American Communications Association v. Douds

In American Communications Assn., CIO v. Douds, 339 U.S. 382, 70 S. Ct. 674, 94 L.Ed. 925 (1950), certain unions challenged a statute that required union officials to file a non-Communist affidavit as a condition of using the services of the National Labor Relations Board. Rejecting the argument that the statute violated the First Amendment, the Court said (339 U.S. at 399, 70 S.Ct. at 684): "When particular conduct is regulated in the interest of public order, and the regulation results in an indirect, conditional, partial abridgment of speech, the duty of the courts is to determine which of these two conflicting interests demands the greater protection under the particular circumstances presented." In American Communications Association v. Douds, 339 U.S. 382, 70 S.Ct. 674, 94 L.Ed. 925 (1950, the Court called attention to the mass of evidence submitted to Congress with reference to political strikes and to the likelihood of the disruption of commerce and industry by Communists and others proscribed by the statute who had infiltrated into unions for improper motives. It found ample constitutional justification for the provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act which sought to prevent such evils.