endence of the judiciary is jeopardized when courts become
embroiled in the passions of the day and assume primary responsibility
in choosing between competing political, economic and social pressures.
Primary responsibility for adjusting the interests which compete in the
situation before us of necessity belongs to the Congress. The nature of
the power to be exercised by this Court has been delineated in decisions
not charged with the emotional appeal of situations such as that now
before us. We are to set aside the judgment of those whose duty it is to
legislate only if there is no reasonable basis for it."[219] But a
difficulty exists, to wit, in the clear and present danger doctrine. He
says: "In all fairness, the argument [of defendants] cannot be met by
reinterpreting the Court's frequent use of 'clear' and 'present' to mean
an entertainable 'probability.' In giving this meaning to the phrase
'clear and present danger,' the Court of Appeals was fastidiously
confining the rhetoric of opinions to the exact scope of what was
decided by them. We have greater responsibility for having given
constitutional support, over repeated protests, to uncritical
libertarian generalities. Nor is the argument of the defendants
adequately met by citing isolated cases. * * * The case for the
defendants requires that their conviction be tested against the entire
body of our relevant decisions."[220]

Turning then to the cases Justice Frankfurter exclaims at last: "I must
leave to others the ungrateful task of trying to reconcile all these
decisions."[221] The nearest precedent was Gitlow _v._ New York.[222]
Here "we put our respect for the legislative judgment in terms which, if
they were accepted here, would make decision easy. * * * But it would be
disingenuous to deny that the dissent in _Gitlow_ has been treated with
the respect usually accorded a decision."[223] But the case at bar was a
horse of a different color. "In contrast, there is ample justification
for a legislative judgment that the conspiracy now before us is a
substantial threat to national order and security,"[224] which seems to
be in essential agreement with the position of the Chief Justice and his
three associates. Justice Frankfurter concludes with a homily on the
limitations which the nature of judicial power imposes, on the power of
judicial review. He says: "Can we then say that the judgment Congress
exercised was denied it by the Constitution? Can we establis