Owen J. Roberts

“ Labor has become highly organized in a wide effort to secure and preserve its rights. The daily news with respect to labor disputes is now of vast proportions; and clearly a considerable part of petitioner's editorial service must be devoted to that subject. Such news is not only of great public interest; but an unbiased version of it is of the utmost public concern. To give a group of employers on the one hand, or a labor organization on the other, power of control over such a service is obviously to endanger the fairness and accuracy of the service. ”

“ The conclusion which the petitioner draws is that whatever may be the case with respect to employees in its mechanical departments it must have absolute and unrestricted freedom to employ and to discharge those who, like Watson, edit the news, that there must not be the slightest opportunity for any bias or prejudice personally entertained by an editorial employee to color or to distort what he writes, and that the Associated Press cannot be free to furnish unbiased and impartial news reports unless it is equally free to determine for itself the partiality or bias of editorial employees. ”

“ The concclusion that the First Amendment is here infringed does not challenge the right of employees to organize, to bargain collectively with their employers about wages and other matters respecting employment, or to refuse to work except upon conditions they are willing to accept. Nor, the First Amendment aside, does it challenge the act in so far as it is an allowable regulation of interstate commerce. ”

“ The destruction or abridgment of a free press-which constitutes one of the most dependable avenues through which information of public and governmental activities may be transmitted to the people-would be an event so evil in its consequences that the least approach toward that end should be halted at the threshold.
The grants of the Constitution always are to be read in the light of the restrictions. ”

“ It is insisted that the Associated Press is in substance the press itself, that the membership consists solely of persons who own and operate newspapers, that the news is gathered solely for publication in the newspapers of members. ”

“ These newspapers represent many diverse policies and many differences in point of view. It, obviously, is essential that the news furnished should not only be without suppression, but that it should be, as far as possible, free from color, bias, or distortion. Such is the long-established policy of the Associated Press. If the Congressional act here involved, upon its face or in its present application, abridges the freedom of petitioner to carry its policy into effect, the act to that extent falls under the condemnation of the First Amendment. ”

“ No one can read the long history which records the stern and often bloody struggles by which these cardinal rights were secured, without realizing how necessary it is to preserve them against any infringement, however slight. ”

“ The act permits a discharge for any reason other than union activity or agitation for collective bargaining with employees. The restroration of Watson to his former position in no sense guarantees his continuance in petitioner's employ. The petitioner is at liberty, whenever occasion may arise, to exercise its undoubted right to sever his relationship for any cause that seems to it proper save only as a punishment for, or discouragement of, such activities as the act declares permissible.
The business of the Associated Press is not immune from regulation because it is an agency of the press. ”

“ Let us suppose the passage of a statute of like character with that under review, having the same objective, but to be effected by forbidding the discharge of employees on the ground not that they are but that they are not members of a labor association. Let us suppose further that a labor association is engaged in publishing an interstate-circulated journal devoted to furthering the interests of labor, and that members of its editorial staff, resigning their membership in the association, transfer their allegiance from the cause of the workingman to that of the employer. ”

“ Strong sympathy for or strong prejudice against a given cause or the efforts made to advance it has too often led to suppression or coloration of unwelcome facts. It would seem to be an exercise of only reasonable prudence for an association engaged in part in supplying the public with fair and accurate factual information with respect to the contests between labor and capital, to see that those whose activities include that service are free from either extreme sympathy or extreme prejudice one way or the other. ”

“ It is an intensely practical reality, capable of concrete enjoyment in a multitude of ways day by day. When applied to the press, the term freedom is not to be narrowly confined; and it obviously means more than publication and circulation. ”

“ The act does not compel the petitioner to employ any one; it does not require that the petitioner retain in its employ an incompetent editor or one who fails faithfully to edit the news to reflect the facts without bias or prejudice. ”

“ Petitioner being so engaged in interstate commerce the Congress may adopt appropriate regulations of its activities for the protection and advancement and for the insurance of the safety of such commerce.
The National Labor Relations Act seeks to protect the employees' right of collective bargaining the prohibits acts of the employer discriminating against employees for union activities and advocacy of such bargaining by denominating them unfair practices to be abated in accordance with the terms of the act. ”

“ In shaping its legislation to this end, Congress was entitled to take cognizance of actual conditions and to address itself to practicable measures. The legality of collective action on the part of employees in order to safeguard their proper interests is not to be disputed. It has long been recognized that employees are entitled to organize for the purpose of securing the redress of grievances and to promote agreements with employers relating to rates of pay and conditions of work. ”

“ Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.' Olmstead v. ”

“ Stress is laid upon the facts that this membership consists of persons of every conceivable political, economic, and religious view, that the one thing upon which the members are united is that the Associated Press shall be wholly free from partisan activity or the expression of opinions, that it shall limit its function to reporting events without bias in order that the citizens of our country, if given the facts, may be able to form their own opinions respecting them. ”

“ The first ten amendments to the Constitution safeguard the fundamental rights therein mentioned from every form of unpermitted federal legislation. The due process clause of the Fifth Amendment protects the person against deprivation of life, liberty, or property except by due process of law. 'Liberty' is a word of wide meaning, and, without more, would have included the various liberties guaranteed by the First Amendment. ”

“ A little water, trickling here and there through a dam, is a small matter in itself; but it may be a sinister menace to the security of the dam, which those living in the valley below will do well to heed. ”

“ The function of editors and editorial employees such as Watson is to determine the news value of items received and speedily and accurately to rewrite the copy delivered to them, so that the rewritten matter shall be delivered to the various filing editors who are responsible for its transmission, if appropriate, to the areas reached by their circuits. ”

“ The Board served a complaint upon the petitioner charging unfair labor practices affecting commerce within the meaning of the statute. The petitioner answered admitting Watson's discharge, but denying that it was due to his joining or assisting the Guild or engaging in union activities, and denying, on constitutional grounds, the validity of the act and the jurisdiction of the Board. ”

“ News received in New York from foreign parts, from newspaper members within the Eastern Division, and from other division points, is edited by employees acting under the direction of supervising editors and, in its edited form, is transmitted throughout the division and to the headquarters of other divisions. ”

“ The product is transmitted to member newspapers and also to foreign agencies pursuant to mutual exchange agreements. The service is not sold, but the entire cost is apportioned amongst the members by assessment. ”