—"[w] hat finally emerges from the `clear and present danger'cases is a working principle that the substantive evil must be extremely serious and the degree of imminence extremely high before utterances can be punished. "

And the Court has now through the Fourteenth Amendment literally and emphatically applied the First Amendment to the States in its very terms.

"For it is a prized American privilege to speak one's mind, although not always with perfect good taste, on all public institutions."

It prohibits any law "abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press. It must be taken as a command of the broadest scope that explicit language, read in the context of a liberty-loving society, will allow."

"[F] ree speech and fair trials are two of the most cherished policies of our civilization, and it [is] a trying task to choose between them

Legal trials are not like elections, to be won through the use of the meeting-hall, the radio, and the newspaper

However reprehensible a legislative body may regard certain publications, it cannot forbid them if they present no "clear and present danger" that they will bring about a substantive evil that the legislative authority has a right to prevent

In reaching that conclusion, the court examined two cases in which the United States Supreme Court distinguished protected publications regarding judicial proceedings and speech intended to improperly influence jurors.

—stated it in this fashion: "Free speech is not so absolute or irrational a conception as to imply paralysis of the means for effective protection of all the freedoms secured by the Bill of Rights."

—for example, the petitioners had been found guilty of contempt for letters they wrote pertaining to pending litigation that were published in local newspapers.