Stromberg v. California

283 U.S. 359 (1931)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

D is a young woman of nineteen, a citizen of the United States by birth, was one of the supervisors of a summer camp for children, between ten and fifteen years of age, in the foothills of the San Bernardino mountains. D led the children in their daily study, teaching them history and economics. 'Among other things, the children were taught class consciousness, the solidarity of the workers, and the theory that the workers of the world are of one blood and brothers all.' D was a member of the Young Communist League, an international organization affiliated with the Communist Party. The charge against her concerned a daily ceremony at the camp, in which the appellant supervised and directed the children in raising a red flag, 'a camp-made reproduction of the flag of Soviet Russia, which was also the flag of the Communist Party in the United States.' In connection with the flag-raising, there was a ritual at which the children stood at salute and recited a pledge of allegiance 'to the worker's red flag, and to the cause for which it stands; one aim throughout our lives, freedom for the working class.' A library was maintained at the camp containing a large number of books, papers, and pamphlets, including much radical communist propaganda, specimens of which are quoted in the opinion of the state court. The books and pamphlets contained incitements to violence and to 'armed uprisings,' teaching 'the indispensability of a desperate, bloody, destructive war as the immediate task of the coming action.' None of these books or pamphlets were used in the teaching at the camp. None of the literature in the library, and particularly none of the exhibits containing radical communist propaganda, was in any way brought to the attention of any child or of any other person, and that no word of violence or anarchism or sedition was employed in her teaching of the children. There was no evidence to the contrary. Section 403-a of the Penal Code provides: 'Any person who displays a red flag, banner or badge or any flag, badge, banner, or device of any color or form whatever in any public place or in any meeting place or public assembly, or from or on any house, building or window as a sign, symbol or emblem of opposition to organized government or as an invitation or stimulus to anarchistic action or as an aid to propaganda that is of a seditious character is guilty of a felony.' Ds were charged with displaying a red flag and banner in a public place and in a meeting place as a sign, symbol, and emblem of opposition to organized government and as an invitation and stimulus to anarchistic action and as an aid to propaganda that is and was of a seditious character. D contends the statute was invalid because it was repugnant to the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution. The demurrer was overruled, and D pleaded not guilty. The jury was instructed that D should be convicted if the flag was displayed for any one of the three purposes named in the statute. Conviction followed, motions for a new trial and in arrest of judgment were denied, and on appeal to the District Court of Appeal the judgment was affirmed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.