1. As respects the amount in controversy, the District Court has jurisdiction of a suit where the requisite value is involved as to each of several plaintiffs though
not involved as to others. P. 241 . 2. A motion to dismiss the whole case because the amount in controversy as to some of the plaintiffs is too small should be
overruled. Id. 3. There is equitable jurisdiction to enjoin collection of an allegedly unconstitutional state tax where the taxpayer, if he pays, is afforded no clear
remedy of restitution. P. 242 . 4. Liberty of the press is a fundamental right protected against state aggression by the due process clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment. P. 242 . 5. The fact that, as regards the Federal Government, the protection of this right is not left to the due process clause of the Fifth
Amendment, but is guaranteed in specie by the First Amendment, is not a sufficient reason for excluding it from the due process clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment. P. 243 . 6. A corporation is a "person" within the meaning of the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. P. 244 .
7. A State license tax (La.Act No. 23, July 12, 1934) imposed on the owners of newspapers for the privilege of selling or charging for the advertising therein,
and measured by a percent. of the gross receipts from such advertisements, but applicable only to newspapers enjoying a circulation of more than 20,000 copies
per week, held unconstitutional. P. 244 . 8. From the history of the subject, it is plain that the English rule restricting freedom of the press to immunity from
censorship before publication was not accepted by the American colonists, and that the First Amendment was aimed at any form of previous restraint upon
printed publications or their circulation, including restraint by taxation of newspapers and their advertising, which were well known and odious methods still used
in England when the First Amendment was adopted. P. 245 . [p*234] 9. The predominant purpose of the grant of immunity was to preserve an untrammeled
press as a vital source of public information. P. 250 . 10. Construction of a constitutional provision phrased in terms of the common law is not determined by
rules of the common law which had been rejected in this country as unsuited to local civil or political conditions. P. 248 . It is not intended in this case to suggest
that the owners of newspapers are immune from any of the ordinary forms of taxation for support of Government. The tax in question is not an ordinary form of
tax, but one single in kind, with a long history of hostile misuse against the freedom of the press. The manner of its use in this case is, in itself, suspicious; it is not
measured or limited by the volume of advertisements, but by the extent of the circulation of the publication in which the advertisements are carried, with the plain
purpose of penalizing the publishers and curtailing the circulation of a selected group of newspapers. 10 F.Supp. 161, affirmed.
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