pro-Hitler group of Arthur Garfield Hays, Jewish attorney, general counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union and staunch anti-Nazi, who explained his stand in the case with a quotation (freely translated) from Voltaire: “I detest your views but I would give my life to protect your rights to express them.”
John Drewen, former prosecutor of Union City, who appeared for the defendant-community, cited attacks against the Jews by the “Friends” in opposing the proposed injunction. At the time Vice Chancellor Bigelow reserved decision.
In a letter to the Jewish Daily Bulletin Attorney J. George Fredman, past commander-in-chief of the Jewish War Veterans of the United States, who helped Fred Eichman, assistant corporation counsel of Union City, to prepare the case and the briefs, comments as follows:
“This decision is of great moment in stopping the spread of Nazi meetings and the vilification of Jews by foreign speakers at these meetings. Such meetings have been banned in every city in New Jersey, where cells of the Friends of New Germany were, and all were awaiting this decision. The decision upholds the right of the police to stop such meetings, with the privilege of the Nazis’ bringing suits against the police if the latter exceed their authority.”
Excerpts from Vice Chancellor Bigelow’s decision follow:
“. . . Although the legislature has power to prohibit corporations from holding meetings it has not done so, and the police or other municipal officers have no authority to impose such a ban upon complainant. The defendants say, in effect, that if the meeting take place speeches will be made extolling the present government of Germany and advocating measures to abridge the rights of Jews in the United States; that Jews will thereby be incited to riot, and that defendants forbade the meeting in order to avert disorder and possible bloodshed. The explanation does not, in a legal sense, excuse defendants. Our law does not prohibit the public expression of unpopular views. It is lawful to advocate, for instance, the establishment of a dictatorship in America, or a soviet form of government, or an hereditary monarchy, or the abolition of religious freedom, or other changes in our political, economic or social system, no matter how unwise or how shocking. If lawless elements in the community instead of ignoring such propaganda, or meeting it by sound argument, resort to riot, it is the duty of police to protect the lawful assemblage and to repress those who unlawfully attack it.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
