CONSTITUTIONAL LAW - LABOR LAW - RECENT RAMIFICATIONS OF THE APPLICATION OF FREE SPEECH DOCTRINES TO THE PROTECTION OF PICKETING

When the United States Supreme Court declared that peaceful picketing was protected by the constitutional guaranty of free speech, it raised the interesting question how the doctrines shielding the traditional modes of free speech were to be adapted to the preservation of picketing. A smooth cloaking of the right to picket with the sanctity of a constitutionally protected civil liberty is complicated by various factors such as the ease with which picketing may lead to violence, the elements of economic coercion inherent in even peaceful picketing, and the detrimental repercussions upon strangers to the controversy. As a result the clash between constitutional right and state police power usually is more severe when freedom of speech takes the form of a picket line than when it is exercised through other mediums.