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Show SUPREME nTjiTL- COURT iM-UJll"'' AND HOW lCrS IT W0RKS Guarding Personal Rights By ROBERT MERRILL THE Supreme court has protected citizens not only from unfair treatment on the part of the federal government, govern-ment, but also from being deprived of Constitutional rights by the governments of their own states. An act of legislature which discriminates dis-criminates unfairly against a citizen cit-izen violates his rights under the Constitution. The government must not only treat him fairly, but must treat him in the same manner in which it treats other persons under similar conditions. On frequent occasions citizens have appealed to the court and asked: "Why should the law of my state Impose hardships upon me which it does not impose upon other people? Isn't this a discrimination against me, and a violation of my right to the due process of law guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States?" Matrimonial Rights. When such a question is brought before it, the court studies the case and, if it decides the petitioner is right, assures the protection sought. For example: At one time, in the eyes of the law, husband and wife were regarded regard-ed as one person the husband. Today, To-day, however, a married woman may enter into contracts, and may own and enjoy her own property. Some years ago a state attempted to impose on one of its citizens an income tax which was calculated upon the combined incomes of the citizen and his wife. Because of the graduated scale of taxation, the amount of tax claimed was greater than it would have been had the individual in-dividual incomes of husband and wife been separately taxed. The husband believed this unfair, and appealed to the Supreme court of the United States. He pointed out that under the laws of the state he had no control over his wife's property or income, and held that, therefore, it was unjust for the state to impose taxes for them upon him. The court heard his case, agreed with his contention, and gave the relief for which he asked, declaring the exaction arbitrary and a denial of due process. Newspapers Unfairly Taxed. "We have no doubt," explained the opinion, "that because of the fundamental conceptions which underlie un-derlie our system, any attempt by a state to measure the tax on one person's property or income by reference ref-erence to the property or income of another is contrary to due process of law as guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. That which is not in fact the taxpayer's income cannot be made such by calling it income." In a more recent case a state law was passed imposing a tax upon the advertising income of all newspapers news-papers in the state with a circulation of over 20,000 a week. Since this affected af-fected only the larger publications, they protested that they were being treated unfairly. They held that while the state had power to impose im-pose taxes, it had no right to tax some newspapers and not others, unless un-less there was some reasonable ground on which they could be differently dif-ferently classified. The suit was carried to the Supreme Su-preme court of the United States. The court heard the newspapers' appeal and decided in their favor. The court, in its opinion, referred to an untrammelled press as "a vital source of public information." It pointed out that the case went to "the heart of the natural right of the members of an organized society, so-ciety, united for their common good, to impart and acquire information about their common interests." Freedom of the Press. "The 1st Amendment to the Federal Fed-eral Constitution," the opinion explained, ex-plained, "provides that 'Congress snail make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press . . .' While this provision is not a restraint upon the powers of the states, the states are precluded from abridging the freedom ol speech or of the press by force of the due process clause of the 14th Amendment" "A free press," it added, "stands as one of the great interpreters between be-tween the Government and the people. peo-ple. To allow it to be fettered is to fetter ourselves." In this way does our national umpire um-pire insist that the rules laid down b; the people in the United States Constitution be observed not only by the federal government but by all state governments as well. Western Newspaper Union. |