Frohwerk v. United States

Frohwerk v. United States, 249 U.S. 204 (1919), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld the conviction of a newspaperman for violating the Espionage Act of 1917 in connection with criticism of U.S. involvement in foreign wars.

Frohwerk v. United States
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued January 27, 1919 Decided March 10, 1919
Full case name	Frohwerk v. United States
Citations	249 U.S. 204 (more) 39 S. Ct. 249; 63 L. Ed. 561; 1919 U.S. LEXIS 2193
Case history
Prior	Error to the District Court of the United States for the Western District of Missouri
Court membership
Chief Justice Edward D. White Associate Justices Joseph McKenna · Oliver W. Holmes Jr. William R. Day · Willis Van Devanter Mahlon Pitney · James C. McReynolds Louis Brandeis · John H. Clarke
Case opinion
Majority	Holmes, joined by unanimous

In a unanimous decision written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, the Court found that this criticism constituted the "willful obstruction" of America's recruitment efforts and was not protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

As in Schenck v. United States, also decided in 1919, the speech might have been protected were the country not at war.^[1]