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"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion. . . .

"Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard."

In these ringing polysyllables, the U.S. Supreme Court this week reaffirmed its faith in the Bill of Rights--which, in 1940, it had come perilously close to outlawing. In a 6-to-3 decision, the Court reversed its 1940 stand and now declared that West Virginia could not constitutionally force the children of Jehovah's Witnesses to salute the flag if their religious scruples forbade it.

For Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone, lone dissenter in 1940's 8-to-1 decision, the reversal was a vindication and a triumph. Justices Black, Douglas and Murphy, who had gone the other way in 1940, conceded now that the case had been "wrongly decided." They were joined by new Justices Jackson and Rutledge. Still unconverted were Justices Frankfurter (who wrote the 1940 decision), Roberts and Reed.

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