Hugo Black

“ Nor could we strike down such legislation, even if we believed that as a matter of policy it would have been wiser not to enact the legislation or to extend the prohibitions over a wider or narrower area. Here Congress aimed its law directly against one practice-compelling a boradcasting company to hire unneeded workers. There is nothing novel about laws to prohibit some persons from compelling other persons to act contrary to their desires. ”

“ Equally clear is it that Congress may direct its legislation specifically towards a disclosed evil, without generalizing its prohibition, when in its judgment like evils have not disclosed themselves elsewhere. It would be a usurpation of the legislative authority for us to find that there was no basis in reason for the judgment of Congress that the public interest called for legislation to deal with what is colloquially called 'featherbedding' in connection with the broadcasting business. ”

“ Consequently, if Congress believes that there are employee practices in the radio industry which injuriously affect interstate commerce, and directs its prohibitions against those practices, we could not set aside its legislation even if we were persuaded that employer practices also required regulation. ”

“ The District Court found constitutional defects in the statute 'as it was written by Congress.' We find the contrary. Therefore, the information should go back to the District Court for disposition. Just as we cannot go behind a district court's determination regarding the sufficiency of the indictment as a matter of pleading as a preliminary to passing on statutory validity, so, when a naked question of validity is presented to us, it is not for us to scrutinize the charge and hypothesize possibilities whereby new questions may arise of a statutory or constitutional nature. ”

“ We have consistently refrained from passing on the constitutionality of a statute until a case involving it has reached a stage where the decision of a precise constitutional issue is a necessity. The reasons underlying this principle and illustrations of the strictness with which it has been applied appear in the opinion of the Court in the Rescue Army v. Municipal Court, 67 S.Ct. 130, and cases there collected. And in reviewing a direct appeal from a District Court under the Criminal Appeals Act, supra, our review is limited to the validity or construction of the contested statute. ”

“ We therefore have a situation in which we are urged to strike down a statute as violative of the constitutional guarantees of frer speech when the statute has not been, and might never be, applied in such manner as to raise the question respondent asks us to decide. For the gist of the offense here charged in the statute and in the information is that respondent 'wilfully, by the use of force, intimidation, duress and by the use of other means, did attempt to coerce, compel and constrain' [3] the licensee to hire unneeded employees. ”

“ A statute is invalid when 'so vague that men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning.' 269 U.S. 385, at page 391, 46 S.Ct. 126, at page 127, 70 L.Ed. 322. It seems to me that this vice exists in this section of the challenged act. How can a man or a jury possibly know how many men are 'needed' 'to perform actual services' in broadcasting? What must the quality of the program be? How skillful are the employees in the performance of the their task? Does one weigh the capacity of the employee or the managerial ability of the employer? ”

“ Whatever may be the limits of the power of Congress that do not apply equally to all classes, groups, and persons, see Steward Machine Co. v. Davis, 301 U.S. 548, 584, 57 S.Ct. 883, 889, 81 L.Ed. 1279, 109 A.L.R. 1293, we are satisfied that Congress has not transgressed those limits in the provisions of this statute which are here attacked.
Third. Respondent contends here, and the District Court has held, that the statute abridges freedom of speech by making peaceful picketing a crime. ”

“ Their brief says, after considering the legislative history, 'the bill was not intended to apply to mere differences of opinion as to whether men were overworked; it only fits deliverate demands for payment to additional employees made in complete disregard for the employer's need and without any justification from the viewpoint of actually getting the employer's business done. ”

“ It is one of the many regulatory acts that legislative bodies have passed in recent years to make unlawful certain practices in the field of economics that seemed contrary to the public interest. [4] These statutes made new crimes. ”