Robert H. Jackson

“ It was to assure religious teaching as much freedom as secular discussion, rather than to assure it greater license, that led to its separate statement.
The First Amendment grew out of an experience which taught that society cannot trust the conscience of a majority to keep its religious zeal within the limits that a free society can tolerate. I do not think it any more intended to leave the conscience of a minority to fix its limits. Civil government can not let any group ride rough-shod over others simply because their 'consciences' tell them to do so. ”

“ Religion is a racket because it has long been used and is still used to extract money from the people upon the theory and promise that the paying over of money to a priest will serve to relieve the party paying from punishment after death and further insure his salvation.' This line of attack is taken by the Witnesses generally upon all denominations, especially the Roman Catholic. ”

“ These Witnesses, in common with all others, have extensive rights to proselyte and propagandize. These of course include the right to oppose and criticize the Roman Catholic Church or any other denomination. These rights are, and should be held to be, as extensive as any orderly society can tolerate in religious disputation. The real question is where their rights end and the rights of others begin. The real task of determining the extent of their rights on balance with the rights of others is not met by pronouncement of general propositions with which there is no disagreement. ”

“ I find it impossible to believe that the Struthers case can be solved by reference to the statement that 'The authors of the First Amendment knew that novel and unconventional ideas might disturb the complacent, but they chose to encourage a freedom which they believed essential if vigorous enlightenment was ever to triumph over slothful ignorance.' I doubt if only the slothfully ignorant wish repose in their homes, or that the forefathers intended to open the door to such forced 'enlightenment' as we have here. ”

“ For a stranger to corner a man in his home, summon him to the door and put him in the position either of arguing his religion or of ordering one of unknown disposition to leave is a questionable use of religious freedom. ”

“ The most cruel and seductive public enemy is that which employs religion to carry on the racket, and by which means the people are deceived and the name of Almighty God is reproached. There are numerous systems of religion, but the most subtle, fraudulent and injurious to humankind is that which is generally labeled the 'Christian religion,' because it has the appearance of a worshipful devotion to the Supreme Being, and thereby easily misleads many honest and sincere persons.' Id. ”

“ Locusts invade the homes of the people and even eat the varnish off the wood and eat the wood to some extent. Likewise God's faithful witnesses, likened unto locusts, get the kingdom message right into the house and they take the veneer off the religious things that are in that house, including candles and 'holy water', remove the superstition from the minds of the people, and show them that the doctrines that have been taught to them are wood, hay and stubble, destructible by fire, and they cannot withstand the heat. ”

“ The city points out that this ordinance was narrowly drawn to meet a particular evil in that community where many men must work nights and rest by day. I had supposed that our question, except in respect to ordinances invalid on their face, is always whether the ordinance as applied denies constitutional rights. Nothing in the Constitution says or implies that real rights are more vulnerable to a narrow ordinance than to a broad one. ”

“ In the Murdock case the Court decides to 'restore to their high, constitutional position the liberties of itinerant evangelists.' That it does without stating what those privileges are, beyond declaring that 'This form of religious activity occupies the same high estate under the First Amendment as do worship in the churches and preaching from the pulpits.' How can we dispose of the questions in this case merely by citing the unquestioned right to minister to congregations voluntarily attending services? ”

“ The people are enabled to learn that 'purgatory' is a bogeyman, set up by the agents of Satan to frighten the people into the religious organizations, where they may be fleeced of their hard-earned money. ”

“ Civil liberties had their origin and must find their ultimate guaranty in the faith of the people. If that faith should be lost, five or nine men in Washington could not long supply its want. ”

“ On others, the margin is less. Part-time ministers have a differential between the 20¢ which they remit to the Watch Tower Society and the 25 which is the contribution they ask for the books. We are told that many of the Witnesses give away a substantial quantity of the literature to people who make no contributions. Apart from the fact that this differential exists and that it enables the distributors to meet in whole or in part their living expenses, it has proven impossible in these cases to learn the exact results of the campaigns from a financial point of view. ”

“ Doubtless there exists fellow spirits who welcome these callers, but the issue here is what are the rights of those who do not and what is the right of the community to protect them in the exercise of their own faith in peace. ”

“ The facts of record in the Douglas case and their relation to the facts of the other cases seem to me worth recital and consideration if we are realistically to weigh the conflicting claims of rights in the related cases today decided.
In 1939, a 'Watch Tower Campaign' was instituted by Jehovah's Witnesses in Jeannette, Pennsylvania, an industrial city of some 16,000 inhabitants. [1] Each home was visited, a bell was rung or the door knocked upon, and the householder advised that the Witness had important information. If the householder would listen, a record was played on the phonograph. ”

“ The stubborn persistence of the officials of smaller communities in their efforts to regulate this conduct indicates a strongly held conviction that the Court's many decisions in this field are at odds with the realities of life in those communities where the householder himself drops whatever he may be doing to answer the summons to the door and is apt to have positive religious convictions of his own. [3]
Three subjects discussed in the opinions in Murdock v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and Martin v. Struthers tend to obscure the effect of the decisions. ”

“ Its subject was 'Snare and Racket.' The following words are representative of its contents: 'Religion is wrong and a snare because it deceives the people, but that does not mean that all who follow religion are willingly bad. ”

“ One of its 'zone servants' testified that its correspondence is signed only with the name of the corporation and anonymity as to its personnel is its policy. The assumption that it is a 'non-profit charitable' corporation may be true, but it is without support beyond mere assertion. ”

“ This Court is forever adding new stories to the temples of constitutional law, and the temples have a way of collapsing when one story too many is added. ”