Harvard Law School - Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

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Dedicated in ZECHARIAH CHAFEE, JR. Professor of Law, I9I9 University Professor, I95O

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Ula Zfsaraaak af ffaraara law Salma! Cfalaariaas, Massachusetts I 9 5 I n

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Uzrce vfififreciafivns Dean Roscoe Pound I DEEM it a privilege to be allowed to join in the tribute to Professor Chafee in the ded- ication to him of the Harvard Law School Year Book for 1951. Born, bred, and educated in the state and city of Roger Williams, he might have been predisposed to become a leading advocate of freedom of belief, opinion, speech and writ- ing. Trained in law in the common-law atmosphere of the Harvard Law School he might well have been expected to stand for effective maintaining of the guarantees of the bill of rights in times of war and post- war reconstruction when experience has shown that these guarantees are peculiarly needed and exceptionally liable to infringe- ment. In his student days in the law school he took special interest in equitable relief against defamation and injuries to personality and the connection of the problems of equity jurisdiction in such cases with constitutional and political questions as to freedom of speech. Prosecutions under the Espionage Act during and after the first World War led him to study the whole subject from every side, legal, constitutional, political, historical and philosophical. Beginning with an out- standing article, Freedom of Speech in War Times, 32 Harvard Law Review 932 Q1919j , a succession of books, Freedom of Speech f1920j, The Inquiring Mind Q1928j, Free Speech in the United States Q1941j, and Government and Mass Communications 119471 have made him our leading authority on law and free belief, opinion, writing and speaking. Nor has his scholarly scrutiny stopped there. During the first World War he began to inquire into methods of prose- cution in enforcement of the Espionage Act and like legislation, and his article, A Con- temporary State Trial, 33 Harvard Law Review 747 C1920j, followed by his mas- terly report, Lawlessness in Law Enforce- ment, made significant contributions to the history of American law which must some- day be written. As a result of the article in the trial of Jacob Abrams, Professor Chafee, Professor fnow Mr. Justicej Frankfurter, Professor Francis B. Sayre, Edward B. Adams, Librarian of the Law School, and I, who had signed a petition to President Wilson for the pardon of Abrams Qwhich was grantedj were tried before the Visiting Committee on May 9, 1921, and were acquitted. He has stood for freedom under law for a generation. Now as University Professor he is free to bring his lifelong interest in freedom to a full all-around development in a book which will stand among the great treatises which are the glory of the Harvard Law School. Morris L. Ernst I LEAVE to others the happy chore of list- ing, appraising and praising the important writings of Zechariah Chafee in the field of civil liberties. I assume there can be little dis- agreement that Chafee has substantially affected our national thinking, and even our national policy with respect to the folly of man's fear of ideas. Further, there can be little doubt but that Chafee, among all the non-bench writers of our generation, has had greater impact on our oft hysterical and censorial thinking than any other lawyer. For such services he is well entitled to the honorary degree of Defender of the Faith . During the past decades our folkway has been frightened by the advancing power of trade unions, the secret underground activi- ties of foreign governments, and the very in- digenous and somewhat New Englandish fear of sexual excitement. On the first two generic levels all of us who acted as advisors or even courtroom barristers, could not have operated with success without the collations of mate- rial contained in the Chafee bibles . His fortitude and wisdom on these levels acted as spiritual guides for all of us in the ranks, and the quality of his selfless spirit seeped Page five