Four New York Congressmen today introduced a bill in the House of Representatives to make it unlawful to libel any racial or religious group through inter-state shipment or mailing of defamatory material.
The sponsors–Representatives Eugene J. Keogh, Adam C. Powell, Jacob K. Javitz and Arthur G. Klein–referred to the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court last week in the case upholding the constitutionality of the Illinois group libel law forbidding publications, plays or motion pictures which attribute lack of virtue to a group of citizens in such a way as to engender public contempt, derision or obloquy. Indiana and Massachusetts have similar laws.
The bill provides that no person shall be guilty of violation if the statement made or published was honestly believed by such person upon reasonable grounds to be true. This is regarded by the sponsors as an effective protection for freedom of speech. The sponsors said they are not trying to “reach honest people, regardless of how misguided, but demagogues and dishonest purveyors of defamatory material.”
“The recent bombings in Florida and desecrations of churches and synagogues in Pennsylvania and elsewhere,” the sponsors stated, “are latter-day evidences of what libels of racial or religious groups are capable of bringing on in an American community. Justice Frankfurter, in rendering a majority opinion last Monday when the Supreme Court upheld the Illinois group libel law, stated the basic reason for our sponsorship of this legislation when he said that ‘we cannot deny to a state power to punish the same utterances directed at a defined group when we permit laws to ban similar utterances directed at an individual.'”
Provisions safeguarding free speech are contained in this measure. The Congressmen pointed out that a ban on the dissemination of false, defamatory statements against any groups dose not interfere with free speech any more than prohibiting the sale of impure or poisonous foods and drugs interferes with commerce. The bill would make violation of its provisions a misdemeanor punishable by a maximum fine of $1,000 and a maximum prison sentence of one year.
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