[4] In 1927, Jay M. Near, who has been described as "anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic, anti-black, and anti-labor"[5] began publishing The Saturday Press in Minneapolis with Howard A. Guilford, a former mayoral candidate who had been convicted of criminal libel.

At least one of the stories printed in The Saturday Press led to a successful prosecution of a gangster called Big Mose Barnett who had tried to extort protection money from a local dry cleaner by destroying his customers' clothing.

[6] Also known as the "Minnesota Gag Law", it provided permanent injunctions against those who created a "public nuisance," by publishing, selling, or distributing a "malicious, scandalous and defamatory newspaper."

Olson claimed that the allegations raised against him and the other named public officials in all nine issues published between September 24, 1927, and November 19, 1927, as well as the paper's overall anti-Semitic tone, constituted a violation of this law.

On November 22, 1927, Judge Matthias Baldwing of the Hennepin County District Court issued a temporary injunction that barred the defendants from editing, publishing, or circulating The Saturday Press or any other publication containing similar material.

The State Supreme Court wrote that a scandalous publication "annoys, injures and endangers the comfort and repose of a considerable number of persons," and so constituted a nuisance just as surely as "places where intoxicating liquor is illegally sold," "houses of prostitution," "dogs," "malicious fences" "itinerant carnivals," "lotteries," and "noxious weeds."

The court cited previous Minnesota decisions that upheld the right of the state to enjoin the publication of "details of execution of criminals" and the teaching of "things injurious to society."

Only the verified complaint that Olson had filed and the newspaper issues themselves were entered as evidence, and the defendants did not try to argue that the Saturday Press did not fit the definition under the statute, or that their published stories were in fact true.

The Court held: For these reasons we hold the statute, so far as it authorized the proceedings in this action under clause (b) [723] of section one, to be an infringement of the liberty of the press guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.

'When a nation is at war many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right.'

[12] No prior restraint of the content of news by the government is allowed unless it reveals crucial military information, contains obscenity, or may directly incite "acts of violence".