MANU/USSC/0180/1919

Equivalent/Neutral Citation: 250 U.S. 616(1919)

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

No. 316
Decided On: 11.10.1919
ABRAMS et al. Vs. UNITED STATES
Hon'ble Judges/Coram:
Clarke, Holmes and Brandeis, JJ.
Counsels:
For Appellant/Petitioner/Plaintiff: Harry Weinberger, Adv.
For Respondents/Defendant: Robert P. Stewart, Assistant Attorney General
JUDGMENT
Mr. Justice Clarke
On a single indictment, containing four counts, the five plaintiffs in error, hereinafter
designated the defendants, were convicted of conspiring to violate provisions of the
Espionage Act of Congress (section 3, title I, of Act June 15, 1917, c. 30, 40 Stat. 219,
as amended by Act May 16, 1918, c. 75, 40 Stat. 553 [Comp. St. 1918, § 10212c]).
Each of the first three counts charged the defendants with conspiring, when the United
States was at war with the Imperial Government of Germany, to unlawfully utter, print,
write and publish: In the first count, 'disloyal, scurrilous and abusive language about
the form of government of the United States;' in the second count, language 'intended
to bring the form of government of the United States into contempt, scorn, contumely
and disrepute;' and in the third count, language 'intended to incite, provoke and
encourage resistance to the United States in said war.' The charge in the fourth count
was that the defendants conspired 'when the United States was at war with the Imperial
German Government, * * * unlawfully and willfully, by utterance, writing, printing and
publication to urge, incite and advocate curtailment of production of things and
products, to wit, ordnance and ammunition, necessary and essential to the prosecution
of the war.' The offenses were charged in the language of the act of Congress.
It was charged in each count of the indictment that it was a part of the conspiracy that
the defendants would attempt to accomplish their unlawful purpose by printing, writing
and distributing in the city of New York many copies of a leaflet or circular, printed in
the English language and of another printed in the Yiddish language, copies of which,
properly identified, were attached to the indictment.
All of the five defendants were born in Russia. They were intelligent, had considerable
schooling and at the time they were arrested they had lived in the United States terms
varying from five to ten years, but none of them had applied for naturalization. Four of
them testified as witnesses in their own behalf and of these three frankly avowed that
they were 'rebels,' 'revolutionists,' 'anarchists,' that they did not believe in government
in any form and they declared that they had no interest whatever in the government of
the United States. The fourth defendant testified that he was a 'Socialist' and believed in

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' a proper kind of government, not capitalistic,' but in his classification the government
of the United States was 'capitalistic.'
It was admitted on the trial that the defendants had united to print and distribute the
described circulars and that 5,000 of them had been printed and distributed about the
22d day of August, 1918. The group had a meeting place in New York City, in rooms
rented by defendant Abrams, under an assumed name and there the subject of printing
the circulars was discussed about two weeks before the defendants were arrested. The
defendant Abrams, although not a printer, on July 27, 1918, purchased the printing
outfit with which the circulars were printed and installed it in a basement room where
the work was done at night. The circulars were distributed, some by throwing them
from a window of a building where one of the defendants was employed and others
secretly, in New York City.
The defendants pleaded 'not guilty,' and the case of the government consisted in
showing the facts we have stated and in introducing in evidence copies of the two
printed circulars attached to the indictment, a sheet entitled 'Revolutionists Unite for
Action,' written by the defendant Lipman and found on him when he was arrested and
another paper, found at the headquarters of the group and for which Abrams assumed
responsibility.
Thus the conspiracy and the doing of the overt acts charged were largely admitted and
were fully established.
On the record thus described it is argued, somewhat faintly, that the acts charged
against the defendants were not unlawful because within the protection of that freedom
of speech and of the press which is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the
Constitution of the United States and that the entire Espionage Act is unconstitutional
because in conflict with that amendment.
This contention is sufficiently discussed and is definitely negatived in Schenck v. United
States and Baer v. United States, MANU/USSC/0119/1919 : 249 U. S. 47, 39 Sup. Ct.
247, 63 L.ed. 470 and in Frohwerk v. United States, MANU/USSC/0132/1919 : 249 U.
S. 204, 39 Sup. Ct. 249, 63 L.ed. 561.
The claim chiefly elaborated upon by the defendants in the oral argument and in their
brief is that there is no substantial evidence in the record to support the judgment upon
the verdict of guilty and that the motion of the defendants for an instructed verdict in
their favor was erroneously denied. A question of law is thus presented, which calls for
an examination of the record, not for the purpose of weighing conflicting testimony, but
only to determine whether there was some evidence, competent and substantial, before
the jury, fairly tending to sustain the verdict. Troxell, Administrator, v. Delaware,
Lackawanna & Western R. R. Co., MANU/USSC/0228/1913 : 227 U. S. 434, 442, 33
Sup. Ct. 274, 57 L.ed. 586; Lancaster v. Collins, 115 U. S. 222, 225, 6 Sup. Ct. 33, 29
L.ed. 373; Chicago & North Western Ry. Co. v. Ohle, 117 U. S. 123, 129, 6 Sup. Ct.
632, 29 L.ed. 837. We shall not need to consider the sufficiency, under the rule just
stated, of the evidence introduced as to all of the counts of the indictment, for, since
the sentence imposed did not exceed that which might lawfully have been imposed
under any single count, the judgment upon the verdict of the jury must be affirmed if
the evidence is sufficient to sustain any one of the counts. Evans v. United States,
MANU/USSC/0286/1894 : 153 U. S. 608, 14 Sup. Ct. 939, 38 L.ed. 839; Claassen v.
United States, MANU/USSC/0077/1891 : 142 U. S. 140, 12 Sup. Ct. 169, 35 L.ed. 966 ;
Debs v. United States, MANU/USSC/0146/1919 : 249 U. S. 211, 216, 39 Sup. Ct. 252,

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63 L.ed. 566.
The first of the two articles attached to the indictment is conspicuously headed, 'The
Hypocrisy of the United States and her Allies.' After denouncing President Wilson as a
hypocrite and a coward because troops were sent into Russia, it proceeds to assail our
government in general, saying:'His [the President's] shameful, cowardly silence about
the intervention in Russia reveals the hypocrisy of the plutocratic gang in Washington
and vicinity.'
It continues:
'He [the President] is too much of a coward to come out openly and say: 'We capitalistic
nations cannot afford to have a proletarian republic in Russia."
Among the capitalistic nations Abrams testified the United States was included.
Growing more inflammatory as it proceeds, the circular culminates in:
'The Russian Revolution cries: Workers of the World! Awake! Rise! Put down your
enemy and mine!'
'Yes friends, there is only one enemy of the workers of the world and that is
CAPITALISM.'
This is clearly an appeal to the 'workers' of this country to arise and put down by force
the government of the United States which they characterize as their 'hypocritical,'
'cowardly' and 'capitalistic' enemy.
It concludes:
'Awake! Awake, you Workers of the World!
REVOLUTIONISTS.'
The second of the articles was printed in the Yiddish language and in the translation is
headed, 'Workers—Wake Up.' After referring to 'his Majesty, Mr. Wilson and the rest of
the gang, dogs of all colors!' it continues:
'Workers, Russian emigrants, you who had the least belief in the honesty of our
government,'
—which defendants admitted referred to the United States government——
'must now throw away all confidence, must spit in the face the false, hypocritic, military
propaganda which has fooled you so relentlessly, calling forth your sympathy, your
help, to the prosecution of the war.'
The purpose of this obviously was to persuade the persons to whom it was addressed to
turn a deaf ear to patriotic appeals in behalf of the government of the United States and
to cease to render it assistance in the prosecution of the war.
It goes on:
'With the money which you have loaned, or are going to loan them, they will make
bullets not only for the Germans, but also for the Workers Soviets of Russia. Workers in
the ammunition factories, you are producing bullets, bayonets, cannon, to murder not

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only the Germans, but also your dearest, best, who are in Russia and are fighting for
freedom.'
It will not do to say, as is now argued, that the only intent of these defendants was to
prevent injury to the Russian cause. Men must be held to have intended and to be
accountable for, the effects which their acts were likely to produce. Even if their primary
purpose and intent was to aid the cause of the Russian Revolution, the plan of action
which they adopted necessarily involved, before it could be realized, defeat of the war
program of the United States, for the obvious effect of this appeal, if it should become
effective, as they hoped it might, would be to persuade persons of character such as
those whom they regarded themselves as addressing, not to aid government loans and
not to work in ammunition factories, where their work would produce 'bullets, bayonets,
cannon' and other munitions of war, the use of which would cause the 'murder' of
Germans and Russians.
Again, the spirit becomes more bitter as it proceeds to declare that——
'America and her Allies have betrayed [the Workers]. Their robberish aims are clear to
all men. The destruction of the Russian Revolution, that is the politics of the march to
Russia.
'Workers, our reply to the barbaric intervention has to be a general strike! An open
challenge only will let the government know that not only the Russian Worker fights for
freedom, but also here in America lives the spirit of Revolution.'
This is not an attempt to bring about a change of administration by candid discussion,
for no matter what may have incited the outbreak on the part of the defendant
anarchists, the manifest purpose of such a publication was to create an attempt to
defeat the war plans of the government of the United States, by bringing upon the
country the paralysis of a general strike, thereby arresting the production of all
munitions and other things essential to the conduct of the war.
This purpose is emphasized in the next paragraph, which reads:
'Do not let the government scare you with their wild punishment in prisons, hanging
and shooting. We must not and will not betray the splendid fighters of Russia. Workers,
up to fight.'
After more of the same kind, the circular concludes:
'Woe unto those who will be in the way of progress. Let solidarity live!'
It is signed, 'The Rebels.'
That the interpretation we have put upon these articles, circulated in the greatest port of
our land, from which great numbers of soldiers were at the time taking ship daily and in
which great quantities of war supplies of every kind were at the time being
manufactured for transportation overseas, is not only the fair interpretation of them, but
that it is the meaning which their authors consciously intended should be conveyed by
them to others is further shown by the additional writings found in the meeting place of
the defendant group and on the person of one of them. One of these circulars is
headed: 'Revolutionists! Unite for Action!'
After denouncing the President as 'Our Kaiser' and the hypocrisy of the United States
and her Allies, this article concludes:'Socialists, Anarchists, Industrial Workers of the

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World, Socialists, Labor party men and other revolutionary organizations Unite for
Action and let us save the Workers' Republic of Russia!
'Know you lovers of freedom that in order to save the Russian revolution, we must keep
the armies of the allied countries busy at home.'
Thus was again avowed the purpose to throw the country into a state of revolution, if
possible and to thereby frustrate the military program of the government.
The remaining article, after denouncing the President for what is characterized as
hostility to the Russian revolution, continues:
'We, the toilers of America, who believe in real liberty, shall pledge ourselves, in case
the United States will participate in that bloody conspiracy against Russia, to create so
great a disturbance that the autocrats of America shall be compelled to keep their armies
at home and not be able to spare any for Russia.'
It concludes with this definite threat of armed rebellion:
'If they will use arms against the Russian people to enforce their standard of order, so
will we use arms and they shall never see the ruin of the Russian Revolution.'
These excerpts sufficiently show, that while the immediate occasion for this particular
outbreak of lawlessness, on the part of the defendant alien anarchists, may have been
resentment caused by our government sending troops into Russia as a strategic
operation against the Germans on the eastern battle front, yet the plain purpose of their
propaganda was to excite, at the supreme crisis of the war, disaffection, sedition, riots
and, as they hoped, revolution, in this country for the purpose of embarrassing and if
possible defeating the military plans of the government in Europe. A technical
distinction may perhaps be taken between disloyal and abusive language applied to the
form of our government or language intended to bring the form of our government into
contempt and disrepute and language of like character and intended to produce like
results directed against the President and Congress, the agencies through which that
form of government must function in time of war. But it is not necessary to a decision
of this case to consider whether such distinction is vital or merely formal, for the
language of these circulars was obviously intended to provoke and to encourage
resistance to the United States in the war, as the third count runs and, the defendants,
in terms, plainly urged and advocated a resort to a general strike of workers in
ammunition factories for the purpose of curtailing the production of ordnance and
munitions necessary and essential to the prosecution of the war as is charged in the
fourth count. Thus it is clear not only that some evidence but that much persuasive
evidence was before the jury tending to prove that the defendants were guilty as
charged in both the third and fourth counts of the indictment and under the long
established rule of law hereinbefore stated the judgment of the District Court must be
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice HOLMES, dissenting.
This indictment is founded wholly upon the publication of two leaflets which I shall
describe in a moment. The first count charges a conspiracy pending the war with
Germany to publish abusive language about the form of government of the United
States, laying the preparation and publishing of the first leaflet as overt acts. The
second count charges a conspiracy pending the war to publish language intended to

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bring the form of government into contempt, laying the preparation and publishing of
the two leaflets as overt acts. The third count alleges a conspiracy to encourage
resistance to the United States in the same war and to attempt to effectuate the purpose
by publishing the same leaflets. The fourth count lays a conspiracy to incite curtailment
of production of things necessary to the prosecution of the war and to attempt to
accomplish it by publishing the second leaflet to which I have referred.
The first of these leaflets says that the President's cowardly silence about the
intervention in Russia reveals the hypocrisy of the plutocratic gang in Washington. It
intimates that 'German militarism combined with allied capitalism to crush the Russian
revolution'—goes on that the tyrants of the world fight each other until they see a
common enemy—working class enlightenment, when they combine to crush it; and that
now militarism and capitalism combined, though not openly, to crush the Russian
revolution. It says that there is only one enemy of the workers of the world and that is
capitalism; that it is a crime for workers of America, etc., to fight the workers' republic
of Russia and ends 'Awake! Awake, you workers of the world! Revolutionists.' A note
adds 'It is absurd to call us pro-German. We hate and despise German militarism more
than do you hypocritical tyrants. We have more reason for denouncing German
militarism than has the coward of the White House.'
The other leaflet, headed 'Workers—Wake Up,' with abusive language says that America
together with the Allies will march for Russia to help the Czecko-Slovaks in their
struggle against the Bolsheviki and that his time the hypocrites shall not fool the
Russian emigrants and friends of Russia in America. It tells the Russian emigrants that
they now must spit in the face of the false military propaganda by which their sympathy
and help to the prosecution of the war have been called forth and says that with the
money they have lent or are going to lend 'they will make bullets not only for the
Germans but also for the Workers Soviets of Russia,' and further, 'Workers in the
ammunition factories, you are producing bullets, bayonets, cannon to murder not only
the Germans, but also your dearest, best, who are in Russia fighting for freedom.' It
then appeals to the same Russian emigrants at some length not to consent to the
'inquisitionary expedition in Russia,' and says that the destruction of the Russian
revolution is 'the politics of the march on Russia.' The leaflet winds up by saying
'Workers, our reply to this barbaric intervention has to be a general strike!' and after a
few words on the spirit of revolution, exhortations not to be afraid and some usual tall
talk ends 'Woe unto those who will be in the way of progress. Let solidarity live! The
Rebels.'
No argument seems to be necessary to show that these pronunciamentos in no way
attack the form of government of the United States, or that they do not support either of
the first two counts. What little I have to say about the third count may be postponed
until I have considered the fourth. With regard to that it seems too plain to be denied
that the suggestion to workers in the ammunition factories that they are producing
bullets to murder their dearest and the further advocacy of a general strike, both in the
second leaflet, do urge curtailment of production of things necessary to the prosecution
of the war within the meaning of the Act of May 16, 1918, c. 75, 40 Stat. 553,
amending section 3 of the earlier Act of 1917 (Comp. St. § 10212c). But to make the
conduct criminal that statute requires that it should be 'with intent by such curtailment
to cripple or hinder the United States in the prosecution of the war.' It seems to me that
no such intent is proved.
I am aware of course that the word 'intent' as vaguely used in ordinary legal discussion
means no more than knowledge at the time of the act that the consequences said to be

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intended will ensue. Even less than that will satisfy the general principle of civil and
criminal liability. A man may have to pay damages, may be sent to prison, at common
law might be hanged, if at the time of his act he knew facts from which common
experience showed that the consequences would follow, whether he individually could
foresee them or not. But, when words are used exactly, a deed is not done with intent
to produce a consequence unless that consequence is the aim of the deed. It may be
obvious and obvious to the actor, that the consequence will follow and he may be liable
for it even if he regrets it, but he does not do the act with intent to produce it unless
the aim to produce it is the proximate motive of the specific act, although there may be
some deeper motive behind.
It seems to me that this statute must be taken to use its words in a strict and accurate
sense. They would be absurd in any other. A patriot might think that we were wasting
money on aeroplanes, or making more cannon of a certain kind than we needed and
might advocate curtailment with success, yet even if it turned out that the curtailment
hindered and was thought by other minds to have been obviously likely to hinder the
United States in the prosecution of the war, no one would hold such conduct a crime. I
admit that my illustration does not answer all that might be said but it is enough to
show what I think and to let me pass to a more important aspect of the case. I refer to
the First Amendment to the Constitution that Congress shall make no law abridging the
freedom of speech.
I never have seen any reason to doubt that the questions of law that alone were before
this Court in the Cases of Schenck (MANU/USSC/0119/1919 : 249 U. S. 47, 29 Sup. Ct.
247, 63 L.ed. 470) Frohwerk (MANU/USSC/0132/1919 : 249 U. S. 204, 39 Sup. Ct.
249, 63 L.ed. 561) and Debs (MANU/USSC/0146/1919 : 249 U. S. 211, 39 Sup. Ct.
252, 63 L.ed. 566), were rightly decided. I do not doubt for a moment that by the same
reasoning that would justify punishing persuasion to murder, the United States
constitutionally may punish speech that produces or is intended to produce a clear and
imminent danger that it will bring about forthwith certain substantive evils that the
United States constitutionally may seek to prevent. The power undoubtedly is greater in
time of war than in time of peace because war opens dangers that do not exist at other
times.
But as against dangers peculiar to war, as against others, the principle of the right to
free speech is always the same. It is only the present danger of immediate evil or an
intent to bring it about that warrants Congress in setting a limit to the expression of
opinion where private rights are not concerned. Congress certainly cannot forbid all
effort to change the mind of the country. Now nobody can suppose that the
surreptitious publishing of a silly leaflet by an unknown man, without more, would
present any immediate danger that its opinions would hinder the success of the
government arms or have any appreciable tendency to do so. Publishing those opinions
for the very purpose of obstructing, however, might indicate a greater danger and at
any rate would have the quality of an attempt. So I assume that the second leaflet if
published for the purposes alleged in the fourth count might be punishable. But it
seems pretty clear to me that nothing less than that would bring these papers within the
scope of this law. An actual intent in the sense that I have explained is necessary to
constitute an attempt, where a further act of the same individual is required to complete
the substantive crime, for reasons given in Swift & Co. v. United States, 196 U. S. 375,
396, 25 Sup. Ct. 276, 49 L.ed. 518. It is necessary where the success of the attempt
depends upon others because if that intent is not present the actor's aim may be
accomplished without bringing about the evils sought to be checked. An intent to
prevent interference with the revolution in Russia might have been satisfied without any

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hindrance to carrying on the war in which we were engaged.
I do not see how anyone can find the intent required by the statute in any of the
defendant's words. The second leaflet is the only one that affords even a foundation for
the charge and there, without invoking the hatred of German militarism expressed in the
former one, it is evident from the beginning to the end that the only object of the paper
is to help Russia and stop American intervention there against the popular government
—not to impede the United States in the war that it was carrying on. To say that two
phrases taken literally might import a suggestion of conduct that would have
interference with the war as an indirect and probably undesired effect seems to me by
no means enough to show an attempt to produce that effect.
I return for a moment to the third count. That charges an intent to provoke resistance to
the United States in its war with Germany. Taking the clause in the statute that deals
with that in connection with the other elaborate provisions of the Act, I think that
resistance to the United States means some forcible act of opposition to some
proceeding of the United States in pursuance of the war. I think the intent must be the
specific intent that I have described and for the reasons that I have given I think that no
such intent was proved or existed in fact. I also think that there is no hint at resistance
to the United States as I construe the phrase.
In this case sentences of twenty years imprisonment have been imposed for the
publishing of two leaflets that I believe the defendants had as much right to publish as
the Government has to publish the Constitution of the United States now vainly invoked
by them. Even if I am technically wrong and enough can be squeezed from these poor
and puny anonymities to turn the color of legal litmus paper; I will add, even if what I
think the necessary intent were shown; the most nominal punishment seems to me all
that possible could be inflicted, unless the defendants are to be made to suffer not for
what the indictment alleges but for the creed that they avow—a creed that I believe to
be the creed of ignorance and immaturity when honestly held, as I see no reason to
doubt that it was held here but which, although made the subject of examination at the
trial, no one has a right even to consider in dealing with the charges before the Court.
Persecution for the expression of opinions seems to me perfectly logical. If you have no
doubt of your premises or your power and want a certain result with all your heart you
naturally express your wishes in law and sweep away all opposition. To allow
opposition by speech seems to indicate that you think the speech impotent, as when a
man says that he has squared the circle, or that you do not care whole heartedly for the
result, or that you doubt either your power or your premises. But when men have
realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more
than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good
desired is better reached by free trade in ideas—that the best test of truth is the power
of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market and that truth is
the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out. That at any rate is
the theory of our Constitution. It is an experiment, as all life is an experiment. Every
year if not every day we have to wager our salvation upon some prophecy based upon
imperfect knowledge. While that experiment is part of our system I think that we should
be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe
and believe to be fraught with death, unless they so imminently threaten immediate
interference with the lawful and pressing purposes of the law that an immediate check
is required to save the country. I wholly disagree with the argument of the Government
that the First Amendment left the common law as to seditious libel in force. History
seems to me against the notion. I had conceived that the United States through many

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years had shown its repentance for the Sedition Act of 1798 (Act July 14, 1798, c. 73, 1
Stat. 596), by repaying fines that it imposed. Only the emergency that makes it
immediately dangerous to leave the correction of evil counsels to time warrants making
any exception to the sweeping command, 'Congress shall make no law abridging the
freedom of speech.' Of course I am speaking only of expressions of opinion and
exhortations, which were all that were uttered here, but I regret that I cannot put into
more impressive words my belief that in their conviction upon this indictment the
defendants were deprived of their rights under the Constitution of the United States.
Mr. Justice BRANDEIS concurs with the foregoing opinion.
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