Decision in re A.P.

The Government's 14,000-word brief had charged that the Associated Press was a monopoly. A.P.'s 7,000-word answer had denied it. For more than a year a most eminent three-judge Federal Court in Manhattan had studied vast quantities of evidence. Last week it gave its Solomonic decision, in one of the most historic of lawsuits. A.P. had lost. But A.P. and democracy had also won.

Said Judge Learned Hand's majority opinion (Judge Augustus Hand -- a cousin --concurring): "We conclude that the present bylaws of A.P. unlawfully restrict the admission of members; and that fur ther enforcement of them should be en joined." Judge Thomas Swan dissented.

Self-Interest v. Public Interest. Al though several lesser points were decided (one in A.P.'s favor, two against), the heart of the Government's suit involved A.P.'s membership bylaws. Until last year an applicant for A.P. membership could be blackballed solely by the veto of a member paper in the city in which the applicant operated; only an 80% vote of all A.P. members could override that veto.

Early in 1942 Colonel Robert R. McCormick's anti-New Deal Chicago Tribune successfully blocked Marshall Field's new pro-New Deal Chicago Sun out of A.P.

Last year, after the Government started to move against it, A.P. modified its by laws by reducing to 51% the vote necessary to override a veto. But this change, said the Court, "by no means opened" A.P. membership privileges to all, human nature being what it is. The Court's shrug: A.P. members would be unlikely to vote for a fellow member's competitor because "each will know that the time may come when he will himself be faced with the application of a competitor," But in a broader sense the Court ruled for the A.P. For the Court held that the A.P. not only may but must have the right to pass on the character of its membership. The Court took from the A.P. its possibilities of monopolistic profit. But the Court took from the A.P. none of its responsibility for maintaining the highest standards of integrity in news.

To be sure, not even the Justices Hand were prepared to enunciate a doctrine of responsible speech. But if the A.P. felt a sense of responsibility to the public, the Justices underscored their right to feel it.

Freedom of Speech is easier to talk about than responsibility of speech. As if to prove that they could sing as eloquently of freedom as any editorial writer, the Justices hymned:

"The newspaper industry . . . serves one of the most vital of all general interests: the dissemination of news from as many different sources, and with as many different facets and colors as is possible.

"The interest is closely akin to, if indeed it is not the same as, the interest protected by the First Amendment [freedom of speech, press, religion]; it presupposes that right conclusions are more likely to be gathered out of a multitude of tongues than through any kind of authoritative selection. To many this is, and always will be, folly; but we have staked upon it our all."

Freedom of speech, press and religion is no cut-&-dried, measurable entity. No jurist has been able to define it perfectly. In a civilization grown complicated beyond the dreams of the Founding Fathers, its definition has become more of a problem, rather than a simpler task. In two instances besides the A.P. case, the question has come sharply into focus this year:

Jehovah's Witnesses. In 1940 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, 8-to-1, that the children of Jehovah's Witnesses, a Bible-dizzy band of religious zealots, could be forced by law to salute the U.S. flag even though the salute violated their religious freedom. The verdict seemed to outlaw the cherished Bill of Rights. Last June the Court reversed its 1940 stand, upheld religious freedom, 6-to-3. A month earlier it had upheld the right (free speech) of the Witnesses to pursue their campaign to convert Roman Catholics to their faith by uninvited residential visits.

Columbia Broadcasting System decided last month to blare forth its policy that its radio commentators should not express, over CBS facilities, their opinions on anything, unless they labeled those opinions as their own. Around its ears CBS at once heard angry buzzing. Many insisted CBS was stifling free speech. But was it?

Well did the Court know, as it reached its A.P. verdict, that the answers to such questions are both fundamental and difficult. Well did it know that no decision, no matter how arduously arrived at, is infallible. Said the Court:

"Because the interests involved are so important and so large; because the in jury done may be so great, if we turn out to be wrong; and because we are not agreed," the judgment will be delayed for 60 days, pending any "appeal to the Supreme Court."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.