GITLOW v. PEOPLE OF NEW YORK

Legal Principle at Issue

Whether (1) the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment applies to states, and (2) whether the state criminal anarchy law violated First Amendment.

Action

Affirmed. Gitlow’s conviction was upheld.

Facts/Syllabus

Defendant Benjamin Gitlow was a member of the Left Wing Section of the Socialist Party, a dissenting branch or faction of that party formed in opposition to its dominant policy of "moderate Socialism." Membership in both was open to aliens as well as citizens. The Left Wing Section was organized nationally at a conference in New York City in June, 1919, attended by ninety delegates that elected a national council, of which Gitlow was a member. Shortly thereafter, the council published The Revolutionary Age, the official literary organ of the Left Wing. Gitlow served on the board of managers of the paper, and was also its business manager. He arranged for the printing of the paper, and took to the printer the manuscript of the first issue, which contained the Left Wing Manifesto and a Communist program. Sixteen thousand copies were printed and delivered at the office of The Revolutionary Age. These copies were paid for by Gitlow, as business manager of the paper. Employees at this office wrapped and mailed out copies of The Revolutionary Age under Gitlow's direction, and copies were sold from this office. Gitlow also signed a card subscribing to the manifesto, which all applicants were required to sign before being admitted to membership, and he traveled across the state to speak at branches of the Socialist Party about the principles of the Left Wing.

Gitlow was convicted under New York’s Criminal Anarchy Law, which punished advocating the overthrow of the government by force. Gitlow challenged his conviction, arguing that the First Amendment restrains the states as well as the federal government and that the criminal anarchy law violated the First Amendment. The New York Court of Appeals upheld Gitlow's conviction, holding that the Manifesto "advocated the overthrow of this government by violence, or by unlawful means," the majority wrote. "It will be seen . . . that this defendant through the manifesto . . . advocated the destruction of the state and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. . . . To advocate . . . the commission of this conspiracy or action by mass strike whereby government is crippled, the administration of justice paralyzed, and the health, morals and welfare of a community endangered, and this for the purpose of bringing about a revolution in the state, is to advocate the overthrow of organized government by unlawful means."

Importance of Case

The adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment meant that the states were now bound by certain amendments in the Bill of Rights through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This partly overruled Barron v. Baltimore (1833), which held that the Bill of Rights only applied to the federal government. Although the state could not infringe on Gitlow’s First Amendment protections, the Court upheld his conviction because the government could punish speech that threatens the existence of government itself.