A Machine That Would Go of Itself: The Constitution in American Culture

Those of us who revere the Constitution and particularly the Bill of Rights realize how subversive a document it can be. We all pay it lip service but many really don't understand what it means, or perhaps understand only too well. Michael Kammen in A Machine That Would Go Of Itself describes how Louis D. Oaks, the Los Angeles Chief of Police, had Upton Sinclair arrested in 1923 for reading the first three amendments to the Constitution in public. He was "kidnapped" by the police, moved to different station houses to confuse his lawyers, and held incommunicado. Re was charged with "discussing, arguing, orating, and debating certain thoughts and theories, which thoughts and theories were contemptuous of the constitution of the state of show more California, calculated to cause hatred and contempt of the government of the United States of America." ! One suspects Chief Oakes was not fluent in the meaning of the Constitution when he took his oath.
Sinclair was released only because a subordinate of the Chief secretly phoned an associate of Sinclair's so his lawyers could prepare a writ to get him out. Sinclair continued his meetings and helped found the Southern California branch of the American Civil Liberties Union. Chief Oakes was fired about a month later after being discovered in his car at night with a woman and a jug of whiskey. show less