capitalism

Charity/Friendly Societies 57
speech, defined to be speech that proposes a commercial
transaction. Although the Constitution provides no warrant
for such discrimination, the Supreme Court has found that
commercial expression can be extensively regulated
because it is not considered part of the political or cultural
dialogue thought essential to democratic decision making.
Likewise, campaign finance regulations, although often
restricting the rights of individuals to express their political
preferences, are frequently defended on the grounds that
limiting the expressive opportunities of wealthy groups fosters
broader democratic debate.
Libel and slander laws have regularly been abused to stifle
criticism of political authorities, but in the United States
these efforts were severely curtailed by the 1964 Supreme
Court decision New York Times v. Sullivan, which held that
“public figures,” such as government officials or those who
choose to partake in matters of public concern, can only
rarely prevail in libel cases. Even publication of obviously
false and obscene material about a public figure has been
held protected by the 1st Amendment, as when pornographer
Larry Flynt successfully defended his right to publish a
counterfeit interview suggesting that minister Jerry Falwell
had lost his virginity to his mother in an outhouse. Although
public figures can virtually never succeed when suing media
for such libel in the United States, European countries, particularly
England, do not prohibit such suits. As a result,
criticism of political figures in England is still often hampered.
Worse, because publications produced in the United
States are easily available in England, public figures who
have been criticized have brought suit against American
writers in English courts and recovered, although these suits
would be constitutionally barred under American law. This
“libel tourism” has become a matter of increasing concern in
the age of the Internet.
One common source of debate over freedom of expression
in the United States involves the removal of controversial
books from public libraries and libraries in public
schools. Although not strictly a form of censorship—
because the publications remain legal and available elsewhere—such
attempts to prevent reading are common and
are monitored by the American Library Association’s Office
of Intellectual Freedom. The U.S. Supreme Court has never
ruled that such removals are prohibited by the 1st
Amendment, but in Board of Education v. Pico, a plurality
of justices held that while school boards have broad discretion
to choose what books are appropriate for curriculum or
classroom use, and to choose what books may be placed in
a library, they may not remove books that are already in the
library on the basis of the ideas contained in those books or
in an attempt to prescribe orthodox opinions.
See also Education; Freedom of Speech; Freedom of Thought;
Milton, John; Pornography; Separation of Church and State
TMS
Further Readings
Beauchamp, Raymond W. “England’s Chilling Forecast: The Case
for Granting Declaratory Relief to Prevent English Defamation
Actions from Chilling American Speech.” Fordham Law Review
74 (2006): 3073–3145.
Bernstein, David E. You Can’t Say That!: The Growing Threat to
Civil Liberties from Antidiscrimination Laws. Washington, DC:
Cato Institute, 2003.
Board of Educ., Island Trees Union Free School Dist. No. 26 v. Pico,
457 U.S. 853 (1982).
A Book Named “John Cleland’s Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure”
v. Attorney General of Massachusetts, 383 U.S. 413 (1966).
Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46 (1988).
Klosko, George. The Development of Plato’s Political Theory. New
York: Methuen, 1986.
Manguel, Alberto. A History of Reading. New York: Penguin, 1996.
Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973).
Nelson, Harold L. “Seditious Libel in Colonial America.” American
Journal of Legal History 3 (1959): 160–172.
New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971).
CHARITY/FRIENDLY SOCIETIES
During the 19th and early 20th centuries, ordinary
Americans erected formidable networks of individual and
collective self-help for protection. These social welfare systems
fell into two broad categories: hierarchical relief and
reciprocal relief. Hierarchical relief was characterized by
large, bureaucratic, and formalized institutions supported
by donors who usually came from significantly different
geographical, ethnic, and income backgrounds than did the
recipients. Reciprocal relief tended to be decentralized,
spontaneous, and informal. The donors and recipients were
likely to be from the same, or closely related, walks of life,
and today’s recipient could well be tomorrow’s donor.
Hierarchical relief appeared in such guises as taxfunded
almshouses, usually at the county level, and organized
private charities. Because Americans of all classes
and ethnic groups attached great stigma to dependence on
this form of relief, however, few applied for it. In 1880, for
example, 1 in 758 Americans was in an almshouse, and by
1903, this number had been reduced to 1 in 920. This pattern
of reduced dependence was not limited to almshouses.
According to the U.S. Census, in 1904, 1 in 150 Americans
(excluding prisoners) resided in public and private institutions,
including hospitals, orphanages, and insane asylums.
The numbers of Americans dependent on other forms of
government relief also were small. As late as 1931, about
93,000 families received mothers’ pensions, the statefunded
antecedent to Aid to Dependent Children.
Reciprocal relief was far more prevalent than either
governmental or private hierarchical relief. In the United
States, it found its most visible expression in the numerous