Book Reviews
The Fourth Estate and the
Constitution: Freedom of the Press in America. By Lu-
cas A. Powe, Jr. (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1991. xii + 357p.;
notes, index. $29.95.)
In 1735, John Peter Zenger, who as a
result of his legal misfortune was to be-
come America's most famous printer, was
anxiously awaiting the outcome of his
criminal trial before a colonial court
in New York. Zenger was charged with sedi-
tious libel for publishing a journal
containing articles critical of the governor. Fol-
lowing a trial wherein his counsel's
chief strategy was to plead the novel and
theretofore unrecognized defense of
"truth," Zenger was eventually acquitted by
a jury, and, in the estimation of many
legal scholars and historians, the principle
of "freedom of press" took on
new meaning in Anglo-American legal culture.
Lucas A. Powe, Jr.'s, superb new book on
the First Amendment opens with ref-
erence to the Zenger case which
he acknowledges to be "synonymous with free-
dom of press." Yet, unlike others
of its type, Powe's exposition immediately chal-
lenges this notion of the resoluteness
of press freedom as he introduces his reader
to a case decided nearly a century later
with which to compare and examine the
extent to which such press freedoms had
in fact been secured. In recounting the
1905 conviction of Denver Times publisher
Tom Patterson for contempt of court
stemming from his editorial criticism of
the Colorado Supreme Court, he reminds
his readers, First Amendment novices and
sophisticates alike, that constitution-
al guarantees, even those as seemingly
inviolate as freedom of the press, do not
just spring into existence, nor are they
impervious to efforts to redefine and qual-
ify their scope and application. He
admonishes the uninitiated that "law is not self-
enforcing," and that "no
matter how much society attempts to sanitize the judi-
cial process, human beings are the instruments
of law enforcement." This simple
tenet helps to illuminate the reasons
for the seeming inconsistencies and unpre-
dictability of the evolution of the law
of press freedom.
Powe frames his central thesis around
the issues of the limits of dissent and the
laws of decision-making about those
limits, issues which go to the "heart of a
democratic society." While he
raises some of the traditional questions such as
what, at a minimum, must freedom of the
press protect, he also asks the intrigu-
ing question of whether society can
compel the press to perform its appropriate
role. The latter question implies that
in exchange for a virtually unrestricted priv-
ilege to print what it pleases, the
press owes society the obligation of informing
the people on matters of public interest
and importance. It is not clear, after read-
ing his book, exactly what Powe feels is
the appropriate role of the press; perhaps
that uncertainty is merely a reflection
of the ambivalence society feels toward the
press in general.
Powe effectively weaves an interesting
vignette about the Tom Patterson case.
Patterson, the owner/editor of the Denver
Times, wrote an editorial about the Col-
orado Supreme Court whom he charged with
theft of the Denver elections.
Following such accusations, the Colorado
Attorney General issued an order for
Patterson to show cause why he should
not be held in contempt of court. Despite
the procedural oddity, the gravity of
the government's coercive intentions toward
dissenters is not lost. In this
twentieth century example of the government's use
144 OHIO HISTORY
of the contempt mechanism to stifle
criticism, Powe effectively demonstrates that
political and legal maneuvering can
effectively jeopardize press freedoms
notwithstanding the clarity of the First
Amendment's language nor the indis-
putable importance attached to this
instrument of democracy by the drafters
of the Bill of Rights.
Powe renders a solid accounting of the
history of the exercise of press freedom
in the United States. In asserting that
from the earliest days of our nation there
could be no doubt but that freedom of
the press was to be an essential right of citi-
zens, he gives a contextual view of how
people during revolutionary times
viewed and understood the press as well
as the behavior of printers who could be
expected to know that law since they
were the ones "who would be expected to
bear its brunt." While
acknowledging that there was no explicit rejection in Amer-
ican or British common law of press
freedom, he maintains that a printer had a
right to publish but was fully
accountable subsequently for what was published.
Although he entertains the possibility,
as suggested by persons such as noted First
Amendment scholar Leonard Levy, that the
First Amendment "was intended to
do little more than protect the press
against prior restraints... ," he ably demon-
strates the limited vision of such an
interpretation by citing the surprisingly low
risk assumed by a critical press. His
assertion that criminal liability for seditious
libel was basically only a theoretical
restraint is convincingly supported by his
reference to a mere nine attempts to use
seditious libel to quash dissent during
the entire colonial period, only one of
which was successful, and that case oc-
curred prior to the Zenger jury's decision.
Powe's discussion of the historical
precedent of efforts by colonial legisla-
tures to stifle dissent through
punishing for contempt is particularly illuminat-
ing. Again, he demonstrates how the
efficacious use of legal maneuvering in the
area of contempt might have been
successfully employed to chill free speech.
As one contemplates the import of the
change in the standard of proof as well
as the availability of procedural
safeguards in going from a purely criminal ac-
tion to a hybrid quasi-criminal/civil
one, this strategy of prosecuting alleged
breaches of legislative privilege takes
on greater meaning, especially in light of
the fact that there were "twice as
many" cases of contempt in the legislature than
seditious libel cases.
Powe retells the "story behind the
story" of New York Times v. Sullivan, the
tax evasion trial of Martin Luther King,
Jr. His treatment of the Times case was
outstanding. Even those who have read
and reread the cases and factual accounts
leading up to the decision will be
intrigued by the way Powe tells the story. His
description of the likely consequences
of Police Commissioner Sullivan and the
other Alabama officials' success in the
U.S. Supreme Court in this case is arresting
as he likens it to "authorizing the
South to secede intellectually from the Union."
Powe offers his reader a clear
recitation of the evolution of constitutional law
after New York Times v. Sullivan. Especially
noteworthy is his review of the lit-
erature discussing the demographics of
libel litigants and libel litigation. This
area adds an important dimension to the
study of the media, particularly the press,
and law as it returns us to his theme of
the influence of the "human factors." This
section of the book reminds us that the
study of the law of libel necessarily in-
volves the study of human beings and
institutions, not merely abstract legal prin-
ciples. His crisp discussion raises
several interesting questions about the influ-
ence of media coverage of libel trials
on eventual case outcomes (e.g., increased
jury awards).
Book Reviews
145
On the whole, Lucas A. Powe, Jr.'s,
exceptional book is first-rate. It is readable
enough to be an excellent introduction
to the field, but sufficiently comprehen-
sive to inform and intrigue the more
sophisticated scholar. More importantly, Powe
has avoided the common tendency to
discuss this important area of the law as if
it developed in a vacuum, guided merely
by legal abstraction, tempered by insti-
tutional imperatives, and disengaged
from humanizing experiences. Through his
exemplary effort, Powe's book truly
enriches the literature in the field.
Kenyon College Ric S. Sheffield
Lee Considered: General Robert E. Lee
and Civil War History. By Alan T.
Nolan.
(Chapel Hill: The University of North
Carolina Press, 1991. xii + 231p.; il-
lustration, notes, appendixes,
bibliography, index. $22.50.)
With Lee Considered Alan T. Nolan
flicks a long-overdue spitball at the Mar-
ble Man. The saintly image of Marse
Robert has become so deeply embedded
within the hagiography of the Lost Cause
that its desecration might seem almost
an act of impiety, but Nolan plays the
devil's advocate with scarcely disguised
relish. He challenges, point by point,
each element in the familiar litany of Robert
E. Lee's virtues.
Was Lee, as he later claimed, a closet
foe of slavery? Nolan demonstrates that
Lee, like most others of his time and
place, owned slaves, supported slavery as
the best possible system for both races
and regarded blacks as racially inferior.
More than that, when the Army of
Northern Virginia invaded Pennsylvania it
rounded up free northern blacks for
shipment into southern bondage, while Lee
turned a blind eye.
Was Lee, as legend has it, a reluctant
secessionist? The evidence is mixed, but
through a careful analysis of
chronology, Nolan concludes that Lee had already
decided to "carry a musket"
for Virginia even while holding a commission in the
U.S. Army. This seems to demonstrate, as
Nolan delicately puts it, "that Lee had
an unusually high tolerance for
ambiguous loyalty."
Was Lee so chivalrous that he could not
speak of his foes in any term harsher
than "those people"? This
widely-purveyed tidbit is laid to rest by Nolan's spe-
cific citations in which Lee refers to
"yankees" as "the enemy" and attributes all
sorts of "unchristian and
atrocious" behavior to those "vandals."
More important, was Lee a great general?
Nolan seems to suggest that good gen-
erals may win battles but great ones win
wars. In particular, he faults Lee's ob-
session with the strategic offensive
which, given the tactical superiority of en-
trenched riflemen, bled the Confederacy
of military manpower it could not
replace. The proper course, Nolan
concludes, would have been for Lee to have
held the defensive until Northern war
weariness demanded a negotiated peace.
Instead, Lee recklessly squandered his
limited resources at Antietam and Gettys-
burg, rendering Confederate defeat
inevitable. Lee himself understood this and,
in Nolan's view, bears the moral
responsibility for the deaths suffered in a hope-
less cause for no other purpose than to
satisfy an empty "honor."
Nolan even casts doubt upon such
hallowed stories as Lee rescuing a baby bird
under fire. He does not, however, go
into Lee's family life to consider the emo-
tionally stultifying impact Lee had on
the lives of his adoring daughters. Nonethe-
less, the indictment seems thorough. Is
it fair?
146 OHIO HISTORY
Probably not, but fairness is not really
the issue. The Lee myth prospered be-
cause it justified the Southern cause. A
sanctified Lee cast a halo over the entire
Confederacy, allowing its apologists to
finesse such unpleasant realities as trea-
son and human slavery. If such a paragon
as Lee could be devoted to the rebel-
lion, the argument implicitly runs, then
such a rebellion could not have been un-
worthy of him. The decanonization of
Lee, as begun by this brief, provocative
book, may be an essential step in the
demythologization of the Lost Cause.
Cleveland State University Allan Peskin
Farm Wife: A Self-Portrait,
1886-1896. Edited by Virginia E.
McCormick.
(Ames: Iowa State University Press,
1990. ix + 243p.; illustrations, notes, glos-
sary, index. $22.95.)
Margaret Dow Gebby faithfully kept a
daily diary for nearly a dozen years dur-
ing the late nineteenth century. Writing
at her farmhouse near Bellefontaine in
northwestern Ohio, she recorded an
incredible amount of detail about social, eco-
nomic, and political affairs. Her
entries tell us a great deal about rural life in Ohio
and the Midwest. Indeed, herjournal
provides the essential and often hard to find
information that historians must use to
explain rural life during the late nineteenth
century. Born in Logan County, Ohio, in
1835, her family moved to Bellefontaine
during the early 1850s. She married at
thirty-three years of age, bore two sons,
and remained close to her family, which
lived nearby. At the age of fifty, she began
her diary. By that time her experience
and maturity enabled her to understand the
historical importance of the daily
affairs in the lives of families, neighbors, and
communities.
Virginia E. McCormick, recently retired
from the Cooperative Extension Ser-
vice at Ohio State University, knows
Margaret Dow Gebby very well. And, she
has skillfully annotated Gebby's diaries
to enable the reader to understand the ebb
and flow of the seasons on the farm, the
rewards and difficulties of rural life and
the daily business of living in the
Midwest during a time of great change in Amer-
ican society. McCormick has
painstakingly arranged Gebby's entries in topical
form to stress theme, unity and order.
When diaries are read in the original or
printed with strict adherence to the
original chronological order, days, dates, and
events easily get strung out and their
significance lost. McCormick, however, has
organized Gebby's entires by four major
subjects-Farm, Home, Leisure and
Culture and Community. Within these
major areas, she has arranged Gebby's en-
tries within subtopics, such as weather,
hired help, parenting, holidays, school,
religion, government and transportation
and communication, to list only a few.
The entries are excellent for learning
about the prices of agricultural commodi-
ties, land values, labor rates,
relationships with neighbors and celebrations.
Historians who are working on Midwestern
rural, agricultural or social life will
find this book an excellent source for
the details and grist of life needed to craft
generalizations and to form
interpretations about their subject during the late nine-
teenth century. McCormick's annotations,
which she handles in the form of chap-
ter and sub-chapter introductions,
provide the background that both scholars and
general students of American history can
use with reliability. Historians, par-
ticularly, will find this book to be an
excellent reference.
Iowa State University R. Douglas
Hurt
Book Reviews
147
Sixty Million Acres: American
Veterans and the Public Lands before the Civil
War. By James W. Oberly. (Kent: The Kent State University
Press, 1990. xii
+ 222p.; tables, illustrations, notes,
appendixes, bibliography, index. $28.00.)
Benjamin Hibbard's classic History of
Public Land Policies (1924) set the tone
for a generation of historians who
condemned the military land grants of the 1850s
as a corrupting influence for the
frontier and detrimental to the public domain.
Recent research into governmental land
records has either reenforced this con-
tention or opened consideration to
historical reexamination. The latest revision-
ist study is James Oberly's Sixty
Million Acres that analyzes both the technical
aspects of land legislation as well as
political and economic distinctions regard-
ing "speculative-capitalist"
monopolies prior to the Civil War.
Oberly focuses on land policies and
distribution of military bounties or warrants
to veterans after the Mexican War. To
bolster recruitment for that conflict, vol-
unteers were promised 160 acres of land,
setting in motion an abandonment of tra-
ditional land distribution based on
sales as revenue for the government and inau-
gurating a stampede of give-away
legislation during 1847-1855 with backdated
benefits to veterans of earlier wars. By
1855, Congress passed four major veter-
ans pensions distribution acts in which
sixty million acres of public domain were
granted to a half million veterans or
their widows and heirs. Oberly analyzes these
distributions against three major
schools of historical interpretation: 1) the Turn-
er view of the frontier and West in
shaping American democracy; 2) the Paul Gates
view of corruption with a rural
hierarchical monopoly; and 3) the revisionists such
as Allan Bogue who view the issue in a
larger economic-marketing context.
In tracing the extension of veteran benefits,
Oberly lists various wars, "Indi-
an disturbances," and minor
military engagements since 1812 for which those vet-
erans began claiming eligibility for
land benefits similar to Mexican War service
personnel. His analysis is masterful in
its treatment of lobbying activities by these
veterans who inundated Congress with
petitions. Added into the political and eco-
nomic equations was the notion of the
public domain open to all as a matter of
general principle.
Passage of these congressional acts
brought speculators and brokers into the
scene. Oberly has an excellent
description of their methods to encourage veter-
ans to apply for benefits, including 1)
direct mail circulars, 2) newspaper adver-
tisements, and 3) sub-contracting
through agents at the local level. Hibbard and
Gates regarded these activities as the
focal point for corruption and monopoly,
but Oberly has assembled substantial
statistical data to show a somewhat differ-
ent picture. He contends the market
mechanism for veterans transferring (i.e. sell-
ing) their warrants to brokers was
essentially a competitive one. Most of these
veterans or their widows and heirs had
no interest in actually going west to set-
tle on government land. Transferring their
vested interest was a method of con-
verting claims into often badly needed
cash, especially for older veterans.
Oberly demonstrates that the competitive
market for these converted warrants
was sometimes quite favorable for
veterans. Speculative brokers re-sold these in-
struments to younger land seekers who
used them to purchase at discount gov-
ernment land and avoided paying cash
prices at land offices. Oberly concurs with
Stanley Lebergott's "hinge of
fate" economic thesis that secondary marketing of
such warrants enabled many to settle in
the west. Ordinary settlers were the ul-
timate beneficiaries-not speculative
monopolists. This combination of cheap
warrants and attractive grain prices
strengthened the North's strategic econom-
ic expansion into the plains prior to
the Civil War.
148 OHIO HISTORY
Oberly has written a major
reinterpretation of military bounties in terms of land
distribution. It requires us to think
anew about a long-nagging, controversial as-
pect of the frontier vis-a-vis
competitive marketing and secondary brokering ac-
tivities for land settlement.
Interpretation of pre-Civil War land legislation has
been significantly changed in an
illuminating way as a result of this finely craft-
ed and well-written study.
Texas A & M University David E. Schob
Benjamin 0. Davis, Jr., American: An
Autobiography. By Benjamin O. Davis,
Jr.
Foreword by L. Douglas Wilder.
(Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution
Press, 1991. x + 442p.; illustrations,
index. $19.95.)
During his long career in the Air Force,
Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., saw tremen-
dous changes in the functions that
blacks were allowed to perform. His general-
ly interesting autobiography recounts
his role in this process and describes the
many challenges he faced in war and
peace. In addition, he also expresses his con-
tinued anger at the discrimination that
permeates much of American life.
Benjamin Davis grew up in a military
family. His father was one of the few black
officers in the Army and he provided a
role model for his son. Living with his par-
ents in Tuskegee, Alabama, and
Cleveland, Ohio, Davis noted the limitations that
the Army placed on his father's career.
Despite this Davis decided to enter the mil-
itary profession through West Point,
where he felt that he would be treated as just
another student. He quickly found that
this was not to be the case and he had to
endure four years of
"silence." Determined to show that he could not be stopped,
he did well in his studies and graduated
35th in his class, a proud moment for him
and his family. After graduation he
hoped to enter the Army Air Corps, but they
refused to allow him into this branch
because there were no black flying units. Not
until 1940 did political pressure force
the Army to change this policy.
One of the most interesting aspects of
the autobiography is Davis' account of
the World War II period and the
segregated flying units that he commanded.
Though he despised what discrimination
did to the lives of blacks, he kept his
opinions to himself and worked within
the system to create the best possible or-
ganizations. Davis believes that the
high level of performance achieved by the
99th Pursuit Squadron and the 332nd
Fighter Group paved the way for the post-
war integration of the Air Force.
Truman's 1948 desegregation order surprised
Davis, as did the rapid changes that
followed for the Air Force itself and for his
own career.
After integration began, Davis'
challenges arose from the assignments that he
was given. During the next two decades
he served in a variety of command po-
sitions, mainly overseas. After his
retirement from the Air Force in 1968, Davis
held a number ofjobs, including serving
as Cleveland's Director of Public Safe-
ty and as Assistant Secretary of
Transportation. He has also assisted on a variety
of boards and commissions, including the
American Battle Monuments Com-
mission, a position his father also
held.
Benjamin Davis' autobiography is an
often absorbing account of significant
events by an officer who was uniquely
positioned to observe the collapse of seg-
regation in the Air Force. The most
compelling sections of the book involve de-
scriptions of incidents in which Davis
was a central actor. When he depicts his
Book Reviews
149
own reactions to discrimination and its
impact on people, white and black, the
reader is able to get some inkling of
how difficult it was to be a black person in
a society in which the white majority
did not seem to understand how their ac-
tions hurt blacks. Less interesting are
Davis' accounts of his many assignments
in the 1950s and 1960s, including many
paragraphs of prose in which he notes
the people he worked with and social
functions he attended. The work also con-
tains no conclusion, as apparently Davis
decided not to make any analysis of his
impact on the American military.
Benjamin Davis' autobiography is a
frequently fascinating account of a man
who rose in the military in spite of the
handicaps imposed by a racist society. It
reminds us how much has changed in
American life during the past half century
and how much still needs to change.
Ohio University Marvin
Fletcher
From New Day to New Deal: American
Farm Policy from Hoover to Roosevelt,
1928-1933. By David E. Hamilton. (Chapel Hill: The University of
North Car-
olina Press, 1991. xii + 334p.; notes,
bibliographical essay, index. $39.95.)
This is a well-researched, well-written
study of Hoover Farm policy. Two things
give it more current interest than one
might find in some 60 year-old issues. First,
development of "farm" or
governmental policy during the last decade has in-
creasingly challenged the farm programs
that culminated in the Roosevelt New
Deal. These programs varied in detail,
but they were all characterized by ways
in which government subsidized farmers,
and then exercised control over specific
crop production and operations. Second,
there has been much writing revising and
reinterpreting attitudes towards the
Hoover administration and its relationship to
the New Deal. The excellent introduction
and the last chapter deal with these is-
sues most ably. They may appeal to
readers who are not interested in as much de-
tail on farm policy as the rest of the
book contains. Your reviewer was comfort-
ed that, along with valuable new
explanations, the book's assessment of the
policies and reason for and extent of
failure were consistent with those in the text
he used to teach surveys of American
history 40 years ago.
The major portion of the book makes the
reader aware of the place farm poli-
cy played in the nation in the 1920s. It
was of primary concern to national lead-
ers in political, economic and social
areas. It held an importance we have not as-
signed to agricultural issues for the
last half-century. Most readers will be
surprised and impressed by the number,
variety and scope to the programs de-
veloped by agricultural economists, by
political leaders both in and out of
Congress, and by farm organizations as
well as by the policies of Hoover and his
administration. Hoover's programs and
ideas for governmental leadership in the
nations economy-ideas he had developed
and used as Secretary of Commerce-
are explained. Also explained is the
suspicion and mistrust of Hoover by farm
leaders in spite of the fact he had been
much associated with farm production dur-
ing World War I. His successful stint as
Secretary of Commerce during which non-
agricultural activities under his aegis
prospered much more than did agriculture,
and his rejection and veto of the
McNary-Haugen bill early in his administration,
developed a widespread public,
especially agricultural public, perception that he
was not a friend of the farmer.
150 OHIO HISTORY
Actually Hoover had substantial plans
for farm policy and was ready to, and did,
devote substantial governmental
resources to them, both through his Federal Farm
Board and through other programs.
Hamilton describes the programs as "asso-
ciative" and voluntary in nature
and to be operated primarily through private or-
ganization as through farm cooperatives.
But by the standards of the time they were
well funded, and were expected to make a
great impact on crop prices, farm pros-
perity and on farm production. In size
and scope the Hoover programs overshad-
owed those of earlier administrations,
In actuality they contained many of the el-
ements most prominent in the New Deal
Agricultural programs of the 1930s.
How those programs might have worked in
relatively prosperous times is not
known. The author expresses doubts about
their soundness. But in the debacle of
the 1929 crash and ensuing depression
they could do nothing but fail, and the Ad-
ministration did not prove to be
energetic or flexible enough to salvage them, or
the farmers. The Hoover program then
became lost in the more far-reaching and
extensive New Deal programs of the AAA
and other agencies.
Hamilton's book is well researched and
well written. It is a good study of pro-
grams and issues that were of great
importance to the nation 60 years ago, issues
that we still struggle with today.
University of Cincinnati W. D. Aeschbacher
Book Reviews
The Fourth Estate and the
Constitution: Freedom of the Press in America. By Lu-
cas A. Powe, Jr. (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1991. xii + 357p.;
notes, index. $29.95.)
In 1735, John Peter Zenger, who as a
result of his legal misfortune was to be-
come America's most famous printer, was
anxiously awaiting the outcome of his
criminal trial before a colonial court
in New York. Zenger was charged with sedi-
tious libel for publishing a journal
containing articles critical of the governor. Fol-
lowing a trial wherein his counsel's
chief strategy was to plead the novel and
theretofore unrecognized defense of
"truth," Zenger was eventually acquitted by
a jury, and, in the estimation of many
legal scholars and historians, the principle
of "freedom of press" took on
new meaning in Anglo-American legal culture.
Lucas A. Powe, Jr.'s, superb new book on
the First Amendment opens with ref-
erence to the Zenger case which
he acknowledges to be "synonymous with free-
dom of press." Yet, unlike others
of its type, Powe's exposition immediately chal-
lenges this notion of the resoluteness
of press freedom as he introduces his reader
to a case decided nearly a century later
with which to compare and examine the
extent to which such press freedoms had
in fact been secured. In recounting the
1905 conviction of Denver Times publisher
Tom Patterson for contempt of court
stemming from his editorial criticism of
the Colorado Supreme Court, he reminds
his readers, First Amendment novices and
sophisticates alike, that constitution-
al guarantees, even those as seemingly
inviolate as freedom of the press, do not
just spring into existence, nor are they
impervious to efforts to redefine and qual-
ify their scope and application. He
admonishes the uninitiated that "law is not self-
enforcing," and that "no
matter how much society attempts to sanitize the judi-
cial process, human beings are the instruments
of law enforcement." This simple
tenet helps to illuminate the reasons
for the seeming inconsistencies and unpre-
dictability of the evolution of the law
of press freedom.
Powe frames his central thesis around
the issues of the limits of dissent and the
laws of decision-making about those
limits, issues which go to the "heart of a
democratic society." While he
raises some of the traditional questions such as
what, at a minimum, must freedom of the
press protect, he also asks the intrigu-
ing question of whether society can
compel the press to perform its appropriate
role. The latter question implies that
in exchange for a virtually unrestricted priv-
ilege to print what it pleases, the
press owes society the obligation of informing
the people on matters of public interest
and importance. It is not clear, after read-
ing his book, exactly what Powe feels is
the appropriate role of the press; perhaps
that uncertainty is merely a reflection
of the ambivalence society feels toward the
press in general.
Powe effectively weaves an interesting
vignette about the Tom Patterson case.
Patterson, the owner/editor of the Denver
Times, wrote an editorial about the Col-
orado Supreme Court whom he charged with
theft of the Denver elections.
Following such accusations, the Colorado
Attorney General issued an order for
Patterson to show cause why he should
not be held in contempt of court. Despite
the procedural oddity, the gravity of
the government's coercive intentions toward
dissenters is not lost. In this
twentieth century example of the government's use