The opinion
Fuld, J.
(dissenting). It may lend perspective to recall that we are here concerned with a motion picture that has passed the rigid scrutiny of a numerous array of critics of undenied religiousness. There is, of course, no suggestion that “ The Miracle ” is a product of heathen hands. The story was written by a Boman Catholic and the picture produced, directed and acted solely by Boman Catholics. It was filmed in Italy, and first exhibited in Borne, where religious censorship exists. There, the Vatican Newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, in reviewing it, alluded to the story and weighed the artistry of the production without condemning the moving picture or even intimating that there was any impropriety in its being viewed by Catholics. (See The Commonweal, March 23, 1951, p. 592.) And thereafter the film passed the United States Customs with no objection registered against it.
In 1949 and again in 1950, successive directors of the motion picture division of the State Education Department licensed the film for state-wide exhibition. It won the approval of the National Board of Beview of Motion Pictures. It drew general acclaim from the press and was designated, as part of a trilogy, the best foreign language film of 1950 by the New York Film Critics, an association of critics of the major metropolitan newspapers. Finally, one important Boman Catholic publication, after deploring ‘1 these highly arbitrary invocations of a police censorship [that] must ultimately result * * * in great harm to the cause of religion as well as art,” noted that the film ‘1 is not obviously blasphemous or obscene, either in its intention or execution ” (Clancy, The Catholic as Philistine, The Commonweal, March 16, 1951, pp. 567-568; also, March 2, 1951, pp. 507-508, and March 23, 1951, pp. 590-592), and all Protestant clergymen who expressed themselves publicly — and they constituted a large number representing various sects — found nothing in the film either irreverent or irreligious.
*265 However, as Judge Froessel reminds us, the contrary opinion also found strong voice, eventually reaching the ears of the board of regents. After viewing the film, that body revoked and rescinded the license — some two years after it had been initially granted — invoking as authority therefor section 122 of the Education Law. That statute provides that the motion picture division shall license each moving picture submitted to it unless it is “ obscene, indecent, immoral, inhuman, sacrilegious, or is of such character that its exhibition would tend to corrupt morals or incite to crime ”. The board of regents decided that the film is “ sacrilegious,” and its decision was confirmed by the Appellate Division.
Laying to one side for the moment the question as to the constitutionality of a statute which sanctions the banning of a moving picture on the ground that it is ‘‘ sacrilegious,” I am of opinion that the regents’ action was without legislative warrant.
The controlling statute, the Education Law, is significant both for what it says and for what it leaves unsaid. In section 124, entitled “ Review by regents ”, the legislature expressly gave the regents power to review a determination of the motion picture division denying a license — but it conferred no similar power to review the division’s granting of a license. By settled rules of construction, that deliberate omission by the legislature clearly indicates that no such authority was intended. (See, e.g., 2 Sutherland, Statutory Construction [3d ed., 1943], §§ 4915-4917.) And the more one searches the statute, the more clearly does that appear. For example, the statute expressly authorizes the regents to revoke a permit issued for the exhibition of a scientific or educational film (§ 125) and to revoke a motion picture license if it was obtained on a false application or if the licensee tampered with the film or if there is a “ conviction for a crime committed by the [film’s] exhibition or unlawful possession ” (§ 128). But nowhere in the statute is there to be found any general grant of power to the regents to revoke a previously issued license. This omission is also to be contrasted with the further and explicit grant of such a power of revocation by the same Education Law as regards many other types of licenses issued by the Education Department, (See, e.g., § 6514 [as to doctors]; § 6613 [as to *266 dentists]; § 6712 [as to veterinarians]; § 6804 [as to pharmacists] ; § 7108 [as to optometrists]; § 7210 [as to engineers]; § 7308 [as to architects]; § 7406 [as to certified public accountants] ; § 7503 [as to shorthand reporters].) Clearly, the legislature knew how to bestow the power of revocation when that was its purpose.
Even more recent evidence of the legislature’s design is at hand. In 1950, the legislature amended the Penal Law to prohibit prosecution, on the ground of obscenity, of a film licensed under the Education Law (L. 1950, ch. 624, amdg. Penal Law, § 1141). That enactment was inspired by Hughes Tool Co. v. Fielding ( 297 N. Y. 1024 , affg. 272 App. Div. 1048 , affg. 188 Misc. 947 ). It had there been held that such a criminal prosecution was permissible because the Education Law neither provided for nor allowed any direct review, by the regents or the courts, of a decision of the motion picture division issuing a license. If the legislature had disagreed with that interpretation of the Education Law— clearly indicated at Special Term ( 188 Misc., at p. 952 ) —it would undoubtedly have amended the Education Law, not the Penal Law. By depriving the state of the power to prosecute the exhibition of a moving picture once it receives a license, the legislature affirmed, as clearly as it could, that the granting of a license is an act of such implacable finality that it may not be challenged collaterally in a criminal prosecution any more than directly in a civil proceeding.
The legislative scheme so clearly expressed, the board of regents may neither rely upon its status as head of the Education Department to reverse decisions of a subordinate which are not the result of illegality, fraud or vital irregularity (see, e.g., Butterworth v. Hoe, 112 U. S. 50, 56, 64 ; cf. People ex rel. Finnegan v. McBride, 226 N. Y. 252, 257 ; People ex rel. Chase v. Wemple, 144 N. Y. 478, 482 ; Matter of D & D Realty Corp. v. Coster, 277 App. Div. 668 ) 1 nor draw from section 132 of the Education Law — which in over-all manner gives the board “ authority to enforce the provisions and purposes of part two *267 of this article” — an assumption of authority to “review” and “ revoke ” the grant of a license hy the motion picture division. All that section 132 was designed to do, and all that it does, is to authorize enforcement. To construe its general language as authorizing review of the granting of a license is to stretch language beyond all permissible limits and to render superfluous and meaningless the very explicit language of section 124 permitting such review only where a license has been denied.
“ A statute must be read and given effect as it is written by the Legislature, not as the court may think it should or would have been written if the Legislature had envisaged all the problems and complications which might arise in the course of its administration. A power not expressly granted by statute is implied only where it is 1 so essential to the exercise of some power expressly conferred as plainly to appear to have been within the intention of the legislature. The implied power must be necessary, not merely convenient, and the intention of the legislature must be free from doubt.’ (Peo. ex rel. City of Olean v. W. N. Y. & P. T. Co., 214 N. Y. 526, 529 .) ” (Lawrence Constr. Corp. v. State of New York, 293 N. Y. 634, 639 .)
So, here, the regents’ contention that they must have power to review and revoke in order to guard against error by the motion picture division in granting licenses, is not persuasive. The fact is that, in the twenty-five years during which the motion picture division has been in the Department of Education, the regents have never before reviewed the grant of a license or even suggested the existence of such a power. Limited as we are to a determination of what the legislature has done, the argument, of alleged necessity has no weight in the face of this long-continued practical construction. For this court now to read into the statute a provision which that body chose not to write into it would constitute an uncalled-for intrusion into the sphere of the legislature. “Freedom to construe is not freedom to amend.” (Sexauer & Lemke v. Burke & Sons Co., 228 N. Y. 341, 345 ; see, also, Matter of O'Brien v. Tremaine, 285 N. Y. 233, 238 .)
Even if I were to assume, however, that the statute does confer a power to review and revoke, I would still conclude for reversal. In my view, that portion of the statute here involved must fall *268 before the constitutional guarantee that there be freedom of speech and press. The consistent course of decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in recent years persuades me that the early decision of Mutual Film Corp. v. Industrial Comm. of Ohio ( 236 U. S. 230 ) — urged as establishing that motion pictures are beyond the First Amendment’s coverage — no longer has the force or authority claimed for it.
We are confronted in this case with censorship in its baldest form — a licensing system requiring permission in advance for the exercise of the right to disseminate ideas via motion pictures, and committing to the licensor a broad discretion to decide whether that right may be exercised. Insofar as the statute permits the state to censor a moving picture labelled “ sacrilegious,” it offends against the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the Federal Constitution, since it imposes a prior restraint — and, at that, a prior restraint of broad and undefined limits — on freedom of discussion of religious matters. And, beyond that, it may well be that it constitutes an attempt to legislate orthodoxy in matters of religious belief, contrary to the constitutional prohibition against laws “ respecting an establishment of religion ”. (Cf. Everson v. Board of Educ., 330 U. S. 1, 15 ; Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Educ., 333 U. S. 203, 210 .)
The freedoms of the First Amendment are not, I appreciate, absolutes, but insofar as they are qualified, the qualification springs from the necessity of accommodating them to some equally pressing public need. Thus, some limited measure of restraint upon freedom of expression may be justified where the forum is the public street or the public square, where the audience may be a “ captive ” one, and where breaches of the peace may be imminent as the result of the use, or rather the abuse, of fighting words. (Cf. Dennis v. United States, 341 U. S. 494 , 503 et seq.; Feiner v. New York, 340 U. S. 315, 319 ; Niemotko v. Maryland, 340 U. S. 268 ; Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U. S. 1 ; Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568, 571-572 ; Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 308 ; Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147, 160 .) Here, there is no “ captive ” audience; only those see the picture who wish to do so, and, then, only if they are willing to pay the price of admis *269 sion to the theatre. Moreover, if subject matter furnishes any criterion for the exercise of a restraint, I know of no subject less proper for censorship by the state than the one here involved.
The Supreme Court has “ consistently condemned licensing systems which vest in an administrative official discretion to grant or withhold a permit upon broad criteria unrelated to proper regulation of public places.” (Kunz v. New York, 340 U. S. 290, 294 ; see, also, Niemotko v. Maryland, supra, 340 U. S. 268 ; Saia v. New York, 334 U. S. 558 ; Cantwell v. Connecticut, supra, 310 U. S. 296 ; Hague v. C.I.O., 307 U. S. 496 ; Lovell v. City of Griffin, 303 U. S. 444 .) " The State cannot of course forbid public proselyting or religious argument merely because public officials disapprove the speaker’s views. It must act in patent good faith to maintain the public peace, to assure the availability of the streets for their primary purposes of passenger and vehicular traffic, or for equally indispensable ends of modern community life.” (See Niemotko v. Maryland, supra, 340 U. S. 268, 282 , per Frankfurter, J., concurring.)
Invasion of the right of free expression must, in short, find justification in some overriding public interest, and the restricting statute must be narrowly drawn to meet an evil which the state has a substantial interest in correcting. (See Feiner v. New York, supra, 340 U. S. 315, 319 ; Niemotko v. Maryland, supra, 340 U. S. 268 ; Winters v. New York, 333 U. S. 507, 509 ; Cantwell v. Connecticut, supra, 310 U. S. 296, 307-308 ; Thornhill v. Alahama, 310 U. S. 88, 97-98, 105 .) The statute before us is not one narrowly drawn to meet such a need as that of preserving the public peace or regulating public places. On the contrary, it imposes a general and pervasive restraint on freedom of discussion of religious themes in moving pictures, which cannot be justified on the basis of any substantial interest of the state. (Cf. Kunz v. New York, supra, 340 U. S. 290 ; Dennis v. United States, supra, 341 U. S. 494, 508-509 .)
Over a century ago, the Supreme Court declared that 11 Ths law knows no heresy, and is committed to the support of no dogma ”. (Watson v. Jones, 13 Wall. [U. S.] 679, 728.) Just as clearly, it is beyond the competency of government to prescribe norms of religious conduct and belief. That follows inevitably from adherence to the principles of the First Amend *270 ment. “In the realm of religious faith, and in that of political belief,” it has been said (Cantwell v. Connecticut, supra, 310 U. S. 296, 310 ), “ sharp differences arise. In both fields the tenets of one man may seem the rankest error to his neighbor. To persuade others to his own point of view, the pleader, as we know, at times, resorts to exaggeration, to vilification of men who have been, or are, prominent in church or state, and even to false statement. But the people of this nation have ordained in the light of history, that, in spite of the probability of excesses and abuses, these liberties are, in the long view, essential to enlightened opinion and right conduct on the part of the citizens of a democracy. ’ ’
The inherent indefinability, in its present context, of the term “ sacrilege ” is apparent upon the merest inquiry. At what point, it may be asked, does a search for the eternal verities, a questioning of particular religious dogma, take on the aspect of “ sacrilege ”? At what point does expression or portrayal of a doubt of some religious tenet become “ sacrilegious ”? Not even authorities or students in the field of religion will have a definitive answer, and certainly not the same answer. There are more than two hundred and fifty different religious sects in this country, with varying religious beliefs, dogmas and principles. (See Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Educ., supra, 333 U. S. 203, 227 .) With this great contrariety of religious views, it has been aptly observed that one man’s heresy is another’s orthodoxy, one’s “ sacrilege,” another’s consecrated belief. How and where draw the line between permissible theological disputation and “ sacrilege ”? What is orthodox, what sacrilegious? Whose orthodoxy, to whom sacrilegious? In the very nature of things, what is “ sacrilegious ” will of necessity differ with the philosophy, the training, the education and the background of the particular censor of the moment; the determination whether a film is “ sacrilegious ” or not, must necessarily rest in the undiscoverable recesses of the official’s mind.
Any possible doubt that the term is essentially vague is dispelled by a reference to the variant and inconsistent definitions ascribed to it by the board of regents and by the Appellate Division and Judge Froessel. ’
*271 Thus, the regents, frowning upon the dictionary definition as “ technical ”, 2 nevertheless assure us that “ everyone knows what is meant by this term ’ ’ and, by way of demonstrating that fact, proceed to define the word as describing a film which “affronts a large segment of the population”; offends the sensibilities by ridiculing and burlesquing anything1 ‘ held sacred by the adherents of a particular religious faith ”; is “ offensive to the religious sensibilities of any element of society.” (Italics supplied.) Indeed, any semblance of either general meaning or specific content is, I suggest, abandoned by the regents themselves when they assert that, since “ anything is only sacrilegious to those persons who hold the concept sacred ”, the opinions of nonbelievers are “ worthless.” By such reasoning, the adherents of a particular dogma become the only judges as to whether that dogma has been offended! And, if that is so, it is impossible to fathom how any governmental agency such as the board of regents, composed as it is of laymen of different faiths, could possibly discharge the function of determining whether a particular film is “ sacrilegious.”
Judge Froessel and the Appellate Division state that the statutory proscription against the “ sacrilegious ” is intended to bar any “ visual caricature of religious beliefs held sacred by one sect or another ” (opinion of Froessel, J., p. 258, italics supplied). Though Judge Froessel also defines “ sacrilegious ” in terms of 11 attacking ” or “insulting ” religious beliefs or treating them with “ contempt, mockery, scorn and ridicule ” — all words of ephemeral and indefinite content — the basic criterion appears to be whether the film treats a religious theme in such a manner as to offend the religious beliefs of any group of persons. If the film does have that effect, and it is “ offered as a form of entertainment,” it apparently falls within the statutory ban regardless of the sincerity and good faith of the producer of the film, no matter how temperate the treatment of the theme, and no matter how unlikely a public disturbance or breach of the peace.
*272 The drastic nature of such a ban is highlighted by the fact that the film in question makes no direct attack on, or criticism of, any religious dogma or principle, and it is not claimed to be obscene, scurrilous, intemperate or abusive. Nor is there any evidence of any malicious purpose or intention on the part of the producers of the film to revile or even attack Catholic doctrine or dogma, and no suggestion of any reasonable likelihood of a breach of the peace resulting from the film’s exhibition. 3 So broad, indeed, is the suggested criterion of “ sacrilege ” that it might be applied to any fair and temperate treatment of a psychological, ethical, moral or social theme with religious overtones which some group or other might find offensive to its “ religious beliefs.”
It is claimed that “ the courts have had no problem either with the word ‘ sacrilegious ’ or with its synonym, ‘ profane ’ ” (opinion of Froessel, J., supra, p. 255). The cases to which reference is made, however, involved neither the £ ‘ profane ’ ’ in religion nor the £ ‘ sacrilegious, ’ ’ and the simple fact is that the Supreme Court has never had occasion to pass upon either the one term or the other. The context in which the word <£ profane ” appears in the cases cited (Winters v. New York, supra, 333 U. S. 507, 510 ; Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, supra, 315 U. S. 568, 572 ), as well as the authorities there relied upon (Cantwell v. Connecticut, supra, 310 U. S. 296, 309-310 ; Chafee, Free Speech in the United States [1941], pp. 149-150), make it evident that the term was used, not as a synonym for £ 1 sacrilegious,” but as a substitute for ££ epithets or personal abuse ”, for swear words and for the other ‘ ‘ insulting or ‘ fighting ’ words ”, which “ by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace ” and ££ are no essential part of any exposition of ideas ”. (Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, supra, 315 U. S. 568, 572 ; see, also, Cantwell v. Connecticut, supra, 310 U. S. 296, 310 ; Chafee, op. cit., p. 150.) In short, the cases cited have nothing whatsoever to do with the *273 “ profane ” in religion, and the judges who sat in them were not called upon to give the slightest thought or consideration to the subject with which we are now concerned.
The shortcomings of ambiguous epithets as rigid boundaries for free expression are great enough in temporal and political matters (cf., e.g., Winters v. New York, supra, 333 U. S. 507 ; Dennis v. United States, supra, 341 U. S. 494 ; Jordan v. De George, 341 U. S. 223 ; Musser v. Utah, 333 U. S. 95 ), but they are all the greater when the epithets trench upon areas of religious belief. (See, e.g., Kunz v. New York, supra, 340 U. S. 290 ; Saia v. New York, supra, 334 U. S. 558, 561 ; Cantwell v. Connecticut, supra, 310 U. S. 296 .) Indeed, the Supreme Court has gone so far as to hold that the First Amendment’s guarantee forbids prior restraint of public discussion that even “ ridicules ” or “ denounces ” any form of religious belief. (See Kunz v. New York, supra, 340 U. S. 290 , and see, particularly, concurring opinion of Frankfurter, J., reported in 340 U. S., at pp. 285-286.) In a free society u all sects and factions, as the price of their own freedom to preach their views, must suffer that freedom in others.” (Kunz v. New York, supra, 340 U. S., at p. 301, per Jackson, J., dissenting; see, also, Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105, 116 .)
Were we dealing with speeches, with handbills, with newspapers or with books, there could be no doubt as to the unconstitutionality of that portion of the statute here under consideration. The constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression, however, is neither limited to the oral word uttered in the street or the public hall nor restricted to the written phrase printed in newspaper or book. It protects the transmission of ideas and beliefs, whether popular or not, whether orthodox or not. A belief does not lose its character as a belief, an idea does not become less of an idea, because, instead of being expressed by the air-borne voice, the printed word or the ‘ ‘ still ’ ’ picture, it is put forward by a ‘ ‘ moving ’ ’ picture. The First Amendment does not ask whether the medium is visual, acoustic, electronic or some yet unheard-of device. It has readily accommodated itself to other products of inventive genius, to other advances in technology, such as the radio and television. If (l The Constitution deals with substance, not shadows ”, if “ Its inhibition was levelled at the thing, not the name ” (Cum *274 mings v. State of Missouri, 4 Wall. [U. S.] 277, 325), then, surely, its meaning and vitality are not to be conditioned upon the mechanism involved. Of course, it may well be that differences in media will give rise to different problems of accommodation of conflicting interests. (See Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U. S. 77, 96 , per Frankfurter, J., concurring.) But any such accommodation must necessarily be made in the light of fundamental constitutional safeguards. 4
One reason for denying free expression to motion pictures, we are told, is that the movies are commercial. But newspapers, magazines and books are likewise commercially motivated, and that has never been an obstacle to their full protection under the First Amendment. (See, e.g., Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297 U. S. 233 .) Again, it is said, the fact that the moving picture conveys its thought or message in dramatic episodes or by means of a story or in a form that is entertaining, makes the difference. But neither novels, magazines nor comic books are made censorable because they are designed for entertainment or amusement. (See, e.g., Winters v. New York, supra, 333 U. S. 507, 510 ; Hannegan v. Esquire, Inc., 327 U. S. 146, 153 .) The Supreme Court made that plain in the Winters case, when it declared: “ We do not accede to appellee’s suggestion that the constitutional protection for a free press applies only to the exposition of ideas. The line between the informing and the entertaining is too elusive for the protection of that basic right. Everyone is familiar with instances of propaganda through fiction. What is one man’s amusement, teaches another’s doctrine. Though we can see nothing of any possible value to society in these magazines, they are as much entitled to the protection of free speech as the best of literature.” (333 U. S., at p. 510.)
Whatever may have been true thirty-six years ago when the Mutual Film case ( 236 U. S. 230 ), was decided, there is no reason today for casting the motion picture beyond the barriers of protected expression. Learned and thoughtful *275 writers so opine (see Chafee, Free Speech in the United States [1941], pp. 544 et seq.; Ernst, The First Freedom, p. 268; Kupferman and O’Brien, Motion Picture Censorship, 36 Cornell L. Q. 273; Note, 60 Yale L. J. 696; Note, 49 Yale L. J. 87), and the Supreme Court itself has recently so declared. (See United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 334 U. S. 131, 166 ; see, also, Kovacs v. Cooper, supra, 336 U. S. 77, 102 , per Black, J., dissenting.) As Chafee put it (op. cit., p. 545), “In an age when * commerce ’ in the Constitution has been construed to include airplanes and electromagnetic waves, ‘ freedom of speech ’ in the First Amendment and ‘ liberty ’ in the Fourteenth should be similarly applied to new media for the communication of ideas and facts. Freedom of speech should not be limited to the air-borne voice, the pen, and the printing press, any more than interstate commerce is limited to stagecoaches and sailing vessels.” And, wrote the Supreme Court (United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., supra, 334 U. S. 131, 166 ), “ We have no doubt that moving pictures, like newspapers and radio, are included in the press whose freedom is guaranteed by the First Amendment.”
Every consideration points that conclusion. The Mutual Film case should be relegated to its place upon the history shelf. Rendered in a day before the guarantees of the Bill of' Rights were held to apply to the states, and when moving pictures were in their infancy, the decision was obviously a product of the view that motion pictures did not express or convey opinions or ideas. Today, so far have times and the films changed, some would deny protection for the opposite reason, that films are too effective in their presentation of ideas and points of view. The latter notion is as unsupportable as the other and antiquated view; that the moving picture is a most effective mass medium for spreading ideas is, of course, no reason for refusing it protection. If only ineffectual expression is shielded by the Constitution, free speech becomes a fanciful myth. Few would dispute the anomaly of a doctrine that protects as freedom of expression comic books that purvey stories and pictures of “ bloodshed and lust ” (see Winters v. New York, supra, 333 U. S. 507, 510 ), light and racy magazine reading (see Hannegan v. Esquire, Inc., supra, 327 U. S. 146 . 153) and *276 loudspeaker harangues (see Saia v. New York, supra, 334 U. S. 558 ), and yet denies that same protection to the moving picture.
Sincere people of unquestioned good faith may, as in this case, find a moving picture offensive to their religious sensibilities, but that cannot justify a statute which empowers licensing officials to censor the free expression of ideas or beliefs in the field of religion. ‘£ If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation,” the Supreme Court has said (West Virginia State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624, 642 ), “ it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion”.
The order of the Appellate Division should be reversed and the determination of the board of regents annulled.
Loughran, Ch. J., Lewis and Conway, JJ., concur with Froessel, J.; Desmond, J., concurs in separate opinion; Fuld, J., dissents in opinion in which Dye, J., concurs.
Order affirmed. [See 304 N. Y. 718 .]
. A typical definition of “ sacrilege ” is that found in Webster’s New International Dictionary (2d ed., 1948): “ the crime of stealing, misusing, violating or desecrating that which is sacred, or holy, or dedicated to sacred uses.” (See, also, the New Catholic Dictionary [Vatican ed., 1929].)
. One writer, associated with the University of Notre Dame, noted (Clancy, op. cit., The Commonweal, March 16, 1951, p. 567) that, while some critics have questioned its dramatic validity and others, the director’s taste in his choice of theme, “ No serious or responsible critic * * 3**6 has questioned the sincerity or honesty ” of the director’s “ intention in making the film, an intention abundantly moral * *
. Whether, for instance, the statute (Education Law, § 122) may be sustained as valid even as a censorship measure insofar as its criterion is the narrow one of “ obscenity,” is not before us and need not be considered. (Cf. Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, supra, 315 U. S. 568, 572 ; Near v. Minnesota ex rel. Olson, 283 U. S. 697 ; Ex parte Jackson, 96 U. S. 727, 736 .)