ABSTRACT
"Gravity of the evil," a phrase adopted as a test in free speech cases in Dennis v. United States, was the US Supreme Court's attempt to reconcile the clear-and-present-danger test then in use with the anti-Communist mood of the country during the early 1950s McCarthy era, when Senator Joseph McCarthy launched his notorious investigations of alleged Communists in government. The Court-created tests were used to determine when government could permissibly regulate speech and not be in violation of the First Amendment to the US Constitution. Under the clear-and-present-danger test, the Court would permit suppression of speech only when the danger was both serious and immediate. If the Court applied the clear-and-present-danger test strictly, it would have to strike down the Smith Act as applied, because the threat posed by the defendants, if "clear," was not "present."
