4-to-5; 5-to-4

"How, then," demanded Justice Robert H. Jackson, in a dissenting opinion last week, "can the Court today hold it a 'high constitutional privilege' to go to homes, including those of devout Catholics on Palm Sunday morning, and thrust upon them literature calling their church a 'whore' and their faith a 'racket'?"

This eminently reasonable question had already been answered a few minutes before. In a series of majority opinions, the U.S. Supreme Court redeemed itself from the obloquy which fell upon it last year after a decision written by Justice Stanley Reed, which prevailed in a 5-to-4 decision. Then the Court had upheld city ordinances denying the obstreperous sect called Jehovah's Witnesses the right to peddle their literature without a license. The Reed decision held that free speech, free press, and freedom of religion may, despite the Bill of Rights, be limited--"to times, places and methods . . . not at odds with the preservation of peace and good order." Wrote Justice William O. Douglas last week, for the new majority:

"Plainly a community may not suppress, or the state tax, the dissemination of views which are unpopular, annoying or distasteful. If that device were ever sanctioned there would have been forged a ready instrument for the suppression of the faith which any minority cherishes but which does not happen to be in favor. That would be a complete repudiation of the philosophy of the Bill of Rights."

The reversal represented no change in the views of the eight Justices who participated in both decisions. The same four (Roberts, Reed, Frankfurter, Jackson) were still for restraining the Witnesses. The same four (Stone, Black, Douglas, Murphy) were still for the Bill of Rights. The replacement of ex-Justice Jimmy Byrnes by Justice Wiley Blount Rutleage had made the difference.

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