| Prince v. Massachusetts
(No. 98)
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| Syllabus
| Opinion
[ Rutledge ] | Dissent
[ Murphy ] | Separate
[ Jackson ] |
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Prince v. Massachusetts
APPEAL FROM THE SUPERIOR COURT OF MASSACHUSETTS PLYMOUTH COUNTY
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON:
The novel feature of this decision is this: the Court holds that a state may apply child labor laws to restrict or prohibit an activity of which, as recently as last term, it held:
This form of religious activity occupies the same high estate under the First Amendment as do worship in the churches and preaching from the pulpits. It has the same claim to protection as the more orthodox and conventional exercises of religion.
. . . the mere fact that the religious literature is "sold" by itinerant preachers, rather than "donated." does not transform evangelism into a commercial enterprise. If it did, then the passing of the collection plate in church would make the church service a commercial project. The constitutional right of those spreading their religious beliefs through the spoken [p177] and printed word are not to be gauged by standards governing retailers or wholesalers of books.
Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U.S. 105, 109, 111.
It is difficult for me to believe that going upon the streets to accost the public is the same thing for application of public law as withdrawing to a private structure for religious worship. But if worship in the churches and the activity of Jehovah's Witnesses on the streets "occupy the same high estate" and have the "same claim to protection," it would seem that child labor laws may be applied to both if to either. If the Murdock doctrine stands along with today's decision, a foundation is laid for any state intervention in the indoctrination and participation of children in religion, provided it is done in the name of their health or welfare.
This case brings to the surface the real basis of disagreement among members of this Court in previous Jehovah's Witness cases. Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U.S. 105"]319 U.S. 105; 319 U.S. 105; Martin v. Struthers, 319 U.S. 141"]319 U.S. 141; Jones v. Opelika, 316 U.S. 584, 319 U.S. 103; 319 U.S. 141; Jones v. Opelika, 316 U.S. 584, 319 U.S. 103; Douglas v. Jeannette, 319 U.S. 157. Our basic difference seems to be as to the method of establishing limitations which of necessity bound religious freedom.
My own view may be shortly put: I think the limits begin to operate whenever activities begin to affect or collide with liberties of others or of the public. Religious activities which concern only members of the faith are and ought to be free -- as nearly absolutely free as anything can be. But beyond these, many religious denominations or sects engage in collateral and secular activities intended to obtain means from unbelievers to sustain the worshippers and their leaders. They raise money not merely by passing the plate to those who voluntarily attend services or by contributions by their own people, but by solicitations and drives addressed to the public by holding public dinners and entertainments, by various kinds [p178] of sales and Bingo games and lotteries. All such money-raising activities on a public scale are, I think, Caesar's affairs, and may be regulated by the state so long as it does not discriminate against one because he is doing them for a religious purpose and the regulation is not arbitrary and capricious, in violation of other provisions of the Constitution.
The Court in the Murdock case rejected this principle of separating immune religious activities from secular ones in declaring the disabilities which the Constitution imposed on local authorities. Instead, the Court now draws a line based on age that cuts across both true exercise of religion and auxiliary secular activities. I think this is not a correct principle for defining the activities immune from regulation on grounds of religion, and Murdock overrules the grounds on which I think affirmance should rest. I have no alternative but to dissent from the grounds of affirmance of a judgment which I think was rightly decided, and upon right grounds, by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. 313 Mass. 223.
MR. JUSTICE ROBERTS and MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER join in this opinion.