Theodore Schroeder On Free Speech PDF Download

"'There is no intention in this department to interfere, except when laws and ordinances are violated.' "I do not doubt that this is your personal intention, but it has not heretofore been acted upon by your subordinates."As relevant today as it was when first published in 1916, the notion of free speech for "radicals" meant for anyone who stepped outside conservative interpretations of acceptable behavior or speech. In other words, the very basis of American individual freedoms.Attorney Theodore Schroeder wrote firebrand essays and books on the nature of free speech in America. The present volume was written in 1916 in the midst of war.Schroeder titles his book "Free Speech for Radicals" but his idea of radicalism was akin to that of Thomas Jefferson, who stated "I hold that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing and as necessary in the political world as a storm is in the physical."Schroeder argued that free speech should not be abridged by the circumstances of war or by societal tastes in areas such as obscenity. Nearly a century later, we find ourselves still debating these issues, making Schroeder's writings still relevant and refreshing to read.Schroeder helped defend his anarchist friend Emma Goldman at her Denver trial.