enjoyment. Magnano Co. v. Hamilton, 292 U. S. 40, 44-45, and cases cited. Those who can tax the exercise of this religious practice can make its exercise so costly as to deprive it of the resources necessary for its maintenance. Those who can tax the privilege of engaging in this form of missionary evangelism can close its doors to all those who do not have a full purse. Spreading religious beliefs in this ancient and honorable manner would thus be denied the needy. Those who can deprive religious groups of their colporteurs can take from them a part of the vital power of the press which has survived from the Reformation.

It is contended, however, that the fact that the license tax can suppress or control this activity is unimportant [113] if it does not do so. But that is to disregard the nature of this tax. It is a license taxa flat tax imposed on the exercise of a privilege granted by the Bill of Rights. A state may not impose a charge for the enjoyment of a right granted by the Federal Constitution. Thus, it may not exact a license tax for the privilege of carrying on interstate commerce (McGoldrick v. Berwind-White Co., 309 U. S. 33, 56-58), although it may tax the property used in, or the income derived from, that commerce, so long as those taxes are not discriminatory. Id., p. 47 and cases cited. A license tax applied to activities guaranteed by the First Amendment would have the same destructive effect. It is true that the First Amendment, like the commerce clause, draws no distinction between license taxes, fixed sum taxes, and other kinds of taxes. But that is no reason why we should shut our eyes to the nature of the tax and its destructive influence. The power to impose a license tax on the exercise of these freedoms is indeed as potent as the power of censorship which this Court has repeatedly struck down. Lovell v. Griffin, 303 U. S. 444; Schneider v. State, supra; Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 306; Largent v. Texas, 318 U. S. 418; Jamison v. Texas, supra. It was for that reason that the dissenting opinions in Jones v. Opelika, supra, stressed the nature of this type of tax. 316 U. S. pp. 607–609, 620, 623. In that case, as in the present ones, we have something very different from a registration system under which those going from house to house are required to give their names, addresses and other marks of identification to the authorities. In all of these cases the issuance of the permit or license is dependent on the payment of a license tax. And the license tax is fixed in amount and unrelated to the scope of the activities of petitioners or to their realized revenues. It is not a nominal fee [114] imposed as a regulatory measure to defray the expenses of policing the activities in question. It is in no way apportioned. It is a flat license tax levied and collected as a condition to the pursuit of activities whose enjoyment is guaranteed by the First Amendment. cordingly, it restrains in advance those constitutional liberties of press and religion and inevitably tends to suppress their exercise. That is almost uniformly recognized as the inherent vice and evil of

"So

8 The constitutional difference between such a regulatory measure and a tax on the exercise of a federal right has long been recognized. While a state may not exact a license tax for the privilege of carrying on interstate commerce (McGoldrick v. Berwind-White Co., supra, pp. 56-58), it may, for example, exact a fee to defray the cost of purely local regulations in spite of the fact that those regulations incidentally affect commerce. long as they do not impede the free flow of commerce and are not made the subiect of regulation by Congress they are not forbidden." Clyde Mallory Lines v. Alabama, 296 U. S. 261, 267, and cases cited. And see South Carolina Highway Dept. v. Barnwell Bros., 303 U. S. 177, 185-188.

this flat license tax. As stated by the Supreme Court of Illinois in a case involving this same sect and an ordinance similar to the present one, a person cannot be compelled "to purchase, through a license fee or a license tax, the privilege freely granted by the constitution.”9 Blue Island v. Kozul, 379 Ill. 511, 519, 41 N. E. 2d 515. So, it may not be said that proof is lacking that these license taxes either separately or cumulatively have restricted or are likely to restrict petitioners' religious activities. On their face they are a restriction of the free exercise of those freedoms which are protected by the First Amendment.

The taxes imposed by this ordinance can hardly help but be as severe and telling in their impact on the freedom [115] of the press and religion as the "taxes on knowledge" at which the First Amendment was partly aimed. Grosjean v. American Press Co., supra, pp. 244-249. They may indeed operate even more subtly. Itinerant evangelists moving throughout a state or from state to state would feel immediately the cumulative effect of such ordinances as they become fashionable. The way of the religious dissenter has long been hard. But if the formula of this type of ordinance is approved, a new device for the suppression of religious minorities will have been found. This method of disseminating religious beliefs can be crushed and closed out by the sheer weight of the toll or tribute which is exacted town by town, village by village. The spread of religious ideas through personal visitations by the literature ministry of numerous religious groups would be stopped.

The fact that the ordinance is "nondiscriminatory" is immaterial. The protection afforded by the First Amendment is not so restricted. A license tax certainly does not acquire constitutional validity because it classifies the privileges protected by the First Amendment along with the wares and merchandise of hucksters and peddlers and treats them all alike. Such equality in treatment does not save the ordinance. Freedom of press, freedom of speech, freedom of religion are in a preferred position.

It is claimed, however, that the ultimate question in determining the constitutionality of this license tax is whether the state has given something for which it can ask a return. That principle has wide applicability. State Tax Commission v. Aldrich, 316 U. S. 174, and cases cited. But it is quite irrelevant here. This tax is not a charge for the enjoyment of a privilege or benefit bestowed by the state. The privilege in question exists apart from state authority. It is guaranteed the people by the Federal Constitution.

Considerable emphasis is placed on the kind of literature which petitioners were distributing-its provocative, [116] abusive, and illmannered character and the assault which it makes on our established churches and the cherished faiths of many of us. See Douglas v. Jeannette, concurring opinion, post, p. 166.* But those considerations are no justification for the license tax which the ordinance imposes. Plainly a community may not suppress, or the state tax, the dissemination of views because they are unpopular, annoying or distasteful. If that device were ever sanctioned, there would have been

That is the view of most state courts which have passed on the question. McConkey v. Fredericksburg, 179 Va. 556, 19 S. E. 2d 682; State v. Greaves, 112 Vt. 222, 22 A. 2d 497; People v. Banks, 168 Misc. 515, 6 N. Y. S. 2d 41. Contra: Cook v. Harrison, 180 Ark. 546, 21 S. W. 2d 966.

*Page 99 herein.

forged a ready instrument for the suppression of the faith which any minority cherishes but which does not happen to be in favor. That would be a complete repudiation of the philosophy of the Bill of Rights.

Jehovah's Witnesses are not "above the law." But the present ordinance is not directed to the problems with which the police power of the state is free to deal. It does not cover, and petitioners are not charged with, breaches of the peace. They are pursuing their solicitations peacefully and quietly. Petitioners, moreover, are not charged with or prosecuted for the use of language which is obscene, abusive, or which incites retaliation. Cf. Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, supra. Nor do we have here, as we did in Cox v. New Hampshire, supra, and Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, supra, state regulation of the streets to protect and insure the safety, comfort, or convenience of the public. Furthermore, the present ordinance is not narrowly drawn to safeguard the people of the community in their homes against the evils of solicitations. See Cantwell v. Connecticut, supra, 306. As we have said, it is not merely a registration ordinance calling for an identification of the solicitors so as to give the authorities some basis for investigating strangers coming into the community. And the fee is not a nominal one, imposed as a regulatory measure and calculated to defray the expense of protecting those on the streets and at home against the abuses of solicitors. See Cox v. New Hampshire, [117] supra, pp. 576-577. Nor can the present ordinance survive if we assume that it has been construed to apply only to solicitation from house to house 10 The ordinance is not narrowly drawn to prevent or control abuses or evils arising from that activity. Rather, it sets aside the residential areas as a prohibited zone, entry of which is denied petitioners unless the tax is paid. That restraint and one which is city wide in scope (Jones v. Opelika) are different only in degree. Each is an abridgment of freedom of press and a restraint on the free exercise of religion. They stand or fall together. The judgment in Jones v. Opelika has this day been vacated. Freed from that controlling precedent, we can restore to their high, constitutional position the liberties of itinerant evangelists who disseminate their religious beliefs and the tenets of their faith, through distribution of literature. The judgments are reversed and the causes are remanded to the Pennsylvania Superior Court for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

Reversed.

The following dissenting opinions are applicable to Nos. 280, 314, and 966 (October Term, 1941), Jones v. Opelika, ante, p. 103; and to Nos. 480-487, Murdock v. Pennsylvania, ante, p. 105. See also opinion of Mr. JUSTICE JACKSON, post, p. 166.*

MR. JUSTICE REED, dissenting:

These cases present for solution the problem of the constitutionality of certain municipal ordinances levying a tax for the production of revenue on the sale of books [118] and pamphlets in the streets or

10 The Pennsylvania Superior Court stated that the ordinance has been "enforced" only to prevent petitioners from canvassing "from door to door and house to house" without a license and not to prevent them from distributing their literature on the streets. 149 Pa. Super. Ct., p. 184, 27 A. 2d 670.

from door to door. Decisions sustaining the particular ordinances were entered in the three cases first listed at the last term of this Court. In that opinion the ordinances were set out and the facts and issues stated. Jones v. Opelika, 316 U. S. 584. A rehearing has been, granted. The present judgments vacate the old and invalidate the ordinances. The eight cases of this term involve canvassing from door to door only under similar ordinances, which are in the form stated in the Court's opinion. By a per curiam opinion of this day, the Court affirms its acceptance of the arguments presented by the dissent of last term in Jones v. Opelika. The Court states its position anew in the Jeannette cases.

This dissent does not deal with an objection which theoretically could be made in each case, to wit, that the licenses are so excessive in amount as to be prohibitory. This matter is not considered because that defense is not relied upon in the pleadings, the briefs or at the bar. No evidence is offered to show the amount is oppressive. An unequal tax, levied on the activities of distributors of informatory publications, would be a phase of discrimination against the freedom of speech, press or religion. Nor do we deal with discrimination. against the petitioners, as individuals or as members of the group, calling themselves Jehovah's Witnesses. There is no contention in any of these cases that such discrimination is practiced in the application of the ordinances. Obviously, an improper application by a city, which resulted in the arrest of Witnesses and failure to enforce the ordinance against other groups, such as the Adventists, would raise entirely distinct issues.

A further and important disclaimer must be made in order to focus attention sharply upon the constitutional issue. This dissent does not express, directly or by inference, any conclusion as to the constitutional rights of state or federal governments to place a privilege tax upon the [119] soliciting of a free-will contribution for religious purposes. Petitioners suggest that their books and pamphlets are not sold but are given either without price or in appreciation of the recipient's gift for the furtherance of the work of the Witnesses. The pittance sought, as well as the practice of leaving books with poor people without cost, gives strength to this argument. In our judg ment, however, the plan of national distribution by the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, with its wholesale prices of five or twenty cents per copy for books, delivered to the public by the Witnesses at twentyfive cents per copy, justifies the characterization of the transaction as a sale by all the state courts. The evidence is, conclusive that the Witnesses normally approach a prospect with an offer of a book for twenty-five cents. Sometimes, apparently rarely, a book is left with a prospect without payment. The quid pro quo is demanded. If the profit was greater, twenty cents or even one dollar, no difference in principle would emerge. The Witness sells books to raise money for propagandizing his faith, just as other religious groups might sponsor bazaars, or peddle tickets to church suppers, or sell Bibles or prayer books for the same object. However high the purpose or noble the aims of the Witness, the transaction has been found by the state courts to be a sale under their ordinances and, though our doubt

was greater than it is, the state's conclusion would influence us to follow its determination.2

[120] In the opinion in Jones v. Opelika, 316 U. S. 584, on the former hearing, attention was called to the differentiation between these cases of taxation and those of forbidden censorship, prohibition or discrimination. There is no occasion to repeat what has been written so recently as to the constitutional right to tax the money raising activities of religious or didactic groups. There are, however, other reasons, not fully developed in that opinion, that add to our conviction that the Constitution does not prohibit these general occupational taxes. The real contention of the Witnesses is that there can be no taxation of the occupation of selling books and pamphlets because to do so would be contrary to the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which now is held to have drawn the contents of the First Amendment into the category of individual rights protected [121] from state deprivation. Gitlow v. New York, 268 U. S. 652, 666; Near v. Minnesota, 283 U. S. 697, 707; Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 303. Since the publications teach a religion which conforms to our standards of legality, it is urged that these ordinances prohibit the free exercise of religion and abridge the freedom of speech and of the press.

The First Amendment reads as follows:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

It was one of twelve proposed on September 25, 1789, to the States by the First Congress after the adoption of the Constitution. Ten were ratified. They were intended to be and have become our Bill of Rights. By their terms, our people have a guarantee that so long as law as we know it shall prevail, they shall live protected from the tyranny of the despot or the mob. None of the provisions of our Constitution is more venerated by the people or respected by legislatures and the courts than those which proclaim for our country the freedom of religion and expression. While the interpreters of the Constitution find the purpose was to allow the widest practical scope

The Court in the Murdock case analyzes the contention that the sales technique partakes of commercialism and says: "It is a distortion of the facts of record to describe their activities as the occupation of selling books and pamphlets. And the Pennsylvania court did not rest the judgments of conviction on that basis, though it did find that petitioners 'sold' the literature." The state court, in its opinion, 149 Pa. Super. Ct. 175, 27 A. 2d 666, 667, stated the applicable ordinance as forbidding sales of merchandise by canvassing without a license, and said that the evidence established its violation by selling "two books entitled 'Salvation' and 'Creation' respectively, and certain leaflets or pamphlets, all published by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Brooklyn, N. Y., for which the Society fixed twenty-five cents each as the price of the books and five cents each as the price of the leaflets. Defendants paid twenty cents each for the books, unless they devoted their whole time to the work, in which case they paid five cents each for the books they sold at twenty-five cents. Some of the witnesses spoke of 'contributions' but the evidence justified a finding that they sold the books and pamphlets."

The state court then repeated with approval from one of its former decisions the statements: "The constitutional right of freedom of worship does not guarantee anybody the right to sell anything from house to house or in buildings, belonging to, or in the occupancy of, other persons." 66 we do not accede to his contention on the oral argument that the federal decisions relied upon by him go so far as to rule that the constitutional guaranty of a free press forbids dealers in books and printed matter being subjected to our State mercantile license tax or the federal income tax as to such sales, along with dealers in other merchandise." Pittsburgh v. Ruffner, 134 Pa. Super. Ct. 192, 199, 202, 4 A. 2d 224. And after further discussion of selling, the conviction of the Witnesses was affirmed. It can hardly be said, we think, that the state court did not treat the Jeannette canvassers as engaged in a commercial activity or occupation at the time of their arrests.