We have already adverted to the generous scope that must be given to the guarantee of free speech. Especially is this attitude to be observed where, as in labor controversies, the feelings of even the most detached minds may become engaged and a show of violence may make still further demands on calm judgment. It is therefore relevant to remind that the power to deny what otherwise would be lawful picketing derives from the power of the states to prevent future coercion. Right to free speech in the future cannot be forfeited because of dissociated acts of past violence. Nor may a state enjoin peaceful picketing merely because it may provoke violence in others. Near v. Minnesota, 283 U. S. 697, 721-22; Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296. Inasmuch as the injunction was based on findings made in 1937, this decision is no bar to resort to the state court for a modification of the terms of the injunction should that court find that the passage of time has deprived the picketing of its coercive influence. In the exceptional cases warranting restraint upon normally free conduct, the restraint ought to be defined by clear and guarded language. According to the best practice, a judge himself should draw the specific terms of such restraint and not rely on drafts submitted by the parties. But we do not have revisory power over state practice, provided such practice is not used to evade constitutional guarantees. See Fox River Co. v. Railroad Comm'n, 274 U. S. 651, 655; Long Sault Development Co. v. Call, 242 U. S. 272, 277. We are here concerned with power and not with the wisdom of its exercise. We merely hold that in the circumstances of the record before us the injunction authorized by the supreme court of Illinois does not transgress its constitutional power. That other states have chosen a different path in such a situation indicates differences of social view in a domain in which states are free to shape their local policy. Com

pare Busch Jewelry Co. v. United Retail Employees' Union, 281 N. Y. 150; 22 N. E. 2d 320, and Baillis v. Fuchs, 283 N. Y. 133; 27 N. E. 2d 812.

To maintain the balance of our federal system, insofar as it is committed to our care, demands at once zealous regard for the guarantees of the Bill of Rights and due recognition of the powers belonging to the states. Such an adjustment requires austere judgment, and a precise summary of the result may help to avoid misconstruction.

(1) We do not qualify the Thornhill and Carlson decisions. We reaffirm them. They involved statutes baldly forbidding all picketing near an employer's place of business. Entanglement with violence was expressly out of those cases. The statutes had to be dealt with on their face, and therefore we struck them down. Such an unlimited ban on free communication declared as the law of a state by a state court enjoys no greater protection here. Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296; American Federation of Labor v. Swing, post, p. 321. But just as a state through its legislature may deal with specific circumstances menacing the peace by an appropriately drawn act, Thornhill v. Alabama, supra, so the law of a state may be fitted to a concrete situation through the authority given by the state to its courts. This is precisely the kind of situation which the Thornhill opinion excluded from its scope. "We are not now concerned with picketing en masse or otherwise conducted which might occasion such imminent and aggravated danger .. as to justify a statute narrowly drawn to cover the precise situation giving rise to the danger." 310 U. S. 105.2 We would not strike down a statute which author

2

See also this statement in the Carlson opinion: "The power and duty of the State to take adequate steps to preserve the peace and protect the privacy, the lives, and the property of its residents cannot be doubted." 310 U. S. 113.

ized the courts of Illinois to prohibit picketing when they should find that violence had given to the picketing a coercive effect whereby it would operate destructively as force and intimidation. Such a situation is presented by this record. It distorts the meaning of things to generalize the terms of an injunction derived from and directed towards violent misconduct as though it were an abstract prohibition of all picketing wholly unrelated to the violence involved.

(2) The exercise of the state's power which we are sustaining is the very antithesis of a ban on all discussion in Chicago of a matter of public importance. Of course we would not sustain such a ban. The injunction is confined to conduct near stores dealing in respondent's milk, and it deals with this narrow area precisely because the coercive conduct affected it. An injunction so adjusted to a particular situation is in accord with the settled practice of equity, sanctioned by such guardians of civil liberty as Mr. Justice Cardozo. Compare Nann v. Raimist, 255 N. Y. 307; 174 N. E. 690. Such an injunction must be read in the context of its circumstances. Nor ought state action be held unconstitutional by interpreting the law of the state as though, to use a phrase of Mr. Justice Holmes, one were fired with a zeal to pervert. If an appropriate injunction were put to abnormal uses in its enforcement, so that encroachments were made on free discussion outside the limits of violence, as for instance discussion through newspapers or on the radio, the doors of this Court are always open.

(3) The injunction which we sustain is "permanent" only for the temporary period for which it may last. It is justified only by the violence that induced it and only so long as it counteracts a continuing intimidation. Familiar equity procedure assures opportunity for modifying or vacating an injunction when its continuance is no longer warranted. Here again, the state courts have not

the last say. They must act in subordination to the duty of this Court to enforce constitutional liberties even when denied through spurious findings of fact in a state court. Compare Chambers v. Florida, 309 U. S. 227. Since the union did not urge that the coercive effect had disappeared either before us or, apparently, before the state court, that question is not now here.

(4) A final word. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press cannot be too often invoked as basic to our scheme of society. But these liberties will not be advanced or even maintained by denying to the states with all their resources, including the instrumentality of their courts, the power to deal with coercion due to extensive violence. If the people of Illinois desire to withdraw the use of the injunction in labor controversies, the democratic process for legislative reform is at their disposal. On the other hand, if they choose to leave their courts with the power which they have historically exercised, within the circumscribed limits which this opinion defines, and we deny them that instrument of government, that power has been taken from them permanently. Just because these industrial conflicts raise anxious difficulties, it is most important for us not to intrude into the realm of policy-making by reading our own notions into the Constitution.

MR. JUSTICE BLACK, dissenting.

Affirmed.

In my belief the opinion just announced gives approval to an injunction which seriously infringes upon the constitutional rights of freedom of speech and the press. To such a result I cannot agree.

Before detailing the reasons for my disagreement, some preliminary observations will doubtless aid in clarifying the subsidiary issues. The right of the Illinois courts to enjoin violence is not denied in this case. And I agree

that nothing in the Federal Constitution deprives them of that right. But it is claimed that Illinois-through its courts has here sanctioned an injunction so sweeping in its terms as to deny to petitioners and others their constitutional rights freely to express their views on matters of public concern. And this is the single federal question we must decide. In their brief, petitioners state. that they "have never and do not at the present time in any way condone or justify any violence by any member of the defendant union. Petitioners did not object to the issuance of an injunction restraining acts of violence. There is no contention made that the act of the Chancellor in granting such an injunction was erroneous." 1 "Ethically, morally and legally," the petitioning union disclaims and condemns the acts of violence. And the master who conducted the hearings in the case specifically found that the union officials had instructed their pickets to refrain from violence.2 The record shows that

'The record shows that in a petition to determine damages, filed even before the trial court entered its final order, the petitioners said: "The court was informed at that time [when the original effort was made to secure dissolution of the temporary injunction] that the defendants and each of them, were wholly in accord with the injunction prohibiting violence of any kind. . . ." R. 265.

"That the instructions given to such persons so patrolling or picketing by the officers of the defendant Union have been to do same peacefully and not to interfere with the ordinary course of business in said stores, except to patrol back and forth with said placards." R. 230-231.

Meadowmoor had originally sought an injunction in the federal district court. The federal master's report, introduced in this case as an exhibit for Meadowmoor, states: "I further find that the instructions given to such persons patrolling or peacefully picketing by the officers of the defendant association have been not to speak or carry on any conversation with any other person or persons in front of the said premises, nor to interfere with the orderly course of business of the said stores, except to patrol back and forth with the said placard." R. 165.