Books in Brief: Protest, Dissent and the Supreme Court

Protest, Dissent and the Supreme Court, edited by Robert L. Cord (Winthrop, 303 pp., $5.95; paper $3.95). Reflecting on freedom of speech in 1937, Justice Cardozo wrote: “Of that freedom one may say that it is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom.” Accepting that premise, political scientist Cord has assembled two dozen important recent Supreme Court cases concerning war protest, political association, political expression and protest on public and private property prefaced by introductory essays giving concise, clear explanations both of what the High Court does (and how it does it) and what the overriding issues are. Professor Cord strives for objectivity and, remarkably, achieves it most of the time. A series of questions following each section offers little comfort to the demonstration-happy students who will read them; they seem especially designed to force a realization that the goose’s sauce suits the gander too. Sometimes Dr. Cord’s objectivity falters, as when he describes the case of Bond v. Floyd (1966) without indicating that the Georgia legislature might well have had legitimate cause to regard Julian Bond as unfit to sit in that body. The case itself, well and fairly edited by Cord, suggests that the right was with Georgia, not with Bond. Throughout the book, in fact, when dealing with Negroes, Cord’s liberal bias gets the better of him. Of Brown v. Board of Education, for instance, he writes, incredibly, that the “doctrine was written in language more scientific than juridical.” Not juridical, yes indeed; scientific? Balderdash. Mr. Cord also tends rather cavalierly to glop together in one sentence on groups from which a democratic society should defend itself, the KKK, the Communist Party and the Minutemen, thus suggesting that the latter is in the same heinous league with the first two. Although lacking an index (an inexcusable economy in a book such as this), Protest, Dissent and the Supreme Court is valuable as the first such compendium, and it makes clear an adage of Felix Frankfurter’s: “The right to swing your arm ends where the other fellow’s nose begins.”

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D. J. C. Brudnoy

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Protest, Dissent and the Supreme Court, edited by Robert L. Cord (Winthrop, 303 pp., $5.95; paper $3.95). Reflecting on freedom of speech in 1937, Justice Cardozo wrote: “Of that freedom one may say that it is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom.” Accepting that premise, political scientist Cord has assembled two dozen important recent Supreme Court cases concerning war protest, political association, political expression and protest on public and private property prefaced by introductory essays giving concise, clear explanations both of what the High Court does (and how it does it) and what the overriding issues are. Professor Cord strives for objectivity and, remarkably, achieves it most of the time. A series of questions following each section offers little comfort to the demonstration-happy students who will read them; they seem especially designed to force a realization that the goose’s sauce suits the gander too. Sometimes Dr. Cord’s objectivity falters, as when he describes the case of Bond v. Floyd (1966) without indicating that the Georgia legislature might well have had legitimate cause to regard Julian Bond as unfit to sit in that body. The case itself, well and fairly edited by Cord, suggests that the right was with Georgia, not with Bond. Throughout the book, in fact, when dealing with Negroes, Cord’s liberal bias gets the better of him. Of Brown v. Board of Education, for instance, he writes, incredibly, that the “doctrine was written in language more scientific than juridical.” Not juridical, yes indeed; scientific? Balderdash. Mr. Cord also tends rather cavalierly to glop together in one sentence on groups from which a democratic society should defend itself, the KKK, the Communist Party and the Minutemen, thus suggesting that the latter is in the same heinous league with the first two. Although lacking an index (an inexcusable economy in a book such as this), Protest, Dissent and the Supreme Court is valuable as the first such compendium, and it makes clear an adage of Felix Frankfurter’s: “The right to swing your arm ends where the other fellow’s nose begins.”