scholar Lester E. Mosher, Rutledge "may be classed as a 'natural law realist' who combined the humanitarianism of Thomas Jefferson with the pragmatism of John Dewey—he employed the tenets of pragmatism as a juristic tool or technique in applying 'natural law' concepts". His views particularly overlapped with those of Murphy, with whom he agreed in nearly seventy-five percent of the Court's non-unanimous cases. The Supreme Court at large did not often embrace Rutledge's views during his lifetime, but during the era of the Warren Court they gained considerable acceptance. First Amendment Rutledge's appointment had an immediate effect on a Court that was decidedly split on questions involving the freedoms protected by the First Amendment. For instance, in Jones v. City of Opelika, a 1942 case decided before Rutledge's ascension to the Court, a 5–4 majority had upheld the convictions of Jehovah's Witnesses for selling religious literature without obtaining a license and paying a tax. Rutledge's arrival the subsequent year gave that case's erstwhile dissenters a majority; in Murdock v. Pennsylvania, they overruled Jones and struck down the tax as unconstitutional. Rutledge also joined the majority in another precedent-altering case involving Jehovah's Witnesses and the First Amendment: West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette. In that landmark decision, the Court reversed its previous holding in Minersville School District v. Gobitis, ruling instead that the First Amendment forbade public schools from requiring students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Writing for a 6–3 majority that included Rutledge, Justice Jackson wrote that: "[i]f 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 or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein". According to the jurist and scholar John M. Ferren, Rutledge, by his vote in Barnette, "established himself early as a concerned protector of religious freedom". Among Rutledge's most influential free-speech opinions was in the 1945 case of Thomas v. Collins. Writing for a 5–4 majority, he ruled unconstitutional a Texas statute that required union organizers to register and obtain a license before they could solicit individuals to join labor unions. The case arose when R. J. Thomas, an official of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, gave a pro-union address in Texas without having registered; he argued that the law was an unconstitutional prior restraint on