylvania prohibiting
ridiculous or defamatory cartoons, even of persons in public life; and
the legislation already attempted in some States to prohibit the use
of a person's likeness for advertising purposes, or to protect them
from the kodak fiend, or even to establish a general right to privacy
as to their doings, engagements, social entertainments, etc., when
they are of no legitimate interest to the public. Legislation in these
directions has, however, only made a beginning.
The newspaper-libel laws usually provide that the retractation shall
be a defence to a libel suit, at least if published in as large a type
and in as conspicuous a manner as the original article complained of;
sometimes they only provide that in such cases the newspaper shall be
relieved of all but actual damages. The wisdom of such legislation is
questionable, as the old adage runs: "A lie will travel around the
world while the truth is putting on its boots"; moreover, it is
questionable whether they are not class legislation in extending to a
certain form of business or a certain trade a protection which is not
extended to others. There has been much legislation preventing
the advertising of patent medicines, immoral remedies, divorce
advertisement, and such matters. Some newspapers have objected to it,
but the right of freedom of the press does not include the right to
the use of the mails, and the papers containing the objectionable
advertisements may constitutionally be seized or denied delivery,
just as convict-made goods may be denied circulation in interstate
commerce, by act of Congress, not, of course, of the States. Mr.
Gompers, of the American Federation of Labor, has complained that the
injunction of their so-called "unfair list" is an interference with
the freedom of the press, and I presume would claim that an injunction
against urging, or combining to urge, by oral argument, the members of
the various unions throughout the country to boycott a certain person,
would be an interference with the right of freedom of speech, and that
therefore if the courts did not so decide, the laws should be changed
by statute. This, also, would seem open to the objection of class
legislation if extended only to speech or publication in industrial
disputes. It should be noted, however, that the broad principle of
freedom of speech by all persons and at all places is first adopted
in the American constitutions, freedom of speech in England in its
historical principles extending only to freedom of speech in the House
of Parliament, and the right of assembly and petition at a public
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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