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Administration of John Adams would not be renewed when they were scheduled to expire in 1801. These laws bad limited the activity of editors and writers and had made them vulnerable to the political whims of those in power. Although few were convicted un-. der the Alien and Sedition laiws, they remained a threat held over the heads of each editor to ste that he soft pedal any criticism he might have of the administration in power.
Two outstanding cases in this century concerning freedom of the press that have been passed on by the United States Supreme Court have been those that have gone up from the states of Minnesota and of Louisiana.
The former case is based on a statute passed by the Minnesota state legislature which provided that a person engaged in the business of publishing a malicious, scandalous, and defamatory newspaper could be found guilty of maintaining a nuisance and could be enjoined perpetually from continuing the publishing of the paper. A case was brought up under this statute and enjoinment, was twice upheld by the Minnesota State Supreme Court, the state court decision was reversed and that statute was held to be an infringement of freedom of the press, because it imposed a previous restraint upon publication equivalent to censorship. The decision taken by the U. S. Supreme Court finally established by precedent the rule that freedom of the press and of speech are definitely included in the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment from state encroachment.
The Louisiana case grew out of Huey Long’s fight with the newspapers of the state and his attempt to force them into line. The state legislature of Louisiana passed an act in 1934 which placed a twe percent levy against the gross receipts of all newspapers having a weekly circulation of more than 20,000. The legislative act was upheld by the state courts, but was reversed by the United States Supreme Court, which found the act unconstitutional on the ground that the tax was an indirect method of limiting the circulation of information to which the public was entitled by virtue of their constitutional guaranties.
The Supreme Court decision emphasised the need for a free press in these words, "A free press stands as one of the great interpreters between the government and the people. To allow it to be fettered is to fetter ourselves.”
Thus through almost 300 years the American people, as citizens of Great Britain and of the United States, have through their leaders and through their own power of public opinion insisted that the right. to speak and to write be left free of governmental restrictions. Newspaper editors as a group have taken upon themselves the ethical responsibility of voluntary self-restriction to protect the general welfare of the public and to meet the demands of good taste and decency.
The strength of a people is in. its right to talk and to be heard, and to formulate a- public opinion which will include the democratic views which Jefferson and most of our leaders have f claimed for each American.
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