Free Speech in the Good War

Troubled by the 'herd' instinct and repression unleashed by World War I, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes insisted that the right of any American to be heard depended on the right of all Americans to speak regardless of how obnoxious their views. This ideal, which was to become a defining aspect of the nation's political culture, was put to the test during World War II by the hate-filled rhetoric of Bundists, Christian fundamentalists, Black nationalists, and others. Idealism faltered as citiz...