ABSTRACT
Some of the opposition to advertising use of the flag, although often cloaked in patriotic language, was influenced by commercial considerations. The flag protection movement was spectacularly successful in obtaining passage of state flag desecration laws. The interpretation of state laws was thereafter left largely up to state legal officials. Although the flag protection movement was spectacularly successful in obtaining passage of state flag desecration laws, a series of court decisions between 1899 and 1904 that either struck such laws down as unconstitutional or effectively emasculated them soon threatened to negate this achievement. The movement's failure to obtain a federal flag desecration law was particularly frustrating because between 1895 and 1910 its spokesmen repeatedly predicted imminent Congressional passage of such a law or; at the least, strong hopes for such. A growing emphasis on suppressing political dissent is clearly apparent in post-Halter flag desecration prosecutions, oratory, and statutory proposals approved by national legislative chambers.
