ton Act[32] relating to punishment for contempt of court by
disobedience to injunctions in labor disputes. The sections in question
provided for a jury trial upon the demand of the accused in contempt
cases in which the acts committed in violation of district court orders
also constituted a crime under the laws of the United States or of those
of the State where they were committed. Although Justice Sutherland
reaffirmed earlier rulings establishing the authority of Congress to
regulate the contempt power, he went on to qualify this authority and
declared that "the attributes which inhere in that power [to punish
contempt] and are inseparable from it can neither be abrogated nor
rendered practically inoperative." The Court mentioned specifically "the
power to deal summarily with contempts committed in the presence of the
courts or so near thereto as to obstruct the administration of justice,"
and the power to enforce mandatory decrees by coercive means.[33]

The Contempt Power Exalted

The phrase "in the presence of the Court or so near thereto as to
obstruct the administration of justice" was interpreted in Toledo
Newspaper Co. _v._ United States[34] so broadly as to uphold the action
of a district court judge in punishing for contempt a newspaper for
publishing spirited editorials and cartoons on questions at issue in a
contest between a street railway company and the public over rates. A
majority of the Court held that the test to be applied in determining
the obstruction of the administration of justice is not the actual
obstruction resulting from an act, but "the character of the act done
and its direct tendency to prevent and obstruct the discharge of
judicial duty." Similarly the test of whether a particular act is an
attempt to influence or intimidate a court is not the influence exerted
upon the mind of a particular judge but "the reasonable tendency of the
acts done to influence or bring about the baleful result * * * without
reference to the consideration of how far they may have been without
influence in a particular case."[35] In Craig _v._ Hecht[36] these
criteria were applied to sustain the imprisonment of the comptroller of
New York City for writing and publishing a letter to a public service
commissioner which criticized the action of a United States district
judge in receivership proceedings.

Recession of the Doctrine

The decision in the Toledo Newspaper case did not follow earlier
decisions