U.S. Supreme Court STROMBERG v. PEOPLE OF STATE OF CALIFORNIA, 283 U.S. 359 (1931)

[Page 283 U.S. 359, 376]

have found her guilty of violating the first clause of the section, that the district court of appeal did not decide or consider whether conviction under that clause was or could lawfully be had, and that the validity of the first clause was discussed in the concurring opinion only upon the question whether, if that part of the section were unconstitutional, the other parts must also fail.

4. It seems to me that on this record the Court is not called on to decide whether the mere display of a flag as the emblem of a purpose, whatever its sort, is speech within the meaning of the constitutinal protection of speech and press or to decide whether such freedom is a part of the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment or whether the anarchy that is certain to follow a successful 'opposition to organized government' is not a sufficient reason to hold that all activities to that end are outside the 'liberty' so protected. Cf. Prudential Ins. Co. v. Cheek, , 42 S. Ct. 516, 27 A. L. R. 27; Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652, 666, 45 S. Ct. 625; Whitney v. California, , 47 S. Ct. 641; Fiske v. Kansas, 274 U.S. 380, 47 S. Ct. 655

I am of opinion that the judgment below should be affirmed.