What Up Holmes?

This is a real good story about Drew, a real United Airlines customer. After almost four years of treatments, I was finally cancer free. My mom's like, where do you wanna go to celebrate? I'm like, let's go somewhere tropical. And then pilot hopped on the intercom and started talking about me, and I was like, what is going on here? My wife beat cancer too, and I wanted to celebrate his special moment. That's Bill, a real United pilot. We brought him drinks and donuts. We all signed a card. I was smiling ear to ear. Best flight ever for sure. That's how good leads the way. Yeah. Wait. Wait. You're look Okay. Alright. Okay. Alright. You're listening Listening. To RadioLab. RadioLab. From WNYC. WNYC. Thank you. Talking about how the idea of free speech in this country is playing out and often not playing out online right now. But these questions of free speech in The United States go back literally to the beginning. It's the first amendment, for crying out loud. And as we argue over what people should be seeing on these apps, on social media apps. It took me back to a story we did a couple years ago that feels like it gets to the origin of the modern notion of free speech. In particular, the idea that there should be an open marketplace of ideas. Right? That's the reason any of these social media platforms are allowed to be as wild as they are because they are theoretically open marketplaces of ideas. And as I told our then host, Jad Abumrad, surprisingly, that whole idea of the marketplace of ideas came from one moment and even more surprisingly from one guy. Oliver Wendell Holmes. Magnificent is the word for Oliver Wendell Holmes. Regarded today as the greatest Supreme Court justice in our history. That story was told to me by this guy, Thomas Healy. Professor of law at Seton Hall University School of Law. Who wrote a book about Oliver Wendell Holmes. He essentially laid the groundwork for our modern understanding of free speech. And, you know, Holmes, he's from this wealthy Boston family, fought in the civil war on the union side. And by the time he's sitting on the supreme court, he's in his seventies and sort of an imposing figure. Piercing blue eyes. He had this sort of shock of very thick white hair on his head. Mustache. Right? He has a great mustache. Yes. Great mustache. That expanded out past the edges of his face. But the most important thing to know about Oliver Wendell Holmes is that he was stridently anti free speech as we know it today until he changed his mind. And it happened, that switch happened at a very particular moment in his life. So 1917, World War one is happening. And in Washington, the draft is invoked. President Wilson draws the first number. And Congress was worried that if people criticize the draft, then …