Free Speech: At What Price?

It is now 30 years since Mr. Felix Frankfurter, then law teacher, called upon the political scientists for help. I propose to consider in what manner we might respond to his appeal. In a review of the first book by one of our now distinguished colleagues, Mr. Frankfurter urged political scientists and economists to quit trying to be lawyers and to act more like specialists in the study of human relationships. “What we have a right to expect from economists and political scientists,” he said, “is an analysis of what true governmental problems are, in the light of what actually goes on in the world and wholly apart from the technicalities of American constitutional law …. Until the economists and political scientists attend to their special tasks and we lawyers to ours and each has awareness of the other's problems, we shall continue to have … crosssterilization of the social disciplines.”