Felix Frankfurter

“ Awaiting and seeking to advance a moment when the United States may be so far extended by foreign engagements, so far divided in counsel, or so far in industrial or financial straits, that overthrow of the Government of the United States by force and violence may seem possible of achievement, it seeks converts for an wide by an extensive system of schooling and indoctrination. Such preparations by Communist organizations in other countries have aided in supplanting existing governments. ”

“ Disclosure both of the financial transactions of a Communist-action organization and of the identity of the organs of publication which it controls might not unreasonably have been regarded by Congress as necessary to the objective which the Act seeks to achieve: to bring foreign-dominated organizations out into the open where the public can evaluate their activities informedly against the revealed background of their character, nature, and connections. Of course, printing presses may not be regulated like guns. ”

“ Against the impediments which particular governmental regulation causes to entire freedom of individual action, there must be weighed the value to the public of the ends which the regulation may achieve. ”

“ None of the consequences which attack to registration, whatever may be their validity when weighed separately in the constitutional balance, is so devoid of rational relation to the purposes of the Act as expressed in its second section that it appears a mere pressuring device meant to catch an organization between two fires. Section 2 recites that the world Communist movement, whose purpose is to employ deceit, secrecy, infiltration, and sabotage as means to establish a Communist totalitarian dictatorship, establishes and utilizes action organizations. ”

“ The issue which the Communist Party tenders as one of construction of statutory language is more sharply drawn in the abstract sphere of words than in the realm of fact. It is true that the Court of Appeals compendiously expressed its understanding of the Party's conduct over a course of thirty years, as revealed by this record and as found by the Board, in terms of 'voluntary compliance.' Opposing this phrase, the Party insists that the statute demands 'enforceable control.' But neither of these verbalisms was used by Congress, and neither has an invariant content. ”

“ Since the determination that an organization is or is not a Communist-action organization is largely a matter of the working out of legislative policy in multiform situations of potentially great variety, the 'construction' of the statute which ensues from its application to particular circumstances by the administrative agency charged with its enforcement is to be given weight by a reviewing court. ”

“ Organizations are subject to it only when shown, after administrative hearing subject to judicial review, to be dominated by the foreign power or its organs and to operate primarily to advance its purposes. That a portion of the evidence upon which such a showing is made may consist in the expression of political views by the organization does not alter the character of the Act or of the incidents to which it attaches. ”

“ And Congress has found that these action organizations employ methods of infiltration and secretive and coercive tactics; that by operating in concealment and through Communist-front organizations they are able to obtain the support of persons who would not extend such support knowing of their true nature; that a Communist network exists in the United States; and that the agents of communism have devised methods of sabotage and espionage carried out in successful evasion of existing law. ”

“ The Act is not a bill of a attainder. It attaches not to specified organizations but to described activities in which an organization may or may not engage. The singling out of an individual for legislatively prescribed punishment constitutes an attainder whether the individual is called by name or described in terms of conduct which, because it is past conduct, operates only as a designation of particular persons. ”

“ Aliens who are members or affiliates of any organization during the time it is registered or required to be registered, unless they establish that they did not have knowledge or reason to believe that it was a Communist organization, are ineligible to receive visas, are excluded from admission to the United States, and, if in the United States, are subject to deportation upon the order of the Attorney General. ”

“ The only question, once an organization is found to have certain international relations, is one of statutory interpretation-of identifying the statutory referent. Are the institutions involved in those relations the 'world Communist movement' to which Congress referred? We are satisfied from the Board's report that the 'world Communist movement' to which its findings related the Communist Party was the same 'world Communist movement' meant by Congress. ”

“ When an order of the Board requiring the registration of a Communist organization has become final upon the termination of proceedings for judicial review or upon the expiration of the time allowed for institution of such proceedings, the Board shall publish in the Federal Register the fact that its order has become final, and that publication shall constitute notice to all members of the organization that the order has become final. ”

“ But while an angry public opinion, and the evils which it may spawn, are e levant considerations in adjudging, in light of the totality of relevant considerations, the validity of legislation that, in effecting disclosure, may thereby entail some restraints on speech and association, the existence of an ugly public temper does not, as such and without more, incapacitate government to require publicity demanded by rational interests high in the scale of national concern. ”

“ When a Communist organization is registered or when there is in effect with respect to it a final registration order of the Subversive Activities Control Board, it is unlawful for any member of the organization, knowing or having notice that the organization is registered or the order final, to hold non-elective office or employment under the United States or to conceal or fail to disclose that he is a member of the organization in seeking, accepting, or holding such office or employment ”

“ The demands not only of orderly procedure but of due procedure as the means of achieving justice according to law require that when a case is brought here for review of administrative action, all the rulings of the agency upon which the party seeks reversal, and which are then available to him, be presented. Otherwise we would be promoting the 'sporting theory' of justice, at the potential cost of substantial expenditures of agency time. ”

“ The Subversive Activities Control Act applies only to foreign-dominated organizations which work primarily to advance the objectives of a world movement controlled by the government of a foreign country. ”

“ The Communist International makes it its duty to support with all the power at its disposal every Soviet Republic, wherever it may be formed.' * * *
'The Communist International was in fact a world Communist Party, organized and controlled as to policies and activities by the Soviet Union, consisting of the various Communist Parties of the countries throughout the world, which constituted its sections. With headquarters in Moscow, it embodied an elaborate organizational structure, related to implementing the basi strategy and tactics of Marxism-Leninism. ”

“ Our determination that in the present proceeding all questions are premature which regard only the constitutionality of the various particular consequences of a registration order to a registered organization and its members, does not foreclose the Party from arguing-and it does argue-that in light of the cumulative effect of those consequences the registration provisions of § 7 are not what they seem, but represent a legislative attempt, by devious means, to 'outlaw' the Party. ”

“ Merely potential impairment of constitutional rights under a statute does not of itself create a justiciable controversy in which the nature and extent of those rights may be litigated. United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U.S. 75, 67 S.Ct. 556, 91 L.Ed. 754; International Long-shoremen's & Warehousemen's Union v. Boyd, 347 U.S. 222, 74 S.Ct. 447, 98 L.Ed. 650. Even where some of the provisions of a comprehensive legislative enactment are ripe for adjudication, portions of the enactment not immediately involved are not thereby thrown open for a judicial determination of constitutionality. ”

“ It is argued that if Congress may constitutionally enact legislation requiring the Communist Party to register, to list its members, to file financial statements, and to identify its printing presses, Congress may impose similar requirements upon any group which pursues unpopular political objectives or which expresses an unpopular political ideology. ”

“ The provision that Communist organizations label their publications is attacked as a prior restraint on, and such sanctions as denial of tax exemption are attacked as a penalty on the exercise of, the Party's constitutionally protected freedom of speech. ”

“ We do not find that the congressional assertions in § 2 (9) , (12) and (15) , that there exist in the United States individuals dedicated to communism, a 'Communist network,' a 'Communist movement,' and a Communist 'organization,' deprive the Party of the fair hearing which due process of law requires. Fairly read, these findings neither compel nor suggest the outcome in any particular litigations before the Board. ”

“ A foreign government 'dominates' or 'controls' the 'direction' of the world Communist movement through very different means and in very different ways than one organization 'dominates' or 'controls' another, or than an individual 'dominates' or 'controls' an organization. ”

“ Nevertheless, it is not and has never been the law that the privilege disallows the asking of potentially incriminatory questions or authorizes the person of whom they are asked to evade them without expressly asserting that his answers may tend to incriminate him. ”

“ The Board wrote:
'The present world Communist movement was first manifested organizationally by the formation in March of 1919 in Moscow, Russia, of the Third Communist International. As this event is recorded in the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union * * *, it was 'on the initiative of the Bolsheviks, headed by Lenin,' that the first Congress of Communist Parties was called in Moscow, the work of which 'was guided by Lenin' ”

“ In a number of situations in which secrecy or the concealment of associations has been regarded as a threat to public safety and to the effective, free functioning of our national institutions Congress has met the threat by requiring registration or disclosure. ”

“ Especially where Congress, in seeking to reconcile competing and urgently demanding values within our social institutions, legislates not to prohibit individuals from organizing for the effectuation of ends found to be menacing to the very existence of those institutions, but only to prescribe the conditions under which such organization is permitted, the legislative determination must be respected. ”