Hugo Black

“ We are faced in the instant case with the necessity of weighing the conflicting interests of the appellant in the civil rights she claims, as well as the right of the individual householder to determine whether he is willing to receive her message, against the interest of the community which by this ordinance offers to protect the interests of all of its citizens, whether particular citizens want that protection or not. ”

“ Even the exercise of religion may be at some slight inconvenience in order that the state may protect its citizens from injury. Without doubt a state may protect its citizens from fraudulent solicitation by requiring a stranger in the community, before permitting him publicly to solicit funds for any purpose, to establish his identity and his authority to act for the cause which he purports to represent.' Cantwell v. ”

“ The federal government, in its current war bond selling campaign, encourages groups of citizens to distribute advertisements and circulars from house to house. [8] Of, course, as every person acquainted with political life knows, door to door campaigning is one of the most accepted techniques of seeking popular support, while the circulation of nominating papers would be greatly handicapped if they could not be taken to the citizens in their homes. [9] Door to door distribution of circulars is essential to the poorly financed causes of little people. ”

“ Yet the peace, good order, and comfort of the community may imperatively require regulation of the time, place and manner of distribution. Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 304, 60 S.Ct. 900, 903, 84 L.Ed. 1213, 128 A.L.R. 1352. No one supposes, for example, that a city need permit a man with a communicable disease to distribute leaflets on the street or to homes, or that the First Amendment prohibits a state from preventing the distribution of leaflets in a church against the will of the church authorities. ”

“ The City, which is an industrial community most of whose residents are engaged in the iron and steel industry, [4] has vigorously argued that its inhabitants frequently work on swing shifts, working nights and sleeping days so that casual bell pushers might seriously interfere with the hours of sleep although they call at high noon. In addition, burglars frequently pose as canvassers, either in order that they may have a pretense to discover whether a house is empty and hence ripe for burglary, or for the purpose of spying out the premises in order that they may return later. ”

“ During the fiscal year 1939-1940, representatives of the American Baptist Publication Society visited 52,832 families. More than six million families have been visited over a one hundred year period. Annual of Northern Baptist Convention, 1940, 671, 673; Year Book of the Northern Baptist Convention, 1942, 332-335. See for the practice of other religions, Stewart, Sheldon Jackson (1908) , 32 ”