Page:Max Eastman's Address to the Jury in the Second Masses Trial (1918).pdf/43

 Well, I didn't do that, and a it happen. the thing that I did do is a positive proof that I had not an intention to violate the law. I wrote to the President, and asked him to look at the August issue of The Masses and take it up with the Postmaster. And he wrote back and aid that he would. And I have every reason to believe that he did. But he evidently disapproved of the magazine and the Postmaster did not take any action.

Then I went into the courts. We took this case into the United States court and not the District Attorney. We went before this very court, and we said "We believe that we have not violated any law, and that the Postmaster General has no right to exclude our magazine from the mails." And we said, "He won't tell us why he has excluded it. He won't tell us what our right are. Now you tell us what our right are and we will defend them as we understand them." And we argued that case before Judge Learned Hand, and he answered, "Your right under the United States Constitution are so broad that you are entirely within them in publishing this August issue and demanding that it shall go through the mail." That decision of Judge Learned Hand was held up on the instance of the District Attorney by a Judge of the Circuit Court of Appeals until the case could be appealed. and the Post Office was put under bond to secure us of our damages if we should win on the appeal. And so it was left. But I read the argument of Judge Learned Hand and I believed that I was within my right under the Constitution and under the law. And so although my own writings became more moderate, because I was coming into a realization of the solemnity of the war and that it was really impossible to publish a satirical socialist magazine after the Government was really in the fight, still we went on