United States Milwaukee Social Democratic Pub Co v. Burleson’s Empirical Analysis
255 U.S. 407 · 1921
Citation profile
97 federal appellate · 33 district · 24 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 277 later decisions (54 by the Supreme Court) — most recently September 2024 · most notably Furman v. Georgia (1972), Roth v. United States (1957)
97 federal appellate · 33 district · 24 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Appellate journey
reviewedUnited States ex rel. Milwaukee Social Democrat Pub. Co. v. Burleson (from District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Ex Parte: Edward T Young · Weems v. United States · William Truax v. Mike Raich · Mondou v. New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad · Schenck v. United States
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 277 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The United States may give up the Post Office when it sees fit, but while it carries it on the use of the mails is almost as much a part of free speech as the right to use our tongues....”
12 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“It is argued that, although a newspaper is barred from the second-class mail, liberty of circulation is not denied, because the first and third-class mail and also other means of transportation are left open to a publisher. Constitutional rights should not be frittered away by arguments so technical and unsubstantial. The government might, of course, decline altogether to distribute newspapers, or it might decline to carry any at less than the cost of the service, and it would not thereby abridge the freedom of the press, since to all papers other means of transportation would be left open. But to carry newspapers generally at a sixth of the cost of the service, and to deny that service to one paper of the same general character, because to the Postmaster General views thereon expressed in the past seem illegal, would prove an effective censorship and abridge seriously freedom of expression.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent“The difficulty attending the subject arises, not from the want of power in Congress to prescribe regulations as to what shall constitute mail matter, but from the necessity of enforcing them consistently with rights reserved to the people of far greater importance than the transportation of the mail.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissente.g. Williams v. Blount
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.