Louisiana is confronted today a situation which, we believe, has no
counterpart in American history for impudent disregard for constitutional
. . . [protection] of the press or even common decency in political affairs
affecting business.

-- Editor & Publisher, June 21, 1930

[W]hen men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they
may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of
their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free
trade in ideas,--that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get
itself accepted in the competition of the market; and that truth is the only
ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out.

-- Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.,
dissenting in Abrams v. United States, November 10, 1919

◆ In June 1930, there were introduced in the Louisiana legislature what
the American Newspaper Publishers' Association denounced as "the
boldest and most flagrant measures ever aimed at the freedom of
American newspapers." Louisiana in 1930 was the realm of Huey P.
"Kingfish" Long, who headed one of the most powerful political ma-
chines ever to dominate the politics of an American state. The legislative
measures so vehemently denounced by the publishers' association were
an indication that the relations between the Louisiana press and Huey
Long and his organization, relations that had been strained at best since
the Kingfish's election as governor in 1928, had increased in hostility to
the verge of open warfare that would ultimately create a crisis for
freedom of the press in Louisiana. ¹

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