Free Speech.
When Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, of New York City, attempted to address the silk-workers at Paterson, N. J., last September, the chief of police compelled her to go back to New York. She claimed that the police were interfering with her constitutional rights and was told that even though that were the ease the police had the power to prevent her from speaking.
There you have it! The police are above the Constitution. If they don’t want you to do a thing, even though it is legal, you don’t do it. The same thing is true in every other city, large and small, in the United States. It is not what the Constitution says you have a right to do, that you may do, but what the police choose to allow you to do. Who is responsible for this state of affairs?
Better a thousand fold the abuse of free speech than the denial of free speech. The abuse dies in a day, but the denial slays the life of the people and entombs the hope of the race.