result that defense
by truth of the utterance was not under Illinois law available unless
the publication was also shown to have been made "with good motives and
with justifiable ends." So construed, the Court held, the Act did not
violate liberty of speech and press as guaranteed to the States by
Amendment XIV. Said Justice Frankfurter:

"If an utterance directed at an individual may be the object of criminal
sanctions, we cannot deny to a State power to punish the same utterance
directed at a defined group, unless we can say that this is a wilful and
purposeless restriction unrelated to the peace and well-being of the
State."[237] Pointing then to Illinois' bad record in the matter of race
riots, he continued: "In the face of this history and its frequent
obligato of extreme racial and religious propaganda, we would deny
experience to say that the Illinois legislature was without reason in
seeking ways to curb false or malicious defamation of racial and
religious groups, made in public places and by means calculated to have
a powerful emotional impact on those to whom it was presented. 'There
are limits to the exercise of these liberties [of speech and of the
press]. The danger in these times from the coercive activities of those
who in the delusion of racial or religious conceit would incite violence
and breaches of the peace in order to deprive others of their equal
right to the exercise of their liberties, is emphasized by events
familiar to all. These and other transgressions of those limits the
States appropriately may punish.' * * * It is not within our competence
to confirm or deny claims of social scientists as to the dependence of
the individual on the position of his racial or religious group in the
community. It would, however, be arrant dogmatism, quite outside the
scope of our authority in passing on the powers of a State, for us to
deny that the Illinois legislature may warrantably believe that a man's
job and his educational opportunities and the dignity accorded him may
depend as much on the reputation of the racial and religious group to
which he willy-nilly belongs, as on his own merits. This being so, we
are precluded from saying that speech concededly punishable when
immediately directed at individuals cannot be outlawed if directed at
groups with whose position and esteem in society the affiliated
individual may be inextricably involved."[238]

CENSORSHIP OF THE MAILS: FRAUD ORDER

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