Page:Bates v. City of Little Rock (229 Ark. 819).pdf/11

 Rh 1332, or in First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles v. Los Angeles County, 357 U.S. 545, 2 L. Ed. 2d 1484, 78 S. Ct. 1350, which affects the conclusion here reached.

II. The claim, that it may hurt the prospects of the NAACP to furnish to the City its membership list and the names of the contributors, does not make the ordinance unconstitutional. The Constitutional Amendments do not guarantee anonymity at all events. If NAACP wants tax immunity, it should comply with the ordinance. It cannot have immunity from taxation without complying with the ordinance. This is but an application of the old statement that one cannot both eat his cake and keep it. The case of NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U.S. 449, 2 L. Ed. 2d 1488, affords the appellant no protection in this case. In the Alabama case the prime purpose of the procedure instituted by the Attorney General of Alabama was to obtain information whereby Alabama could force the NAACP out of the State. So the Supreme Court of the United States held that NAACP was not required to disclose against itself. In the case at bar, the purpose of the ordinance is to determine the tax status of one seeking to claim immunity from occupation tax. The ultimate aim in NAACP v. Alabama was to stop the activities of NAACP; but in the case at bar, the disclosure of NAACP's list of members and contributors is a mere incident to see if legal taxation is being evaded. The ordinance here under attack does not single out NAACP and require information of it only: rather, the ordinance requires information of all organizations seeking exemption from privilege tax. Other organizations have complied: why should this one have immunity as though it were a favored child?

The United States Supreme Court has quite recently recognized that a law applicable to all persons is valid, even when attacked by those who disliked the law involved. In the case of Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham Board of Education, 162 Fed. Supp. 372, four Negro children sought to test the constitutionality of the Alabama