Marlyn Robinson wonders: > The line from the most famous first amendment case in history stated that a > man is not protected from "Falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a > panic". However, the reverse seems to have actually occurred and was > widely enough known that Justice Holmes' words were inspired by it. Does > anyone know of a source (or an actual event) of fire in a movie theater in > which a large number of people were killed pre-1919? I don't know if there's any connection at all, but the Iroquois Theater fire of 1903 might be relevant. There's a graphic description of the event at: http://www.inficad.com/~ksup/iroquois.html A number of commenters (including such legal scholars as Alan Dershowitz) have found Holmes' statement to be inappropriate since he was comparing the action of a false alarm that creates a threat to life and safety to the activities of pacifists who opposed American participation in World War I. Don Larsson ----------------------------------------------------------- Donald F. Larsson, English Department, AH 230 Minnesota State University Mankato, MN 56001 ---- Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu