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Arkansas Writers' Project, Inc. v. Ragland/Opinion of the Court

delivered the opinion of the Court.

The question presented in this case is whether a state sales tax scheme that taxes general interest magazines, but exempts newspapers and religious, professional, trade, and sports journals, violates the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of the press. [p224]

I
Since 1935, Arkansas has imposed a tax on receipts from sales of tangible personal property. 1935 Ark. Gen. Acts 233, § 4, pp. 593, 594, now codified at Ark. Stat. Ann. § 84-1903(a) (1980 and Supp. 1985). The rate of tax is currently four percent of gross receipts. § 84-1903 (three percent); Ark. Stat. Ann. § 84-1903.1 (Supp.1985) (additional one percent). Numerous items are exempt from the state sales tax, however. These include "[g]ross receipts or gross proceeds derived from the sale of newspapers," § 84-1904(f) (newspaper exemption), and "religious, professional, trade and sports journals and/or publications printed and published within this State when sold through regular subscriptions." § 84-1904(j) (magazine exemption).

Appellant Arkansas Writers' Project, Inc. publishes Arkansas Times, a general interest monthly magazine with a circulation of approximately 28,000. The magazine includes articles on a variety of subjects, including religion and sports. It is printed and published in Arkansas, and is sold through mail subscriptions, coin-operated stands, and over-the-counter sales. In 1980, following an audit, appellee Commissioner of Revenue assessed tax on sales of Arkansas [p225] Times. Appellant initially contested the assessment, but eventually reached a settlement with the State and agreed to pay the tax beginning in October 1982. However, appellant reserved the right to renew its challenge if there were a change in the tax law or a court ruling drawing into question the validity of Arkansas' exemption structure. Record 46–47.

Subsequently, in Minneapolis Star & Tribune Co. v. Minnesota Comm'r of Revenue, 460 U.S. 575 (1983), this Court held unconstitutional a Minnesota tax on paper and ink used in the production of newspapers. In January 1984, relying on this authority, appellant sought a refund of sales tax paid since October 1982, asserting that the magazine exemption must be construed to include Arkansas Times. It maintained that subjecting Arkansas Times to the sales tax, while sales of newspapers and other magazines were exempt, violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The Commissioner denied appellant's claim for refund. App. to Juris. Statement 12–14.

Having exhausted available administrative remedies, appellant filed a complaint in the Chancery Court for Pulaski County, Arkansas, seeking review of the Commissioner's decision. The complaint also stated a claim under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1988 for injunctive relief and attorney's fees. The parties stipulated that Arkansas Times is not a "newspaper" or a "religious, professional, trade or sports journal" and that, during the relevant time period, appellant had paid $15,838.22 in sales tax. The Chancery Court granted appellant summary judgment, construing § 84-1904(j) to create two categories of tax-exempt magazines sold through subscriptions, one for religious, professional, trade, and sports journals, and one for publications published and printed within the State of Arkansas. No. 84-1268 (Pulaski Cty. Chancery Ct., Mar. 29, 1985). Because Arkansas Times came within the second category, the court held that the magazine was exempt from sales tax and appellant was entitled to a refund. The court determined that resolution of the [p226] dispute on statutory grounds made it unnecessary to address the constitutional issues raised in appellant's § 1983 claim.

The Arkansas Supreme Court reversed the decision of the Chancery Court. 287 Ark. 155, 697 S.W.2d 94 (1985). It construed § 84-1904(j) as creating a single exemption and held that, in order to qualify for this exemption, a magazine had to be a "religious, professional, trade, or sports periodical." Id., at 157, 697 S.W.2d, at 95. Concluding that "neither party has questioned the constitutionality of the exemption," the State Supreme Court failed to address appellant's First and Fourteenth Amendment claims. Ibid.

On petition for rehearing, the court issued a supplementary opinion in which it acknowledged that appellant had pursued its constitutional claims and that they "should have been discussed" in the court's original opinion. Id., at 157, 157A, 157B, 698 S.W.2d 802, 803 (1985). It rejected appellant's claims of discriminatory treatment, reasoning that exemptions granted to other publications need not be considered, because:

"[I]t would avail [appellant] nothing if it wins its argument It is immaterial that an exemption in favor of some other taxpayer may be invalid, as discriminatory. If so, it is the exemption that would fall, not the tax against the [Arkansas] Times." Id., at 157A, 698 S.W.2d, at 803.

As to appellant's First Amendment objections, the court noted that this Court has held that "the owners of newspapers are not immune from any of the 'ordinary forms of taxation' for support of the government." Ibid., quoting Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297 U.S. 233, 250 (1936). In contrast to Minneapolis Star, supra, and Grosjean, supra, the Arkansas Supreme Court concluded that the Arkansas sales tax was a permissible "ordinary form of taxation." Because the court did not find that appellant's First and Fourteenth Amendment rights had been violated, it did not consider the claim for attorney's fees under § 1988.

[p227] We noted probable jurisdiction, 476 U.S. 1113 (1986), and we now reverse.

II
As a threshold matter, the Commissioner argues that appellant does not have standing to challenge the Arkansas sales tax scheme. Extending the reasoning of the court below, he contends that, since appellant has conceded that Arkansas Times is neither a newspaper nor a religious, professional, trade, or sports journal, it has not asserted an injury that can be redressed by a favorable decision of this Court and therefore does not meet the requirements for standing set forth in Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church & State, Inc., 454 U.S. 464, 472 (1982).

We do not accept the Commissioner's notion of standing, for it would effectively insulate underinclusive statutes from constitutional challenge, a proposition we soundly rejected in Orr v. Orr, 440 U.S. 268, 272 (1979). The Commissioner's position is inconsistent with numerous decisions of this Court in which we have considered claims that others similarly situated were exempt from the operation of a state law adversely affecting the claimant. See, e.g., Armco Inc. v. Hardesty, 467 U.S. 638 (1984); Carey v. Brown, 447 U.S. 455 (1980); Police Dept. of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U.S. 92 (1972). Contrary to the Commissioner's assertion, appellant has alleged sufficient a personal stake in the outcome of this litigation. "The holding of the [Arkansas] cour[t] stand[s] as a total bar to appellant's relief; [its] constitutional attack holds the only promise of escape from the burden that derives from the challenged statut[e]." Orr v. Orr, supra, at 273.

A
Our cases clearly establish that a discriminatory tax on the press burdens rights protected by the First Amendment. [p228] See Minneapolis Star, 460 U.S., at 591–592; Grosjean v. American Press Co., supra, at 244–245. In Minneapolis Star, the discrimination took two distinct forms. First, in contrast to generally applicable economic regulations to which the press can legitimately be subject, the Minnesota use tax treated the press differently from other enterprises. 460 U.S., at 581 (the tax "singl[es] out publications for treatment that is unique in Minnesota tax law"). Second, the tax targeted a small group of newspapers. This was due to the fact that the first $100,000 of paper and ink were exempt from the tax; thus "only a handful of publishers pay any tax at all, and even fewer pay any significant amount of tax." Id., at 591.

Both types of discrimination can be established even where, as here, there is no evidence of an improper censorial motive. See id., at 579–580, 592 ("Illicit legislative intent is not the sine qua non of a violation of the First Amendment"). This is because selective taxation of the press—either singling out the press as a whole or targeting individual members of the press—poses a particular danger of abuse by the State.

"A power to tax differentially, as opposed to a power to tax generally, gives a government a powerful weapon against the taxpayer selected. When the State imposes a generally applicable tax, there is little cause for concern. We need not fear that a government will destroy a selected group of taxpayers by burdensome taxation if it must impose the same burden on the rest of its constituency." Id., at 585.

Addressing only the first type of discrimination, the Commissioner defends the Arkansas sales tax as a generally applicable [p229] economic regulation. He acknowledges the numerous statutory exemptions to the sales tax, including those exempting newspapers and religious, trade, professional, and sports magazines. Nonetheless, apparently because the tax is nominally imposed on receipts from sales of all tangible personal property, see § 84-1903, he insists that the tax should be upheld.

On the facts of this case, the fundamental question is not whether the tax singles out the press as a whole, but whether it targets a small group within the press. While we indicated in Minneapolis Star that a genuinely nondiscriminatory tax on the receipts of newspapers would be constitutionally permissible, 460 U.S., at 586, and n. 9, the Arkansas sales tax cannot be characterized as nondiscriminatory, because it is not evenly applied to all magazines. To the contrary, the magazine exemption means that only a few Arkansas magazines pay any sales tax; in that respect, it operates in much the same way as did the $100,000 exemption to the Minnesota use tax. Because the Arkansas sales tax scheme treats some magazines less favorably than others, it suffers from the second type of discrimination identified in Minneapolis Star.

Indeed, this case involves a more disturbing use of selective taxation than Minneapolis Star, because the basis on which Arkansas differentiates between magazines is particularly repugnant to First Amendment principles: a magazine's tax status depends entirely on its content. "[A]bove all else, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content." [p230] Police Dept. of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U.S., at 95. See also Carey v. Brown, 447 U.S., at 462–463. "Regulations which permit the Government to discriminate on the basis of the content of the message cannot be tolerated under the First Amendment." Regan v. Time, Inc., 468 U.S. 641, 648–649 (1984).

If articles in Arkansas Times were uniformly devoted to religion or sports, the magazine would be exempt from the sales tax under § 84-1904(j). However, because the articles deal with a variety of subjects (sometimes including religion and sports), the Commissioner has determined that the magazine's sales may be taxed. In order to determine whether a magazine is subject to sales tax, Arkansas' "enforcement authorities must necessarily examine the content of the message that is conveyed FCC v. League of Women Voters of California, 468 U.S. 364, 383 (1984). Such official scrutiny of the content of publications as the basis for imposing a tax is entirely incompatible with the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of the press. See Regan v. Time, Inc., supra, at 648.

Arkansas' system of selective taxation does not evade the strictures of the First Amendment merely because it does not burden the expression of particular views by specific magazines. We rejected a similar distinction between content and viewpoint restrictions in Consolidated Edison Co. v. Public Service Comm'n of New York, 447 U.S. 530 (1980). As we stated in that case, "[t]he First Amendment's hostility to content-based regulation extends not only to restrictions on particular viewpoints, but also to prohibition of public discussion of an entire topic." Id., at 537. See FCC v. League of Women Voters of California, supra, at 383–384; Metromedia, Inc. v. San Diego, 453 U.S. 490, 518–519 (1981) (plurality opinion); Carey v. Brown, supra, at 462, n. 6.

Nor are the requirements of the First Amendment avoided by the fact that Arkansas grants an exemption to other members of the media that might publish discussions of the various [p231] subjects contained in Arkansas Times. For example, exempting newspapers from the tax, see § 84-1904(f), does not change the fact that the State discriminates in determining the tax status of magazines published in Arkansas. "It hardly answers one person's objection to a restriction on his speech that another person, outside his control, may speak for him." Regan v. Taxation With Representation of Washington, 461 U.S. 540, 553 (1983) (, J., concurring). See also Virginia Pharmacy Bd. v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc., 425 U.S. 748, 757, n. 15 (1976) ("We are aware of no general principle that freedom of speech may be abridged when the speaker's listeners could come by his message by some other means").

B
Arkansas faces a heavy burden in attempting to defend its content-based approach to taxation of magazines. In order to justify such differential taxation, the State must show that its regulation is necessary to serve a compelling state interest and is narrowly drawn to achieve that end. See Minneapolis Star, 460 U.S., at 591–592.

The Commissioner has advanced several state interests. First, he asserts the State's general interest in raising revenue. While we have recognized that this interest is an important one, see id., at 586, it does not explain selective imposition of the sales tax on some magazines and not others, based solely on their content. In Minneapolis Star, this interest was invoked in support of differential treatment of the press in relation to other businesses. Ibid. In that context, we noted that an interest in raising revenue,

"[s]tanding alone, cannot justify the special treatment of the press, for an alternative means of achieving the same interest without raising concerns under the First Amendment is clearly available: the State could raise the revenue by taxing businesses generally, avoiding [p232] the censorial threat implicit in a tax that singles out the press." Ibid. (footnote omitted).

The same is true of a tax that differentiates between members of the press.

The Commissioner also suggests that the exemption of religious, professional, trade, and sports journals was intended to encourage "fledgling" publishers, who have only limited audiences and therefore do not have access to the same volume of advertising revenues as general interest magazines such as Arkansas Times. Brief for Appellee 16. Even assuming that an interest in encouraging fledgling publications might be a compelling one, we do not find the exemption in § 84-1904(j) of religious, professional, trade, and sports journals narrowly tailored to achieve that end. To the contrary, the exemption is both overinclusive and underinclusive. The types of magazines enumerated in § 84-1904(j) are exempt, regardless of whether they are "fledgling"; even the most lucrative and well-established religious, professional, trade, and sports journals do not pay sales tax. By contrast, struggling general interest magazines and struggling specialty magazines on subjects other than those specified in § 84-1904(j) are ineligible for favorable tax treatment.

Finally, the Commissioner asserted for the first time at oral argument a need to "foster communication" in the State. Tr. of Oral Arg. 28, 32. While this state interest might support a blanket exemption of the press from the sales tax, it cannot justify selective taxation of certain publishers. The Arkansas tax scheme only fosters communication on religion, sports, and professional and trade matters. It therefore does not serve its alleged purpose in any significant way.

C
Appellant argues that the Arkansas tax scheme violates the First Amendment because it exempts all newspapers from the tax, but only some magazines. Appellant contends that, under applicable state regulations, see nn. 1 and 2, [p233] supra, the critical distinction between newspapers and magazines is not format, but rather content: newspapers are distinguished from magazines because they contain reports of current events and articles of general interest. Just as content-based distinctions between magazines are impermissible under prior decisions of this Court, appellant claims that content-based distinctions between different members of the media are also impermissible, absent a compelling justification.

Because we hold today that the State's selective application of its sales tax to magazines is unconstitutional and therefore invalid, our ruling eliminates the differential treatment of newspapers and magazines. Accordingly, we need not decide whether a distinction between different types of periodicals presents an additional basis for invalidating the sales tax, as applied to the press.

IV
In the Chancery Court, appellant asserted its First and Fourteenth Amendment claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, as well as a corresponding entitlement to attorney's fees under § 1988. Because this Court has found a constitutional violation, appellant urges us to consider its cause of action under § 1983 and order an award of attorney's fees. However, the state courts have not yet indicated whether they will exercise jurisdiction over this claim and we therefore remand to give them an opportunity to do so.

[p234] The parties recognize that federal and state courts have concurrent jurisdiction over actions brought under § 1983, see, e.g., Martinez v. California, 444 U.S. 277, 283, n. 7 (1980), although the Tax Injunction Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1341, ordinarily precludes federal courts from entertaining challenges to the assessment of state taxes. The parties disagree, however, on whether the state court must exercise jurisdiction in such cases. We leave it to the courts on remand to consider the necessity of entertaining this claim.

V
We stated in Minneapolis Star that "[a] tax that singles out the press, or that targets individual publications within the press, places a heavy burden on the State to justify its action." 460 U.S., at 592–593. In this case, Arkansas has failed to meet this heavy burden. It has advanced no compelling justification for selective, content-based taxation of certain magazines, and the tax is therefore invalid under the First Amendment. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Arkansas Supreme Court and remand for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.


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Arkansas Writers' Project, Inc. v. Ragland/Concurrence Stevens

, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.

To the extent that the Court's opinion relies on the proposition that government has no power to restrict expression [p235] because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content, see ante, at 229 (quoting Police Dept. of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U.S. 92, 95 (1972)), I am unable to join it. I do, however, agree that the State has the burden of justifying its content-based discrimination and has plainly failed to do so. Accordingly, I join Parts I, II, III-B, IV, and V of the Court's opinion and concur in its judgment.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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Arkansas Writers' Project, Inc. v. Ragland/Dissent Scalia

, with whom joins, dissenting.

All government displays an enduring tendency to silence, or to facilitate silencing, those voices that it disapproves. In the case of the Judicial Branch of Government, the principal restraint upon that tendency, as upon other judicial error, is the requirement that judges write opinions providing logical reasons for treating one situation differently from another. I dissent from today's decision because it provides no rational basis for distinguishing the subsidy scheme here under challenge from many others that are common and unquestionably lawful. It thereby introduces into First Amendment law an element of arbitrariness that ultimately erodes rather than fosters the important freedoms at issue.

The Court's opinion does not dispute, and I think it evident, that the tax exemption in this case has a rational basis sufficient to sustain the tax scheme against ordinary equal protection attack, see, e.g., Massachusetts Board of Retirement v. Murgia, 427 U.S. 307, 312 (1976) (per curiam). Though assuredly not "narrowly tailored," it is reasonably related to the legitimate goals of encouraging small publishers with limited audiences and advertising revenues (a category which in the State's judgment includes most publishers of religious, professional, trade, and sports magazines) and of [p236] avoiding the collection of taxes where administrative cost exceeds tax proceeds. See Brief for Appellee 15–16. The exemption is found invalid, however, because it does not pass the "strict scrutiny" test applicable to discriminatory restriction or prohibition of speech, namely, that it be "necessary to serve a compelling state interest and narrowly drawn to achieve that end." Ante, at 231; cf. Police Department of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U.S. 92, 101 (1972) (discriminatory ban on picketing); Carey v. Brown, 447 U.S. 455, 461–462 (1980) (same).

Here, as in the Court's earlier decision in Minneapolis Star & Tribune Co. v. Minnesota Comm'r of Revenue, 460 U.S. 575 (1983), application of the "strict scrutiny" test rests upon the premise that for First Amendment purposes denial of exemption from taxation is equivalent to regulation. That premise is demonstrably erroneous and cannot be consistently applied. Our opinions have long recognized—in First Amendment contexts as elsewhere—the reality that tax exemptions, credits, and deductions are "a form of subsidy that is administered through the tax system," and the general rule that "a legislature's decision not to subsidize the exercise of a fundamental right does not infringe the right, and thus is not subject to strict scrutiny." Regan v. Taxation With Representation of Washington, 461 U.S. 540, 544, 549 (1983) (upholding denial of tax exemption for organization engaged in lobbying even though veterans' organizations received exemption regardless of lobbying activities). See also Cammarano v. United States, 358 U.S. 498, 513 (1959) (deduction for lobbying activities); Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 93–95 (1976) (declining to apply strict scrutiny to campaign finance law that excludes certain candidates); Harris v. McRae, 448 U.S. 297, 324–326 (1980) (declining to apply strict scrutiny to legislative decision not to subsidize abortions even though other medical procedures were subsidized); Maher v. Roe, 432 U.S. 464 (1977) (same).

[p237] The reason that denial of participation in a tax exemption or other subsidy scheme does not necessarily "infringe" a fundamental right is that—unlike direct restriction or prohibition—such a denial does not, as a general rule, have any significant coercive effect. It may, of course, be manipulated so as to do so, in which case the courts will be available to provide relief. But that is not remotely the case here. It is implausible that the 4% sales tax, generally applicable to all sales in the State with the few enumerated exceptions, was meant to inhibit, or had the effect of inhibiting, this appellant's publication.

Perhaps a more stringent, prophylactic rule is appropriate, and can consistently be applied, when the subsidy pertains to the expression of a particular viewpoint on a matter of political concern—a tax exemption, for example, that is expressly available only to publications that take a particular point of view on a controversial issue of foreign policy. Political speech has been accorded special protection elsewhere. See, e.g., FCC v. League of Women Voters of California, 468 U.S. 364, 375–376 (1984) (invalidating ban on editorializing by recipients of grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, in part on ground that political speech "is entitled to the most exacting degree of First Amendment protection"); Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 143–146 (1983) (discussing history of First Amendment protection for political speech by public employees); Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 395 U.S. 367 (1969) (upholding FCC's "fairness doctrine," which imposes special obligations upon broadcasters with regard to "controversial issues of public importance"). There is no need, however, and it is realistically quite impossible, to extend to all speech the same degree of protection against exclusion from a subsidy that one might think appropriate for opposing shades of political expression.

By seeking to do so, the majority casts doubt upon a wide variety of tax preferences and subsidies that draw distinctions based upon subject matter. The United States Postal [p238] Service, for example, grants a special bulk rate to written material disseminated by certain nonprofit organizations—religious, educational, scientific, philanthropic, agricultural, labor, veterans', and fraternal organizations. See Domestic Mail Manual § 623 (1985). Must this preference be justified by a "compelling governmental need" because a nonprofit organization devoted to some other purpose—dissemination of information about boxing, for example—does not receive the special rate? The Kennedy Center, which is subsidized by the Federal Government in the amount of up to $23 million per year, see 20 U.S.C. § 76n(a), is authorized by statute to "present classical and contemporary music, opera, drama, dance, and poetry." § 76j. Is this subsidy subject to strict scrutiny because other kinds of expressive activity, such as learned lectures and political speeches, are excluded? Are government research grant programs or the funding activities of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, see 47 U.S.C. § 396(g)(2), subject to strict scrutiny because they provide money for the study or exposition of some subjects but not others?

Because there is no principled basis to distinguish the subsidization of speech in these areas—which we would surely uphold—from the subsidization that we strike down here, our decision today places the granting or denial of protection within our own idiosyncratic discretion. In my view, that threatens First Amendment rights infinitely more than the tax exemption at issue. I dissent.


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 Socrates quietly embraces death in his dark and solitary cell and initiates his friends and us into the mysterious doctrine that he who seeks peace must look for it within himself.

With such ineffable peace brooding over them the Satyagrahis were living in their camp, careless of what the morrow would bring.

I wrote to the Government, that we did not propose to enter the Transvaal with a view to domicile, but as an effective protest against the minister’s breach of pledge and as a pure demonstration of our distress at the loss of our self-respect. Government would be relieving us of all anxiety if they were good enough to arrest us where we then were, that is in Charlestown. But if they did not arrest us, and if any of us surreptitiously entered the Transvaal, the responsibility would not be ours. There was no secrecy about our movement. None of us had a personal axe to grind. We would not like it if any of us secretly entered the Transvaal. But we could not hold ourselves responsible for the acts of any as we had to deal with thousands of unknown men and as we could not command any other sanction but that of love. Finally I assured the Government that if they repealed the £3 tax, the strike would be called off and the indentured labourers would return to work, as we would not ask them to join the general struggle directed against the rest of our grievances.

The position therefore was quite uncertain, and there was no knowing when the Government would arrest us. But at a crisis like this we could not await the reply of the Government for a number of days, but only for one or two returns of the post. We therefore decided to leave Charlestown and enter the Transvaal at once if the Government did not put us under arrest. If we were not arrested on the way, the ‘army of peace’ was to march twenty to twenty-four miles a day for eight days together, with a view to reach Tolstoy Farm, and to stop there till the struggle was over and in the meanwhile to maintain themselves by working the Farm. Mr Kallenbach

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 had made all the necessary arrangements. The idea was to construct mud huts with the help of the pilgrims themselves. So long as the huts were under construction, the old and the infirm should be accommodated in small tents, the able-bodied camping in the open. The only difficulty was, that the rains were now about to set in, and every one must have a shelter over his head while it rained. But Mr Kallenbach was courageously confident of solving it somehow or other.

We also made other preparations for the march. The good Dr Briscoe improvised a small medical chest for us, and gave us some instruments which even a layman like myself could handle. The chest was to be carried by hand as there was to be no conveyance with the pilgrims. We therefore carried with us the least possible quantity of medicines, which would not enable us to treat even a hundred persons at the same time. But that did not matter as we proposed to encamp every day near some village, where we hoped to get the drugs of which we ran short, and as we were not taking with us any of the patients or disabled persons whom we had arranged to leave in the villages en route.

Bread and sugar constituted our sole ration, but how was a supply of bread to be ensured on the eight days’ march ? The bread must be distributed to the pilgrims every day and we could not hold any of it in stock. The only solution of this problem was, that some one should supply us with bread at each stage. But who would be our provider? There were no Indian bakers at all. Again there could not be found a baker in each of the villages, which usually depended upon the cities for their supply of bread. The bread therefore must be supplied by some baker and sent by rail to the appointed station. Volksrust was about double the size of Charlestown, and a large European bakery there willingly contracted to supply bread at each place. The baker did not take advantage of our awkward plight to charge us higher than the market rates and supplied bread made of excellent flour. He sent it in time by rail, and the railway officials, also Europeans,

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 not only honestly delivered it to us, but they took good care of it in transit and gave us some special facilities. They knew that we harboured no enmity in our hearts, intended no harm to any living soul and sought redress only through self-suffering. The atmosphere around us was thus purified and continued to be pure. The feeling of love which is dormant though present in all mankind was roused into activity. Every one realized that we are all brothers whether we are ourselves Christians, Jews, Hindus, Musalmans or anything else.

When all the preparations for the march were completed, I made one more effort to achieve a settlement. I had already sent letters and telegrams. I now decided to ’phone even at the risk of my overtures being answered by an insult. From Charlestown I ’phoned to General Smuts in Pretoria. I called his secretary and said: ‘Tell General Smuts that I am fully prepared for the march. The Europeans in Volksrust are excited and perhaps likely to violate even the safety of our lives. They have certainly held out such a threat. I am sure that even the General would not wish any such untoward event to happen. If he promises to abolish the £3 tax, I will stop the march, as I will not break the law merely for the sake of breaking it but I am driven to it by inexorable necessity. Will not the General accede to such a small request?’ I received this reply within half a minute: ‘General Smuts will have nothing to do with you. You may do just as you please.’ With this the message closed.

I had fully expected this result, though I was not prepared for the curtness of the reply. I hoped for a civil answer, as my political relations with the General since the organization of Satyagraha had now subsisted for six years. But as I would not be elated by his courtesy, I did not weaken in the face of his incivility. The strait and narrow path I had to tread was clear before me. The next day (November 6, 1913) at the appointed stroke of the hour (6-30) we offered prayers and commenced the march in the name of God. The pilgrim band was composed of 2,037 men, 127 women and 57 children.

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 The caravan of pilgrims thus started punctually at the appointed hour. There is a small spruit one mile from Charlestown, and as soon as one crosses it, one has entered Volksrust or the Transvaal. A small patrol of mounted policemen was on duty at the border gate. I went up to them, leaving instructions with the ‘army’ to cross over when I signalled to them. But while I was still talking with the police, the pilgrims made a sudden rush and crossed the border. The police surrounded them, but the surging multitude was not easy of control. The police had no intention of arresting us. I pacified the pilgrims and got them to arrange themselves in regular rows. Everything was in order in a few minutes and the march into the Transvaal began.

Two days before this the Europeans of Volksrust held a meeting where they offered all manner of threats to the Indians. Some said that they would shoot the Indians if they entered the Transvaal. Mr Kallenbach attended this meeting to reason with the Europeans who were however not prepared to listen to him. Indeed some of them even stood up to assault him. Mr Kallenbach is an athlete, having received physical training at the hands of Sandow, and it was not easy to frighten him. One European challenged him to a duel. Mr Kallenbach replied, ‘As I have accepted the religion of peace, I may not accept the challenge. Let him who will come and do his worst with me. But I will continue to claim a hearing at this meeting. You have publicly invited all Europeans to attend, and I am here to inform you that not all Europeans are ready as you are to lay violent hands upon innocent men. There is one European who would like to inform you that the charges you level at the Indians are false. The Indians do

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 not want what you imagine them to do. The Indians are not out to challenge your position as rulers. They do not wish to fight with you or to fill the country. They only seek justice pure and simple. They propose to enter the Transvaal not with a view to settle there, but only as an effective demonstration against the unjust tax which is levied upon them. They are brave men. They will not injure you tn person or in property, they will not fight with you, but enter the Transvaal they will, even in the face of your gunfire. They are not the men to beat a retreat from the fear of your bullets or your spears. They propose to melt, and I know they will melt, your hearts by self-suffering. This is all I have to say. I have had my say and I believe that I have thus rendered you a service. Beware and save yourselves from perpetrating a wrong.’ With these words Mr Kallenbach resumed his seat. The audience was rather abashed. The pugilist who had invited Mr Kallenbach to single combat became his friend.

We had heard about this meeting and were prepared for any mischief by the Europeans in Volksrust. It was possible that the large number of policemen massed at the border was intended as a check upon them. However that may be, our procession passed through the place in peace. I do not remember that any European attempted even a jest. All were out to witness this novel sight, while there was even a friendly twinkle in the eyes of some of them.

On the first day we were to stop for the night at Palmford about eight miles from Volksrust, and we reached the place at about five p.m. The pilgrims took their ration of bread and sugar, and spread themselves in the open air. Some were talking while others were singing bhajans. Some of the women were thoroughly exhausted by the march. They had dared to carry their children in their arms, but it was impossible for them to proceed further. I therefore, according to my previous warning, kept them as lodgers with a good Indian shopkeeper who promised to send them to Tolstoy

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 Farm if we were permitted to go there, and to their homes if we were arrested.

As the night advanced, all noises ceased and I too was preparing to retire when I heard a tread. I saw a European coming lantern in hand. I understood what it meant, but had no preparations to make. The police officer said,

‘I have a warrant of arrest for you. I want to arrest you.’

‘When?’ I asked.

‘Immediately.’

‘Where will you take me?’

‘To the adjoining railway station now, and to Volksrust when we get a train for it.’

‘I will go with you without informing any one, but I will leave some instructions with one of my co-workers.’

‘You may do so.’

I roused P. K. Naidoo who was sleeping near me. I informed him about my arrest and asked him not to awake the pilgrims before morning. At daybreak they must regularly resume the march. The march would commence before sunrise, and when it was time for them to halt and get their rations, he must break to them the news of my arrest. He might inform any one who inquired about me in the interval. If the pilgrims were arrested, they must allow themselves to be arrested. Otherwise they must continue the march according to the programme. Naidoo had no fears at all. I also told him what was to be done in case he was arrested. Mr Kallenbach too was in Volksrust at the time.

I went with the police officer, and we took the train for Volksrust the next morning. I appeared before the Court in Volksrust, but the Public Prosecutor himself asked for a remand until the 14th as he was not ready with the evidence. The case was postponed accordingly. I applied for bail as I had over 2,000 men, 122 women and 50 children in my charge whom I should like to take on to their destination within the period of postponement. The Public Prosecutor opposed my application. But the

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 Magistrate was helpless in the matter, as every prisoner not charged with a capital offence is in law entitled to be allowed to give bail for his appearance, and I could not be deprived of that right. He therefore released me on bail of £50. Mr Kallenbach had a car ready for me, and he took me at once to rejoin the ‘invaders.’ The special reporter of The Transvaal Leader wanted to go with us. We took him in the car, and he published at the time a vivid description of the case, the journey, and the meeting with the pilgrims, who received me with enthusiasm and were transported with joy. Mr Kallenbach at once returned to Volksrust, as he had to look after the Indians stopping at Charlestown as well as fresh arrivals there.

We continued the march, but it did not suit the Government to leave me in a state of freedom. I was therefore re-arrested at Standerton on the 8th. Standerton is comparatively a bigger place. There was something rather strange about the manner of my arrest here. I was distributing bread to the pilgrims. The Indian storekeepers at Standerton presented us with some tins of marmalade, and the distribution therefore took more time than usual. Meanwhile the Magistrate came and stood by my side. He waited till the distribution of rations was over, and then called me aside. I knew the gentleman, who, I thought, perhaps wanted to talk with me. He laughed and said,

‘You are my prisoner.’

‘It would seem I have received promotion in rank,’ I said, ‘as magistrates take the trouble to arrest me instead of mere police officials. But you will try me just now.’

‘Go with me,’ replied the Magistrate, ‘the Courts are still in session.’

I asked the pilgrims to continue their march, and then left with the Magistrate. As soon as I reached the Court room, I found that some of my co-workers had also been arrested. There were five of them there, P. K. Naidoo, Biharilal Maharaj, Ramnarayan Sinha, Raghu Narasu and Rahimkhan.

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 I was at once brought before the court and applied for remand and bail on the same grounds as in Volksrust. Here too the application was strongly opposed by the Public Prosecutor and here too I was released on my own recognizance of £50 and the case was remanded till the 21st. The Indian traders had kept a carriage ready for me and I rejoined the pilgrims again when they had hardly proceeded three miles further. The pilgrims thought, and I thought too, that we might now perhaps reach Tolstoy Farm. But that was not to be. It was no small thing however that the invaders got accustomed to my being arrested. The five co-workers remained in jail.

S.A.-20

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 We were now near Johannesburg. The reader will remember that the whole pilgrimage had been divided into eight stages. Thus far we had accomplished our marches exactly according to programme and we now had four days’ march in front of us. But if our spirits rose from day to day, Government too got more and more anxious as to how they should deal with the Indian invasion. They would be charged with weakness and want of tact if they arrested us after we had reached our destination. If we were to be arrested, we must be arrested before we reached the promised land.

Government saw that my arrest did not dishearten or frighten the pilgrims, nor did it lead them to break the peace. If they took to rioting. Government would have an excellent opportunity of converting them into food for gunpowder. Our firmness was very distressing to General Smuts coupled as it was with peacefulness, and he even said as much. How long can you harass a peaceful man? How can you kill the voluntarily dead? There is no zest in killing one who welcomes death and therefore soldiers are keen upon seizing the enemy alive. If the mouse did not flee before the cat, the cat would be driven to seek another prey. If all lambs voluntarily lay with the lion, the lion would be compelled to give up feasting upon lambs. Great hunters would give up lion hunting if the lion took to non-resistance. Our victory was implicit in our combination of the two qualities of non-violence and determination.

Gokhale desired by cable that Polak should go to India and help him in placing the facts of the situation before the Indian and Imperial Governments. Polak’s temperament was such that he would make himself useful

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 wherever he went. He would be totally absorbed in whatever task he undertook. We were therefore preparing to send him to India. I wrote to him that he could go. But he would not leave without meeting me in person and taking full instructions from me. He therefore offered to come and see me during our march. I wired to him, saying that he might come if he wished though he would be in so doing running the risk of arrest. Fighters never hesitate to incur necessary risks. It was a cardinal principle of the movement that every one should be ready for arrest if Government extended their attentions to him, and should make all straightforward and moral efforts to get arrested until he overcame the reluctance of Government to lay hands upon him. Polak therefore preferred to come even at the risk of being arrested.

Mr Polak joined us on the 9th at Teakworth between Standerton and Greylingstad. We were in the midst of our consultation and had nearly done with it. It was about 3 o’clock in the afternoon. Polak and I were walking at the head of the whole body of pilgrims. Some of the co-workers were listening to our conversation. Polak was to take the evening train for Durban. But God does not always permit man to carry out his plans. Rama had to retire to the forest on the very day that was fixed for his coronation. While we were thus engaged in talking, a Cape cart came and stopped before us and from it alighted Mr Chamney, the Principal Immigration Officer of the Transvaal and a police officer. They took me somewhat aside and one of them said, ‘I arrest you.’

I was thus arrested thrice in four days.

‘What about the marchers?’ I asked.

‘We shall see to that,’ was the answer.

I said nothing further. I asked Polak to assume charge of and go with the pilgrims. The police officer permitted me only to inform the marchers of my arrest. As I proceeded to ask them to keep the peace etc., the officer interrupted me and said,

‘You are now a prisoner and cannot make any speeches.’

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text: 20 Hrs. 40 Min./Chapter 1

title: 20 Hrs. 40 Min./Chapter 1


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 I understood my position, but it was needless. As soon as he stopped me speaking, the officer ordered the driver to drive the cart away at full speed. In a moment the pilgrims passed out of my sight.

The officer knew that for the time being I was master of the situation, for trusting to our non-violence, he was alone in this desolate veldt confronted by two thousand Indians. He also knew that I would have surrendered to him even if he had sent me a summons in writing. Such being the case, it was hardly necessary to remind me that I was a prisoner. And the advice which I would have given the pilgrims would have served the Government’s purpose no less than our own. But how could an officer forego an opportunity of exercising his brief authority? I must say, however, that many officers understood us better than this gentleman. They knew that not only had arrest no terrors for us but on the other hand we hailed it as the gateway of liberty. They therefore allowed us all legitimate freedom and thankfully sought our aid in conveniently and expeditiously effecting arrests. The reader will come across apposite cases of both the kinds in these pages.

I was taken to Greylingstad, and from Greylingstad via Balfour to Heidelberg where I passed the night. The pilgrims with Polak as leader resumed their march and halted for the night at Greylingstad where they were met by Sheth Ahmad Muhammad Kachhalia and Sheth Amad Bhayat who had come to know that arrangements were complete for arresting the whole body of marchers. Polak therefore thought that when this responsibility ceased in respect of the pilgrims upon their arrest, he could reach Durban even if a day later and take the steamer for India after all. But God had willed otherwise. At about 9 o’clock in the morning on the 10th the pilgrims reached Balfour where three special trains were drawn up at the station to take them and deport them to Natal. The pilgrims were there rather obstinate. They asked for me to be called and promised to be arrested and to board the trains if I advised them to that effect.

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 This was a wrong attitude. And the whole game must be spoiled and the movement must receive a set-back unless it was given up. Why should the pilgrims want me for going to jail? It would ill become soldiers to claim to elect their commanders or to insist upon their obeying only one of them. Mr Chamney approached Mr Polak and Kachhalia Sheth to help him in arresting them. These friends encountered difficulty in explaining the situation to the marchers. They told them that jail was the pilgrims’ goal and they should therefore appreciate the Government’s action when they were ready to arrest them. Only thus could the Satyagrahis show their quality and bring their struggle to a triumphant end. They must realize that no other procedure could have my approval. The pilgrims were brought round and all entrained peacefully.

I, on my part, was again hauled up before the Magistrate. I knew nothing of what transpired after I was separated from the pilgrims. I asked for a remand once again. I said that a remand had been granted by two courts, and that we had not now much to go to reach our destination. I therefore requested that either the Government should arrest the pilgrims or else I should be permitted to see them safe in Tolstoy Farm. The Magistrate did not comply with my request, but promised to forward it at once to the Government. This time I was arrested on a warrant from Dundee where I was to be prosecuted on the principal charge of inducing indentured labourers to leave the province of Natal. I was therefore taken to Dundee by rail the same day.

Mr Polak was not only not arrested at Balfour but he was even thanked for the assistance he had rendered to the authorities. Mr Chamney even said that the Government had no intention of arresting him. But these were Mr Chamney’s own views or the views of the Government in so far as they were known to that officer. Government in fact would be changing their mind every now and then. And finally they reached the decision that Mr Polak should not be allowed to sail for India and should

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 be arrested along with Mr Kallenbach who was working most energetically on behalf of the Indians. Mr Polak therefore was arrested in Charlestown whilst waiting for the corridor train. Mr Kallenbach was also arrested and both these friends were confined in Volksrust jail.

I was tried in Dundee on the 11th and sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment with hard labour. I had still to take my second trial at Volksrust on the charge of aiding and abetting prohibited persons to enter the Transvaal. From Dundee I was therefore taken on the 13th to Volksrust where I was glad to meet Kallenbach and Polak in the jail.

I appeared before the Volksrust court on the 14th. The beauty of it was that the charge was proved against me only by witnesses furnished by myself at Kromdraai. The police could have secured witnesses but with difficulty. They had therefore sought my aid in the matter. The courts here would not convict a prisoner merely upon his pleading guilty.

This was arranged as regards me, but who would testify against Mr Kallenbach and Mr Polak? It was impossible to convict them in the absence of evidence, and it was also difficult at once to secure witnesses against them. Mr Kallenbach intended to plead guilty as he wished to be with the pilgrims. But Mr Polak was bound for India, and was not deliberately courting jail at this moment. After a joint consultation therefore we three resolved that we should say neither yes nor no in case we were asked whether Mr Polak was guilty of the offence with which he was charged.

I provided the evidence for the Crown against Mr Kallenbach and I appeared as witness against Mr Polak. We did not wish that the cases should be protracted, and we therefore did our best to see that each case was disposed of within a day. The proceedings against me were completed on the 14th, against Kallenbach on the 15th and against Polak on the 17th, and the Magistrate passed sentences of three months’ imprisonment on all three of us.

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 We now thought we could live together in Volksrust jail for these three months. But the Government could not afford to allow it.

Meanwhile, we passed a few happy days in Volksrust jail, where new prisoners came every day and brought us news of what was happening outside. Among these Satyagrahi prisoners there was one old man named Harbatsinh who was about 75 years of age. Harbatsinh was not working on the mines. He had completed his indenture years ago and he was not therefore a striker. The Indians grew far more enthusiastic after my arrest, and many of them got arrested by crossing over from Natal into the Transvaal. Harbatsinh was one of these enthusiasts.

‘Why are you in jail?’ I asked Harbatsinh. ‘I have not invited old men like yourself to court jail.’

‘How could I help it,’ replied Harbatsinh, ‘when you, your wife and even your boys went to jail for our sake?’

‘But you will not be able to endure the hardships of jail life. I would advise you to leave jail. Shall I arrange for your release?’

‘No, please. I will never leave jail. I must die one of these days, and how happy should I be to die in jail!’

It was not for me to try to shake such determination which would not have been shaken even if I had tried. My head bent in reverence before this illiterate sage. Harbatsinh had his wish and he died in Durban jail on January 5, 1914. His body was with great honour cremated according to Hindu rites in the presence of hundreds of Indians. There was not one but there were many like Harbatsinh in the Satyagraha struggle. But the great good fortune of dying in jail was reserved for him alone and hence he becomes entitled to honourable mention in the history of Satyagraha in South Africa.

Government would not like that men should thus be attracted to jail, nor did they appreciate the fact that prisoners upon their release should carry my messages outside. They therefore decided to separate Kallenbach,

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 Polak and me, send us away from Volksrust, and take me in particular to a place where no Indian could go and see me. I was sent accordingly to the jail in Bloemfontein, the capital of Orangia, where there were not more than 50 Indians, all of them serving as waiters in hotels. I was the only Indian prisoner there, the rest being Europeans and Negroes. I was not troubled at this isolation but hailed it as a blessing. There was no need now for me to keep my eyes or ears open, and I was glad that a novel experience was in store for me. Again, I never had had time for study for years together, particularly since 1893, and the prospect of uninterrupted study for a year filled me with joy.

I reached Bloemfontein jail where I had as much solitude as I could wish. There were many discomforts but they were all bearable, and I will not inflict a description of them upon the reader. But I must state that the medical officer of the jail became my friend. The jailer could think only of his own powers while the doctor was anxious to maintain the prisoners in their rights. In those days I was purely a fruitarian. I took neither milk nor ghi nor food grains. I lived upon a diet of bananas, tomatoes, raw groundnuts, limes and olive oil. It meant starvation for me if the supply of any one of these things was bad in quality. The doctor was therefore very careful in ordering them out, and he added almonds, walnuts and Brazil nuts to my diet. He inspected everything indented for me in person. There was not sufficient ventilation in the cell which was assigned to me. The doctor tried his best to have the cell doors kept open but in vain. The jailer threatened to resign if the doors were kept open. He was not a bad man, but he had been moving in a single rut from which he could not deviate. He had to deal with refractory prisoners, and if he discriminated in favour of a mild prisoner like myself, he would run the real risk of the turbulent prisoners getting the upper hand of him. I fully understood the jailer’s standpoint, and in the disputes between the doctor and the jailer in respect of me, my sympathies were always with the jailer who

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 was an experienced, straightforward man, seeing the way clear before him.

Mr Kallenbach was taken to Pretoria jail and Mr Polak to Germiston jail.

But the Government might have saved all this trouble. They were like Mrs Partington trying to stem the rising tide of the ocean broom in hand. The Indian labourers of Natal were wide awake, and no power on earth could hold them in check.

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text:
Smith v. Arkansas State Highway Employees, Local 1315

Held: The Arkansas State Highway Commission's refusal to consider employee grievances when filed by the union rather than directly by an employee of the State Highway Department does not violate the First Amendment. Even assuming that the Commission's procedure would constitute an unfair labor practice if the Commission were subject to the same labor laws applicable to private employers and that its procedure tends to impair the effectiveness of the union in representing the economic interests of its members, nevertheless, this type of "impairment" is not one that the Constitution forbids, the Commission not having prohibited its employees from joining together in a union, from persuading others to do so, or from advocating any particular ideas.

Certiorari granted; 585 F.2d 876, reversed.


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 The jeweller rubs gold on the touchstone. If he is not still satisfied as to its purity, he puts it into the fire and hammers it so that the dross if any is removed and only pure gold remains. The Indians in South Africa passed through a similar test. They were hammered, and passed through fire and had the hall-mark attached to them only when they emerged unscathed through all the stages of examination.

The pilgrims were taken on special trains not for a picnic but for baptism through fire. On the way the Government did not care to arrange even to feed them and when they reached Natal, they were prosecuted and sent to jail straight away. We expected and even desired as much. But the Government would have to incur additional expenditure and would appear to have played into the Indians’ hands if they kept thousands of labourers in prison. And the coal mines would close down in the interval. If such a state of things lasted for any length of time, the Government would be compelled to repeal the £3 tax. They therefore struck out a new plan. Surrounding them with wire netting, the Government proclaimed the mine compounds as outstations to the Dundee and Newcastle jails and appointed the mine-owners’ European staffs as the warders. In this way they forced the labourers underground against their will and the mines began to work once more. There is this difference between the status of a servant and that of a slave, that if a servant leaves his post, only a civil suit can be filed against him, whereas the slave who leaves his master can be brought back to work by main force. The labourers therefore were now reduced to slavery pure and simple.

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 But that was not enough. The labourers were brave men, and they flatly declined to work on the mines with the result that they were brutally whipped. The insolent men dressed in a brief authority over them kicked and abused them and heaped upon them other wrongs which have never been placed on record. But the poor labourers patiently put up with all their tribulations. Cablegrams regarding these outrages were sent to India addressed to Gokhale who would inquire in his turn if he did not even for a day receive a fully detailed message. Gokhale broadcast the news from his sickbed, as he was seriously ill at the time. In spite of his illness, however, he insisted upon attending to the South African business himself and was at it at night no less than by day. Eventually all India was deeply stirred, and the South African question became the burning topic of the day.

It was then (December 1913) that Lord Hardinge in Madras made his famous speech which created a stir in South Africa as well as in England. The Viceroy may not publicly criticize other members of the Empire, but Lord Hardinge not only passed severe criticism upon the Union Government, but he also whole-heartedly defended the action of the Satyagrahis and supported their civil disobedience of unjust and invidious legislation. The conduct of Lord Hardinge came in for some adverse comment in England, but even then he did not repent but on the other hand asserted the perfect propriety of the step he had been driven to adopt. Lord Hardinge’s firmness created a good impression all round.

Let us leave for the moment these brave but unhappy labourers confined to their mines, and consider the situation in other parts of Natal. The mines were situated in the north-west of Natal, but the largest number of Indian labourers was to be found employed on the north and the south coasts. I was fairly intimate with the labourers on the north coast, that is, in and about Phoenix, Verulam, Tongaat etc., many of whom served with me in the Boer War. I had not met the labourers on the south coast from

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text:
Smith v. Arkansas State Highway Employees, Local 1315/Opinion of the Court

In grievance proceedings initiated by employees of the Arkansas State Highway Department, the State Highway Commission will not consider a grievance unless the employee submits his written complaint directly to the designated employer representative. The District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas found that this procedure denied the union representing the employees the ability to submit effective grievances on their behalf and therefore violated the First Amendment. 459 F. Supp. 452 (1978). The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed. [p464] 585 F.2d 876 (1978). We disagree with these holdings; finding no constitutional violation in the actions of the Commission or its individual members, we grant certiorari and reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

The First Amendment protects the right of an individual to speak freely, to advocate ideas, to associate with others, and to petition his government for redress of grievances. And it protects the right of associations to engage in advocacy on behalf of their members. NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415 (1963); Eastern Railroad Presidents Conf. v. Noerr Motor Freight, Inc., 365 U.S. 127 (1961). The government is prohibited from infringing upon these guarantees either by a general prohibition against certain forms of advocacy, NAACP v. Button, supra, or by imposing sanctions for the expression of particular views it opposes, e.g., Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969); Garrison v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 64 (1964).

But the First Amendment is not a substitute for the national labor relations laws. As the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recognized in Hanover Township Federation of Teachers v. Hanover Community School Corp., 457 F.2d 456 (1972), the fact that procedures followed by a public employer in bypassing the union and dealing directly with its members might well be unfair labor practices were federal statutory law applicable hardly establishes that such procedures violate the Constitution. The First Amendment right [p465] to associate and to advocate "provides no guarantee that a speech will persuade or that advocacy will be effective." Id., at 461. The public employee surely can associate and speak freely and petition openly, and he is protected by the First Amendment from retaliation for doing so. See Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563, 574–575 (1968); Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U.S. 479 (1960). But the First Amendment does not impose any affirmative obligation on the government to listen, to respond or, in this context, to recognize the association and bargain with it.

In the case before us, there is no claim that the Highway Commission has prohibited its employees from joining together in a union, or from persuading others to do so, or from advocating any particular ideas. There is, in short, no claim of retaliation or discrimination proscribed by the First Amendment. Rather, the complaint of the union and its members is simply that the Commission refuses to consider or act upon grievances when filed by the union rather than by the employee directly.

Were public employers such as the Commission subject to the same labor laws applicable to private employers, this refusal might well constitute an unfair labor practice. We may assume that it would and, further, that it tends to impair or undermine—if only slightly—the effectiveness of the union [p466] in representing the economic interests of its members. Cf. Hanover Township, supra.

But this type of "impairment" is not one that the Constitution prohibits. Far from taking steps to prohibit or discourage union membership or association, all that the Commission has done in its challenged conduct is simply to ignore the union. That it is free to do.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore reversed.

It is so ordered.

took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.


text:
Smith v. Arkansas State Highway Employees, Local 1315/Dissent Marshall

, dissenting.

Now this Court is deciding vital constitutional questions without even a plenary hearing. I dissent.

This Court has long held that the First Amendment protects the right of unions to secure legal representation for their members. Mine Workers v. Illinois State Bar Assn., 389 U.S. 217, 221–222 (1967); Railroad Trainmen v. ''Virginia ex rel. Virginia State Bar, 377 U.S. 1, 8 (1964); see Transportation Union v. State Bar of Michigan, 401 U.S. 576 (1971); NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415 (1963); Eastern Railroad Presidents Conf. v. Noerr Motor Freight, Inc.'', 365 U.S. 127 (1961). Based on this precedent and on Arkansas' recognition of public employees' right to organize and join a union, Potts v. Hay, 229 Ark. 830, 315 S.W.2d 826 (1958), the Court of Appeals concluded that the First Amendment also encompasses respondent union's right to file grievances on behalf of its members. If under Mine Workers and Railroad Trainmen a public employer may not refuse to entertain a grievance submitted by a union-salaried attorney, it is not immediately [p467] apparent why the employer in this case should be entitled to reject a grievance asserted by the union itself.

I decline to join a summary reversal that so cavalierly disposes of substantial First Amendment issues.


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 Durban to Isipingo and Umzinto at such close quarters, and I had but few co-workers in those parts. But the news of the strike and the arrests spread everywhere at lightning speed, and thousands of labourers unexpectedly and spontaneously came out on the south as well as on the north coast. Some of them sold their household chattels from an impression that it would be a long drawn out struggle and they could not expect to be fed by others. When I went to jail, I had warned my co-workers against allowing any more labourers to go on strike. I hoped that a victory could be achieved only with the help of the miners. If all the labourers,there were about sixty thousand of them all told,were called out it would be difficult to maintain them. We had not the means of taking so many on the march; we had neither the men to control them nor the money to feed them. Moreover, with such a large body of men it would be impossible to prevent a breach of the peace.

But when the floodgates are opened, there is no checking the universal deluge. The labourers everywhere struck work of their own accord, and volunteers also posted themselves in the various places to look after them.

Government now adopted a policy of blood and iron. They prevented the labourers from striking by sheer force. Mounted military policemen chased the strikers and brought them back to their work. The slightest disturbance on the part of the labourers was answered by rifle fire. A body of strikers resisted the attempt to take them back to work. Some of them even threw stones. Fire was opened upon them, wounding many and killing some. But the labourers refused to be cowed down. The volunteers prevented a strike near Verulam with great difficulty. But all the labourers did not return to work. Some hid themselves for fear and did not go back.

One incident deserves to be placed on record. Many labourers came out in Verulam and would not return in spite of all the efforts of the authorities. General Lukin

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 was present on the scene with his soldiers and was about to order his men to open fire. Brave Sorabji, son of the late Parsi Rustomji then hardly 18 years of age, had reached here from Durban. He seized the reins of the General’s horse and exclaimed, ‘You must not order firing. I undertake to induce my people peacefully to return to work.’ General Lukin was charmed with the young man’s courage and gave him time to try his method of love. Sorabji reasoned with the labourers who came round and returned to their work. Thus a number of murders were prevented by the presence of mind, valour and loving kindness of one young man.

The reader must observe that this firing and the treatment accorded by the Government to the strikers on the coast were quite illegal. There was an appearance of legality about the Government’s procedure in respect of the miners who were arrested not for going on strike but for entering the Transvaal without proper credentials. On the north and the south coast however the very act of striking work was treated as an offence not in virtue of any law but of the authority of the Government. Authority takes the place of law in the last resort. There is a maxim in English law that the king can do no wrong. The convenience of the powers that be is the law in the final analysis. This objection is applicable to all governments alike. And as a matter of fact it is not always objectionable thus to lay the ordinary law on the shelf. Sometimes adherence to ordinary law is itself open to objection. When the authority charged with and pledged to the public good is threatened with destruction by the restraints imposed upon it, it is entitled in its discretion to disregard such restraints. But occasions of such a nature must always be rare. If the authority is in the habit of frequently exceeding the limits set upon it, it cannot be beneficial to the commonweal. In the case under consideration the authority had no reason whatever to act arbitrarily. The labourer has enjoyed the right to strike from times immemorial. The Government had sufficient material before them to know that the strikers were not bent upon

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 mischief. At the most the strike was to result only in the repeal of the £3 tax. Only peaceful methods can be properly adopted against men of peace. Again the authority in South Africa was not pledged to the public good but existed for the exclusive benefit of the Europeans, being generally hostile to the Indians. And therefore the breach of all restraints on the part of such a partisan authority could never be proper or excusable.

Thus in my view there was here a sheer abuse of authority, which could never achieve the ends which it proposed to itself. There is sometimes a momentary success, but a permanent solution cannot be reached by such questionable methods. In South Africa the very £3 tax for bolstering up which the Government perpetrated all these outrages had to be abolished within six months of the firing. Pain is often thus the precursor of pleasure. The pain of the Indians in South Africa made itself heard everywhere. Indeed, I believe, that as every part has its place in a machine, every feature has its place in a movement of men, and as a machine is clogged by rust, dirt and the like, so is a movement hampered by a number of factors. We are merely the instruments of the Almighty Will and are therefore often ignorant of what helps us forward and what acts as an impediment. We must thus rest satisfied with a knowledge only of the means, and if these are pure, we can fearlessly leave the end to take care of itself.

I observed in this struggle, that its end drew nearer as the distress of the fighters became more intense, and as the innocence of the distressed grew clearer. I also saw that in such a pure, unarmed and non-violent struggle, the very kind of material required for its prosecution, be it men, money or munitions, is forthcoming at the right moment. Many volunteers rendered spontaneous help, whom I do not know even to this day. Such workers are g generally selfless and put in a sort of invisible service even in spite of themselves. No one takes note of them, no one awards them a certificate of merit. Some of them do not even know that their nameless but priceless

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 unremembered acts of love do not escape the sleepless vigilance of the recording angel.

The Indians of South Africa successfully passed the test to which they were subjected. They entered the fire and emerged out of it unscathed. The beginning of the end of the struggle must be detailed in a separate chapter.

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 The reader has seen that the Indians exerted as much quiet strength as they could and more than could be expected of them. He has also seen that the very large majority of these passive resisters were poor downtrodden men of whom no hope could possibly be entertained. He will recall too, that all the responsible workers of the Phoenix settlement with the exception of two or three were now in jail. Of the workers outside Phoenix the late Sheth Ahmad Muhammad Kachhalia was still at large, and so were Mr West, Miss West and Maganlal Gandhi in Phoenix. Kachhalia Sheth exercised general supervision. Miss Schlesin kept all the Transvaal accounts and looked after the Indians who crossed the border. Mr West was in charge of the English section of Indian Opinion and of the cable correspondence with Gokhale. At a time like the present, when the situation assumed a new aspect every moment, correspondence by post was out of the question. Cablegrams had to be despatched, no shorter in length than letters, and the delicate responsibility regarding them was shouldered by Mr West.

Like Newcastle in the mine area, Phoenix now became the centre of the strikers on the north coast, and was visited by hundreds of them who came there to seek advice as well as shelter. It therefore naturally attracted the attention of the Government, and the angry looks of the Europeans thereabouts. It became somewhat risky to live in Phoenix, and yet even children there accomplished dangerous tasks with courage. West was arrested in the meanwhile, though as a matter of fact there was no reason for arresting him. Our understanding was, that West and Maganlal Gandhi should not only not try to be arrested, but on the other hand should, as far as possible,

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 avoid any occasion for arrest. West had not therefore allowed any ground to arise for the Government to arrest him. But the Government could scarcely be expected to consult the convenience of the Satyagrahis, nor did they need to wait for some occasion to arise for arresting any one whose freedom jarred upon their nerves. The authority’s very desire to take a step amply suffices as a reason for adopting it. As soon as the news of the arrest of West was cabled to Gokhale, he initiated the policy of sending out able men from India. When a meeting was held in Lahore in support of the Satyagrahis of South Africa, Mr C. F. Andrews gave away in their interest all the money in his possession, and ever since then Gokhale had had his eye upon him. No sooner, therefore, did he hear about West’s arrest, than he inquired of Andrews by wire if he was ready to proceed to South Africa at once. Andrews replied in the affirmative. His beloved friend Pearson also got ready to go the same moment, and the two friends left India for South Africa by the first available steamer.

But the struggle was now about to close. The Union Government had not the power to keep thousands of innocent men in jail. The Viceroy would not tolerate it, and all the world was waiting to see what General Smuts would do. The Union Government now did what all governments similarly situated generally do. No inquiry was really needed. The wrong perpetrated was well known on all hands, and every one realized that it must be redressed. General Smuts too saw that there had been injustice which called for remedy, but he was in the same predicament as a snake which has taken a rat in its mouth but can neither gulp it down nor cast it out. He must do justice, but he had lost the power of doing justice, as he had given the Europeans in South Africa to understand, that he would not repeal the £3 tax nor carry out any other reform. And now he felt compelled to abolish the tax as well as to undertake other remedial legislation. States amenable to public opinion get out of such awkward positions by appointing a commission which conducts

S.A.-21

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 only a nominal inquiry, as its recommendations are a foregone conclusion. It is a general practice that the recommendations of such a commission should be accepted by the state, and therefore under the guise of carrying out the recommendations, governments give the justice which they have first refused. General Smuts appointed a commission of three members, with which the Indians pledged themselves to have nothing to do so long as certain demands of theirs in respect of the commission were not granted by the Government. One of these demands was, that the Satyagrahi prisoners should be released, and another that the Indians should be represented on the commission by at least one member. To a certain extent the first demand was accepted by the commission itself which recommended to the Government ‘with a view to enabling the enquiry to be made as thorough as possible’ that Mr Kallenbach, Mr Polak and I should be released unconditionally. The Government accepted this recommendation and released all three of us simultaneously (December 18, 1913) after an imprisonment of hardly six weeks. West who had been arrested was also released as Government had no case against him.

All these events transpired before the arrival of Andrews and Pearson whom I was thus able to welcome as they landed at Durban. They were agreeably surprised to see me, as they knew nothing of the events which happened during their voyage. This was my first meeting with these noble Englishmen.

All three of us were disappointed upon our release. We knew nothing of the events outside. The news of the commission came to us as a surprise, but we saw that we could not co-operate with the commission in any shape or form. We felt that the Indians should be certainly allowed to nominate at least one representative on the commission. We three, therefore, upon reaching Durban, addressed a letter to General Smuts on December 21, 1913 to this effect:

‘We welcome the appointment of the commission, but we strongly object to the inclusion in it of Messrs Esselen

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 and Wylie. We have nothing against them personally. They are well-known and able citizens. But as both of them have often expressed their dislike for the Indians, there is likelihood of their doing injustice without being conscious of it. Man cannot change his temperament all at once. It is against the laws of nature to suppose, that these gentlemen will suddenly become different from what they are. However we do not ask for their removal from the commission. We only suggest that some impartial men should be appointed in addition to them, and in this connection we would mention Sir James Rose Innes and the Hon. Mr W. P. Schreiner, both of them well-known men noted for their sense of justice. Secondly, we request that all the Satyagrahi prisoners should be released. If this is not done, it would be difficult for us to remain outside jail. There is no reason now for keeping the Satyagrahis in jail any longer. Thirdly, if we tender evidence before the commission, we should be allowed to go to the mines and factories where the indentured labourers are at work. If these requests are not complied with, we are sorry that we shall have to explore fresh avenues for going to jail.’

General Smuts declined to appoint any more members on the commission, and stated that the commission was appointed not for the sake of any party but merely for the satisfaction of the Government. Upon receiving this reply on December 24, we had no alternative but to prepare to go to jail. We therefore published a notification to the Indians that a party of Indians courting jail would commence their march from Durban on January 1, 1914.

But there was one sentence in General Smuts’ reply, which prompted me to write to him again, and it was this: We have appointed an impartial and judicial commission, and if while appointing it, we have not consulted the Indians, neither have we consulted the coal-owners or the sugar-planters.’ I wrote privately to the General, requesting to see him and place some facts before him if the Government were out to do justice. General Smuts

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 granted my request for an interview, and the march was postponed for a few days accordingly. When Gokhale heard that a fresh march was under contemplation, he sent a long cablegram, saying that such a step on our part would land Lord Hardinge and himself in an awkward position and strongly advising us to give up the march, and assist the commission by tendering evidence before it.

We were on the horns of a dilemma. The Indians were pledged to a boycott of the commission if its personnel was not enlarged to their satisfaction. Lord Hardinge might be displeased, Gokhale might be pained, but how could we go back upon our pledged word? Mr Andrews suggested to us the considerations of Gokhale’s feelings, his delicate health and the shock which our decision was calculated to impart to him. But in fact these considerations were never absent form my mind. The leaders held a conference and finally reached the decision that the boycott must stand at any cost if more members were not co-opted to the commission. We therefore sent a long cablegram to Gokhale, at an expense of about a hundred pounds. Andrews too concurred with the gist of our message which was to the following effect:

‘We realize how you are pained, and would like to follow your advice at considerable sacrifice. Lord Hardinge has rendered priceless aid, which we wish we would continue to receive till the end. But we are anxious that you should understand our position. It is a question of thousands of men having taken a pledge to which no exception can be taken. Our entire struggle has been built upon a foundation of pledges. Many of us would have fallen back today had it not been for the compelling force of our pledges. All moral bonds would be relaxed at once if thousands of men once proved false to their plighted word. The pledge was taken after full and mature deliberation, and there is nothing immoral about it. The community has an unquestionable right to pledge itself to boycott. We wish that even you should advise that a pledge of this nature should not be broken but be observed

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 inviolate by all, come what might. Please show this cable to Lord Hardinge. We wish you might not be placed in a false position. We have commenced this struggle with God as our witness and His help as our sole support. We desire and bespeak the assistance of elders as well as big men, and are glad when we get it. But whether or not such assistance is forthcoming, we are humbly of opinion that pledges must ever be scrupulously kept. We desire your support and your blessing in such observance.’

This cable, when it reached Gokhale, had an adverse effect upon his health, but he continued to help us with unabated or even greater zeal than before. He wired to Lord Hardinge on the matter but not only did he not throw us overboard, but he on the other hand defended our standpoint. Lord Hardinge too remained unmoved.

I went to Pretoria with Andrews. Just at this time there was a great strike of the European employees of the Union railways, which made the position of the Government extremely delicate. I was called upon to commence the Indian march at such a fortunate juncture. But I declared that the Indians could not thus assist the railway strikers, as they were not out to harass the Government, their struggle being entirely different and differently conceived. Even if we undertook the march, we would begin it at some other time when the railway trouble had ended. This decision of ours created a deep impression, and was cabled to England by Reuter. Lord Ampthill cabled his congratulations from England. English friends in South Africa too appreciated our decision. One of the secretaries of General Smuts jocularly said: ‘I do not like your people, and do not care to assist them at all. But what am I to do? You help us in our days of need. How can we lay hands upon you? I often wish you took to violence like the English strikers, and then we would know at once how to dispose of you. But you will not injure even the enemy. You desire victory by self-suffering alone and never transgress your self-imposed limits of courtesy and chivalry. And that is what

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 reduces us to sheer helplessness.’ General Smuts also gave expression to similar sentiments.

I need scarcely suggest to the reader that this was not the first incident of chivalrous consideration for others being shown by the Satyagrahis. When the Indian labourers on the north coast went on strike, the planters at Mount Edgecombe would have been put to great losses if all the cane that had been cut was not brought to the mill and crushed. Twelve hundred Indians therefore returned to work solely with a view to finish this part of the work, and joined their compatriots only when it was finished. Again when the Indian employees of the Durban Municipality struck work, those who were engaged in the sanitary services of the borough or as attendants upon the patients in hospitals were sent back, and they willingly returned to their duties. If the sanitary services were dislocated, and if there was no one to attend upon the patients in hospitals, there might be an outbreak of disease in the city and the sick would be deprived of medical aid, and no Satyagrahi would wish for such consequences to ensue. Employees of this description were therefore exempted from the strike. In every step that he takes, the Satyagrahi is bound to consider the position of his adversary.

I could see that the numerous cases of such chivalry left their invisible yet potent impress everywhere, enhanced the prestige of the Indians, and prepared a suitable atmosphere for a settlement.

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 The atmosphere was thus becoming favourable for a settlement. Sir Benjamin Robertson, who had been sent by Lord Hardinge in a special steamer, was to arrive about the same time that Mr Andrews and I went to Pretoria. But we did not wait for him and set out as we had to reach Pretoria on the day fixed by General Smuts. There was no reason indeed to await his arrival, as the final result could only be commensurate with our strength.

Mr Andrews and I reached Pretoria. But I alone was to interview General Smuts. The General was preoccupied with the railway strike, which was so serious in nature, that the Union Government had declared martial law. The European workmen not only demanded higher wages, but aimed at taking the reins of government into their hands. My first interview with the General was very short, but I saw that he today did not ride the same high horse as he did before, when the Great March began. At that time the General would not so much as talk with me. The threat of Satyagraha was the same then as it was now. Yet he had declined to enter into negotiations. But now he was ready to confer with me.

The Indians had demanded that a member should be co-opted to the commission to represent Indian interests. But on this point General Smuts would not give in. ‘That cannot be done,’ said he, ‘as it would be derogatory to the Government’s prestige, and I would be unable to carry out the desired reforms. You must understand that Mr Esselen is our man, and would fall in with, not oppose, the Government’s wishes as regards reform. Colonel Wylie is a man of position in Natal and might even be considered anti-Indian. If therefore even he agrees to a repeal of the £3 tax, the Government will have an easy task before

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 them. Our troubles are manyfold; we have not a moment to spare and therefore wish to set the Indian question at rest. We have decided to grant your demands, but for this we must have a recommendation from the commission. I understand your position too. You have solemnly declared that you will not lead evidence before it so long as there is no representative of the Indians sitting on the commission. I do not mind if you do not tender evidence, but you should not organize any active propaganda to prevent any one who wishes to give evidence from doing so, and should suspend Satyagraha in the interval. I believe that by so doing you will be serving your own interests as well as giving me a respite. As you will not tender evidence, you will not be able to prove your allegations as regards ill-treatment accorded to the Indian strikers. But that is for you to think over.’

Such were the suggestions of General Smuts, which on the whole I was inclined to receive favourably. We had made many complaints about ill-treatment of strikers by soldiers and warders, but the difficulty was that we were precluded by a boycott of the commission from proving our allegations. There was a difference of opinion among the Indians on this point. Some held that the charges levelled by the Indians against the soldiers must be proved, and therefore suggested that if the evidence could not be placed before the commission, we must challenge libel proceedings by publishing the authentic evidence in our possession. I disagreed with these friends. There was little likelihood of the commission giving a decision unfavourable to the Government. Challenging libel proceedings would land the community in endless trouble, and the net result would be the barren satisfaction of having proved the charges of ill-treatment. As a barrister, I was well aware of the difficulties of proving the truth of statements giving rise to libel proceedings. But my weightiest argument was, that the Satyagrahi is out to suffer. Even before Satyagraha was started, the Satyagrahis knew that they would have to suffer even unto death, and they were ready to undergo such suffering. Such being the case,

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 there was no sense in proving now that they did suffer. A spirit of revenge being alien to Satyagraha, it was best for a Satyagrahi to hold his peace when he encountered extraordinary difficulties in proving the fact of his suffering. A Satyagrahi fights only for essentials. The essential thing was that the obnoxious laws should be repealed or suitably amended, and when this was fairly within his grasp, he need not bother himself with other things. Again a Satyagrahi’s silence would at the time of settlement stand him in good stead in his resistance to unjust laws. With such arguments I was able to win over most of these friends who differed from me, and we decided to drop the idea of proving our allegations of ill-treatment.

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 Correspondence passed between General Smuts and myself, placing on record the agreement arrived at as the result of a number of interviews. My letter dated January 21, 1914 may be thus summarized:

‘We have conscientious scruples with regard to leading evidence before the commission as constituted at present. You appreciate these scruples and regard them as honourable, but are unable to alter your decision. As, however, you have accepted the principle of consultation with the Indians, I will advise my countrymen not to hamper the labours of the commission by any active propaganda, and not to render the position of the Government difficult by reviving passive resistance, pending the result of the commission and the introduction of legislation during the forthcoming session. It will further be possible for us to assist Sir Benjamin Robertson who has been deputed by the Viceroy.

‘As to our allegations of ill-treatment during the progress of the Indian strike in Natal, the avenue of proving them through the commission is closed to us by our solemn declaration to have nothing to do with it. As Satyagrahis we endeavour to avoid, as far as possible, any resentment of personal wrongs. But in order that our silence may not be mistaken, may I ask you to recognize our motive and reciprocate by not leading evidence of a negative character before the commission on the allegations in question?

‘Suspension of Satyagraha, moreover, carries with it a prayer for the release of Satyagrahi prisoners.

‘It might not be out of place here to recapitulate the points on which relief has been sought:

 Repeal of the £3 tax;

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Legalization of the marriages celebrated according to the rite of Hinduism, Islam, etc.; The entry of educated Indians; Alteration in the assurance as regards the Orange Free State; An assurance that the existing laws especially affecting Indians will be administered justly, with due regard to vested rights.

‘If you view my submission with favour, I shall be prepared to advise my countrymen in accordance with the tenor of this letter.’

General Smuts’ reply of the same date was to this effect:

‘I regret but understand your inability to appear before the commission. I also recognize the motive which makes you unwilling to revive old sores by courting libel proceedings before another tribunal. The Government repudiates the charges of harsh action against the Indian strikers. But as you will not lead evidence in support of those allegations, it would he futile for the Government to lead rebutting evidence in vindication of the conduct of its officers. As regards the release of Satyagrahi prisoners, the Government had already issued the necessary orders before your letter arrived. In regard to the grievances summarized at the end of your letter, the Government will await the recommendations of the commission before any action is taken.’

Mr Andrews and I had had frequent interviews with General Smuts before these letters were exchanged. But meanwhile Sir Benjamin Robertson too arrived at Pretoria. Sir Benjamin was looked upon as a pqpular official, and he brought a letter of recommendation from Gokhale, but I observed that he was not entirely free from the usual weakness of the English official. He had no sooner come than he began to create factions among the Indians and to bully the Satyagrahis. My first meeting with him in Pretoria did not prepossess me in his favour. I told him about the telegrams I had received informing

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 me of his bullying procedure. I dealt with him, as indeed with every one else, in a frank and straightforward manner, and we therefore became friends. But I have often seen that officials are apt to bully those who will tamely submit to them, and will be correct with those who are correct themselves and will not be cowed down.

We thus reached a provisional agreement, and Satyagraha was suspended for the last time. Many English friends were glad of this, and promised their assistance in the final settlement. It was rather difficult to get the Indians to endorse this agreement. No one would wish that enthusiasm which had arisen should be allowed to subside. Again whoever would trust General Smuts? Some reminded me of the fiasco in 1908, and said, ‘General Smuts once played us false, often charged you with forcing fresh issues, and subjected the community to endless suffering. And yet what a pity that you have not learnt the necessary lesson of declining to trust him! This man will betray you once again, and you will again propose to revive Satyagraha. But who will then listen to you? Is it possible that men should every now and then go to jail, and be ready to be faced with failure each time? With a man like General Smuts settlement is possible only if he actually delivers the goods. It is no use having his assurances. How can we any further trust a man who pledges his word and then breaks it?’

I knew that such arguments would be brought forward, and was not therefore surprised when they were. No matter how often a Satyagrahi is betrayed, he will repose his trust in the adversary so long as there are not cogent grounds for distrust. Pain to a Satyagrahi is the same as pleasure. He will not therefore be misled by the mere fear of suffering into groundless distrust. On the other hand, relying as he does upon his own strength, he will not mind being betrayed by the adversary, will continue to trust in spite of frequent betrayals, and will believe that he thereby strengthens the forces of truth and brings victory nearer. Meetings were therefore held in various places, and I was able at last to persuade the

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