Professor Chafee, of Harvard, in this important book discusses at
length the legal and moral limits of free speech, which is an essential constituent of civil liberty. The despots of the past would not grant freedom of speech : the modem despots, Bolshevik, Socialist or Sinn Fein, adopt the same intolerant attitude. But Professor Chafee, writing in 1920 with special reference to President Wilson's administrative acts and to the war atmosphere that still prevailed in the United States, was genuinely concerned lest Americans should lose part of the personal freedom guaranteed to them by the Constitution. His account of the severe legislation directed against Socialists, and of the drastic sentences inflicted on their leaders, is instructive. He sees, of course, that safety lies in distinguishing clearly between the mere expression of political views and the advocacy of violent action of a specific kind. The distinction is not always easy to draw, especially in times of excitement and when the unpopular minority is very small and very offensive and tactless. But it is better to give the minority the benefit of the doubt, as has been done for many years past in England, than to let them pose as martyrs. Of course, America with her mixed population and her masses of semi-Americanized aliens has far greater difficulties to face than we have, and a detached observer may well think that Professor Chafee has under-estimated the dangers to which the Administration was exposed by the furious " Red " propaganda. But his book is none the less worth careful reading, for freedom of speech in any country, however enlightened, can only be preserved by the utmost vigilance.
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