Draft:Elwin Lawrence Page

Edwin Lawrence Page (1876 – January 12, 1974)^[1] was New Hampshire attorney and historian who served as a justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court from 1934 to 1946.

Born in Concord, New Hampshire, Page received his undergraduate degree from Williams College in 1900, followed by a law degree from Harvard Law School in 1902.^[1]

[more in obit]

The only competition for acceptance in that market of opinion to be found in this record is this: The defendant admittedly called the Marshal a damned racketeer and Fascist, in exchange, as the defendant says, for the Marshal's calling him a damned bastard. . . . Such face-to-face reviling is not remotely necessary in the debate of public questions. It is not argument. It has no persuasive power. Its only power is to inflame, to endanger that calm and useful consideration of public problems which is the protection of free government. Its tendency is to useless and dangerous disorder in which the object of free speech is lost to view.^[2]

References

^ ^a ^b "Former Justice Elwin Page Is Dead", Concord Monitor (January 14, 1974), p. 1
^ Richard A. Parker, Free Speech On Trial: Communication Perspectives on Landmark Supreme Court Decisions (2003), p. 86.