Irving Feiner, who played a significant role in the Constitutional debate over free speech when the Supreme Court upheld his conviction on charges of disorderly conduct for dangerously provoking a crowd as he spoke from a soapbox in Syracuse in 1949, died on Jan. 23 in Valhalla, N.Y. He was 84.

The cause was a ruptured cerebral aneurysm, a ballooning blood vessel in the brain, his daughter Emily said.

Mr. Feiner said years after his conviction that he was “a contentious young man” when, as a Syracuse University student, he mounted the soapbox at South McBride and Harrison Streets around 6:30 p.m. on March 8, 1949, to promote a leftist rally to be held at a hotel in Syracuse. The police said he urged blacks to take up arms against whites. Among other targets, he castigated the Syracuse mayor, the local political system and the American Legion.

(He always denied widespread reports that he called President Harry S. Truman a bum, saying that if he had meant to insult the president, he would have used an earthier phrase.)