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Witch Hunt

^The Revival ofHmsy

CAREY

UNIVERSITY
OF FLORIDA
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Books by Carey McWilliams

Factories in the Field
111 Fares the Land
Brothers Under the Skin

Prejudice

] apanese-A7nericans: Symbol of Racial Intolerance

A Mask for Privilege: Anti-Semitism in America

Witch Hunt

The Revival of Heresy

Witch Hunt

IVitch Hunt

THE REVIVAL OF HERESY

By CAREY McWILLIAMS

It is with the saints here as with the boughs of
trees in time of storm. You shall see the
boughs beat one upon another as if they would
beat one another to pieces, as if armies were
fighting; but this is but while the wind, while
the tempest lasts; stay awhile, and you shall
see every bough standing in its own order and
comeliness: why? because they are all united
in one root; if any bough be rotten, the storm
breaks it.

JEREMIAH BURROUGHS

Boston

Little, Brown and Company

1950

HUNDRED WORDS MAY BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM WITHOUT

PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER

FIRST EDITION

'Published 'November igso

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am indebted to Benjamin Weintroub, editor of the Chicago Jeivish
Forwji, and to Louis Adamic, editor of Trends (b Tides, for permis-
sion to include in this volume portions of the manuscript which orig-
inally appeared in their publications. I wish also to acknowledge my
deep indebtedness to Dr. Alexander Meiklejohn, with whom I had the
honor to collaborate in a brief submitted to the United States Supreme
Court in the case of the Hollywood Ten. From the stimulating discus-
sions out of which the brief emerged, I derived some of the ideas and
suggestions developed in the chapter on the case included in this
volume. To Richard Dettering, Elmer Gertz, Margaret O'Connor,
Ross Wills, John Caughlan, Ralph Gundlach, and Robert W. Kenny,
I am indebted for a variety of favors.

I am indebted to various publishers for permission to quote mate-
rials: to The Macmillan Company for permission to quote from Essays
in Jurisprudence and Ethics by Frederick Pollock; Josiah Royce's
The Philosophy of Loyalty, copyright 1908 by The Macmillan Com-
pany and used with their permission; Henry Charles Lea's A History

(Continued on next page)

Published simultaneously
in Canada by McClelland and Stewart Limited

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Acknowledgments vii

of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, copyright 1887 by Harper and
Brothers and used with the permission of The Macmillan Company;
and Sir Gilbert Murray's Liberality and Civilization, copyright 1938
by The Macmillan Company and used with their permission. To
Dr. Gerard L. DeGre I am indebted for permission to quote from his
study. Society and Ideology; and to Columbia Universit)' Press for
permission to quote from: The Roots of Anierican Loyalty by Merle
Curti; Power and Morals by Martin J. Hillenbrand, and The Men Who
Control Our Universities by Hubert Park Beck. The material from
Freedom and the College by Alexander Meiklejohn is quoted with the
permission of Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., copyright, 1923, Century
Company. I am indebted also to: Houghton Mifflin Company for per-
mission to quote from Richer by Asia by Edmond Taylor; to Harvard
University Press for permission to quote from The Development of
Religious Toleration in England by W. K. Jordan and The German
Universities and National Socialis77i by E. Y. Hartshorne, Jr.; to W. W.
Norton & Company for permission to quote from What Does Amer-
ica Mean? by Alexander Meiklejohn and Henri Pirenne's History of
Europe; to Cornell University Press for permission to quote from
Safeguarding Civil Liberties Today; to E. P. Button & Co., Inc., for
permission to quote from Medieval Heresy and the Inquisition by A. S.
Turberville; to Charles Scribner's Sons for permission to quote from
Are Teachers Free? by Dr. Howard Beale and Witchcraft in England
by Christina Hole; to Harper & Brothers for permission to quote from
Prophets of Deceit by Leo Lowenthal and Norbert Guterman; to
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., for permission to quote from The Devil in
Massachusetts by Marlon L. Starkey and The Free State by D. W.
Brogan; to Henry Holt and Company, Inc., for permission to quote
from CoTmnunity of the Free by Yves R. Simon; to Oxford University
Press, Inc., for permission to quote from Dictatorship and Political
Police by E. K. Bramsted; to Princeton University Press for permis-
sion to quote from Psychology of Social Classes by Richard Centers;
to The Citadel Press for permission to quote from Satanism and
Witchcraft (1946) by Jules Michelet; to The Viking Press, Inc., for
permission to quote from Ideas Are Weapons by Max Lerner and
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck; to the University of
Chicago Press for permission to quote from A Free and Responsible
Press and from Misunderstandings in Human Relations by Gustav
Ichheiser (American Journal of Sociology, September 1949); to
George Allen and Unwin, Ltd. for permission to quote from The
French Revolution in English History by P. A. Brown; to the Editor of
the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists for permission to quote from an
article by Dr. Leo Szilard appearing in the June-July 1949 issue;

viii Acknowledgments

and to the Editor of the American Scholar for permission to quote
from articles by Helen Lynd, T. V. Smith, and Arthur O. Lovejoy
appearing in the Summer 1949 issue of that publication.

Special thanks, as always, to Jerry Ross McWilliams and Iris
McWilliams.

Dedicated to the Aidlins,

Mary and Joe; and, with some

reservations, Mike . . ,

Contents

Introduction

I. CIVIL rights: civil liberties— 2. L AFFAIRE
MC CARTHY

BOOK ONE: "Fe^r Hath A Hundred Eyes"
I The Loyalty Obsession 27

I. THE MATTER OF OATHS — 2. THE DUAL CONFLICT —
3. "the censorious eye" — 4. FOOTNOTE TO HISTORY

y>^i What is Loyalty? Who Are Loyal? 49

I . "all THE LOYAL ARE BRETHREN" — 2 . FREEDOM
IS OUR COMMITMENT — 3 . LOYALTY AND SELF-ES-
TRANGEMENT — 4. HOW NOT TO TEST LOYALTY

III Thoreau and the Hollywood Ten 67

I. SUFFER NOT A WITCH TO LIVE— 2. THE TRIANGLE
OF PRESSURE

rv Hans and the 52 Grams 82

I. THE YOUNG HERETIC AS SCIENTIST— 2. THE SENA-
TOR FROM IOWA — 3. THE SCIENTISTS REPLY — 4. PHO-
BIC FEARS VS. SOCIAL REALITIES

V The Berkeley Crisis 102

I. "enemies within THE WALLS" — 2. "a MEANING-
FUL ceremony" — 3. NONE BUT THE BRAVE — 4. SO-
CIAL FREEDOM: PERSONAL RIGHTS

Contents
VI Imaginary Monsters of Error 1 2 1

I. ART AS A WEAPON — 2. "bY THEIR OWN WEAPONS
IF NEED be" — 3. THE DEVIL AS AGITATOR

BOOK TWO: Witchcraft in Washington
VII Bury the Facts 139

I. HOW PUBLIC DELUSIONS ARE CREATED — 2. WITCH-
CRAFT IN WASHINGTON — 3. WHERE WITCHES ARE
PREVALENT

VIII Professors on Trial 156

I. THE SIX HERETICS — 2. THE CHARGE IS HERESY —

3. PROFESSORS ON PROBATION

EX The Great Debate 1 7 1

I. THE MATTER OF DISCIPLINE — 2. "WHERE GOOD
AND EVIL INTERCHANGE THEIR NAMES" — 3. TO
WHOM IS THE TEACHER RESPONSIBLE?

X The Verdict of the Educators 190

I. WAS THE JURY INTIMIDATED? — 2. THE SENTENCE
COMES FIRST

XI In Dubious Directions 202

I . THE TRUSTEE AND THE COMMISSAR — 2 . DEGRADA-
TION WITHOUT PARALLEL

XII Freedom Is the Word 214

I. LYSENKO IN CORVALLIS — 2. "a COLLEGE IS LIKE
A BUSINESS — plus" — 3. HERESY ON THE MIDWAY —

4. STRANGE DOINGS IN OKLAHOMA

Contents

BOOK THREE: The Strategy of Satan

XIII The Roots of Heresy 235

I. THE DISTURBANCE OF BELIEF — 2. ON HERETICS
AND THEIR DOCTRINES — 3. HERESY: THE INSTRUCTED
AND THE VULGAR VIEW — 4. HERESY HUNTING IS NOT
SCAPEGOATING — 5. WHY THEY BURNED WITCHES

XIV The Strategy of Satan 260

I. THE UNIVERSAL DOGMA OF INJUSTICE — 2. THE
PSYCHOLOGY OF ACCURSED GROUPS— 3. THE IDEO-
LOGICAL SHELL GAME — 4. THIS PARANOID AGE

,^xv The Semantics of Persecution 282

I. ARE YOU OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN? — 2. "bY
FORCE AND VIOLENCE." — 3. "aGENT OF A FOREIGN

power"
XVI The New Inquisition 300

I. COURTS OF no escape — 2. THE NATURE OF THE
CRIME— 3. TO GUARD THE FAITH — 4. THE YELLOW
CROSS — 5. THE CONFESSIONAL DELUSION

XVII The Boughs and the Storm 321

I. "I'vE GOT A LITTLE LIST" — 2. THE BLOODY TENETS
YET MORE BLOODY

INDEX 341

Witch Hunt

Introduction

Witchcraft, and all manner of spectre-
work, and demonology, we have now
named madness, and diseases of the nerves,
seldom reflecting that still the new question
comes upon us: What is madness? What
are nerves?

— CARLYLE

In equinoctial times, when day and night are in balance, when
old worlds are dying and new worlds are struggling to be born,
there is always a prevalence of witches. For there is a season to
hunt witches as there is a season to shoot ducks, and the season
for witches is the autumnal equinox. Witches are not made or
spawned or fashioned; they are caught. Hunting witches is like
playing a game: the witch is the one at whom the others point.
_^ Without a witch hunt, there would be no witches, and witches
are never hunted without a reason. Witch hunts are a means
by which, in time of storm, the belief in witches is exploited
in order to control men's thoughts and to police their loyalties.
The season for hunting witches is a season of terror and alarm,
when "fear hath a hundred eyes" and "good and evil interchange
their names"; when people, "wearied out with contrarieties,"
yield up moral questions in despair.

But it is also a season of promise: great new hopes are in the
air, there is a quickening of social thought and energies, with
deep stirrings and realignments, and, beneath the surfaces, an un-
mistakable surge toward the future. It is this surge which pro-
duces the grotesque regression to witch hunting and the ways of
the Inquisition. Phases of this regression are clearly evident in
the United States today. We have reached far back into history's
museum of social horrors to resurrect such instruments of perse-
cution as the test oath and the inquisitorial tribunal. The use of

4 Witch Hunt

these discredited political instruments in an age that boasts of
its scientific achievements and its freedom from primitive fears
and superstitions is not hard to explain. Once government at-
tempts to suppress heresy by punishing heretics, the instruments
to be used are dictated by the nature of the task. It is the use of
these instruments that revives, not the fear of the witch, but the
fear of being identified with the witch, which is one of the most
terrible and despotic of fears. In time of storm this fear is used
like a whip to coerce conformity.

Before people will succumb to this ancient scourging fear,
however, the belief in witches must be revived, but this is never
difficult in a season in which the mingling of light and darkness
brings about a transposition of illusion and reality. In the weird
lighting which precedes the equinoctial storms, social hallucina-
tions and delusions flourish as an aspect of the general distortion
in perception which makes even the most familiar objects and
landscapes assume forbidding contours. Only a slight change in
perspective is needed, in this light, to make giants of pygmies
and monsters of godly opposites. It is easy to imagine that one
sees witches in this light and it is easy, also, to believe in witches.
For it is in this season that the Devil elects to reappear upon the
earth and that the concept of heresy is revived. In time of storm,
the boughs of the trees grind against each other as if armies
were marching, as if every tree in the forest would be uprooted
and destroyed. It seems as if the Devil himself had stirred up
these equinoctial storms but this is a delusion, for the boughs
grind against each other not because the Devil has commanded
them to do so but because there is a storm in the world, because
a tempest rages.

This, then, is a book about the illusions created by the boughs
of trees in time of storm; it is about witches and heretics in
modern guise and the use of heresy as an instrument of social
control. But it began with a concern about civil rights . . .

1. CIVIL RIGHTS: CIVIL LIBERTIES
On October 29, 1947, the fifteen members of the President's
Committee on Civil Rights issued their memorable report: To

Introduction 5

Secure These Rights. The report was promptly hailed, and
rightly so, as one of the great documents in the history of Amer-
ican freedom. For the first time in the nation's history, a sys-
tematic inventory of civil rights had been taken on a nation-
wide basis. The report noted areas of weakness, pointed up
certain dangers, and called for a new birth of freedom. Over a
million copies of the report were distributed and its recom-
mendations, embodied in President Truman's civil rights pro-
gram, touched off a major upheaval in American politics. And
yet there is a curious irony about the report which future his-
torians are certain to stress. "This committee," reads the report
(page 47), "has made no extensive study of our record under the
great freedoms which comprise this right (freedom of con-
science and expression) : religion, speech, press, and assembly. To
have done so would have meant making this vast field the
dominant part of our inquiry. We were not prepared to do this,
partly because it has been and is being well studied by others.
What fijially determined us was the conviction that this right is
relatively secure.'" (Emphasis added.)

Although it would be unfair to charge the committee with a
lack of foresight, still it is hard to overlook the failure to take
notice of such items, for example, as the report of the Com-
mission on Freedom of the Press, issued in April 1947, which
warned, in the most emphatic way, that freedom of the press
was endangered. Again, in August 1947, the American Civil
Liberties Union, in its annual report, had pointed out that "the
national climate of opinion in which freedom of public debate
and minority dissent functioned with few restraints during the
war years and after, has undergone a sharply unfavorable
change." This change, moreover, had been marked, in the most
significant manner, by the issuance of President Truman's loy-
alty order on March 22, 1947. The issuance of this order alone
should have warned the Committee on Civil Rights that, by ig-
noring the civil rights guaranteed by the First Amendment, they
were diverting public attention from the real threat to civil rights.

A simple comparison of one or two details of the President's
loyalty program with earlier experiments in thought control

6 Witch Hunt

would have indicated the extent of the danger. For example,
under the criminal syndicalism statutes and similar measures it
was always necessary to prove that a particular organization had
in fact advocated the overthrow of the government by force and
violence or that the individuals charged with sedition or crimi-
nal syndicalism had in fact conspired to overthrow the govern-
ment by such means. But under the new inquisition organizations
are in effect banned by the simple technique of listing them as
subversive without proof or evidence or an opportunity to be
heard, and individuals are branded as disloyal and subversive
solely by reason of their membership in such organizations. At
the height of the delirium of the Palmer raids, organizations were
not banned without a hearing nor were citizens deprived of civil
rights merely by listing their names in a political rogues' gallery.

The failure of the President's committee to recognize the new
threat to the freedoms defined by the First Amendment is symp-
tomatic of a general inability to distinguish between illusion and
reality in the field of civil rights. The American people will
never knowingly acquiesce in any curtailment or abridgment of
civil rights; but the course of events since the issuance of the
report of the President's committee reveals a susceptibility to
myth and illusion that could prove fatal to civil rights.

The initial illusion arises from the fact that, contrary to gen-
eral expectations, few encroachments on civil rights took place
during World War II, a circumstance which was widely inter-
preted as evidence of a new political maturity in the American
people. To be sure, there were such shameful episodes as the'
wartime abrogation of the constitutional rights of Japanese-
Americans and the violent race riots of midsummer 1943; but,
by and large, the anticipated denials of civil rights did not take
place. For one thing, the groups that had been anti-war in 19 16
were, with a few exceptions, strongly pro-war in 1941. What-
ever the explanation, the fact that the Roosevelt administration
managed to steer clear of the witch hunts and loyalty crusades
of the Wilson administration encouraged the illusion that we had
progressed to a point beyond which any regression to less
civilized political behavior was unlikely if not impossible.

Introduction 7

This illusion was fostered by still another factor. The ferment
which came with World War II — a war against fascism —
touched off a great debate on civil rights for racial minorities,
a debate which culminated, in a sense, with the issuance of the
report of the President's committee. Although few basic re-
forms have been achieved, it is nevertheless true that public
opinion on the general subject of racial discrimination has under-
gone a remarkable improvement since 1941. Faced with this im-
provement, it seemed difficult to believe that a regression could
be taking place at the same time in other phases of civil rights.
And it was still more difficult to believe that the same social
forces which had brought the racial minorities issue into the
foreground of public attention were also responsible for the
tendency to curtail the basic freedoms guaranteed by the First
Amendment. This apparent contradiction was as hard to accept
as the real contradiction that the President who had appointed
the Committee on Civil Rights should have cynically touched
off the worst witch hunt in the last quarter century by signing
the loyalty order on March 22, 1947, almost before the ink was
dry on his signature to a letter, written to former Governor
George Earle of Pennsylvania, in which he had laughed at
Earle's lugubrious admonitions about "the red menace."

Both contradictions relate, of course, to the fact that a crisis
in race relations, which had been long maturing, coincided
with the first postwar realizations that a general crisis in the
economy was maturing beneath a surface appearance of pros-
perity and excellent prospects for the immediate future. De-
termined to avoid if possible a merging of racial unrest and eco-
nomic disaffection, the strategists of American reaction began
to give the appearance of yielding on the subject of racial dis-
crimination while, at the same time, stepping up the pressure
against political and economic dissenters. Even as the nation de-
bated the report of the President's Conamittee on Civil Rights,
one could see that the hopeful expectation about a new deal for
racial minorities was being encouraged as a cover for a cam-
paign to coerce conformity on economic and political issues.
For example, the report of the American Civil Liberties Union

8 Witch Hunt

for 1 946- 1 947 was hopefully captioned "In Time of Challenge";
but the report for 1948- 1949 appeared under the ominous cap-
tion: "In the Shadow of Fear." The Union's "balance sheet"
for civil liberties showed forty-eight "favorable" items as against
thirty "unfavorable" items for 1 946-1 947, with most of the
favorable items being related to victories won in the fight against
racial discrimination; but unfavorable items outnumbered fav-
ored in the ratio of three to one for the year 1948- 1949, with
the unfavorable items being almost entirely related to those civil
rights which the President's committee had found to be securely
protected.

Confronted with a mounting wave of public indignation on
the score of racial discrimination, President Truman was com-
pelled to sponsor a civil rights program for racial minorities;
but he was disposed to this course of action, apparently, by his
simultaneous discovery that this program could serve as an ef-
fective cover for his failure to protect other civil rights — for
example, the civil rights of government employees. The more
insistent the nation became that the civil rights of racial minor-
ities should be protected, the more the public appeared to ac-
quiesce in curtailments of the civil rights of economic and po-
litical dissenters. The more American Negro leaders, and their
liberal allies, affirmed their freedom from economic and po-
litical heresies, the more comfortably the opponents of the
President's civil rights program settled down to enjoy pleasant
filibusters. For the last three years, the general agitation about
the civil rights of racial minorities has consistently diverted at-
tention from the extraordinary deterioration which has taken
place in the public's willingness to respect and protect the rights
of economic and political minorities.

Within the last three years, a distinction has gradually de-
veloped between "civil rights" and "civil liberties" which clearly
reflects the tendency to renege on the moral commitment to
freedom which is part of the American heritage. The fact that
President Truman appointed a committee on civil rights rather
than civil Uberties attracted little attention at the time but the
meaning of the distinction has since been clarified. For example,

Introduction 9

Mr. Philip B. Perlman, Solicitor General of the United States,
speaking before the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith in
Chicago on May 13, 1950, implied that civil rights are essentially
those rights which government should affirmatively safeguard,
such as the right to be free of discrimination on the grounds of
race, color or creed; whereas civil liberties are those rights which
the individual asserts against government, such as freedom of
thought and speech. The distinction is implicit in "the shield and
the sword" metaphor developed by Robert K. Carr, who served
as executive director of the President's Committee on Civil
Rights, in his book Federal Protection of Civil Rights (1947). In
the case of civil liberties, the government is merely a "shield";
in the case of civil rights, it can be a sword used to strike down
discriminations. But what if the price which government de-
mands for the affirmative protection of civil rights is an ac-
quiescence in the curtailment of civil liberties?

Up to a point, the distinction between civil rights and civil
liberties is valid but it has been given a dangerous extension and,
in a sense, the danger was inherent in the distinction. For the
distinction implies that government can act affirmatively to safe-
guard "rights," which it bestows, but need not protect "liberties"
which are asserted against government and can therefore easily
acquire anti-governmental implications. In a subtle way, agitation
for the first becomes proper, even fashionable, and meets with
the approval of the administration, which likes to be cast in the
role of paterfamilias to racial minorities strategically distributed
in certain states with a largj-e electoral vote; whereas asfitation for
civil liberties inferentially constitutes an improper concern for
the sharp thornlike rights which run counter to the hardening
ideology of Big Business and is therefore heretical. Doubtless the
distinction was never intended to serve as a rationalization but
it is being used in this fashion, and most conveniently, for it
enables spokesmen for the administration to use the right phrases
while avoiding many of the tough issues and decisions.

That the distinction has now achieved wide acceptance may
be shown by reference to a report of the American Jewish Con-
gress and the National Association for the Advancement of

lo Witch Hunt

Colored People entitled Civil Rights in the United States in 1949.
In the foreword appears this statement: "This report, Hke the
previous one for 1948, deals with civil rights, namely with those
civil liberties which are denied to persons because of their race,
color, religion, or national origin or ancestry." In short, civil
rights are a special category of civil liberties. This is an innocent-
appearing and, within limitations, perhaps even a useful distinc-
tion; but it enables defense organizations to turn in a report on
civil rights which, for all practical purposes, ignores precisely
those areas of civil liberties which are under most direct fire and
attack. Specifically, the distinction made it possible for both or-
ganizations to conclude that "the year 1949 witnessed a number
of encouraging developments in the protection and extension of
civil rights in the United States." The statement is accurate
enough but it diverts attention — and most dangerously — from
the fact that 1949 also witnessed major attacks on civil liberties
by government.

This tendency to separate civil liberties into categories is in-
herently dangerous; it is also most unrealistic. Civil liberties are
cognate, interrelated, interdependent rights. It is quite unrealistic
to assume that one side of the structure of freedom can be
strenghtened while another is being weakened. A glance at the
vote in Congress on key civil liberties issues will show, clearly
enough, that racial minorities cannot win victories at the expense
of the civil liberties of political minorities. The forces that have
blocked the FEPC have been the same forces that have sup-
ported the House Committee on Un-American Activities, As
Mr. Perlman has pointed out, in the speech mentioned, "a govern-
ment which is totalitarian violates 'civil rights' as well as 'civil
liberties.' " Indeed it cannot be otherwise, for freedom is indi-
visible.

The same contradiction appears in public attitudes on specific
civil rights issues affecting the rights of economic and political
minorities. When, early in 1949, the University of Washington
ousted two professors enjoying permanent tenure rights solely
because they were members of the Communist Party and dis-
ciplined three of their colleagues, also enjoying permanent ten-

Introduction

ure, for once having been members of the Communist Party, the
contradictory position taken by most American educators on
the case became embarrassing to witness and painful to record.
For example, in a survey of opinion among the nation's leading
educators, Benjamin Fine reported that sentiment W2& ". . . vir-
tually unanimous in upholding the ouster of Communist Party
members." ^ Almost without exception, these educators, includ-
ing most of the nation's college presidents, assured Mr. Fine
that ". . . the dismissal of Communist teachers will not impair
our traditional principles of academic freedom."

But, these assurances to the contrary, something was actually
impairing the principles of academic freedom, as witness the
fact, reported in the same survey, that the American Association
of University Professors was being "swamped" with complaints
and that the principle of academic freedom, in the opinion of
the nation's educators, was under the most severe attack in the
history of American education. The caption of this section of
Mr. Fine's report indicates its contents: "Charges of Freedom
Curbs Rising in Nation's Colleges." ^ The assurance by the na-
tion's educators that the ouster of Communist instructors solely
because of their political affiliation would not impair academic
freedom began to recall, in a most uncomfortable and embar-
rassing way, President Truman's assurance that the loyalty order
would safeguard civil rights.

In the same article in which Mr. Fine reported that American
educators were virtually unanimous in their approval of the
ouster of Communist instructors, he also reported that these same
educators were equally unanimous in their opposition to loyalty
oaths. Confident that the ouster of Communists would not im-
pair academic freedom, they were nevertheless "alarmed and
dismayed" to note the enactment of statutes in Kansas, Massa-
chusetts, and Pennsylvania authorizing the dismissal of teachers
on the ground of "disloyalty"; of statutes in Maryland, New
York, and New Jersey forbidding teachers to join certain or-
ganizations; and of new legislation in a score of states authoriz-

^ N. Y. Times, May 30, 1949.
^Ibid., May 20, 1949.

Witch Hunt

ing nonteaching personnel to make checkups and investigations
on the loyalty of teachers. One cannot ponder the contradictions
between the assurance and the warning without becoming aware
that the state of American public opinion on the subject of civil
rights is far from satisfactory. Consider, by way of further illus-
tration, a recent statement on academic freedom by the United
States Commissioner of Education, Mr. Earl James McGrath.^

Mr, McGrath believes in academic freedom but . . . "at the
same time, I believe we should be willing and ready to sign
loyalty oaths if present pressures of public opitiio?! require
them. Organized opposition to loyalty oaths places the profes-
sion in a questionable position. . . . The great danger to the
future of education in America, and to the American w^av of
life, is that in our effort to avoid the spread of communistic
doctrines we may turn this nation into a police state." To op-
pose the pressures of public opinion, however, would be to
assume "... a heavy burden of explanation at a time when
. . . energies are needed to promote democratic values and prac-
tices rather than to fight a rear-guard action." In other words,
academic freedom is to be protected by talking about democratic
values and not by defending this freedom for those who hold
unpopular beliefs or belong to unpopular minority parties; or,
stated another way, academic freedom is to be defended only
when it is expedient, safe, and rewarding to defend academic
freedom. On its face tlie statement betrays a fear of freedom
and a willingness to renege on the commitment which all free-
dom implies — namely, to defend the freedom of others, includ-
ing the most unpopular minorities.

This tendency to profess allegiance to the symbols of freedom
while reneging on the practical commitments is based upon a
failure to note the source of those "present pressures of public
opinion" to which Mr. AicGrath refers. Are we to believe, for
example, that the American public has become fearful of the
implications of freedom and has decided to beat a strategic
retreat from freedom's first principles? And if this be so, then

^Journal of the National Education Association, September 1949 (em-
phasis added).

Introduction 1 3

of what is the public afraid? As I hope to demonstrate in the
follow ing chapters, it is the economic crisis — the storm that is
blowing up — which is feeding the fears that are today being
played upon and manipulated to undermine the public's belief in
freedom as a policy as well as a principle. Either we do not see
this crisis or, seeing it, we refuse to acknowledge that it exists.
For we do not seem to realize that economic insecurity can make
a mockery of civil rights; that "freedom of the press" can be
made an utterly meaningless phrase without the enactment of a
single statute encroaching on this freedom; that invisible social
and economic pressures can be as destructive of freedom as the
most overt and brutal repression. In short we seem to be so dis-
turbed by the agitation of the boughs that we fail to see the storm.
To believe that the removal of two Communist professors from
a university faculty will safeguard academic freedom is an illu-
sion; but the failure to see that this act undermines the whole
conception of academic freedom is a gross social delusion.

2. V AFFAIRE McCARTHY

God help that Country where informers
thrive!

— ARCHIBALD MACLEISH

It began with a routine political speech of the Lincoln Day
period, delivered at Wheeling, West Virginia, on February 9
by Senator Joseph R. iMcCarthy. "I have here in my hand," the
Senator had said, "a list of 205 [employees] that were known to
the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist
Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping the
policy in the State Department," Resurrected by Willard Ed-
wards of the Washington staff of the Chicago Tribune, the
charge was distinctly second-rate bombast, being based on ma-
terial which had been aired before a congressional subcommit-
tee in February 1948. The charge was so sleazy that the Senator
was not at all impressed with his own speech and returned to
Washington unaware of the sensation he had created.

Once the sensation had broken, however, McCarthy skillfully
kept it alive and pointed the story toward a climax. At a press

14 Witch Hunt

conference on March 2 1 — the original interest having begun to
taper off — he announced that an unnamed man, connected with
the State Department, was Russia's "top espionage agent in the
United States." Certain that this would create a new sensation, he
cunningly withheld the name of the individual until the last dram
of sensationalism had been extracted from the anonymous accu-
sation. Then he set a new sensation in motion by whispering to
a group of newspapermen that the agent's name was Owen Lat-
timore, knowing that the "rumor" would leak and thereby build
up interest in the case. In his first sensational Senate speech on
February 20, McCarthy had not mentioned Lattimore; indeed
Lattimore was clearly an afterthought. None of the descriptions
which the Senator had then given of his "three top espionage
cases" fitted Lattimore. Finally, after milking the preliminary
sensations dry, he made a speech accusing Lattimore of being
"the top Russian espionage agent."

From then on, the Senator managed to keep just one jump
ahead of his colleagues, who seemed to be quite incapable of
coping with his. ever-changing charges and dispersed targets. By
March 30, Lattimore was merely "one of the top Communist
agents"; a little later he was merely "a bad policy risk"; and still
later McCarthy confessed: "I fear ... I may have perhaps
placed too much stress on the question of whether or not he
has been an espionage agent." By the use of these hit-and-run
tactics, carefully repeating each charge after it had been refuted
with merely a slight change in the wording, the Senator from
Wisconsin kept the opposition constantly on the defensive. As
Lattimore bitterly complained: "The truth never quite catches
up with the lie."

The cumulative effect of this impudently mendacious attack
was truly amazing. Although editorial opinion was generally
critical — even hostile — McCarthy succeeded in making a deep
impression. A small group of Republican right-wing Senators
backed him outright; a large number of Democrats and Repub-
licans were patently sympathetic; and there were many Senators
who were clearly reluctant to oppose him for fear he might
"turn up something." In a series of dispatches from Wisconsin,

Introduction 1 5

James Reston reported that the grass-roots sentiment was by no
means unfavorable to McCarthy. Even a full airing of the Sen-
ator's interesting background and connections, and Gerald L. K.
Smith's enthusiastic endorsement, seemed to have little effect.
McCarthy, reported Mr. Reston, was "doing better in Wisconsin
than in Washington." *

But he seemed to be doing very well in Washington. On
April 30, William S. White of the New York Times reported
the existence of "a movement, perceptible if slow, of Senate Re-
publicans toward association in one form or another, with
Senator Joseph R. McCarthy ... in his attacks on the alleged
Communists in the State Department." And on May 14, Carroll
Kilpatrick reported to the San Francisco Chro?iicle that "the
McCarthy campaign against the state department is going to be
continued indefinitely and with the support of the top Repub-
lican leaders in the Senate because it seems to be paying political
dividends." On May 22, the Washiitgton Post, in a full-page edi-
torial, warned that "for weeks the Capital has been seized and
convulsed by a terror." Even George Kennan, who had much
to do with the containment policy, felt compelled to say that
"the atmosphere of public life in Washington does not have to
deteriorate much further to produce a situation in which very
few of our more quiet and sensitive and gifted people will be
able to continue in government." And finally the dean of Wash-
ington correspondents, Mr. Arthur Krock, implied that he was
deeply impressed with McCarthy's charges. Only the fact that
we have forgotten how witch hunts operate — only the fact that
we have forgotten the meaning of heresy — can possibly explain
the panic and consternation which "seized" and "convulsed" the
capital of the world's greatest power upon its exposure to witch-
hunting charges and tactics that were thoroughly stereotyped
as early as the thirteenth century. Henry L. Stimson neatly
summed up the situation when he said: "This man is not trying to
get rid of known Communists in the State Department: he is
hoping against hope that he will find some."

*2V. F. Times, May 21, 22, 1950.

1 6 Witch Hunt

But the real meaning of the amazing affaire McCarthy seems
to have been entirely overlooked. In signing Executive Order
9835 on March 22, 1947, creating the loyalty program, Presi-
dent Truman was motivated, so he has stated, by a desire "to
protect the security of the Government and to safeguard the
rights of its employees." "' But, somehow, this second objective
does not seem to have been achieved; witness such headlines as
this: "Loyalty Issue Keeps U. S. Employees Jittery" (New York
Times, June 4, 1950). Even so, few observers have been willing
to admit that McCarthyism is a direct outgrowth of the Presi-
dent's loyalty program. The parentage, however, is unmistak-
able.

It was a foregone conclusion that once 2,000,000 federal em-
ployees had been "tested" for loyalty, some demagogue — and if
not McCarthy, then some other — would shout that the test-
ing procedure had been inadequate or that it had been conducted
by the "wrong" agency or that the standard of loyalty was de-
fective. The curious fact is, of course, that the President's loyalty
order failed to define a standard, nor has the Lovalty Review
Board yet defined one.^' But in retrospect it will be quite clear
that McCarthyism is merely a second chapter in the loyalty ob-
session which the administration officially sanctioned three years
ago.

For example, the Loyalty Review Board "closed its books on
the first part of its program," namely, the investigation of incum-
bents, on December 31, 1949. This audit of loyalty had shown
that 6412 federal employees had been investigated as "suspected
cases of disloyalty." Hearings reduced the total to 3966, and,
of this number, 3696 were found eligible to retain their jobs and
270 were dismissed. Of those dismissed, however, 69 were later
reinstated, so that the total dismissals, among 2,000,000 employees
on the payroll on October i, 1947, have only been 201 or ap-
proximately one tenth of i per cent of all employees, and, of
this number, 100 cases are pending on appeal! After three years

^ N. Y. Times, April 25, 1950.

^See story N. Y. Ti??ies, May 21, 1950: "U. S. Reviews Fail to Define
Loyalty."

Introduction 17

of diligent investigation, not one single case of espionage was
brought to light/

These impressive findings did not, however, scotch the loy-
alty obsession. Quite the contrary, the release of the report was
the signal to reopen the entire question; hence McCarthy's
charges. For the question of loyalty has only the slightest rela-
tion to security; it is concerned, rather, with the control of
heresy. It was for this reason that McCarthyism followed right
on the heels of the completion of the first federal security audit.
The immediate effect of McCarthy's charges, of course, was
to undermine three years of investigation by the Loyalty Review
Board. "Now, for several weeks," reported Jay Walz, "the pen-
dulum of criticism has swung to the other side. Behind all of
Senator Joseph R. McCarthy's charges of Communist infiltration
of the State Department lies the implication that the Depart-
ment's loyalty board is too soft, too lenient and ineffectual." ^

This implication became painfully explicit when Charles Saw-
yer, Secretary of Commerce, was told by a subcommittee of the
Congress to get rid of Michael Lee and William Remington or
face an investigation of their cases. Mr. Sawyer promptly re-
moved the two men although both had loyalty cases then pend-
ing before the Commerce Department Loyalty Board! Indeed
Remington had been investigated two years previously and had
been exonerated. The question, of course, is not whether either
man is guilty or innocent but rather: of what value is a loyalty
program that can so easily be set aside? By indicting Remington,
the Attorney General indicated that he, too, was not impressed
by the President's loyalty program. Even earlier, however, a
clamor had arisen — as it was bound to arise — to "broaden" the
test of loyalty and to vest jurisdiction in some independent
agency, that is, some agency not connected with either the
executive or the legislative departments. But this is only a further
evasion of the basic problems, for such a commission would
quickly become a political target. The plain fact is that the loy-

"^N. Y. Tmtes, April 6, 1950; also story by Cabell Phillips, N. Y. Tmies,
February 19, 1950.

^N. Y. Times, June 4, 1950.

1 8 Witch Hunt

alty program has stimulated, not quieted, the hysterical concern
with loyalty, for without a witch hunt, of course, there would
be no witches.

The source of the trouble was clearly pointed out by Mr.
Justice Edgerton of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals
in his dissent in the Dorothy Bailey case. "The dismissal," he
said, "violates both the Constitution and the Executive Order.
However respectable her anonymous accusers may have been,
if her dismissal is sustained the livelihood and reputation of any
civil servant today and perhaps of any American tomorrow are
at the mercy not only of an innocently mistaken informant but
also of a malicious or demented one. . . . This dismissal abridges
not only freedom of speech but freedom of thought ... In the
present connection it [loyalty] is not speech but a state of mind''''
(my emphasis). In other words there would be no trouble about
loyalty or the morale of federal employees (which is a different
problem) if we would remember what the Constitution is,
namely:

It is not a device for bullying little children.

It is not a device for suppressing people who disagree
with you.

It is not a device for securing the dominance or leader-
ship of any class in the community without effort on its
part.

It is a device to call the best energies of every citizen to
the common service, to secure to each the fair reward of his
labors, and to provide the Commonwealth with a compe- -
tent and unselfish command.

The Commonwealth seeks not loyalty with a sword, but
peace and liberty. It knows that loyalty will follow ^^•her-
ever peace and liberty are secured.''

It is only when the Constitution is breached that heresy can be
used as a whip to produce the dream of every rabble-rouser and

^ "The Constitutional Questions Raised by the Flag Salute and Teachers'
Oath Acts in Massachusetts" by George K. Gardner and Charles D. Post,
Boston Urdversity Law Review, Vol. i6, No. 4, November 1936, p. 803,
p. 843.

Introduction 19

demagogue, namely, a political audience with conditioned re-
flexes.

Once McCarthyism had ushered in the second chapter of the
loyalty program, it was interesting to watch the behavior of the
administration which had set the program in motion. For now
McCarthy was calling Mr. Acheson the "Red Dean of Washing-
ton" and charging that "he works on the Red Team." Even
more amazing than the fact that this charge should be made by
a United States Senator against the Secretary of State was the
dead-pan seriousness with which three former Secretaries of
State came to Acheson's defense, not realizing, of course, that
to take the charge of witchcraft seriously is always to lend
credence to it. It was also amazing to read Ambassador Jessup's
testimony — the Ambassador was charged with witchcraft because
he had once acted as a sponsor for the American Russian Institute
— in which he vehemently protested "the tendency to select two
names on a list in some undefined context and then to assume that
the coexistence of these two names reflects a coexistence of at-
titudes among these two persons." ^° But precisely this doctrine
is embodied in the President's Executive Order No. 9835 — an
order on which, like a spike, an Ambassador appointed by the
President now found himself impaled.

Caught in this embarrassing position, the President first at-
tempted an oblique counterattack: it was not possible, he said,
"to libel McCarthy" (April 14, 1950). But when this failed to
quiet the storm, he made a speech to the Federal Bar Association
in Washington (April 25th) in which he sought to distinguish
between "Communist imperialism abroad" and Communism as
a domestic menace. The latter, he said, had been grossly exag-
gerated. But if the domestic Communists were merely "a noisy
but small and universally despised group," then why the loyalty
program? Indeed his signature on the loyalty order gave the op-
position the answer to his argument. Still later, it was truly amaz-
ing to read the President's letter to Clyde A. Lewis, of the Veter-
ans of Foreign Wars, in which Mr. Truman said that all this

^"N. Y. Tbnes, March 21, 1950,

20 Witch Hunt

"fuss" about what organizations a man belongs to gave him "a
pain in the neck"! (June 6th.) "I'd be willing to bet my right
eye," he said, "that you yourself and I have joined some organiza-
tions that we wish we hadn't. It hasn't hurt me any and I don't
think it has hurt you any." At this point, one would like to
have the comments of Dorothy Bailey. Unfortunately Mr. Tru-
man has given the sanction and prestige of his office to the very
doctrine which he now seeks to disavow. The President does not
believe in witches but . . .

Nor do we, the American people, believe in witches but . . .
•rthere is the testimony of Louis Budenz in the Lattimore case.
' Budenz testified, it will be recalled, that he had never met Lat-
timore; that he had never seen the man; that he had scarcely
scanned one of his books. Yet, taking advantage of his immunity
as a witness, he testified that Lattimore was a Communist be-
cause someone once told him, out of Lattimore's presence, that
the latter was a Communisti\ Let Lattimore try to rebut that
testimony. Budenz, of course, had to give this testimony for he
must now constantly prove that he is no longer a witch and, to
be acceptable, this proof, now as always, must take the form of a
denunciation of those more prominent than the witness. In
stating that Budenz had falsely attacked him for no other reason
than "extremely sordid motives of personal career and personal
profit," Mr. Lattimore reveals a faulty understanding of the
mechanism of heresy. Fear was the real motive — the dreadful
fear of being named a relapsed heretic. It is easy to understand
Budenz, if one understands heresy. In the fifteenth century,
30,000 witches were sent to the stake on the testimony of such
witnesses.

Not understanding heresy, Mr. Lattimore does not realize that
he is guilty of the charge leveled by McCarthy in the dual sense:
first, that he cannot disprove the charge; and second that the
charge is essentially true. The problem, of course, is to define the
charge. Owen Lattimore is obviously not a Communist, and no
more than was George Washington is he guilty of espionage. But
these were not the real charges. Even so, Lattimore found it very

Introduction

difficult to disprove these ludicrous charges. Nothing that he
said — and his statement was magnificent — could win complete
exoneration, for an accusation of witchcraft, once made, cannot
be obliterated. This particular charge will follow Lattimore for
years to come. Aside from this, Lattimore faced the same dilemma
that Harry Bridges faced in his recent trial; he could not prove
that it was true that he was not a witch. The issue, indeed,
cannot be proved when it is couched in this form and it is couched
in this form so that it cannot be proved.

This is quibbling, however, for Lattimore is guilty of the real
charge, which was heresy. Once finally cornered, McCarthy
voiced the real charge against Lattimore and Jessup, namely, that
they had supported a policy in China with which he — along with
Senators Knowland, Wherry, and others — disagreed. This was
the real charge. And because this was the charge, McCarthy was
quite right in saying that it was wholly immaterial whether
Jessup "is well-intentioned and has made some good anti-Com-
munist speeches or that he has, perhaps, had a successful tift with
Andrew V. Vishinsky." This is precisely what Dorothy Thomp-
son implied in a column of April 23, when she wrote: "I think
Lattimore is not a Communist but the policies he has advocated
certainly cannot be described as anti-Communist." In short,
policies, ideas, attitudes, and state of mind (as rebellious or non-
conforming) make up the crime of heresy and it is this crime with
with which the loyalty program is concerned. We do not believe
in witches but . . .
( ,We do not believe in witches but ... in the year 1948 an
^^merican university employs untrained and politically illiterate
"anti-Communist" experts to ferret out witches and heretics
on the faculty and these experts gravely assure the administra-
tion that a person can be a member of the Communist Party
without knowing it, just as a witch could be possessed of the
Devil without being aware of the fact. We do not believe in
witches but . . . we are given vehement assurance, by a uni-
versity president, who happens to be a trained scientist, that
because Lysenko deals harshly with heretics in the Soviet Union,

Witch Hunt

heretics should be banished from the faculty of an American
university in Corvallis, Oregon. We do not believe in w^itches
but . . .

One can grant every count in the indictment of Communism
and still fail to understand educators who defend clear violations
of academic freedom in the name of academic freedom or leaders
of a great industry who, with a perfectly straight face, assure
us that the purging and blacklisting of employees solely for their
political opinions represents an outstanding contribution to free
speech. For the contradiction implicit in these attitudes stems not
from a fear of Communism but from a fear of being identified
with Communism, and this fear, of course, is fed by feelings of
insecurity engendered by an increasingly monopolistic and
dictatorial economy, an economy in which one dissents at the
risk of forfeiting livelihood, status, and reputation.

To make this demonstration it is necessary to explore the rela-
tion between the image of freedom and the reality of freedom in
contemporary America and also to inquire into the nature and
meaning of heresy and the distortions and delusions upon which
the belief in witchcraft has always rested. The nature of this
assignment has compelled me to adopt a rather roundabout
method for it is the 'mea?mig of certain questions rather than the
questions themselves which must be examined if the relationship
between freedom's image and its reality is to be explored. Every
age, as Susanne K. Langer has pointed out, is beset with certain
preoccupations which find expression in a limited number of key
issues or questions. These questions usually throw more light upon
the real problems of the age than the answers which are offered.
Any question is an ambiguous proposition since only a limited
number of answers will complete the meaning of any question.
The question, in other words, is a form of statement of which
the answer is the determination. To understand why a question is
phrased as it is phrased is to understand the relation between
the question — the abstract proposition — and the reality from
which it is supposed to issue. I have sought to explore, therefore,
the meaning of such questions as: Should Communists be per-
mitted to teach in American colleges? Should left-wing writers

Introduction 2 3-

be permitted to work in the motion picture industry? Should a
Communist be permitted to hold a fellowship financed by govern-
ment funds? Should art galleries be permitted to exhibit the
works of Communist artists? and similar questions, or perhaps
I should say, similar bear traps.

With this purpose in mind, Book One is devoted to a study of
certain forms of modern heresy and to the meaning of such ques-
tions as: What is loyalty? Who are the loyal? What is the cause
of the current loyalty obsession? Book Two is given over to a
study of certain issues affecting academic freedom. Here I have
emphasized the University of Washington case for the simple
reason that it is entirely free of extraneous complications, there
being no overtones of espionage or sabotage or references to
pumpkins, microfilms, Soviet agents, atomic secrets, or "beautiful
blond spies." The six professors who figure in the University of
Washington case were charged with heresy — just that and
nothing more. Book Three is devoted to a study of the nature and
origin of heresy and the delusions upon which the concept rests.
It is my hope that this book will be read by those who favor
the burning of witches for it is really addressed to them. To these,
then, may I say that I too believe in witches and witchcraft, al-
though in a very special sense. The charge against the witch may
be false but the situation out of which the charge arises is always
real. Since I believe that those who chase witches are the victims
of this situation no less than the witches, I can hardly be accused,
in all fairness, of being a partisan of witches. I am really much
more concerned about the storm, and all it portends, than I am
about the agitation of the boughs, which, after all, are united in
one root.

BOOK ONE

^^Fear Hath a Hundred Eyes^^

Fear hath a hundred eyes that all agree
To plague her beating heart; and there is one
(Nor idlest that!) which holds communion
With things that were not, yet were 7neant to be.

— WORDSWORTH

The Loyalty Obsession

The issuance by President Truman of Executive Order No.
9835 on March 22, 1947, setting up a federal loyalty program,
marks the beginning of an American obsession with loyalty that,
in broad outline, parallels a similar Russian obsession dating from
the "all-out campaign" against the Leningrad Literary Group in
August 1946/ Since then states, counties, and cities have imitated
the federal program; many industries and plants now require
affidavits of loyalty from their employees; scores of trade unions
have adopted a similar requirement, along with schools and
colleges; and, in California, an association of amateur archers
now demands an affidavit of loyalty from its members! Not since
the time of the Alien and Sedition Acts has the federal govern-
ment been so intensely and morbidly preoccupied with the loyalty
of the American people.

As citizens, we are asked to believe that this preoccupation
with our loyalty finds immediate justification in a series of "reve-
lations" about spy rings and espionage activities and, generally,
in a tense international situation. However, when our officials
comment upon the parallel preoccupation of the Soviet govern-
ment, the mote suddenly obscures the beam. For example,
Lieutenant General Walter Bedell Smith, by way of answering
the question: "Why were the Soviet authorities so apprehensive
about the loyalty of the masses, particularly after the conclusion
of a successful war?" points unerringly to the impact of the war
upon internal tensions in the Soviet Union. Superficially the
American obsession with loyalty appears to stem from the facts

''■My Three Years in Moscoiv by Lieutenant General Walter Bedell
Smith.

2 8 Witch Hunt

and implications of "the cold war"; but in this respect we could
be the victims of a serious delusion.

One way to clarify the meaning of the loyalty program is to
identify some of the instruments being used to determine who is
loyal and who is disloyal. Properly identified, these instruments
provide the key to an understanding of the curious psychological
warfare which the government has been waging against the
people for the last three years. Surely the use of the political
court-martial to coerce conformity and the revival in the United
States, in the middle of the twentieth century, of the discredited
and abhorrent "test oath" should remind us that a concern with
loyalty has often served as cover for an attack on civil liberties.

1. THE MATTER OF OATHS

Allegiance has a different background in America than in Eng-
land, or, for that matter, in most European countries. With us,
the obligation of allegiance is not derived from an oath but from
a relationship. "Allegiance and protection," wrote Chief Justice
Waite, "are reciprocal obligations. The one is compensation for
the other; allegiance for protection and protection for allegiance."
With the British allegiance remained an aspect of fealty until they
were finally forced to acknowledge, after a long experience with
test oaths, that allegiance to the modern state rests upon con-
siderations slightly more complex than the sworn loyalty of a
servant to his master. A subject "swears" allegiance to his
sovereign; the allegiance of American citizens goes to the compact
embodied in the Constitution and derives from the citizenship
conferred by the Fourteenth Amendment. It does not imply an
uncritical acceptance of the foreign policy of the government
even in a critical period nor does it imply ideological conformity.
We pledge allegiance to the flag; not to the profit system. The
growth in democratic understanding implied in the distinction
between the allegiance of citizens and the feudal fealty of sub-
jects is clearly reflected in the history of the disastrous "test
oath" from which the modern loyalty affidavit derives.

The Loyalty Obsession 29

After the passage of the act vesting the succession in the heirs
of Anne Boleyn, the words "papist" and "popery" became
devil words with the British Protestants. The "papists," of course,
were "agents of a foreign power," whose activities were supposed
to be directed by a highly disciplined "conspiratorial" organiza-
tion which, of course, was plotting to overthrow the government
"by force and violence." The papists, it was said, evaded perjury
by subtle equivocations and reservations M^hich were encouraged
and condoned by the Jesuits. In the popular view, the Jesuits
were known for their "secret notions and traitorous practices." ^
To cope with this situation, a thoroughgoing "loyalty program"
was inaugurated. Papists could not hold office; they were banished
from the court; they could only live in certain restricted areas;
they were subject to periodic fines; their properties could be
confiscated; their religious ceremonies were often prohibited for
long periods; the Catholic party or faction was banned; and indi-
vidual Catholics faced the constant threat of arrest, imprison-
ment, and exile. Officials with Catholic wives were placed under
close surveillance; proposals to take Catholic children from their
parents were seriously considered; and "mulcts in purse and per-
son" were levied right and left. It should be added, also, that
Catholic and Protestant were then partisan political designations.
Couched in the idiom of theology, the struggle was undeniably
political.^

When from time to time a high-ranking British official was
identified as having been a "secret" Catholic, a spasm of fear
swept through high court circles and still another investigation
would be promptly ordered. But each investigation only gave rise
to new waves of persecution. Incidents such as the celebrated
Gunpowder Plot served to keep the fear of "papist treachery"
alive and the manipulation of this fear became a major political
tactic. Every crisis in the relations between Britain and France,
or Spain, including, of course, the persecution of Protestants by
French Catholics, was likely to make matters more difficult for

2 The Development of Religious Toleration in England by W. K. Jordan,
1932, Vol, I, p. 162.

^Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 7 and 157; Vol. Ill, p. 17.

30 Witch Hunt

the Catholics in England and was invariably cited as justification
for further repressions. But historians have noticed that the perse-
cution of Catholics correlates more directly with "the state of
the union" than with the state of relations between Britain and
the CathoUc powers on the Continent. Every domestic crisis, for
some reason, brought forth new "revelations" about the papists or
yet another artfully rigged "incident."

Today the verbalisms by which this incessant persecution of
the Catholic minority was justified have a familiar sound. For
example, in his famous "Apologie for the Oath of Allegiance,"
King James insisted that the anti-Catholic measures were purely
civil and precautionary; he was concerned with the "loyalty,"
not the beliefs, of Catholics. It was his purpose to distinguish
between "loyal" and "disloyal" Catholics, or, as he put it, between
"trew subjects" and "false-hearted traitors." The oath was simply
a device by which the former could be distinguished from the
latter; no offense was intended. "No man hath lost his life," he
explained, "no man hath indured the racke, no man hath suffered
corporall punishment in other kinds, meerely or simply, or in any
degree or respect, for his conscience in matter of religion." Yet
all these things ivere happening to Catholics and the situation
kept getting worse. No matter how often or how thoroughly the
loyal Catholics were sorted out from the disloyal, the process
was repeated with each new crisis in domestic affairs. The
severity of the measures, also, seemed to increase with the gravity
of the domestic crisis.

The test oath, of course, was the principal instrument by which
Catholics were identified. Ostensibly concerned with loyalty,
it was really an instrument used in a struggle for power between
partisan groups. For years the best legal minds in England kept
tinkering with the oath, clause by clause, word by word, until it
finally became, in the words of Sir Frederick Pollock, "swollen
with strange imprecations and scoldings." Every word in the oath
was intended to make it that much more difficult for Catholics to
challenge the dominance of Protestants, although the oath was
always justified in terms of the "foreign danger" and "the Jesuit
problem." Not only did the oath taker pledge allegiance and

The Loyalty Obsession 3 1

agree to respect the line of succession but he was also required
to repudiate any foreign allegiance and to abjure specific Catholic
doctrines. This "doctrinal disavowal" was supposed to make the
oath papist-proof; to make it airtight. No emphasis is required
to point up the extraordinary power which the test oath gave
to those who did the "testing" over those who were being
"tested."

Once imposed, the test oath became increasingly vexatious as
more abjurations and disavowals were constantly added and
the penalties for perjury were increased. But the basic objection
always went, not to the form of the oath, but to the very idea
that a majority should arrogate to itself such a tyrannical power
to intimidate and coerce a minority. Furthermore, the test oath
imposed a definite qualification upon the rights of citizens; in
fact it made citizenship a revocable privilege. As the author of a
tract published in 1678 pointed out, the test oath destroyed the
natural rights of the peerage and "turned the birthright of the
English nobility into a precarious title. . . . What was in all
former Ages only forfeited by Treason is now at the mercy of
every Faction or every Passion in Parliament." Yet then as now
the test oath was defended as an innocent expression of patriotic
sentiment. No loyal American, we are told, could possibly object
to making an affirmation of loyalty in which various foreign
allegiances and "subversive" doctrines are repudiated. But if
circumstances require an affirmation of loyalty, they will also
require investigation and surveillance. And any attempt to investi-
gate or verify the affirmation presupposes the use of spies and
informers, the services of a political police, and the existence of
some Star Chamber before which suspects can be haled for
questioning. It also implies disabilities and penalties other than
sentences for perjury. Thus a procedure originally sanctioned
as a "mere ceremony" suddenly turns out to be a means by
which some citizens impose disabilities on other citizens with-
out due process of law.

Measures for testing loyalty are invariably developed outside
the existing legal framework. Like other crisis-inspired measures,
they are defended as temporary devices improvised to meet a

32 Witch Hunt

special emergency. It seems entirely proper, therefore, to tolerate
certain departures from traditional forms. Besides, the fiction pre-
vails that to charge a person with being disloyal is not to charge
him with the commission of a criminal offense. Today, for exam-
ple, the meanest pickpocket in the land can demand, as a matter of
right, the protection of constitutional safeguards which govern-
ment employees with long records of faithful service are denied by
the loyalty review boards. The purpose of loyalty testing, it is said,
is not to punish anyone — perish the thought! — but to guard the
nation's security. As Macaulay caustically observed: "Only a
rank Jacobite and an enemy of the Whig Party" would dare
contend that the test oath had criminal overtones or that it re-
sembled an ex post facto indictment. The difficulty, of course, is
that the security of a nation is indistinguishable from the security
of its citizens in the exercise of their rights.

By way of satirizing the diabolical sophistry that test oaths are
merely "innocent ceremonies," counsel in an early American case
had this comment to offer:

We will not punish thee — we are merciful! But go — we
proclaim thee an outlaw, disabled from following thy past
calling — we forbid thee earth, fire and water, and com-
mend thee to the charity of some other country in which
we wish thee all success. No Punishment? I defy the history
of the world to invent a punishment more refined and in-
genious than to punish a man through his love of truth, his
adherence to his word. He will not lie, he will not swear a
false oath; no matter how guilty he be of offenses, he has '
a regard for the truth and will not lay a perjury to his soul.
It is indeed an ingenious punishment; it dispenses with
statutes defining offenses and providing penalties therefor;
it dispenses with courts, with all their paraphernalia of in-
dictments by grand juries and trial by petit juries, executing
the law upon offenders; all that is needed, is, that a law be
passed every year or two requiring every citizen to swear
that he has never wronged or defrauded anyone; that he
has never slandered his neighbor; that he has never com-
mitted murder, burglary, larceny, adultery, or fornication;
and if he cannot thus swear, then forbid him to follow any

The Loyalty Obsession 33

profession, trade or calling, for that will not be a punish-
ment inflicted upon him, but a mere regulation of the
trades, callings and professions in the State; and to provide
such a regulation, the State has a most perfect right; nay,
more, it may prohibit them all to non- jurors, and still violate
no provision of the Constitution. . . . Had the Constitu-
tion provided, like some of the English statutes . . . that
persons refusing the oath should be attained of a praemunire
upon the first tender, and suffer as in cases of high treason
for the second, that would be a punishment, and the law
would be void as conflicting with the Constitution of the
United States; but as the penalty does not reach to tangible
property, nor actually touch the body, it is to be held no
punishment, but a mere regulation of the business affairs of
the people. Sirs! "You take my life when you do take the
means whereby I live!" "Requiescat in pace" was the part-
ing benediction bestowed by the Inquisitors as they turned
away from the brother whom they walled up alive in his
death cell. "Go in Peace" is the blessing bestowed upon
those who may not swear by all the words of this new
evangel of liberty.*

The same point, of course, is made in the old story about the
Quaker and his dog. Tray. "Go to," said the Quaker to poor
Tray, "I will not kill thee, but I will give thee a bad name." And
so he turned poor Tray into the streets with the cry of "Mad
dog!" and then someone else did kill poor Tray. . . .

2. THE DUAL CONFLICT

None of the parties to the incredibly bitter "religious wars"
seemed to realize that the fanaticism of faith clearly masked a
fanaticism of avarice. The tragedy of the situation, as Tawney
pointed out, consisted in the fact that the problems of a swiftly
changing economic environment should have burst on Europe at
a time when it was already torn by religious dissension.^ These

■*4i Mo. 340, decided in 1867.

^ Religion cmd the Rise of Capitalism by R. H. Tawney, 1926, p. 82.

34 Witch Hunt

problems were naturally debated in terms of religious partisan-
ship; but differences in social theory did not coincide with dif-
ferences in religious affiliation. The struggle was not between
capitalist Protestants and Catholic guildsmen but between pro-
ducers and merchants some of whom were Catholics and some
of whom were Protestants. The economic revolution prolonged
and greatly intensified the religious controversy by vastly aug-
menting the stakes for which the parties contended. Conversely,
the religious division made it possible to organize the struggle
for control and dominance of the new social forces released by
the economic revolution. "Anti-Catholicism" in England was, so
to speak, the principle upon which social power was organized
and, as such, it naturally had to be stepped up whenever a domes-
tic crisis threatened the existing social controls. By providing
a basis and rationale for exclusion, it gave a specific direction to
the struggle for place and position.

Today an economic revolution, resembling that w^hich swept
over Europe during the "religious wars," cuts across national con-
flicts in much the same manner that the economic revolution of
that period cut across religious dissensions. The fact that national
rivalries, for all practical purposes, have been reduced to the
rivalry between two great powers merely underscores the parallel.
The revival of commodity production at the end of the Middle
Ages did not cause so much as it exacerbated the religious con-
flict between Catholic and Protestant; and, similarly, the economic
revolution of our time has not caused so much as it has intensi-
fied, and greatly complicated, national rivalries. Now as then
the world is caught in a dual conflict: economic-theological then,
economic-ideological now. Increasingly the great power rivalry
of our time tends to be transformed into a world-wide ideological
conflict. When a concern is expressed today over a person's
"loyalty," as often as not it is his "ideological" loyalty which is
in doubt; but unfortunately neither ideological nor religious
loyalties respect national boundaries. In our time two conflicts,
by no means identical (Socialism is not identical with Russian
nationalism), have tended to fuse and the obsession with loyalty
reflects this confusion. Thus we brand the ideological noncon-

The Loyalty Obsession 35

formist as "disloyal" just as, in the period of the "religious wars,"
the religious nonconformist was persecuted as "an enemy" of
the state in which he had been born, whose language was the
only language he knew, and beyond whose borders he had prob-
ably never traveled.

It will be objected that the parallel with the "religious wars"
is too remote; that the historical background of the test oath has
no relevance to "the problem of Communism." But just where
did the test oath first reappear in modern times? Oddly enough in
Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy where police terror had re-
duced the idea of an oath to utter absurdity. In reviving the test
oath, the Nazis were not quaintly attempting to test loyalty by
medieval standards; they used the oath to humiliate and destroy
political opponents. For example, there were any number of men
in the German and Italian universities who were known as anti-
fascists. But once these men had been compelled to take the oath
of loyalty, they were morally discredited in the eyes of all who
knew them and, more important, in their own eyes as well. Every
antifascist who took the oath by this very fact undermined re-
spect for the values upon which the opposition to fascism rested.
With the Nazis and Fascists, the test oath was clearly a means by
which political opponents were silenced and discredited and not
a means by which loyalty was tested. Such an astute terrorist as
Dr. Goebbels would have placed slight credence in an affirma-
tion of loyalty from a German with an antifascist record; he
understood the dual conflict of our times too well for that.

The failure to appreciate the meaning of test oaths is based in
part upon a failure to recognize that dictatorships are brought
into being by social conditions and not by evil notions or danger-
ous thoughts. Dictatorships appear during periods of maladjust-
ment, when, as Dr. William Yale has pointed out, "the unity of
the social group is torn to shreds by the variety of suffering and
the resulting diversity of discontents." ^ The maladjustment is
usually related to an inability to control the environment which
comes about either through an ability to produce more than the
society can consume at a profit or from an inability to produce

^Journal of Social Psychology, July 1939, pp. 336-340.

36 Witch Hunt

all that is needed. Whatever the cause, social institutions do not
lose their validity until they have ceased to be suitable adjust-
ments. When the maladjustment becomes acute and chronic, the
resulting instability is said to be the work of "termites" and
"fifth columnists" and the test oath and similar loyalty devices
are then demanded as means by which "disloyal" elements can
be identified. Instead of investigating causes, the society perse-
cutes heretics; instead of unearthing reasons, it undertakes to
suppress criticism, "It is distressing to realize," writes Dr. Carl
J. Friedrich, "that the oath has always cropped up as a political
device when the political order was crumbling. In the period of
religious dissensions, the oath of allegiance made its appearance
in England as an instrument of intolerance and, a little later, of
royal aggression." ^

3. ''THE CENSORIOUS EYE"

In the main, we, the American people, have misjudged the
motivation of the loyalty program because we have forgotten
that the loyalty obsession really began twenty-five years ago,
when the Soviet Union was merely an international hypothesis.
It was during and immediately after World War I that loyalty
first became a major obsession with us and, then as now, a special
concern was voiced over the loyalty of teachers. The frenzy
of these years culminated in the passage of the Lusk Laws in
New York in 192 1. From the day of their adoption, the laws
involved the administration of the schools in a nightmare of
dissension, litigation, and confusion. An orgv of investigation and
harassment took place as individuals squared away to settle per-
sonal grievances and disputes that had been accumulating for
decades. "Principals, supervisors, fellow-teachers," writes Dr.
Howard K. Beale, "were now free to report for trial for 'dis-
loyalty' and for possible dismissal any teachers against whom they
had grievances." ^ The mere threat of investigation proved to be

^"Teachers' Oaths," Harper's, January 1936, pp. 171-177.
^ Are American Teachers Free? 1936.

The Loyalty Obsession 37

quite sufficient to frighten teachers into a blind conformity.
Indeed "the censorious eye" was more effective, according to
Dr. Beale, than actual force or coercion because "dismissals
would have raised protests whereas terrorization gained its end
without unpleasant publicity."

Ironically the power of the Soviet Union to seduce rather
than subvert the American people was then given as the main
justification for the concern with loyalty. No one dreamed of
suggesting at that time that the Soviet Union actually menaced
the national security of the United States. Writing in opposition
to the Lusk Laws, John Dewey shrewdly observed that the laws
were "only the outward symbol of that tendency on the part
of big business in our present economic society to hold teachers
within definite prescribed limits. These suppressive tendencies
work in a more refined way than laws. The great body of teach-
ers are unaware of their existence. They are felt only through
little hints about 'safety,' 'sanity,' and 'sobriety' coming from
influential sources. ... It is something more than academic free-
dom that is being menaced. It is moral freedom, the right to
think, to imagine. It involves, when it is crushed, a crushing of
all that is best in the way of inspiration and ideals for a better
order." ^

The existence of a real external enemy does not provoke the
type of fear which appears in loyalty obsessions. Fear in the
presence of a real enemy can be exhilarating. The fear that found
expression in the Lusk Laws was a morbid fear of self; a fear
of the people as reflected in the group thinking of a dominant
class. It should be emphasized that the "Bolshevism" against which
reaction inveighed in 19 19-1922 was, to most people, the vaguest
of doctrines. There was no network of Communist parties
through the world then nor was Russia the great power it is to-
day. Nevertheless Bolshevism was denounced with the same
vehemence that Communism is denounced today. In further
confirmation of John Dewey's theory, it might be pointed out
that the nation's concern with loyalty did not reach the intensity
of an obsession until immediately ajter World War I. Reaction

^Quoted by Beale, p. 571.

38 Witch Hunt

never has too much to fear when the people are engaged in a
war, when armies have been mobilized, and when special war-
time powers and controls have been invoked. But the moment
"peace breaks out," loyalty becomes a problem.

As a matter of fact the "menace" in the period from 19 19 to
1922 was Socialism rather than Bolshevism. The New York
Council on Education then found that "membership in the
Socialist Party was incompatible with the obligations of the
teaching profession." Legislative committees made findings that
the Socialist Party was "not a party in the usual sense," exactly
paralleling current findings about the Communist Party. Five
members of the Socialist Party were summarily expelled from
the New York Legislature for being "disloyal" and Congress re-
fused to seat Victor Berger, the Socialist, who had been elected
from the Fifth Congressional District of Wisconsin. In 19 19
three prominent Socialists, all anti-Communists today, as they
were then, were dismissed as teachers from the New York
schools. In all this excitement, one can look in vain for even a
suggestion that the Soviet Union, as such, menaced the security
of the United States in the sense in which that "menace" is ex-
pressed today.

Once the nation had returned to "normalcy" following the
severe deflation of the postwar period, the obsession with loyalty
quickly abated despite the fact that it had become apparent, by
then, that the Soviet Union would survive and that it was rapidly
consolidating its position. But with "everything under control,"
with the sun of the Coolidge prosperity upon the land, the
menace of Socialism became merely the memory of an ugly night-
mare. However, in line with the Dewey thesis, the tendency to
repress all criticism did not entirely disappear. A number of
organizations continued to agitate for a general loyalty program
as a permanent part of the structure of government. Then, in
1934, the Hearst press launched a new campaign against "radi-
cals" in the schools and colleges. It was in this same year also
that the campaign to require the flag salute in the school was
launched, all as part of a drive for "patriotic conformity."

The Loyalty Obsession 39

Within five years, some fourteen states had adopted laws re-
quiring teachers to take loyalty oaths.

Today it is generally agreed that the emphasis on loyalty in
this campaign of 1934-1935 was primarily occasioned by the fear
of the early reforms of the New Deal and, more particularly, by
the approaching 1936 election. It should be noted that the Soviet
Union had been recognized by the United States before the
campaign was launched and that this, generally, was the period
of the popular front and of Litvinoff's stirring speeches in favor
of collective security. One can say that the Soviet Union was
not in any sense then regarded as a "national enemy." Here,
again, is striking proof that John Dewey had correctly analyzed
the Lusk Laws as a manifestation of a more or less constant trend
in the society. Seen in the perspective of a quarter century, it is
clear that our current obsession with loyalty, like the similar
obsession in the Soviet Union, is influenced by, but not caused by,
the state of relations between the two countries.

That internal tensions provide the real motivation for loyalty
campaigns becomes clear the moment one examines, not the na-
tional loyalty program, but its local counterparts. For example,
on April i, 1947, the Board of Supervisors of Los Angeles, fol-
lowing the lead of President Truman, and never to be left behind
in any crusade, adopted a loyalty program based on a test oath
containing specific disavowals. During the war, not a single case
of disloyalty had been reported among the county's 20,000
employees; yet, with substantially the same employees on the
payroll, the county suddenly became concerned with their loyalty
two years after the war was over. In this case, the loyalty ordi-
nance was clearly adopted as part of a drive for poHtical con-
formity; it had nothing to do with "security." Officials who
wanted to vote against the proposal told me that they feared
to oppose it. Newspaper editors hesitated to criticize the proposal
although frankly conceding its absurdity. Influential citizens pri-
vately confessed their misgivings but were reluctant to voice a
protest. The security equation was not changed in the slightest
degree by the adoption of the ordinance but the campaign to

40 Witch Hunt

secure its adoption, and its adoption, undeniably coerced opinion,
and made for conformity.

4. FOOTNOTE TO HISTORY

Perhaps a footnote to history may help to explain the nature
of loyalty obsessions . . .

The first response to the French Revolution in the United
States was one of elation, sympathy, and popular support. As
the revolution swept forward, however, this initial support nar-
rowed down and became increasingly partisan. The more the
struggle in France was debated, the more its domestic implica-
tions were emphasized. Democratic Clubs sprang up on all sides
to support the revolution, and also to discuss domestic political
questions. "Meeting regularly through the year," to quote Claude
G. Bowers, "they were teaching the mechanic, the clerk, the
small farmer, to think in terms of politics." ^° The Federalists, out
to monopolize power in the wake of national liberation, promptly
denounced the cliibs as "demoniacal societies" and "nurseries of
sedition" which should be suppressed at the earliest opportunity.
To create such an opportunity, they began to develop the thesis
that the French Revolution imperiled American interests; there-
fore, all those who supported the French were per se "subver-
sive" and a menace to the Federalist Party. But the formula also
worked just as well in reverse: anyone who agitated for social
reform and opposed the Federalist Party was, by this token, pro-
French and therefore "disloyal."

By the time Adams was inaugurated as President, popular en-
thusiasm for the revolution had noticeably abated. This could only
mean that the danger of domestic, native "subversion" had de-
clined and, with this decline, one would naturally have expected
that the danger of a war with France would have tapered off. But
the powerful Hamiltonian wing of the Federalist Party promptly
seized this moment to demand a declaration of war, seeking by

^° Jefferson and Hamilton: The Struggle for Democracy in A?nerica,
1925, p. 256.

The Loyalty Obsessiofi 41

this agitation to weaken still further the movement for social re-
form. "The French Stamp," with which they began to smear their
opponents, was simply a partisan tactic in this campaign. Curi-
ously enough, the louder the war party clamored for a war against
the French (who were "menacing" American interests), the more
violently they denounced, not the French, but their political op-
ponents in America.

To climax this campaign, and to destroy the Democratic Clubs,
which were more concerned with domestic than with interna-
tional politics, the Federalists pushed through the Alien and Sedi-
tion Acts. The Alien Act was primarily aimed not at the French,
but at the Irish. If the Irish had been conservatives, their sympa-
thy with the French might have been overlooked; but as followers
of Jefferson it was clear that they should be summarily deported.
The Federalists even tried to make it appear that the Irish were
guilty of a plot to overthrow the government. On the other
hand, the clear purpose of the Sedition Act was "to crush the
opposition press and silence criticism of the ruling powers,"
all in the guise of protecting America against subversive French
ideas and an Irish fifth column. Advocated as part of a drive
for war against a "foreign enemy," the act was aimed not at
this enemy, but at the American people. Ironically both bills
were debated, as Bowers put it, "under conditions of disorder
that would have disgraced a discussion of brigands wrangling
over a division of spoils in a \vayside cave." The Federalists —
those apostles of "law and order," those enemies of "French
anarchy" — hooted and howled, scraped their feet, coughed,
laughed; and resorted to physical violence in an effort to in-
timidate their opponents in debate. In a magnificent speech
against the Alien Bill, Edward Livingston vividly foretold how
the act would be used and what effects it would have:

The county will swarm with informers, spies, relators,
and all the odious reptile tribe that breed in the sunshine
of despotic power. . . . The hours of the most unsuspected
confidence, the intimacies of friendship, or the recesses of
domestic retirement, afford no security. The companion
whom you must trust, the friend in whom you must con-

42 Witch Hunt

fide, the domestic who waits in your chamber, are all
tempted to betray your imprudent or unguarded follies;
to misrepresent your words; to convey them, distorted by
calumny, to the secret tribunal where jealousy presides —
where fear officiates as accuser, and suspicion is the only
evidence that is heard. . . . Do not let us be told that we
are to excite a fervor against a foreign aggression to estab-
lish a tyranny at home; that like the arch traitor we cry
"Hail Columbia" at the moment we are betraying her to
destruction; that we sing, "Happy Land," when we are
plunging it in ruin and disgrace; and that we are absurd
enough to call ourselves free and enlightened while we
advocate principles that would have disgraced the age of
Gothic barbarity.

With the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts, a Reign of
Terror broke upon the land which, beginning in 1798, extended
through the autumn of 1800. Then as now, the press, the clergy,
the colleges, all joined in the great crusade to coerce total con-
formity as the prelude to a declaration of war. Mobs broke into
the headquarters of the Democratic Clubs. Artisans employed in
the manufacture of war materials were driven from their jobs
with charges of being "pro-French" and "disloyal." Newspapers
screamed that any person who doubted the wisdom of either
the Alien or the Sedition Act deserved to be listed as disloyal,
and the Right Reverend Bishop White of Philadelphia an-
nounced that those who opposed either measure "resisteth the
ordinance of God." Hamilton was commissioned a major gen-
eral; the harbor of New York was fortified; and a campaign
was launched to recruit a large standing army. Editors were ar-
rested and convicted under the Sedition Act; Congressmen
were threatened \^'ith arrest for the offense of writing letters
to their constituents; and lawyers who defended those charged
with sedition were denounced from the bench for "propagating
dangerous principles." From 1798 to 1801, liberty, as Bowers
wrote, "was mobbed in America."

Every effort M^as made by the war party, of course, to prevent
President Adams from sending commissioners to negotiate a

The Loyalty Obsession 43

treaty with the French and the situation in France was con-
sistently misrepresented in the American press. Federalist edi-
tors did not hesitate to develop the theme that a war with France
would be a good business for the strugghng colonies. Hamilton
kept assuring the President that the Bourbons would soon be
restored by the coalition and that it would be folly to seek a
treaty with the French government then in power. But once the
commissioners had sailed, the ground m'sls suddenly cut from
beneath the war party and, with Jefferson's election, the loyalty
obsession quickly abated. The new President refused to prosecute
those arrested before the Sedition Act expired on Alarch 3,
1 80 1, pardoned those who had been convicted and were still
in jail, and ultimately Congress repaid most of the fines levied
under the act. The sudden disappearance of the loyalty obsession
OTice the oppositW7i had covie to -power is striking evidence that
domestic politics had more to do with this obsession than for-
eign loyalties or European politics.

The pattern in England was similar although the end result
was quite different. The British, too, had greeted the revolution
with enthusiasm. But with the publication of Burke's Refiectio?is
in 1 790, the first tonic enthusiasm was soon displaced by a wave
of fear and hostility which, set in motion by the upper classes,
finally spread throughout the nation. To Burke the revolution
was a hateful thing, not because of the violence exhibited, but
because he discerned as the characteristic of the revolutionary
philosophy an "intellectual presumption," amounting to a kind
of atheism in politics, which he could not abide. Like Hamilton,
he used the horrors of the revolution to conceal an underlying
hostility to democracy.'^

But a dislike for political atheism, however widespread, would
never have caused the change which began to take place in British
opinion after 1790. For a decade prior to this date, the current
of social reform had been running more strongly in England
than in France. The enthusiasm with which the revolution was
first hailed, in both England and America, showed how quickly
the people had identified the sudden and unexpected turn of

^^ The French Revolution in Etiglish History by P. A. Brown, 1918.

44 Witch Hu7it

events in France as a phase of their own struggles. What the
Tories really feared, of course, was the impetus this interpreta-
tion gave the movement for social reform. The onset of the
terror gave them a chance to use the French Revolution against
the people as the people had first used the revolution against
them. In a most ingenious manner, and with the utmost political
skill, they succeeded in linking the public's dislike of the excesses
of the revolution with the notion that democratic ideas and re-
forms were responsible for these excesses and not the coalition
against the French Revolution which they had largely organized.
To bring off this deception, they made effective use of the
Francophobia which had accumulated in Britain through the
years and the long-standing popular dislike of "atheism."

The terror began in Britain with the publication by the gov-
ernment (which was, of course, opposed to terror in France)
of the names of all those who had signed the various memorials,
"addresses of sympathy," and other manifestations of fraternal
support for the French Revolution. There followed a series of
measures, some official, some unofficial, which had the intended
effect of whipping up rather than allaying the public's appre-
hension. At the height of the public excitement, as Coleridge
wrote, "there was not a town ... in which a man suspected
of holding democratic principles could move abroad without
receiving some unpleasant proof of the hatred in which his sup-
posed opinions were held by the great majority." Tavern own-
ers began to deny meeting places to the "radicals" and "friends
of freedom"; printers refused to print their pamphlets and
statements; and, as in our time, the government began to pro-
mote a loyalty program by stimulating so-called "loyal addresses
from the country at large," An official heresy hunt was soon
on foot "in almost every town from Portsmouth to Newcastle
and from Swansea to Chelmsford." Landlords were asked to re-
port on "disloyal" tenants; "oaths of loyalty were collected like
taxes"; and an army of well-trained and well-paid spies, in-
formers, and perjurers was employed by the government to
strike down its principal political opponents. In Northampton-
shire villages, a house-to-house canvass of opinion was con-

The Loyalty Obsession 45

ducted by landowners and "the friendly societies" were tested,
again and again, for loyalty. "The county," wrote P. A. Brown,
"was netted for treason, and the mesh was small."

The entire movement for social reform in Britain was stig-
matized as "disloyal" through the simple stratagem of calling
attention to the fact that most of the reformers were, or had
been, sympathetic to the French Revolution. This made them,
of course, "agents of a foreign power," and thereby convicted
the lot of them of "constructive treason," The net result was
to make any and every aspect of social reform synonymous
with treason. Literally all reform measures, "mild, moderate and
extreme," were alike tarred as disloyal and subversive. Wilber-
force, who had asked leave in 1790 to bring in a bill to bar
the traffic in slaves, suddenly discovered that the bill had be-
come "pro-French" and subversive. Then, as in our time, im-
portant intellectuals, like Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Southey,
ingloriously recanted, "went over to the government," and
sought injunctions in the courts when Leigh Hunt and Hazlitt,
with a fine sense of mischief, began to reprint their earlier
"odes to freedom."

The government-inspired terror cannot be entirely explained,
however, as a sophisticated plot to organize a heresy hunt for
partisan political advantage. What Pitt and his ministers did, as
P. A. Brown put it, was to mix ". . . precautions against a
danger genuinely feared, with attempts to use panic as an in-
strument for purposes of state." By and large the Tory officials
confused cause and effect. The enormous success of The Rights
of Man convinced them that the suppression of such a document
was necessary to prevent future, if not current, disaffection.
The British people, in their view, did not read Tom Paine's tract
because they were sympathetic to the French Revolution; on
the contrary, having read Paine, they had become sympathetic
to the revolution. In a critical period, the party in power is
tempted to conclude that "false" ideas are causing discontent,
and "evidence" is generally available to support this view since
the existing discontent always provides a market for "sub-
versive" tracts. The Tories simply could not bring themselves to

46 Witch Hunt

concede that the reason many people In Britain were interested
in the French Revolution was because they were dissatisfied with
conditions in Great Britain. To the Tories, living off the fat of
the land, it seemed quite incredible that anyone could be dis-
satisfied with life in Britain.

The confusion of cause and effect was strikingly evident in
the government's attitude toward the disaffection in Scotland.
Noting that "radical" tracts had a larger circulation there, the
government concluded that the explanation was to be found in
the fact that Scotland had a somewhat higher literacy rate than
England. It never occurred to them that there might be more
reason for discontent in Scotland. It was this perverse logic
which led Braxfield, most arrogant of judges, to conclude that
a meeting might be subversive even though nothing was said
about overthrowing the government. "If men have created dis-
satisfaction in the country," he argued, "it will very naturally
end in overt rebellion; and if it has that tendency, though not
in the view of the parties at the time, then it is sedition to all
intents and purposes." That is, ineji create dissatisfaction, not
conditions, not problems, not situations. Protesting against this
deluded logic, one defendant, the luckless Gerald, reminded
Braxfield that Christ, too, had been a reformer. To which Brax-
field replied, in high glee, "Muckle he made o' that, he was
hanget."

The view that nonconformity in time of crisis is treasonable
leads quite naturally to the delusion that conformity in time of
crisis constitutes proof of loyalty. Similarly if ideas cause dis-
content, then the suppression of these ideas will produce con-
tentment. Here, indeed, is the mainspring of most heresy hunts.
"Men become heretics or infidels," wrote Sir Frederick Pol-
lock, "because they are disgusted with the behaviour of the of-
ficers who represent the Church, or because they hold them-
selves wronged by the established order of things which the
Church official supports. It is both natural and convenient for
Churchmen to invert the real order of cause and effect, and
assign the origin of every general disorder to the heresy or in-
fidelity which is in truth only a symptom of it. The political

The Loyalty Obsession 47

distress may perhaps be represented as a divine judgment on
heresy, or at any rate, it will be pointed out to the civil author-
ities that they have another conclusive evidence of the manner
in which free-thinking breeds sedition, and a plainer demonstra-
tion than ever of how clearly the interests of society are bound
up with those of the established order." ^"

Unfortunately the Tory tactic succeeded all too well in Britain
and the nation was soon at war. The Tories, of course, won
both wars: the one abroad, the one at home; but the British
people lost these wars.^^ For nearly fifty years, the wheels of
social progress turned scarcely at all. The reform organizations
were completely ruined; their funds were dissipated; their
leadership was largely demoralized; their membership intimi-
dated. The longer social reform was delayed, the more blind and
unreasoning the Tories became and their delusions increased
with their arrogance and power. The more the upper classes
feared social change at home, the more suspicious and arrogant
they became in the conduct of British foreign policy. And the
more power Britain acquired, the more the Tories suffered from
the fear of encirclement. The longer this "freeze" lasted, also,
the more the Whigs turned against the Radicals, while the
Tories sat back and enjoyed their arid doctrinal disputes. In
the long run, of course, the freeze ended and the reforms came
thick and fast; but for nearly fifty years reaction ruled Britain
with a blind despotism.

However we may read this footnote to history, we should be
able to agree on this: that the brutalization of the intellectual,
social, and political life of a society, that is, of a people united
by common bonds of culture and tradition, of language and
history, is a crime of a magnitude that cannot be readily meas-
ured. The crushing of the reform movement in Britain may
have been a partisan victory for the Tories but it was truly a
national disaster. The extent of this disaster can only be appre-

'^~ Essays in Juris prude?2ce and Ethics, 1882, p. 172.

^^ See, e.g., Hazlitt's magnificent and unimprovable description of the
effects of both wars as quoted in The Life of Williayn Hazlitt by P. P. Howe,
1922, pp. 118, 213.

48 Witch Hunt

ciated by contrasting the condition of the British working class,
in the decades after 1800, with the remarkable advances made
by the American working class which, thanks largely to Jef-
ferson's leadership, had succeeded in upsetting the FederaUst
counterpart of the Tory plot. Heresy hunts have the effect of
draining off vital group energies which any society must ac-
cumulate if it is to solve the problems of survival. To spread
fear and suspicion ^within a society is to poison the life of that
society at its source, which is to be found in the ability of the
people to co-operate. There can never be a satisfactory excuse
or justification for this particular crime. If the danger from
abroad is real, then all the more reason why unity should be
fostered among the people, and the greater the danger, the
greater the need for unity. Given the right combination of cir-
cumstances, it is easy to launch a heresy hunt — as easy as it is
to squeeze the trigger of a gun. But the consequences are likely
to reverberate long after the echo of the shot has died away.
"The class of men," wrote P. A. Brown, "who had been the
victims of the riots [the Birmingham Riots of 1789] disappeared
for that generation from pubHc life; and with them the chief
stimulus to thought and civilization in Birmingham." (Emphasis
added.)

What Is Loyalty? Who Are Loyal?

It is typical of this paranoid age that although loyalty now
amounts to a major American obsession, the meaning of loyalty
has not been defined. The delusion that people can be "tested"
by the decree of their confnrmit-y m a <;randard left undefined
says a good deal more ahout the state of our nerves than it
does about the problem of the disloyal in modern society. A
delusion of this magnitude betrays a sense of guilt. Can it be
that we are really concerned about loyalty because we sense
that we have been disloyal to something in our tradition and
heritage that we love and revere? When an individual is ob-
sessed by the "disloyalty," say, of his wife, or his secretary, a
psychiatrist immediately seeks to find out what aspect of his
own personality he distrusts; the obsession is regarded, in other
words, as a symptom of insecurity. But we fail to note any ele-
ments of delusion in a public concern with loyalty which now
amounts to a national obsession.

The way to test whether we are confusing loyalty with morale
is to determine what we mean by loyalty. President Truman's
loyalty order does not define the meaning of the term; nor does
it define disloyalty. The procedural unfairnesses of the order
have received wide attention but the study of these defects
fails to reveal a more fundamental objection to the program. Of
far graver import is the attempt to test people — to divide them
into categories — upon the basis of their conformity to a standard
left undefined. Here is a key to an understanding of the real
meaning of the loyalty program. For this program is reallycon-
cerned not with loyalty, bnt- ^ithliereg'y." ) JisLoyaity is...^Qtl4e--
ined for preciselvThe same reason t\\?t h^ry<;y i^ypc nPTrp^ r]p-

50 Witch Hufit

ined; vou need an elastic standard of eullt if

''our intention is

to punish an attitudeTa feeling, a dTsposition. That we are pun-
riil^^Mr^'^y i'nn'^T?r'giTi^£^3F"tesHtig loyalty becomes clear the
moment we attempt to define the meaning of loyalty.

1. "ALL THE LOYAL ARE BRETHREN"

What is the new loyalty? It is, above all,
conformity.

— HENRY STEELE COMMAGER

Josi^b ^oyce seems to have understood the meaning of loy-
alty better than most Americans.^ He defined loyalty as "the
^^^jJjrtR 2.ndj^[acncz\ and thomugh-going d^v»tipf| r^ ppprcnp
to a cmise." Loyalty is inextricably related to the idea orfree-
dom; a coerced loyalty is a contradiction in terms. To be loyal,
also, one must have a cause. One can be in love with another
person without being devoted to a cause, but one cannot be
loyal to another person without being devoted to some "idea"
which commits you and the other to a real unity of belief. Loy-
alty is a positive good-in-itself — good for society and good for
the loyal person despite the fact that the particular cause may
be unworthy. The basis of this conception is simply that man
needs to be related to something larger than his personal inter-
ests and private concerns. Indeed the only way "the old circular
conflict" between self-will and conformity can be broken is
through loyalty to a cause. Loyalty is the miracle of emotion bv
which social unity and consent are achieved without coercion
and without a blind and senseless conformity.

J'he fs'^'^nrr of joyaltv is consent freely given. Loyalty is not
subservience or slavish submissiveness or docile conformity. On
the contrary, loyalty is perfectly consistent with an extreme
individual autonomy. In fact Royce believed that "the only way
to be practically autonomous is to be freely loyal." All loyalty in-
volves autonomous choice and, by its very nature, loyalty is

* The Philosophy of Loyalty, 1908, ed. 1924.

What Is Loyalty? Who Are Loyal? 51

protean; there are always many loyalties. Just as one cannot be
loyal to anything unless it be as a matter of willing devotion or
conscious choice, so one loyalty implies other loyalties. To be
loyal to one's country, for example, is to be loyal to many other
things. Loyalty itself is never an evil since disloyalty is a form
of moral suicide.

Since the state of mind of the loyal person has a value to this
person, answering one of man's most deeply sensed personal
needs, there is something highly immoral about the notion that
one group of citizens should attempt to coerce the loyalty of
other citizens. This is tantamount to an assault upon the idea of
loyalty for, as Royce said, "all the loyal are brethren." Even if
these other citizens are loyal to an unworthy cause, their loyalty
should never be the focal point of attack. The problem of how
to treat with the disloyal presents serious moral and political
issues but it can never be solved by committing a new act of
disloyalty, that is, by attempting to undermine their loyalty.

To attack the loyalty of the Communist to his cause is to make
a mockery of the idea of loyalty. His loyalty to his cause is a
good thing in itself. The cause can be taken apart, dissected,
pulverized; but it is strategically most unwise to attack his loy-
alty to this cause. To undermine this loyalty is like bribing a
servant to betray his master. If you want to wean the servant
from his master, convince him that his master is unworthy, give
him some cogent reason for accepting your offer; but don't at-
tempt to bribe or threaten him. To issue a subpoena for the in-
dividual who has just resigned or been expelled from the Com-
munist Party, upon the assumption that he would now like to
attack the cause to which he was formerly loyal, is both stupid
and insulting for it implies that the ex-member is inherently a
renegade. To the extent that he is a decent person, he will
resent the implication. Similarly to force a Communist to be-
tray his loyalty to other Communists, or to attack his loyalty
with threats and penalties, is ethically indefensible and tac-
tically stupid. It is also self-defeating for it implies that the cause
must be very powerful otherwise the bribe would not be offered
and the threat would not be made. To attack a person's loyal-

52 Witch Hunt

ties touches the deepest springs of his nature; it is like asking him
to be dishonest or to commit treason to his own conscience.

Even if it be assumed that a majority of Communists are dis-
loyal or that the party itself is a disloyal conspiracy, it does not
follow that all Communists carry the taint of presumptive dis-
loyalty. Theoretically it is altogether possible for a person to
join the Communist Party and to remain completely loyal to
that party and to this country. To some people these loyalties
may seem to be entirely incompatible; but the real test can
only be found in the attitude, the feelings, the personality, the
character of the person involved. This person may be de-
luded or biased or ignorant; but the test of his loyalty is to
be found in his feelings, not your feelings or my feehngs. To
judge his patriotism by some other person's appraisal of what
it means to be a Communist is completely fallacious. It also
happens to be self-defeating as a tactic. For to attack the loy-
alty of all Communists is to keep some people in the Com-
munist Party who might otherwise like to leave it and, at the
same time, to encourage dishonest people to desert a cause which
they would promptly rejoin if it were ever to their advantage
to do so. Besides, the national security of the United States is,
and always will be, more gravely threatened by the person
who has no loyalties — who is incapable of loyalty — than it can
ever be threatened by a Communist loyal to his cause.

"Can a Communist be a loyal American? Can a loyal American
be a Communist?" However the question is worded, it is sig-
nificant that it should be seriously debated and even more sig-
nificant that a large section of the American public would today
probably answer the question in the negative. A negative answer
to the question implies a loss of confidence in self-government;
it suggests that the basic principles embodied in the First Amend-
ment have been tacitly repealed. For, as Mr. Justice Holmes
pointed out in the Gitloiv case, ". . . if, in the long run, the
beliefs expressed in proletarian dictatorship are destined to be
accepted by the dominant forces of the community, the only
meaning of free speech is that they should be given their chance
and have their way." But a negative answer implies far more

What Is Loyalty? Who Are Loyal? 53

than a repeal of the First Amendment. If such an answer were to
be returned, in all seriousness, by a majority of the American
people, it would mean that we had abandoned freedom as a
principle of American life and that we had turned autocrats and
authoritarians.

In order to accept this conclusion, however, it is necessary
to keep certain considerations in mind. Today American capi-
talism has entered upon its ideological phase — that is, its pre-
suppositions have now been given formal ideological statement
and its underlying assumptions have been crystallized as doctrine;
not to accept these presuppositions and assumptions is to run
the risk of being called "un-American." The creed of the
American capitalist, in short, is now hardening into the mold
of official doctrine. To admit that a Communist cannot be a
loyal American is to concede a prime tenet of the capitalist
ideology, which is that not only Communists and Socialists, but
all those who reject the philosophy of "free enterprise," are
"bad security risks." And to concede this tenet, with all its im-
plications, is to go a long way toward accepting the capitalist
credo as the official American ideology.

Now, we can no more admit that the ideology of American
capitalism has become the official American ideology than we
can admit that the Communist ideology, or any other ideology,
should be adopted as the official American ideology. For the
official American ideology is, and always has been, that there
should be no official American ideology. Long ago we re-
jected the notion of official ideologies or an orthodox doctrine.
But if we say that a Communist cannot be a loyal Ameri-
can, we have in effect said that a capitalist cannot be a loyal
American for we have admitted the principle of heresy. There
are any number of American capitalists who are, in every re-
spect, as rigidly authoritarian as the most doctrinaire American
Communist. To say that a Communist cannot bf .1 1n)^nl Amffr-
ican is to say"tliat there are ideas whic|i shnnld ^^ Kinnarl nr
^eresy and tnougnts which should be f^iippres'^erf ^<^ ^Mi^pgerons"
and "subversive/]^ And to make this concession is to betray a
fundarnentaF aspect of the American tradition — namely, the

54 Witch Hunt

sharp distinction which this tradition has always made between
nonconformity and heresy.

Heresies are spaw^ned by orthodoxiej. It is quite impossible to
conceive of heresy apart from the existence of some official
creed or ideology. Heresies arise ivithm an official creed. It is
for this reason, in fact, that the heretic accepts the authoritarian-
ism of the official creed even though he may reject every other
doctrine of this creed. "Heretics" are usually very devout,
doctrinaire, dedicated people who are convinced, beyond all
reason, not only of the soundness and "correctness" of their
views, but of the doctrine of infallibility. As a matter of fact,
heretics are usually excommunicated or expelled before they
have consciously realized the abyss over w^hich they have trav-
ersed. Once they make this discovery, they are often so appalled
at the enormity of what they have done that they reverse the
situation and begin to charge the "faithful" with being "devia-
tionists," "revisionists," and so forth.

In the United States, we have never, up to this point, con-
ceded that there could be, or that there should be, an "official"
American ideology; nor have we ever tolerated any orthodoxies
in religion or in politics. Therefore the concept of heresy is
repugnant to a fundamental aspect of the American tradition.
To concede that ideas should be stamped out as heresies is to
admit that an orthodox creed exists in terms of which it is pos-
sible for official censors to determine w^hat ideas are scriptural
and what are heretical. But with us, iVmericanism is simply what
a great many, quite diverse Americans think of America. These
Americans worship at the democratic shrine as they worship
generally, that is, as individuals who are at liberty to emphasize
this or that aspect of the American tradition, each seeking what
is most meaningful to him, each eulogizing some particular phase
of this tradition. Ours is a dejnocratic tradition in precisely this
sense — namely, that it is not imposed from without but cre-
ated, and constantly re-created, from ^\'ithin. It is not something
precisely defined or "given" or "stated"; it consists, in the last
analysis, in a belief in freedom. We believe in freedom largely
because we have never tolerated orthodoxies — that is, never

What Is Loyalty F Who Are Loyal? ^S

completely, officially, w ith the full sanction of the government.
The traditional American policy — as distinguished from the
policy of certain Americans — has always been to encourage
nonconformity rather than to suppress heresy. Heresy is a
European concept; nonconformity is American doctrine.

"I was not born to be forced," wrote Thoreau. "I will breathe
after my own fashion. . . . The only obligation which I have
a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right. . . .
A common and natural result of an undue respect for law is,
that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal,
privates, powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order
over hill and dale to the M^ars, against their wills, ay, against their
common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep
marching, indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart. They
have no doubt that it is a damnable business in which they are
concerned; they are all peaceably inclined. Now, what are
they? Men at all? or small movable forts and magazines, at
the service of some unscrupulous man in poM^er? . . . The mass
of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as ma-
chines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the
militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases
there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the
moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and
earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufac-
tured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no
more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the
same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these
even are commonly esteemed good citizens." "

This is the doctrine of American nonconformity, of civil dis-
obedience; and it is the antithesis, in every respect, of the doc-
trine of heresy. Those who think this doctrine makes for
anarchic disunity do not understand the nature of unity; it is
only by recognizing this doctrine that a real unity can be
achieved. Uniformity is not unity; conformity is not unity. In
a crisis, a community of free men will present a unity that is
unshakable; that cannot be commanded; that is beyond the

^Thoreau: Philosopher of Freedom, edited by James Mackaye, 1930.

S6 Witch Hunt

power of any authoritarian regime to coerce. The people who
seek to coerce loyalty are the people who fear freedom. These
are the people who want to retreat into a neatly arranged
ideological cave in which they can feel secure against "doubts,"
"disloyalties," and uncertainties. The ideological mind is based
on a fear of individual responsibility in an age when responsibil-
ity has become increasingly terrifying. The mind that believes
ideas should be suppressed is a mind that is the prisoner of an idea.
But such a mind cannot be liberated by suppressing the idea
that imprisons it: it must free itself. The ideological mind ra-
tionalizes; it does not reason. It obeys; it does not think. It
functions compulsively. And, by a tragic paradox, the activ-
ity engendered by an ideology of cast-iron rigidity reflects
the fears and hatreds which originally sought refuge in the
ideology, thus creating, on a mass basis, a form of paranoid
delusion.

Nonconformity is not un-American; America is nonconform-
ity. To grant that the Communist ideology runs counter to the
American tradition of nonconformity does not mean that a
Communist cannot be a loyal American. For this could only
mean that people cannot free themselves from the fetters of an
ideology; that they are incapable of freedom; that, as human be-
ings, they are permanent prisoners of an ideology from which
there is no escape. But if Communists are doomed in this fash-
ion, then we are all doomed; for there are neither Communists
nor anti-Communists in this world but only human beings who
are essentially alike and who happen to be non-pro-or-anti-
Communist. To write Communists off as beyond the reach of
reason is to confess that one has become a prisoner of the anti-
Communist ideology. And, besides, just what do we mean by
a loyal American? Or, stated another way, to what is the loyal
American loyal?

2. FREEDOM IS OUR COMMITMENT

By insisting on an undefined loyalty, we have been obscuring
the real basis of American loyalty, which happens to differ, in

What Is Loyalty? Who Are Loyal? 57

some respects, from other national loyalties. With us the growth
of national loyalty was a slow, awkward, and largely unconscious
process. The size of America, and the rapidity with which it was
settled, made at one time for a strong conflict between national
and sectional loyalties. Gradually, over a period of many years,
a wide variety of factors began to build up a conception of na-
tional loyalty: the beauty of the land; its size and grandeur;
its richness; the ease of living in America; the sense of abundance
and well-being; the freedom of social intercourse, and so forth.
But for a long time American loyalty was defined, at different
periods, by quite different standards. As Merle Curti has pointed
out, Anglo-Saxons were once widely regarded as being "more
loyal" than other Americans; at other times, a demand for
loyalty has masked purely selfish economic interests; and, in
the latter part of the last century, loyalty was widely believed
to have its roots in racial homogeneity.^ And there are still those
who insist that a belief in the right of revolution is incompatible
with American loyalty despite ths fact that America had its
origin in a revolution. We should be, therefore, rather cautious
about testing the loyalty of the American people by any single
standard, much less by a standard which is simply assumed.

The fact is that the slow growth of American loyalty, which
is an aspect of the rapid expansion of America, has resulted in
two sharply conflicting traditions of loyalty. The older tradi-
tion has always emphasized loyalty to America as an aspect
of America's devotion to such ideals as self-government, liberty,
and equality. But there is another tradition, neither as old nor
as deeply rooted, which defines American loyalty in terms of
narrow, shifting, partisan group-interests, racial, economic, ethnic,
or religious. This latter tradition, as Curti points out, stresses
the chauvinistic, organic, compulsive variety of patriotism as
opposed to the time-honored identification of American pa-
triotism with the love of liberty. The contrast is that between
loyalty as a form of hero worship and loyalty as an aspect of
social intelligence, or, as Henry Steele Commager has said, be-
tween loyalty measured as an "uncritical and unquestioning ac-

^The Roots of American Loyalty by Merle Curti, 1946.

58 Witch Hu7it

ceptance of America as it is" and loyalty based on the realiza-
tion that America was "born of revolt, flourished on dissent,
and became great through experimentation." *

The older tradition is the sound one, not by preference but
by necessity. For the nature of our institutions implies a dis-
tinction between loyalty to the government and loyalty to the
general good, to the nation. It is precisely this distinction which
makes American loyalty differ from that of nondemocratic na-
tional loyalties. The distinction must obtain in any self-govern-
ing democracy for otherwise the principle of loyalty, upon
which social unity is predicated, becomes hopelessly restricted.
If any element, including a majority, were to force an identifica-
tion of American loyalty with some specific ideology, then
America would cease to exist as a self-governing democracy.
One can be a perfectly loyal American without believing in
capitalism, free enterprise, predestination, God, theosophy,
Christ, or the profit motive.

Indeed any other concept of American loyalty would make
the problem of loyalty insoluble for us. If it were not for this
principle, it would be impossible for Americans to be "loyal"
citizens for they are the most diverse people on earth. On the
other hand, by recognizing this principle we make it possible
for the anarchist to be loyal and also for the vegetarian, the
atheist, the Fifth iVIonarchy Men (if any survive), the Zuni In-
dians, the cultists of Southern California, and the nudists of
New Jersey; sun worshipers, snake worshipers, and rum wor-
shipers, all can be loyal Americans. Our problem, as Rovce
pointed out, is to provide opportimities for these diverse ele-
ments to exhibit their loyalty in ways which they find appropri-
ate and meaningful. Those who would limit opportunities for
loyalty demonstrate an unawareness of the basis of American
loyalty; they strike at the very roots of American loyalty. The
distinction emphasized by Curti and Commager is not a cross
which we must bear; on the contrary, it is the bright particular
glory of the United States of America; it is, so to speak, the
poi7it about America. Conversely, the European idea has always

*"Who Is Loyal to America?" Harper's, Vol. 195, p. 193.

What Is Loyalty? Who Are Loyal? 59

been that a person cannot be a loyal German, or Italian, or
Spaniard, or Frenchman, or Swede, unless a much larger aspect
of his personal capacity for loyalty is committed to some limit-
ing concept, whether it be king, czar, church, pope, communion,
or commissar.

With us two traditions of loyalty are in conflict not merely
in the sense that different Americans accept one tradition or the
other but in the further sense that the conflict exists within
most Americans and therefore finds expression in contradictory
attitudes and self-defeating policies. The continued existence of
this unresolved conflict can be explained, Dr. Alexander Meikle-
john has suggested, by the fact that we have permitted a fron-
tier experience to bhnd us to the distinction between independ-
ence and freedom. It is this confusion which accounts for our
failure to realize that we love freedom more than anything else.
Our commitment is to freedom, not to independence; freedom
implies an obligation to respect the freedom of others, inde-
pendence is self-assertion. Failing to recognize this commitment,
we act as though the "meaning" of American freedom were to
restore the bourgeoisie of Western Germany to their prewar
eminence, as though our mission were to save the world from
Communism rather than to lend our influence to the creation
of a world order based on the principle of freedom.

This unresolved conflict accounts for our uncertain and often
contradictory behavior as a people; our current obsession with
loyalty relates to another issue. People become obsessed with loy-
alty when they are somehow conscious of having been dis-
loyal to some commitment or obligation. Writing in 1935, Dr.
Meiklejohn pointed out that ". . . there has come upon us, in
recent years, a vivid sense of having been disloyal to our own
purposes. In many ways we are obsessed by the fear of having
betrayed ourselves." '^ This obsession dates from the First World
War. Up to this time, we had thought that we were above and
beyond the "mess" of Europe. With the armistice, we said: now
is the time for Europeans to listen to us; we can set them right;
we can point the way. But how quickly that dream changed

^ What Does America Mean? 1935, p. 74.

6o Witch Hunt

into the fascist nightmare! And, without knowing just how or
why, most Americans sensed that we were to some degree re-
sponsible for the rise of fascism. "We calculated with the utmosf
nicety," writes Dr. Meiklejohn, "how heavily each of the na-
tions should be prepared for future war. And in the midst of
all these calculations we found a safe and vastly enriched Amer-
ica making exceedingly careful provision for herself." With
this realization, the moral difference between America and
Europe seemed to vanish overnight. And in the midst of this
debacle we saw the incredible happen: we saw barbarous Rus-
sia, long synonymous with tyranny, assert a claim to world
leadership. We heard the crude commissars of this backward
land make the most preposterous claims: of having eliminated
racial discrimination; of having solved the problem of unem-
ployment; of having lifted the burden from the oppressed.
Coupled with our disillusionment, this shock was too much. We
began to show "a dreadful sense of disloyalty to ourselves,"
which found expression in the loyalty obsession after the First
World War. This obsession, from which we are once again suf-
fering, can only be diagnosed as a form of acute paranoid delu-
sion resulting from a betrayal of fundamental American postu-
lates and principles.

S. LOYALTY AND SELF-ESTRANGEMENT
There is, indeed, a real problem about the disloyal in Amer-
ica. The problem has to do with a sharp decrease in the op-
portunities for loyalty which has resulted in the phenomenon
of self-estrangement or alienation. The social mind, as Royce
pointed out, becomes self-estranged or alienated when people
"no longer recognize their social unity in ways which seem to
them homelike," that is, meaningful and familiar. The growth in
scale and number of institutions and the ever-increasing com-
plexity of modern life have greatly reduced the opportunities
for loyalty. Government has become so remote and impersonal
that it is sensed as a form of dictation, imposed upon us, un-

What Is Loyalty F Who Are Loyal!* 6i

related to our needs and unresponsive to our wishes. Dwarfed
by social forces they seem powerless to control, many people
are consumed with a feeling of littleness and impotence. So-
cial happenings seem arbitrary, capricious, and, on occasion,
highly malevolent. The average person is caught in a murderous
cross-current of pressures and cannot feel sovereign even in his
own back yard.

In a setting of this kind, the sentiment of loyalty becomes dis-
placed. Writing in 1908, Royce saw that the great industrial
forces of modern society "excite our loyalty as little as do the
trade winds or the blizzard." How can anyone feel loyal to
600,000 stockholders? How can the liveried attendant at the
filling station feel a personal loyalty to the satrapy that is
Standard Oil.^ In this present harsh predicament, man is forced
to find new institutions to which he can be loyal; for it is the
feeling of loyalty that invests his life with meaning and purpose
and dignity. Suffering from a feeling of alienation, he seeks out
his own kind among the fraternity of the alienated. Hence the
cults, the sects, the "crazes" that flourish in American life. In
a world in which they feel self-estranged, people seek refuge in
partisan organizations; in dogmatisms; in compulsive ideologies.
Under the impact of these developments, the society unity of a
nation can become greatly weakened. It is this general situation
which gives rise to the real problem of the disloyal in modern
society.

Self-estrangement has now, of course, become a form of so-
cial malaise; a deep-seated sickness of our time. In Prophets of
Deceit, Leo Lowenthal and Norbert Guterman have pointed out
how ". . . distrust, dependence, exclusion, anxiety, and disil-
lusionment blend together to form a fundamental condition of
modern life: malaise." This malaise, which the modern agitator
understands so well and exploits with such skill, has many causes:
the decay of the patriarchal family; the breakdown of primary
social ties; the substitute of mass culture for traditional cultural
forms; the rise of industrialism; the bigness and complexity of
modem urban living; but, in the last analysis, it is "a consequence
of the depersonalization and permanent insecurity of modern

62 Witch Hunt

life." The tendency to retreat into ideologies is a symptom of
this malaise — an attempt on the part of the alienated to find
something to which they can relate their lives; to which they
can be loyal. If we were realistically concerned with the prob-
lem of disloyalty, we would be listening to those who have
worked out a scientific diagnosis of the malaise of alienation
and not to J. Parnell Thomas and Elizabeth Bentley, both of
whom are clearly victims of the disease.

Ideas do not alienate people from society or create social di-
visions; the divisions foster the feeling of alienation and the
ideas to which this feeling gives rise. If we have two conflicting
traditions of loyalty, it is in part because, as Dr. W. Lloyd
Warner has pointed out, "The American social system ... is
permeated with two conflicting social principles: the first says
that all men are equal before God and man and emphasizes the
spirit of the great ritual documents of our nation . . . the sec-
ond, contradictory to the first, more often found in act than
in words, in oblique reference than direct statement, declares
that men are of unequal worth, that a few are superior to the
many, and that a large residue of lowly ones are inferior to all
others." *^

The conflict in social principles reflects the increasingly sharp
diff^erentiation of social classes in the United States. Today
social scientists are in general agreement that socioeconomic
stratification is hardening in the structure of American society.
In one of the best recent studies. Dr. Richard Centers has estab-
lished, with a wealth of statistical evidence, the existence of the
following social groupings: an upper class consisting of about
3 or 4 per cent of the population; a middle class made up of
about 40 per cent; a working class of well over 50 per cent;
and a lower class of from i to 5 per cent.^ Dr. Centers also
found that a person's attitudes, values, and interests of a socio-
political nature are in part determined by his status and role

^Democracy In Jomsville: A Study of Quality a?id Inequality, 1949,
p. xvii.

■^ The Psychology of Social Classes: A Study of Class Consciousness by
Richard Centers, Princeton University Press, 1949.

What Is Loyalty? Who Are Loyal? 63

in the economic process. He found, too, that the interests of
one social group are often in conflict with those of another
and that this conflict is clearly reflected in the attitudes and
opinions. There is, of course, nothing novel about these findings;
but they happen to be supported, in this case, by a massive accu-
mulation of data.

The existence of these conflicting ideologies, as yet not too
clearly or too consistently focused, is all the more remarkable
in view of the fact that the educational resources of the nation
have been largely devoted to imbuing all citizens with a com-
mon set of attitudes and values; that the newspapers, motion
pictures aiid radio are steeped in a type of thinking which over-
whelmingly reflects the interest of a single social class; and that
the "experts" in American culture — the editors, physicians,
lawyers, priests, and teachers — are very largely identified with
the middle and upper classes in outlook and sympathies. Never-
theless the American people have become class conscious and
a part, calling itself the working class, has "begun to have at-
titudes and beliefs at variance with the traditional acceptances
and practices." ^ Here is convincing evidence that status and
role in the economic process tend to determine attitudes and
identifications, not in any purely mechanical way, not as an
aspect of blind determinism, but simply because people do think
and, thinking, change their beliefs. To be sure, class conscious-
ness in America is still in its incipient phases and, where it is
most pronounced, it exists as nonsupport and dissent, rather
than in the form of a well-defined movement with a distinct
ideology. But Dr. Centers detects "a crude and elemental class
consciousness" out of M'hich might well arise a militant and
sharply class-conscious political movement. This can only mean
that the American people are beginning to identify themselves
with two conflicting social attitudes which could become, in
time, two ideologies. Self-estrangement is the individual mani-
festation of this process; class consciousness is its social mani-
festation. Thus to one element of the population, loyalty clearly
implies a devotion to free enterprise, to things as they are,

^Ibid., p. 218.

64 Witch Hunt

whereas to other Americans, loyalty may have quite different
implications.

4. HOW NOT TO TEST LOYALTY

As the destructiveness of war has increased, the fear of "the
enemy" has grown; nowadays any element in the population
even remotely or conting:.iitly identified with "the enemy"
is in instant and deadly peril in time of war, and this same
fear, of course, feeds the loyalty obsession. Psychologists have
long known that fear distorts perception and so it is not sur-
prising that the fear of war should inspire grotesque delusions
on the subject of loyalty. Witness, for example, a tragic mis-
conception of World War II.

In the crystallization of sentiment against Japanese-Americans
on the West Coast, one could blueprint the various steps by
which the fatal delusion of disloyalty arises. In this case, the
misidentification was brought about by a deceptive syllogism:
(a) we are fighting a dangerous enemy, the Japanese, who are
a people of fanatical loyalty; (b) there are 110,000 people of
Japanese descent on the West Coast; (c) therefore these people
must be loyal to Japan and disloyal to the United States. Under
the dominance of this delusion, we proceeded to round up
110,000 men, women, and children, two thirds of whom were
citizens of the United States, and to place them in concentra-
tion camps euphemistically called "relocation centers,"

From first to last, no acts of sabotage or espionage were chalked
up against the record of Japanese-Americans during the war.
But I well remember the "logic" that prevailed when mass
evacuation was ordered. In a Town Meeting of the Air debate,
I was amazed to hear my opponent, a member of Congress,
gravely assure the audience that Japanese-Americans were under
a cloud of suspicion precisely because no acts of sabotage or
espionage had been proved against them! This was, he thought,
a most "unnatural," therefore a most suspicious, circumstance.
There is, however, a real basis for the perverse logic which
sees something "menacing" in the absence of evidence of dis-

What Is Loyalty? Who Are Loyal!* 6^

loyalty. Once a majority has decided to oppress a minority, no
loophole is ever left by which individuals belonging to the
minority group can escape. A dense system of assumptions, be-
liefs, and superstitions is erected to make escape impossible.
Dominant groups never reason in this perverse fashion until
they have decided to be oppressive. Once this decision is reached,
they are, of course, impervious to reason because they have de-
cided not to reason but to be massive, dogmatic, coercive. This
is the "logic" of persecutions.

Once we had placed the Japanese-Americans in concentra-
tion camps, however, we began to feel a twinge of conscience.
It was then suggested that we might reverse the un-American
procedure which we had followed up to this point by simply
testing the loyalty of the evacuees. In brief we would simply
run a kind of mass Wassermann test on 110,000 human beings
and the findings would unerringly indicate which were loyal
and which were disloyal. The loyal would then be released, the
disloyal detained. It never occurred to the well-intentioned of-
ficials who dreamed up this procedure that emotional loyalty to
the enemy's culture might not necessarily be synonymous with
disloyalty to the United States. The Issei, the immigrant gen-
eration, would have been moral monsters if they had not felt
some vestige of loyalty to Japan, where they were born, where
their parents lived, from whence they had derived their lan-
guage, their culture, and their moral sentiments. But this did fiot
mean that the Issei were disloyal to the United States, a land
in which they had prospered, where their children were born,
and where, ironically enough, some of them had enlisted for
service in the army and navy during the First World War. But
to the deluded superpatriots, suffering from a guilty knowledge
that Japanese-Americans had been sorely discriminated against
in the prewar period, the existence of two loyalties implied dis-
loyalty to the United States. To them "dual loyalty" was synony-
mous with disloyalty. Yet the Issei were living, breathing, tragic
evidences of the fact that, for the loyal, there are always many
loyalties; that a person's loyalties, as Laski pointed out, are
"as diverse as his experiences of life." The failure to recognize

66 Witch Hunt

this truism was largely responsible for the Japanese-American
fiasco.

The loyalty questionnaire w hich the evacuees were asked to
sign was universally resented, by Issei, Nisei, and Kibei. Con-
sider the Nisei, the American-born. Stripped of their constitu-
tional rights without a hearing or charges, torn away from their
homes, their jobs, their properties, denied a chance to enlist in
the army, they were then asked to prove their loyalty by filling
out a form while being confined in a concentration camp! The
questionnaire was resented in almost exact relation to the evacu-
ee's loyalty to America, Some of the Nisei, in anger and dis-
illusionment, renounced their American citizenship; others sim-
ply refused to answer the questions. From first to last, the
whole loyalty-testing procedure was a dismal failure and has
been so appraised. For example, several thousand renunciations
of citizenship have been set aside by the courts on the ground
that the loyalty-testing procedure was unw^arranted, fatallv de-
fective, and tragically misconceived. Yet no one has suggested
that this experience might have some bearing on our current
efforts to test loyalties.

But there is a further point to the tale. Japanese intelligence
had no difficulty in recruiting "agents" in this country but they
were the kind of persons who are basically incapable of loyalty
to anything. Many of them, it so happened, turned out to be of
old-line Anglo-Saxon background and descent. To compare
these moral derelicts with a proud Japanese-conscious Issei,
aware of his loyalties, sensitive to his moral obligations, is to
learn why loyalty is a positive good in itself and why the loyal
are brethren. It is to appreciate, also, that loyalty to America
rests on America's devotion to humanity. Americans are loyal
to a principle, an ideal, a tradition. If the United States will
only give free scope to Emerson's statement that it is ". . . the
office of America ... to liberate, to abolish kingcraft, priest-
craft, caste, monopoly, to pull down the gallows, to burn up
the bloody statute-book, to take in the immigrant, to open the
doors of the sea and the fields of the earth," it need never be
concerned about loyalty to America.

Ill
Thoreau and the Hollywood Ten

The unhealthy state of American public opinion on civil rights
finds disturbing illustration in the case of the Hollywood Ten.
From the turgid hearings which began in Washington on Octo-
ber 1 8, 1947, under the chairmanship of J. Parnell Thomas, now
a resident of Danbury Prison, this question seemed to emerge:
Does a congressional committee have the power to compel dis-
closure of a person's political beliefs and affiliations? The ques-
tion is real enough but it by no means exhausts the issues raised
by the case, some of which touch upon ideas fundamental to the
whole conception of self-government. Yet, in the excitement of
the moment, these more basic issues were largely ignored. The
public's failure to identify the real issues in the case provides,
indeed, painful documentation for the proposition that the mean-
ing of civil rights must be rediscovered at fairly regular intervals
in history.

The confusion about the issues was so prevalent, in fact, that it
engulfed the victims as well as their persecutors. Before the hear-
ings had gotten under way, a committee had been formed in
Hollywood, known as the Committee for the First Amendment,
on the theory, apparently, that J. Parnell Thomas intended to
violate Hollywood's right of free speech. Somewhat later, how-
ever, the argument began to veer toward a haven which was
called "a right of silence." Even this change of direction, how-
ever, failed to provide a satisfactory basis for the contention of
the Ten that, in some manner, their rights had been gravely vio-
lated. Indeed it was only as the case was shaped up for presenta-
tion to the Supreme Court, following their conviction of con-

68 Witch Hunt

tempt of Congress, that the real issues began to emerge. Basically
these issues relate to a question which Henry David Thoreau
raised in his essay on Civil Disobedience: "Must the citizen ever
for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the
legislator?" That so fundamental a question should issue from an
inquiry in which the name of Hollywood figured so prominently
must be put down as a major irony. In fact the Hollywood back-
ground was probably responsible for the strange manner in which
the extraordinary importance of the case was obscured by weirdly
irrelevant headlines.

1. SUFFER NOT A WITCH TO LIVE

Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

— EXODUS XXII, 18

The issues in the case of the Hollywood Ten relate to the
meaning to be found in such phrases as "self-government" and
"government by consent." For example, how can a people be
self-governing" when governments are organized precisely be-
cause men will not govern themselves? Is government by con-
sent, as Edward Hallett Carr has insisted, "a contradiction in
terms"? 15 government is a process by which some people exer-
cise compulsion on others, how can a people be self-governing?
These questions, in turn, hinge on the meaning of "consent."

A free society, as D. W. Brogan has pointed out, believes that
the quality of the assent obtained from the governed m.atters as
well as the fact that assent is obtained.^ It is the quality of popular
consent that distinguishes a democracy from a so-called plebis-
citarian dictatorship. Under dictatorial regimes, the people are
often asked to register assent in manipulated plebiscites; but, in
a self-governing democracy, the people do more than "assent" —
they govern themselves. With us, as Madison pointed out, "the
censorial power is in the people over the government and not in
the government over the people."

If self-government is to have any real meaning, the consent of

^The Free State, 1945, p. 98.

Thoreau and the Hollywood Ten 69

the governed must be able to find free expression. "The free act
towards a good end," writes Dr. Martin J. Hillenbrand, "is always
better than a compulsory act towards a good end, even though
both may achieve the same result. A free expression of belief has
significance; a forced expression of supposed belief means noth-
ing, and compounds misuse of power with a lie. . . . Unless men
can freely propound, receive, examine, compare, accept or reject
the opinions and theories of other men, progress toward better
living and fuller development of personality is scarcely possible." ^
In any power relationship — I speak now as a parent — the real
difficulty is not to obtain assent from the governed but to make
sure that the governed are really assenting and not merely sub-
mitting. Submission can be bribed, manipulated, or coerced; in-
deed submission is easier to obtain than consent. A free society
spurns the notion of submission, which can never lead to real self-
discipline and is as harmful to the censors as to their victims. "It
is very hard indeed," writes Brogan, "to keep to the level of argu-
ment, or persuasion, when you have the level of force to tempt
you." Force, once used, becomes a habit.

To ensure a free consent is, perhaps, one of the most difficult
problems in a democracy. The problem is difficult because it can
never be solved in any purely mechanical way. Checks and bal-
ances and constitutional safeguards alone will not ensure that
consent is freely granted or withheld. A majority in Congress,
reflecting a majority sentiment among the people, can make a
mockery of the idea of government by consent, which means, of
course, the consent of all the governed, all the time. For minori-
ties "consent" in a democracy even when they are outvoted. As
long as a minority is permitted to state its case freely and without
intimidation, government can be said to rest on the consent of
the governed; but the moment this ceases to be the case, govern-
ment by consent becomes, indeed, a contradiction in terms.
There is little danger that a majority in Congress could ride
roughshod over the rights of a majority (the ballot takes care of
this risk): but there is always a real danger that a majority in
Congress might destroy the quality of the consent, which more

^Fower and Morals, 1949, p. 167.

70 Witch Hunt

than anything else, perhaps, distinguishes a democracy from
other forms of government.

Under our system of government, the people really have two
sets of representatives: electors (voters) and representatives
chosen by electors. Elaborate precautions have been taken, as a
cursory examination of any state election code will demonstrate,
to protect the electors against intimidation. But no provisions can
be found in these codes which protect the people, including the
electors, from indirect intimidation as applied, say, by a commit-
tee of Congress. It is implied, of course, that the representatives
of the people will not attempt to intimidate the people; but there
is really nothing to prevent this from happening except the deter-
mination of the people that it shall not be permitted to happen.
The Bill of Rights, unfortunately, does not fully protect the
people against indirect intimidation since only the Supreme Court
stands between an unpopular minority and the vengeful policies
of an enraged congressional majority. Not only is the Supreme
Court reluctant to impose restraints on large congressional majori-
ties but, as we have learned to our sorrow, the death of four,
three, two, or even one member of the Court can determine
whether the Court functions as a guardian of civil rights or as an
agency co-operating in the destruction of civil rights. In theory
the majority of the people are protected against indirect intimida-
tion by congressional committees since the people have a chance
to change the composition of Congress every two years; but a
minority cannot rely upon this safeguard. As a matter of practical
effect, however, even a majorit)^ enjoys no real immunit}^ from
the modern forms of psychological warfare which governments
use to coerce consent. Nowadays large majorities can be manipu-
lated by carefully timed headlines, "revelations," and a thoroughly
unscrupulous exploitation of the silence and secrecy surrounding
many phases of government.

On the other hand, it is argued that Congress must have the
widest freedom to make inquiries and investigations, not only to
inform its members on public questions, so that they may act in-
telligently, but also to inform the people. Under the guise of
exercising this informing function, however, Congress cannot

Thoreau and the Hollywood Ten 71

undertake to censor the thinking of a72y of the people without
endangering the distinction between consent and submission. The
power of Congress to force a disclosure of facts, which is neces-
sarily broad and currently undefined, must be checked at the
point where Congress's need to know the facts ceases. Congress
may need to know who a man is and what he has done; but unless
his beliefs are translated into acts, what he thinks is no concern
of Congress. For it is just at this point — in this twilight zone
where thinking verges on action — that a congressional majority
can most easily pierce the weakest point in a democracy's arma-
ment against antidemocratic tendencies, namely, the majority's
ability to coerce a minority through its control of a large majority
in Congress. Supreme Court decisions may help to define the
boundaries of the congressional power to investigate; but in the
last analysis, an informed public opinion offers about the only
effective check on the new techniques of indirect intimidation
developed by the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

It has been said in defense of the particular investigation that
Congress sought only those facts which were necessary to inform
its members and the public on the danger of Communist infiltra-
tion into the motion picture industry. But in the course of inform-
ing the public on this or any subject. Congress must take care
that it does not intimidate any portion of the pubhc. As the Com-
mission on Freedom of the Press has pointed out: "Any power
capable of protecting freedom is also capable of endangering it.
Every modern government, liberal or otherwise, has a specific
position in the field of ideas; its stability is vulnerable to critics
in proportion to their ability and persuasiveness. A government
resting on popular suffrage is no exception to this rule. It also
may be tempted — just because public opinion is a factor in official
livelihood — to manage the ideas and images entering public de-
bater^ (Emphasis added.) It can be a short step from "inform-
ing" the public to intimidating the public.

And this, in effect, is precisely what happened in the case of
the Hollywood Ten. The House Committee on Un-American
Activities, in the guise of "informing" the public and Congress on

^ A Free aiid Responsible Press, 1947, p. 6.

72 Witch Hunt

Communist infiltration in the motion picture industry, proceeded
to interdict a vast range of social, economic, and political ideas
and to proscribe those identified, in any manner, with any of these
ideas. The action had a clear tendency to dissuade other people
from listening to an exposition of these ideas or from reading
about them or from being associated with those interested in
them. It would be difficult, also, to imagine a more coercive pres-
sure than that which was applied to force the Hollywood writers
to disclose their political beliefs and affiliations. In effect they
were confronted with the unenviable choice of making public
disclosure of their beliefs, and thereby forfeiting the right to
earn a living in the profession of their choice; or of refusing to
disclose their behefs and going to jail. Nor was the individual
injustice, which was grave enough, the real measure of the wrong
done. "So long as there is any subject," wrote John Jay Chapman,
"which men may not freely discuss, they are timid upon all sub-
jects. They wear an iron crown and talk in whispers."

In the guise of informing the public, the committee conducted
a form of carefully rehearsed psychological warfare against the
American people; for what was done to the Ten served as a
warning to all the others. Every effort was made to humiliate the
"unfriendly" witnesses and to focus an image of them on the
mirror of American public opinion of such calculated distortion
as to make them appear "monsters of error." On the other hand,
the friendly witnesses were presented with halo-effects and were
encouraged to abuse and defame their former colleagues. No op-
portunity whatever was offered the latter to cross-examine their
accusers or to call witnesses or to offer evidence on their own
behalf. The more violent and abusive the accuser, the more the
committee beamed its approval. The combined facilities of press,
radio, and motion pictures, moreover, were enlisted to make a
national spectacle of their humiliation.

The notion that Congress should have the power to force a
disclosure of political beliefs and affiliations rests upon the mis-
taken assumption that secrecy is somehow inimical to self-govern-
ment. Actually a measure of concealment is neither criminal nor
sinister but, on the contrary, is a necessary means by which a

Thoreau and the Hollywood Ten 73

real consent is expressed. For example, it is implied in a democracy
that elections shall be free and equal; that is, that every qualified
voter shall have an equal right to cast a free ballot. For the ballot-
ing to be free, the general mode of voting must be secret. The
purpose of the secret ballot is not so much to protect the voter
as to ensure the expression of real public sentiment as distin-
guished from a coerced or counterfeit sentiment. We have never
demanded that all voters "stand up and be counted." On the con-
trary, we have been inclined to agree with Cicero that "the ballot
is dear to the people, for it uncovers men's faces, and conceals
their thoughts." The courts have long recognized that a voter
cannot be compelled to reveal how he voted, even in the case
of a contested election where the question of how he voted is
pertinent. To compel disclosure would be to encourage a system
of espionage by means of which the veil of secrecy, which the
ballot is supposed to protect, might be penetrated at will. Hence
the current loud and vulgar insistence that everyone "stand up
and be counted" is highly subversive of a first principle of self-
government, namely, that a measure of concealment is indispen-
sable if a real consent is to be obtained. The denial of this truism
is based on the naive belief that complete freedom of political
action prevails in the United States. It should be emphasized, how-
ever, that the secrecy of the ballot is a personal privilege. The
voter can, if he wishes, tell a committee, or the world, how he
voted. In this respect, the privilege resembles the personal privi-
lege against compulsory self-incrimination.

Charles Edmundson, in an article in Harpefs,^ has given a
graphic account of how the voters of Tennessee were able to oust
the Crump machine in 1949. "The machine was so powerful,"
he writes, "that only a little overt intimidation was required to
keep the restless in line. ... It had been twenty years since
responsible citizens here [Memphis] had dared to form a com-
mittee to fight the Boss." Even the businessmen who made con-
tributions to the anti-Crump campaign took care to specify that
their names should be kept secret. Nor is this an exceptional case.
Every social reform movement has taken full advantage of the

* January 1949, pp. 78-84.

74 Witch Hunt

principle of secrecy. "If," writes Arthur Garfield Hays, "all the
Abolitionists in the early days had been obliged to come out into
the open, their cause might never have progressed very far. The
risks were too great for disclosure." ^ Where major social reforms
are concerned, the risks are always too great. The citizen, like the
voter, can decide the time and manner for the disclosure of his
pohtical beliefs should he care to disclose them; but he cannot
be compelled to make an affirmation under oath, in response to
threats both stated and implied, as to the behefs which he holds
or rejects without doing irreparable damage to the principle of
consent in government.

The principle of consent applies to groups as well as to indi-
viduals; freedom of association is the counterpart of freedom of
belief. Voters must have the right to combine freelv, without fear
of surveillance or intimidation, in order to give realistic expression
to their beliefs. This right is as broad as the freedom of decision
which belongs to each individual citizen. It includes, for example,
the freedom to perform those acts which are appropriate and
necessary to the maintenance of party organization. To pressure
voters to retire from a political party under threat of some pen-
alty, formal or informal, is as indefensible as to intimidate a voter
or to suppress a party outright. One of the first acts of dictatorial
regimes has been to abrogate the principle of free political asso-
ciation. In the absence of this right, it becomes almost impossible
to obtain a free expression of consent from the governed.

Historically, freedom of association is intimately related to the
right of the people peacefully to assemble, a right which existed
long prior to the Constitution. In this day and age, the people
cannot assemble on the village green whenever a crisis impends
nor can a voter give full expression to his views merely by casting
a ballot at stated intervals. He must also be concerned with cau-
cuses, conventions, partv primaries, and the whole range of col-
lective political activities. The right of free association, like the
right to vote, is subject to regulation but it cannot be suppressed
in the guise of regulation. The real danger, however, is that the
right will be reduced to utter meaninglessness by trumped-up

'^Nation, January 29, 1949,

Thoreau and the Hollywood Ten 75

grand jury indictments of minority party officials and by the
constant harassment, by legislative committees, of unpopular
political minorities.

The protection of the individual against compulsory disclo-
sure of his political beUefs, moreover, is only one aspect of the
problem of securing a real consent from the governed. To force
a person to disclose unpopular political beliefs, or an unpopular
political association, can constitute direct intimidation; what is
not so clear, but is more important, is that the only way to
suppress ideas is to attack individuals. Ideas cannot be sent to
jail but individuals can. If you believe that an idea should be
banned, as a heresy, you will be driven to the necessit)^ of attack-
ing the rights of the person who holds the idea. The genesis of
heresy hunts is to be found in the process by which, in time
of storm, abstract doctrines or ideologies become divorced, for
all practical purposes, from the individuals who adhere to these
ideologies. Once this divorcement takes place, even the most
kindly disposed persons find it possible to acquiesce in the de-
struction of the rights of those who subscribe to ideologies which
they hate or fear. For the censors can always make a plausible
contention that it is the ideology which is being destroyed rather
than the rights of those who believe in the ideology. Thus it is
only a step from the proposition that Communism should be de-
stroyed to the proposition that the rights of citizens who are
Communists should be destroyed, and, eventually, to the final
and fatal simplification that all Communists should be destroyed.
This deceptive logic relates back to a basic semantic confusion,
namely, the tendency to think of words and ideas as things-in-
themselves rather than as names for real things.

Caught in this logic, our desire for freedom seems to be increas-
ing at the same time that our feeling of moral commitment to the
idea of freedom is steadily weakening. The more violently we
denounce clear and flagrant violations of civil rights in Hungary,
the greater becomes our indifference to clear and flagrant viola-
tions of civil rights in Seattle. The more insistent we become
about "freedom," as we define freedom, the angrier we grow
with those with whom we disagree. In time of storm, rival ideolo-

76 Witch Hunt

gies tend to become identical in their denial of the first principle
of freedom, namely, that it involves a moral commitment to
defend the freedom of others. In this respect anti-Communism
has become identical with Communism. "There is in all of us,"
explains a character in Humphrey Slater's novel The Heretics, "a
raging, snarling Urge to Conform. We intensify our conformity
to our own group, and therefor our emotional satisfaction, by
opposing and persecuting other rival groups; and the more like
our own group another is, the more of a rival it seems, and the
more passionately we hate it." This ardor for conformity can
become psychopathic when, in time of storm, the values of a
society seem to be threatened more from within the society than
from without it. It is in such times that the dreadful imperative,
"Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witch to Live!" becomes the reigning
principle of politics.

In the last analysis, therefore, the importance of the case of the
Hollywood Ten does not turn on the question of whether Con-
gress has the power to compel a disclosure of political beliefs and
affiliations; the Supreme Court may rule that it has this power.
The importance of the case goes to the question of what we mean
by "the consent of the governed" and how this consent is to be
obtained. The public's failure to see this larger issue, however,
is understandable since in this, as in so many present-day civil
rights issues, only about a third of the case's significance appears
on the surface of the debate. The relevance of the case to the
problem of obtaining a free consent from the governed becomes
apparent as the power to punish for contempt is examined in rela-r
tion to certain characteristic pressures which modern society
brings to bear upon the nonconformist. Pressures can be felt but
they cannot be seen: they can kill you but you cannot photo-
graph them.

2. THE TRIANGLE OF PRESSURE
According to Dr. E. K. Bramstedt the three main "nerves"
which modern dictatorships manipulate are coercion, bribeiyy

Thoreau and the Hollywood Ten 77

and propaganda. "The totalitarian engineers," writes Dr. Bram-
stedt, "either threaten man with dangerous insecurity, turning
the screw on him by various forms of terror, or they promise
him a deceptive security by the cash value of corruption or the
mental opium of propaganda. In all these cases they reckon that
man will eventually prefer the security of complete submission
to the grave risks of an independent attitude. Many advantages
of an economic or social kind are promised and sometimes
granted. The mind of the masses is filled with colorful suggestions
of what is marked as good or bad for them. It is the combination
of these three agencies which constitutes the mental climate of a
dictatorship. Terror, corruption, and propaganda are only three
different sides of the same triangle, and it is impossible to recog-
nize its geometrical proportions without taking all three Into
consideration. All three aim at directing people according to a
preconceived pattern of thought and action. They reduce them
to an attitude of docile passivity and make them the mere object
of intellectual hypnosis, however subtly applied. Man, when suc-
cessfully approached by any of these three methods, does not
act but reacts, he does not think but follows a stimulus. At the
end he is e?ichained by fetters of ivhich he is ofte?i only vaguely
aware.''"' ^ (Emphasis added.)

The failure to recognize this geometrical, mutually re-enforc-
ing pattern accounts for the Inability of people to measure the
enormity of the moral wrong committed in the case of the
Hollywood Ten. For example, to measure the pressure which
the House committee brought to bear upon the Hollywood
writers, one would have to multiply, so to speak, the fear of a
jail sentence by the size of the monetary prizes which Hollywood
offers for conformity and then add to this the pressure of Inces-
sant ofHcial propaganda which labels certain Ideas "good" and
others "bad." "Restrictions on free speech and Inquiry," writes
Dr. Ezra Day, "may no longer take overt form; there may no
longer be a direct exercise of police power to keep thought and
speech and inquiry within bounds; but an excessive concern for

^Dictatorship and Political Police: The Technique of Control by Fear,
1945, P- 137-

78 Witch Hunt

public relations may have the same effect and may exercise pow-
erful restricting influences." These influences are not as tangible
as a jail sentence, a prosecution, or a book burning; but they are,
in some respects, more effective as restraints on thought. In a
sense they are also more dangerous, for the restraints being in-
visible, an illusion of complete freedom prevails. If people avoid
issues as controversial, or merely as being bad public relations,
the effect is much the same as though their rights had been di-
rectly violated. Socially the significant fact is that silence has
engulfed a certain area of thought; the techniques by which
people are "silenced" are really of secondary importance.

The three nerves of modern dictatorships function with the
most subtle interactions. One can even formulate certain rules
governing the application of pressure in modern societv^ The
greater the bribe, the less need for coercion. To convince a man
who receives a salary of $30,000 a year that it is "inexpedient"
for him to be identified with a certain "controversial" issue is
usually about thirty times easier than to convince the man who
makes $1000 a year or the man who is unemployed. That is, it
would be that much easier if it were not for one complicating
factor: both men may be so thoroughly propagandized that
neither can readily distinguish between the values he respects and
the values which he is told, morning, noon, and night, are re-
spectable. Modern propaganda carries a burden of coercion and
bribery, just as the bribe contains elements of propaganda and
coercion, and coercion is enhanced by propaganda. For example,
the coercive threat of confinement in a concentration camp is
heightened by propaganda about concentration camps. When an
employee is confronted with the choice of speaking his mind or
losing his job. It is anyone's guess as to whether terror, corruption,
or propaganda is the decisive factor; usually the combination tips
the scales. The employee would be hard put to determine which
nerve is causing the most pain; but he is keenly aware of an in-
tense, unremitting, many-sided pressure to conform.

Discussing the modern forces making for conformit)^ the L7w/-
versity of Feiinsylvania Latv Review points out that "the pressure
has been toward the development of new devices, untrammelled

Thoreau and the Hollywood Ten 79

by such hard-won protective elements [as civil rights], devices
operating indirectly, imposing new sanctions such as economic
deprivation in place of fine and incarceration. The inclination has
been to withdraw within the operation of such techniques those
persons who, because of their position on the fringes of groups
formerly subject to criminal law, could not otherwise be brought
under governmental control." '^ (Emphasis added.) These new
techniques are immensely effective because they rely upon im-
plied sanctions and, by a curious delusion, are not sensed as vio-
lations of civil rights, even by the victims themselves. "Liberal-
ism," writes Dr. John H. Hallowell, "was not destroyed by the
Nazis . . . rather, the Nazis were the legitimate heirs to a system
that committed suicide." ^

Economic subjugation which, by being "invisible," appears to
be nonbrutal, is certainly one of the most effective pressures mak-
ing for conformity in modern life. If the recusant individual is a
writer, do not bother to burn his books — a book burning might
call attention to the violation of civil rights; simply blackhst him
with editors and publishers. Make it difficult for him to com-
municate with his audience and dangerous for his audience to
communicate with him. Convey to him by a hundred suggestions,
often subtle, sometimes brutal, an awareness of what "pays" and
what does not pay. Dangle rich prizes for conformity before his
eyes and then rely upon "enlightened self-interest" to police his
errant thoughts. If he fails to conform, make it impossible for
him to earn a livelihood from his craft. Destroy his self-confi-
dence. Create such an atmosphere of hostility toward him that
even his children will be shunned by other children, but take
care, all the while, to Insist that his civil rights have not been
violated in the slightest degree!

The direct sanctions, however, must always be available. A gen-
eral propaganda against "subversive activities" and "Commu-
nism" will serve as a vivid reminder that these sanctions exist; it
will also be a major factor in the psychological warfare directed
at the recusant individual. But to make the point even clearer,

"^ Vol. 96, p. 399.

^ The Decline of Liberalism as an Ideology, 1946, p. 108.

8o Witch Hunt

select, from time to time, an intransigent heretic and make an
example of him; the others will get the point. The humiliation
of an intransigent heretic has symbolic value; it is much more
important, propagandawise, than the humiliation of a less defiant
witness. Having selected the strategic hostages, bring every pres-
sure to bear upon them to recant. Every inquisition aims primarily
at recantation since silence, in periods of great social tension, is
more menacing than action. The prelude to recantation consists
in breaking the will to resist by myriad and convergent pressures.
The aim of Fouche, the dreaded Minister of Police under
Napoleon I, was ". . . not so much the annihilation of the caught
bird, but the catching of others. He did not believe so much in
violent punishment but in enforced enlightenment. The prisoner
could improve his own position by enlightening the eager police
... all the M^orse for him if he failed to realize his own interest." ^

In the particular case, ten writers were discharged from their
positions and blacklisted in the motion picture industry as a
result of direct pressure applied by a congressional committee.
If the committee had subpoenaed ten editorial writers from ten
newspapers, all identified with a similar point of view, and had
then told their employers to fire them, it could not have been any
clearer that the intention was censorial. This, indeed, is how cen-
sorship is accomplished under the guise of protecting "the free-
dom of the screen." No laws are necessary; all that is needed is
a little pressure, strategically applied.

In the case of the ten heretics from Hollywood, one could feel
the stage and off-stage pressures being applied. At the opening
of the hearings, Mr. Eric Johnston, speaking for the industry,
gave eloquent assurance to the committee that he would ". . .
never be a party to anything so un-American as a blacklist."
Chairman J. Parnell Thomas ignored this fancy speech-making
and continued to apply the pressures. But Johnston still held fast;
on October 27, 1947, he declared: "When one man is falsely
damned in an hour like this when the Red issue is at white heat,
no one of us is safe!" Hollywood applauded a fine performance
but Thomas, who had learned the arts of pressure in squeezing

^Bramstedt, op. cit., p. 24.

Thoreau a?id the Hollywood Ten 8i

nickels and dimes from his stenographers, continued to apply
more pressure. Once again Johnston demurred, this time on No-
vember 20: "It's either free speech for all American institutions
or individuals or it's freedom for none — and nobody." This
seemed to be too good to be true and it was, for on November 26
this same Mr. Johnston declared on behalf of the entire motion
picture industry: "We \\ ill forthwith discharge or suspend with-
out compensation those in our employ, and we will not re-employ,
any of the ten until such time as he is acquitted, or has purged
himself of contempt, and declared under oath that he is not a
Communist." In those dreadful "dark ages," long, long ago,
witches were made to sit on hot irons or stools until they con-
fessed and recanted; but we use steam, and the pressure of steam.

On June 10, 1950, John Howard Lawson and Dalton Trumbo
of the Hollywood Ten surrendered in court and were sentenced
to one year in jail and fined $1000 each, for contempt, the Su-
preme Court having declined to review the case, with dissents by
Black and Douglas.

Hans and the 32 Grams

On may 12, 1949, Representative W. Sterling Cole of New York
placed in the Congressional Record the script of a radio talk by
Fulton Lewis, Jr. The talk was laden with political uranium: it
charged that one Hans Freistadt, a naturaUzed citizen, and, worse,
a Communist, was studying at the University of North Carolina
under a fellowship granted by the Atomic Energy Commission.
And then, on May i8, the morning edition of the Ne^co York
Daily News carried the terrifying headline: atom bomb uranium
vanishes! From then on, the headlines blossomed like the Rosi-
crucian's mystic rose. Congress promptly integrated its manifold
fears in the ohe issue of Hans and the 32 grams. Down the years.
Congress has made stupid mistakes from time to time, usually
under the blind governance of fear, but seldom has it made a
blunder of the proportions that it now proceeded to commit upon
discovering that 32 grams— 1.05 ounces of U-235 — were missing
from the Argonne Laboratory in Chicago and that one Hans
Freistadt, formerly of Vienna, was studying at Chapel Hill.

1. THE YOUNG HERETIC AS SCIENTIST
After a week's violent speculation, the first photographs of
Hans Freistadt appeared in the press. Neat, well-dressed, looking
about sixteen years of age (he was twenty-three), he gazed out
at the American public with the incredible earnestness and candor
which seem to be the hallmark of precocity. In appearance, he
might be described as "the ideal type" American graduate stu-
dent. Certainly his appearance was sharply at variance with the

Hans and the 52 Grains 83

role to which he had been so luridly assigned by Representative
John Rankin: "The American people are simply horrified that
the Atomic Energy Commission has a Communist in the Univer-
sity of North Carolina, teaching him how to blow this country
to pieces in years to come." What, then, were the facts about this
political wolf in sheep's clothing?

Hans Freistadt was born in Vienna in 1926, the year that Adolf
Hitler set up a special "loyalty review board," known as the
Committee for Examination and Adjustment, to purge the S. A.
of weaklings and perverts. Vienna was literally alive with anti-
Semites in 1926 and, for the first five years of his life, this was
the world known to Hans Freistadt. His father, a left-wing
journalist, was then Vienna correspondent for the Berlin Der
Abend. When Hans was five years old, the family, which included
a sister, moved to Berlin, where the father edited another left-
wing paper. The year, of course, was 193 1. Three years later,
with Hitler in power, the family fled to Vienna, one jump
ahead of the Nazis. But residence in Vienna was by then almost
as dangerous, for a Jewish family, as residence in Berlin, and so the
Freistadts moved on to Paris where the father edited an anti-
fascist newsletter.

When the war came, Freistadt senior was promptly thrown
into a concentration camp in southern France without trial, hear-
ing, or charges. From September 1939 to April 1941, the father
remained in the camp while the son and daughter were in Paris
with the mother. But in the Nazi bombing of Paris the mother
was killed and, for a time, the two children were left alone.
Granted a release in the spring of 1941, Freistadt sailed from
Marseilles for Ncm^ York, under a French exit-permit, with his
two children. The Jewish Children's Agency arranged to send
the children to an orphanage in Chicago, where Hans was en-
rolled, on a temporary basis, in the Hyde Park School. The
father went on to Mexico where, true to form, he promptly
founded an antifascist quarterly. Later the father and the daugh-
ter returned to Vienna where they now live.

The University of Chicago was sufficiently impressed with
young Freistadt's academic record to grant him a scholarship

84 Witch Hunt

and to admit him without examination or a high school diploma.
The Jewish Children's Bureau paid for room and board and Hans
worked part time to buy his books and clothes. In June 1946 he
was given the degree of bachelor of science, and in August 1948
the degree of master of science. Between these dates, he spent tvvo
years in the army and had been advanced to the rank of sergeant
at the time he received his honorable discharge. Upon returning
to Chicago, he arranged to take his doctorate under Dr. Nathan
Rosen at the University of North Carolina in the field of general
relativit)^

Frelstadt joined the Communist Party in 1946, two years after
he had become a citizen. He had, however, been interested in
Communism for a long time; in fact since he had first come to
know Communists at the age of twehe or thirteen. One oains
the impression that in both Vienna and Berlin, and later in Paris,
Communists were not unknown in the Freistadt household. How-
ever he did not become convinced of "the correctness of the
Communist beliefs" until fairly late in his army career. A joint
committee of Congress, made up of the best talent of both
parties, failed "to ask him just what had happened that had finally
convinced him, although this was, in a way, the crucial point in
his examination.

At Chapel Hill, Freistadt made prompt and public avowal of
his Communist beliefs: here was a heretic who practiced full dis-
closure. Shortly after his arrival, he formed the Karl Marx Studv
Group, composed of precisely thirty-eight students, and wrote
numberless letters to the editor some of which actually were
published in the Tar Heel. On at least four or five occasions, he
took part in debates in the course of which his political position
was made quite clear. Neither his sponsor nor the administration
raised any objection to the presence of this part-time instructor
and graduate student who doubled in the role of the leading
campus "red." Despite his known Communist afiiliation, the issue
was not raised when, on March 30, 1949, he was awarded an
Atomic Energy Commission Fellowship which paid $1600 a year,
to engage in research of a nonsecret character in theoretical
physics.

Hans and the 52 Grams 85

Appearing voluntarily before the Joint Committee on Atomic
Energy, young Freistadt proved to be an able witness. Asked if
he believed in the capitalist system, he rephed: "I do not. But I
don't believe that the capitalist system is part of our form of
government." He believed in "private enterprise" but on a small
scale. As to "force and violence," he thought that the Nazi gov-
ernment should have been overthrown by force and violence,
and it was; but here, where the channels of peaceful progress
Mere clear, "well, I see no reason why one should not use peaceful
channels of progress." He was by no means dogmatic: "If, later,
as a scientist, I find I'm in the wrong and the capitalist system can
soU'C the boom or bust problem, I might change my mind."

Although his fellowship had been granted for work in an un-
restricted field, he made it quite clear that under no circumstances
Mould he disclose secret information to unauthorized persons. If
the Communist Party M'as the "agent of a foreign power," he was
not aware of the fact; and he would resign instantly if he thought
this were true. Yes, he M'ould fight in the event of a M^ar Math
Russia, "if, contrary to M^hat I believe and contrary to M^hat
John Foster Dulles believes, Russia should attack us." But he
would not work, as a scientist, on aggressive M'eapons of war. He
M'as insistent that the revocation of his fellowship would be a
blow to civil rights. "Once scientists and science students are dis-
criminated against because of their political vieM^s or laM^ful politi-
cal activities the whole concept of academic freedom as mx have
knoMm it is endangered."

Obviously nettled by this cool performance, Congressman Price
decided to make a political speech. "You perhaps have not gone
deep enough into the study of American history to know of
some of the statements of our great patriots, but there are some
that are carried on the mastheads of some of the American ncM's-
papers, and one in particular, the most outstanding, is to be found
on the masthead of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, M^hich reads:
'My Country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she
always be in the right; but my country, right or M'rong!' I as-
sume that you do not hold Math that spirit of patriotism?" To
M^hich Freistadt replied: "My attitude tOM^ard that statement is

86 Witch Hunt

the same as that of President John Quincy Adams: 'I disclaim any
patriotism incompatible with justice.' "

The Congressman tried again. This time he accused Freistadt
of ingratitude to "the capitalist system." Hans readily acknowl-
edged that capitalism had achieved "great things for this country"
but he doubted that it could solve the economic crisis of our
time. He hastened to add, however, that he was extremely grate-
ful to the United States. It is difficult, indeed, to see how anyone
could expect Freistadt to be grateful to the capitalist system, ex-
cept in the most metaphorical sense. The capitaHst system had
not paid his tuition or bought his clothes; nor had it fed him or
advanced his travel expenses from Chapel Hill to Washington.
If he should have been grateful to the capitalist system, rather
than, say, to the Jewish Children's Bureau, then, by the same
logic, he should also have been grateful to the Reformation, the
Protestant Ethic, the Industrial Revolution, and Christopher
Columbus.

There was, indeed, an extraordinary David-and-Goliath qual-
ity about this inquisition. Here was a young man, alone, without
counsel, in a" merciless glare of publicity, ably defending his
views under the supposedly "withering" cross-examination of a
joint congressional committee -widely praised for the competence
and ability of its members. Why should this committee have
found it difficult to understand how this sensitive, idealistic,
highly intelligent Jewish boy had come to embrace the Com-
munist doctrine? His early childhood had been spent in a hotbed
of anti-Semitism; his father had been unjustly imprisoned by a
capitalist government and his mother had been Idlled by capital-
ist bombs. Did the committee members believe, as they clearly
implied, that Freistadt's espousal of Communism, at the age of
twenty-three, implied a permanent lifelong commitment? Did
they want to confirm this young Communist's beliefs about
"bourgeois justice"? As a matter of fact, he gave them a lead to
the reasons which had prompted him to join the Communist
Party but they had failed to follow up this lead. Of this voung
scientist, an American citizen, a veteran, the Denver Post in-
quired, in an editorial which reflected the nearly unanimous view

Hans and the 52 Grams 87

of the press: "Do We Have to Coddle this Hostile Genius?" and
then went on to castigate Freistadt as "an avowed enemy of free-
dom." But there is nothing in the record to justify the belief
that this young man is any more "an enemy of freedom" than
Albert Einstein or Pearl Buck or Cardinal Stritch.

Even more difficult to understand is the position of the Uni-
versity of North Carolina. In a report to the trustees, the admin-
istration had this comment to offer: "The Communists are taking
advantage of the unlimited freedom of our university. And if
we are not realistic, prudent and cautious, we may discover too
late that we have . . . stretched our freedom and tolerance to
the point that we have been unwitting 'collaborationists' of the
Communists." And then, as though under some mysterious com-
pulsion, the administration came out squarely and resoundingly
against Communism. "There is only one avowed Communist
Party member now teaching at any of our three institutions and
his appointment is temporary and expires June ist, 1949." How-
ever the administration simply could not wait until June first, so
ex-Sergeant Hans Freistadt, victim of the Nazi terror, exile and
refugee to Free America, was "fired" by the university on May
24, 1949.

Fortunately one or two American newspapers did speak out
against this shameful repudiation of freedom, among them the
San Frajicisco Chronicle (May 20, 1949):

Hans Freistadt seems to have a very good scientific brain,
capable of highly promising development in the field of
relativity. The objective should be to let his brain benefit
the nation. But what, unfortunately, seems to be happening
is the formation of a stormy, hysterical resolve to hound
and harass this young man, interrupt his studies by with-
drawing his fellowship, and brand him unfit for education
at the public expense. About the only results of such per-
secution will be to impoverish science to an extent no one
can measure and confirm ex-Sergeant Freistadt in his Com-
munist beliefs.

However, far more serious results have stemmed from the case.
For what Congress did, in its hysterical concern over Hans and

88 Witch Hu?it

the 32 grams, was to jeopardize the security as well as to libel
the good name of the American people.

2. THE SENATOR FROM IOWA
The hearings in the Freistadt case provide a classic illustration
of the relation between politics and science; of the difference be-
tween the way demagogues think and the way trained scientists
think.

Now what was the program which the committee had under
investigation? To meet a critical shortage in trained scientific
personnel, the x\EC had been authorized by Congress to finance
certain types of research and training. Reluctant to venture into
a field in which it had no competence, the commission had asked
the National Research Council to select the candidates. Some
measure of the council's competence, in this field, may be sug-
gested by the fact that Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, Dr. Ernest
O. Lawrence, and Dr. Henry D. Smyth, among other distinguished
scientists, once held fellowships awarded by the council. From
the outset, Air. Lilienthal took the position that the issue was one
of "freedom for scientific inquiry": the real danger, he said, was
that "the wells of education might be poisoned." On the other
hand. Senator B. B. Hickenlooper of Iowa kept insisting that the
only issue was: "Should public funds be appropriated to educate
members of the Communist Party?"

Mr. Lilienthal, who is a wily politician, apparently assumed
that it would be smart strategy to make a brief statement and
then let Dr. A. N. Richards of the National Academy of Sciences
and Dr. D. W. Bronk of the National Research Council take
over the real burden of the defense. Again and again, he sought
refuge in the proposition that whatever was agreeable to the Na-
tional Research Council would be agreeable to the AEC. But
neither Dr. Richards nor Dr. Bronk would take the position that,
after all, a citizen who is a Communist might have the same
rights as any other citizen. Before long, both men were actually
suggest'mg to the Senator from Iowa the very "compromise"
which they, along with Mr. Lilienthal, had originally intended

Ha7i5 and the ^2 Grams 89

to resist. Once they had capitulated, the AEC was compelled to
"go along with" a policy of discrimination. One week later the
AEC announced that a loyalty oath and non-Communist affidavit
would be required of all fellow s.

But, as always happens, this belated appeasement failed in its
main purpose. On August 2, 1949, the Senate adopted a rider to
an appropriation bill providing that fellowships should not be
granted to any person who advocates or is a member of an organi-
zation that advocates the overthrow of the government by force
and violence or of whom the AEC has reasonable grounds to
believe that he is "disloyal by character or association." Thus the
AEC is now committed to a policy not merely of loyalty oaths
but of formal FBI clearance and investigation of candidates, and
this, in effect, makes political orthodoxy a test of scientific com-
petence.

The fateful rider was carried by a voice vote without audible
dissent. It is fairly clear, however, that Senator Glenn Taylor was
the only Senator who might have voted "no" if a record vote
had been taken. The debate itself makes painful reading. A num-
ber of able Senators — McMahon, Morse, and Pepper — obviously
wanted to oppose the rider but the combination of Communism
and atomic energy constituted too formidable a bugaboo and so
they remained silent. Senator Pepper was the onlv Senator to
observe, rather quaveringlv, that the rider failed to provide even
a "hearing" for those denied "clearance."

Indeed the weakness of the men of good will is, in some re-
spects, the most disconcerting aspect of this shameful incident.
One gains the distinct impression that Mr. Lilienthal wanted the
National Research Council to work out some deft and subtle pro-
cedure by which the "reds" could be eliminated without formal
clearance or investigation. He kept insisting, for example, that
some "informal arrangement" would suffice. But if it is wrong
to discriminate against a citizen because of his political beliefs,
then the discrimination does not become less objectionable be-
cause it is accomplished by guile and cunninsj'. The "invisible"
quota which excludes a Jewish student from a medical school is
just as objectionable as a formal bar.

90 Witch Hunt

It is curious, too, that the Senate should have been so uninter-
ested in the circumstances under which Hans Freistadt became a
pubHc issue. Tucked away in the transcript, however, is this
information: Freistadt was granted a fellowship on March 30,
1949. On April 20, someone in the FBI notified someone in the
AEC that Freistadt was a Communist. At this time, the FBI had
not been asked to investigate candidates and the information was
entirely gratuitous. In fact, the application forms said nothing
whatever about Communism or about political or ideological
beliefs. How did it happen, therefore, that a radio commentator
apparently knew what the FBI knew before this information was
known to Congress? Freistadt's fellowship, it should be noted,
was withdrawn before it was scheduled to take effect on July i,
1949. This puts the AEC in the morally impossible position of
defrauding as well as injuring a citizen and a war veteran. For
Freistadt had won this fellowship honestly, in open, competitive
examination; nor had he been guilty of the slightest equivocation
or concealment.

The same ugly background of connivance and manipulation
appears in the related case of Dr. Isidore S. Edelman. While
working at the Harvard Medical School on an AEC fellowship.
Dr. Edelman was approached by William Bradford Huie, a free-
lance writer, from whom he learned that he was about to be
exposed as a red. Prior to this visit. Dr. Edelman had not been
interviewed by the FBI; nor had he been told that he was under
investigation or that charges of any kind had been filed against
him. Before he could recover, so to speak, from the shock of the
announcement, his name was in headlines from coast to coast
and with the most sinister and damaging implications.

Dr. Edelman, born in Brooklyn, attended the Indiana Medical
School. While he was studying there, he and his wife became
interested in Communism. "I became aware," he testified, "that
there were many things going on in the world which seemed to
me quite chaotic." Seeking to investigate Communism for them-
selves, the Edelmans attended two closed meetings, subscribed
to the Daily Worker, and later signed some form of application.
*'I don't know," he later said, "whether this constituted my being

Hans and the 52 Grams 91

a member of the Communist Party or not." Thereafter the Edel-
mans lost interest in Communism and ceased to have any connec-
tion with the party. Dr. Edelman served in the army during the
war and was commissioned a captain.

It should be noted that Dr. Edelman had been granted a fellow-
ship to study, with the use of tracers, the rates of excretion of
electrolytes with special reference to the role of the endocrines —
a subject which could hardly be regarded as having ideological
or military significance. "I don't know a damn thing about nuclear
physics," he testified; "if somebody tried to tell me about the
atomic bomb, I wouldn't know what they were talking about."
In the transcript appear scores of letters from friends, hospital
officials, former instructors, and colleagues, all testifying, and
often in the most eloquent terms, to Dr. Edelman's loyalty and
patriotism, above all to his loyalty to the sick and the suffering.

The special finesse to his case is this: he had first applied for a
position with one of the AEC laboratories but had been denied
clearance because of the background just mentioned. In the teeth
of a warning from the joint congressional committee, Mr. Lilien-
thal had then insisted that he be granted a fellowship, for his
record indicated that he was an outstanding student for medical
research. Thus the AEC is directly responsible for the fact that
Dr. Edelman was placed in a position without his knowledge —
for he was never informed of the denial of clearance — which
later exposed him to a vicious public attack. Perhaps for this
reason the AEC did not withdraw Dr. Edelman's fellowship al-
though it had quickly withdrawn the fellowship which Freistadt
had won by competitive examination. Aside from the fact that
Edelman had left the Communist Party, it is hard to reconcile
the decisions in the two cases.

3. THE SCIENTISTS REPLY
If one listens to what the scientists had to say at the Freistadt-
Edelman hearings, it is quite clear that the Senator from Iowa,
and his colleagues, were intellectually impeached. Consider, for

92 Witch Hunt

example, the testimony of Dr. Lee A. DuBridge, president of the
California Institute of Technology. "I think the loyalty oath,"
he testified, "is a piece of paper which has very little meaning.
It will eliminate an occasional naive youngster who is quite will-
ing to admit he is a Communist and still thinks he can be loyal to
his country. It will not eliminate the really dangerous, subversive
Communists, who are quite willing to perjure themselves if they
think it to their advantage to do so."

Sending sleuths around to check up on students, interviewing
their relatives, friends, and instructors, would be repugnant. Dr.
DuBridge suggested, to American ideals and harmful to the AEC
program. Besides it would be quite unnecessary: "99 per cent of
the so-called field of atomic science is just as nonsecret as biology
or medicine, or agriculture, or metallurgy, or seismology." Nor
is it possible, unfortunately, to tell just where brains will arise.
"They may arise in association with very curious political ideas,
but brains are a national asset and we should encourage them and
support them wherever they are found." A clearance program
might disquahfy "a very considerable number" of perfectly
honest and loyal men on the basis of inconclusive and possibly
erroneous evidence. Again and again, Dr. DuBridge warned the
committee against the introduction of "police-state methods, the
review of political opinion, the purge of scientists, and the purge
of other people."

To a young person, testified Dr. Enrico Fermi, it might seem
almost one's duty to join the Communist Party, this being the
most realistic way to find out what the party is like. Must a young
man accept, at face value, on some other person's authorit\% a
ready-made mass-produced analysis of Communism and Karl
jMarx? Is this "scientific"? Is there anything wrong with experi-
mentalism — the take-nothing-f or-granted attitude — which wt
have sought to emphasize in American education? If Communism
is precisely what the anti-Communists charge, then intelligent
young men and women can be relied upon to discover this fact
quickly enough. Obviously this is not an argument \A^hy young
people should join the Communist Party: but it is a reason why
their elders should not be shocked out of their wits when, from

Hans and the 52 Grams 93

time to time, one of them decides to find out about dialectical
materialism by associating with, and observing, dialectical mate-
rialists.

In a letter to Senator McMahon, Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer
pointed out that only a small number of scientists were engaged
in or would be likely to engage in restricted work; that impor-
tant contributions to atomic science have been made by scientists
who were Communists, and thus "it would be contrary to all
experience to suppose that only those who throughout their lives
have held conformist political views would make the great dis-
coveries of the future"; and that the clearance procedure involves
questions of "opinion, sympathy and association in a way which
is profoundly repugnant to the American tradition of freedom."
The security side of the program, he suggested, should be kept
at an absolute minimum. Secret investigations, he added, "in-
evitably bring with them a morbid preoccupation with conform-
ity, and a widespread fear of ruin, that is a more pervasive threat
precisely because it arises from secret sources."

Dr. Alan Gregg, of the Rockefeller Foundation, told the com-
mittee that they were taking a perverse view of the fellowship
program: the government wxs not trying to give away fellow-
ships; it was seeking scientific talent. Loyalty investigations would
be certain to discourage applications: some students might not
like the idea of being investigated; others might fear disqualifica-
tion because some uncle or aunt had once belonged to an anti-
fascist organization; and still others might hesitate, realizing that
a denial of clearance, for any reason, could have the most harmful
permanent consequences.

But all this, Dr. Gregg hastened to add, was quite beside the
point. If a phrase such as "potentially subversive" is to be used
in the screening of undesirable applicants, then the committee
should realize that all applicants are potentially subversive. They
are also potentially reactionary. In short, youth is potentially
everything and anything. Great care should be taken, therefore,
in the manner of approach, for the young draw inferences of value
from their initial contact w^ith institutions. Besides, there is always
time to screen scientists for secret work. But to establish a loyalty

94 Witch Hunt

test at the outset of a scientist's career is to establish a political
means test for education, and that, he warned the committee, "is
going to cause a great big storm. The storms will come slowly;
but, like most big things, they come slowly at first and then they
develop speed as they come along."

Now that this excellent advice has been ignored, one can only
speculate as to what assurance Senator Hickenlooper has that
some brilliant research student, whose present political beliefs are,
to use his own word, "clean," will not decide, ten years hence, to
join the Communist Party. The most rigorous screening of stu-
dents cannot eliminate this risk. However miraculous the powers
of divination, the FBI has not yet invented a test that will certify
an applicant as being constitutionally immune to the virus of
Communism.

The Senator's dogmatic definition of the issue: "Should the
federal government appropriate money for the education of
subversives?" has about the same relevance to the real issues in
the Freistadt case as the question: "How would you like to
have your sister marry a Negro?" has to the issue of racial dis-
crimination. I wasted a great deal of time trying to answer this
question before I realized that it can only be answered by ex-
posing the neurotic attitude from which it stems. I started say-
ing, quite simply, "Well, she did," and I had no more trouble
with the question.

In his testimony before the joint committee. Dr. Gregg gave
an excellent demonstration of how to deal with demagogues.
Congressman Hinshaw wanted to know if Dr. Gregg actually
thought that we should spend money "to educate people who
are loyal to some other government." And Dr. Gregg, with ad-
mirable candor, said yes, he thought this ^vould be an excellent
idea. Somewhat startled, Hinshaw then stated that membership
in the Republican, Democratic, or Socialist Party had, of course,
nothing to do with a man's scientific competence or loyalty; but
what about the Communist Party? iMembership in the Com-
munist Party, replied Dr. Gregg, might or might not mean that
a man was disloyal; but membership in the Democratic or Re-
publican Party would certainly not be a guarantee of loyalty. At

Hans and the 52 Grmns 95

this point, Hinshaw backed away with the comment: "This is
not a pohtical issue: it is a loyalty issue."

The plain fact is, however, that the issue is strictly political.
Dr, Gregg and his associates were discussing the problem of
loyalty; but Hinsha^^ and Hickenlooper were discussing the
political issue to which the loyalty obsession has given rise.
Since the politicians were talking about one thing and the scien-
tists about another, there could be no meeting of minds. The
questions which the politicians kept putting to the scientists were
the questions which the politicians knew perfectly well would
be put to them by their constituents or bv their political op-
ponents. Senator Hickenlooper, for example, was clearly thinking
in political terms: "I do not believe," he said, "that the American
public will sta72d for the education of a Communist Vv'ith public
money" (emphasis added). Never having undergone the ordeal
of a senatorial campaign in Iowa, the scientists could not under-
stand Hickenlooper's point of view.

One might assume that Senator Hickenlooper's obsession with
secrecy and security would disappear once it had been revealed
that the Russians had actually produced and exploded an atomic
bomb. But no! the Senator immediately sought to make political
capital of the announcement by charging that the Russians had
the secret only because Congress and the American people had
not listened to his prior warnings and dire misgivings. To plague
her beating heart, WTote Wordsworth, "fear hath a hundred
eyes." Fear with its hundred eyes can never be appeased. No
security system would ever satisfy the Senator from Iowa, for his
fears, like those of his colleagues, are functional; that is, they are
strictly political.

And what about the effect of the Freistadt precedent on the
fellowship program? On December 16, 1949, the AEC announced
that it had "drastically reduced" the number of research fellow-
ships for 1950 "because of the opposition of many scientists and
scholars to loyalty investigations of applicants in non-secret
fields." ^ When the National Academy of Science met in October,
it advised the AEC that ". . . the requirements of FBI investiga-

'^ See N. Y. Times, December i6, 1949, story by Harold B. Hinton.

96 Witch Hunt

tion and Atomic Energy Commission clearance are ill-advised for
those fellows who neither work on secret material, nor are di-
rectly preparing for work on Atomic Energy Commission proj-
ects." Indeed the Academy at first refused to have any further
connection with the fellowship program but finally agreed to
authorize the National Research Council to continue selecting
applicants until June 30, 195 1. Confronted with these develop-
ments, the AEC was forced to cut the number of fellowships.
Only 75 new fellowships were granted for 1950 and only 175
existing fellowships were renewed.

Oh, yes, the 32 grams . . . Virtually all the missing uranium
was found, shortly after it disappeared, and was quickly restored
to the ominous vaults of the Argonne Laboratory. The disappear-
ance of the material was quite satisfactorily accounted for and
no spies were arrested. However, in his excitement. Senator B. B.
Hickenlooper inadvertently revealed a piece of classified infor-
mation, namely, the degree of enrichment of the lost uranium!
The Senator, of course, was not indicted; but, at last report,
Hans Freistadt was looking for a job.

4. PHOBIC FEARS VS. SOCIAL REALITIES
The hubbub about the Freistadt case provides a perfect illustra-
tion of how politicians exploit fears to conceal social realities.
Actually the real issues in the Freistadt case go to some of the
major questions of our time. It is the enormous discrepancy be-
tween the question posed in the political debate and the real
questions that points up the meaning of the case. What, then,
were some of the real issues which the debate of the fantastically
irrelevant issue of the Communism of Hans Freistadt concealed?
The issues all relate to a "situation" which can be suggested but
which, in all its ramifications, is entirely beyond the scope of
this book.

The Constitution guarantees free speech but nothing is said
in the First Amendment or elsewhere in the Constitution about
freedom of scientific research or freedom of science. Freedom

Ha7is and the 52 Grams 97

of scientific research involves far more than the freedom of
scientists to speak; indeed it involves far more than their free-
dom to read and to think. Nowadays it is not freedom from
social and religious conventions for which scientists must contend
(after the manner of Pasteur and Darwin); what now threatens
science is the danger of political control. Hickenlooper is a sym-
bol of what scientists must fear today.

Freedom for scientific research implies a great deal more than
it implied fifty years ago. It implies freedom of discussion, of
publication (without censorship), of exchange. It implies free
access to the materials of research and freedom in the selection
of projects for research. It implies that scientists must be free to
move about, to travel at home and abroad, to attend conferences,
and to enjoy complete freedom of correspondence. It implies
freedom from surveillance. It implies that no effort will be made
and no pressures will be applied to predetermine the results of
any experiment. It implies complete political freedom for the
scientist, for freedom of science is inseparable from political and
economic freedom and the scientist must be. free to take certain
issues directly to the public. It implies, also, complete freedom
in the training of scientific personnel by scientists using scien-
tific methods and not by politicians with an eye on Gallup polls.
The Freistadt case raises, directly and by implication, these
and many related issues; but it \\"as debated and disposed of as
medieval inquisitors might have disposed of a case of witch-
craft.

These issues are of the utmost gravity for the perfectly obvious
reason that science has become indispensable to man's ability to
survive on this earth. Today science implies organization. The
growth of scientific knowledge alone has reached a point where
there are definite limits to w^hat any one individual can learn
and know. Personal association with other scientists has become,
therefore, a condition to scientific progress and this clearly im-
plies organization. Also there are only a limited number of
scientists in the world: according to J. D. Bernal, about 250,000
scientific workers of whom only 25,000, approximately, are en-
gaged in research. To make the best use of this limited personnel.

98 Witch Hunt

and to train additional personnel, implies organization. "A single
scientist," writes Dr. Philip M. Morse, "working all by himself,
is today an unproductive anachronism." Science is no longer one
thing, far off in a corner of the field of knowledge by itself; it is
encompassing an ever-larger section of the entire field. It has
become "the major social institution which has the pecuHar re-
sponsibility for the discovery of practically all objectively veri-
fiable knowledge." ^ Today a new scientific finding or theory
can have almost limitless ramifications throughout the whole
domain of knowledge. Thus freedom of science has come to mean
a great deal more than freedom for scientists. Once scientists had
to fight for the right to be scientists; today thev are compelled
to fight for the survival of scientific method.

The necessity for the organization of science is, of course,
generally conceded; it is, in fact, a contemporary reality. Before
the war, our institutions of higher learning were spending about
130,000,000 per year on research; in 1950 the government alone
will give these institutions more than $100,000,000 for research.
In 19 1 5, there were about 100 industrial research laboratories in
the United States, employing not more than 3000 people; in
1946, some 2500 laboratories employed 133,500 workers. The
annual research development expenditures by industry increased
from $116,000,000 in 1930 to $234,000,000 in 1940, and will ex-
ceed $500,000,000 in 1950. These figures are some measure of the
degree to which science has already been organized.

Thus the choice is not between science organized and science
unorganized, but between a free science and a science subject to.
political controls and vetoes. And this issue, in turn, relates to the
question of "consent" and to what we mean by self-government.
Scientists are a team (the nature of modern scientific research
makes this inevitable); and they have a common purpose. They
can be trusted to guard the principle of freedom for science for
much the same reason that a faculty can be trusted to guard the
principle of academic freedom — that is, they understand the
principle and have a direct stake in its preservation. But scientists
can only guard the freedom of science if they themselves are

"^Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January 1949, p. 26,

Hans and the 52 Grams 99

free; if they have real autonomy. Free scientists can be trusted
for the same reason that free men can be trusted. But freedom
of science becomes a mockery if politicians can tell scientists what
is true or false; that is, if they can dictate findings. Findings can
be dictated, moreover, by many indirect techniques, as through
the control of funds, of personnel, of appointments, of tests of
competence, and so forth. It is for this reason that political con-
formity as a test in the selection of scientific personnel could
easily lead to politically determined scientific orthodoxies. Gov-
ernment should no more be permitted to dictate to scientists
than it should be permitted to dictate academic policies to uni-
versity faculties or to tell the motion picture industry the writers
it can employ and those it cannot. In short we are concerned
today, whether we realize it or not, with the urgent problem
of "social freedoms" — that is, the freedom of science, academic
freedom, cultural freedom, freedom for electors, and so forth.
Individual freedoms, to a large extent, have come to hinge on
these social freedoms. Individual freedoms are guaranteed, in
theory, by the Bill of Rights; but we have no bill of rights, ex-
cept by implication, for these larger social freedoms.

The attempt of the Hickenloopers to dictate to the scientists
is but a phase of a tendency, everywhere apparent since 19 14,
to revert to prescientific political dogmatisms. An increasingly
large portion of research funds has been diverted into secret
military channels since 19 14 and, to protect this use, discussion
has been stifled. The more science has been used in the military
sphere, the more the politicians have reached out to control sci-
ence. But science has served the interests of war only because
science is still partially shackled. In actual practice, freedom
of science has been used to conceal the denial of a real freedom
to scientists. By a curious counterpoint, a prior denial of free-
dom has created the conditions which are cited as a reason for
a further curtailment of freedom. We do not need to control
science in order to insure its nonmilitary application: what we
need to do is to free science. Scientists have shown a real sense
of social responsibility and have demonstrated a wonderful capac-
ity for self-discipline (the discipline is inherent in the very pro-

100 Witch Hunt

cedures of science) ; but they cannot be held morally and socially
accountable if they are to be kept prisoners within airtight po-
litical and ideological systems. To treat scientists as irresponsible
children or potential traitors is hardly the means to encourage
political responsibility. The fact that a few bank tellers have
stolen money does not mean that every bank teller must swear
not to steal or be subject to surveillance or be denied a passport
to leave the country.

Freedom is not incompatible with securitv; freedom is se-
curity. The community which restricts the freedom of science
and attempts to curtail the freedom of scientists will lose out in
the end. There are no scientific secrets and there is no defense
to atomic bombs. This is the reality we dare not face; this is the
reality which we propose to conceal by making a fetish of
secrecy and a totem of security. It has been the secret and
coercive character of the bomb as a weapon which has created
the temptation to use secret and coercive methods to destroy
freedom. It has created the wish to dispense altogether with
the necessity for free debate and discussion and to found govern-
ment on the principle of fear rather than consent.

The attack on Hans Freistadt was more than an attack on a
young scientist; it concealed an attack on the principle of self-
government. To eliminate i Communist from 497 fellows, Con-
gress adopted a political means test for American education at
its higher scientific levels. It also struck a blow — and a very
serious blow — at freedom of scientific inquiry. For, beyond all
doubt, the Freistadt case will be cited — it is already being cited -'
as the precedent to be followed in the National Science Founda-
tion program. It will also be cited in connection w'lxh. certain
phases of the government's program to aid research in the colleges
and universities and in federal aid to education generally. The
Freistadt decision foreshadows, in essence, political control over
science. This implies more than a brake on science: it implies the
destruction of freedom. The issue is of vast importance since to-
day scientific method is just being applied, on a broad scale, to the
solution of social problems. Yet so great are our phobic fears that

Hans and the 52 Grains loi

one young man and 32 grams of uranium were permitted to over-
siiadow these issues. In an effort to master these fears, and to keep
them within manageable bounds, we have tried almost everything
now; everything, that is, except freedom.^

^ As evidence that Hickenlooper did reveal the degree of enrichment
of the lost uranium, see: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, August-Septem-
ber, 1949, p. 207.

V
The Berkeley Crisis

The university of California is the fourth-rankingr American
university "in order of eminence," according to the late Edwin
R. Embree. With 43,426 full-time students on eight campuses,
it has the largest enrollment of any American university. Its
faculty numbers more than 4000 and it has, in all, about 12,000
employees. Sharing the pride of the people in its achievements,
the legislature has always generously financed the university.
The capital value of the corporation is approximately 81.1 mil-
lion dollars and the endoM^ment stands at 43,3 million. During
the last thirty years, the university has achieved a world-wide
reputation for- the excellence and the diversity of its work in
the basic sciences. Yet over this campus, where Dr. Ernest O.
Lawrence and his colleagues have been changing man's concep-
tion of the universe, there has fallen the shadow of a curious
political regression. For over a year now, the Regents have been
attempting to force the faculty to take a test oath under threat
of excommunication. An explanation for this amazing regression
is only to be found in an analysis of the gestalt, the configura-
tion and sequence of events out of which the celebrated Berkeley
Crisis arose.

L ''ENEMIES WITHIN THE WALLS''
On January 22, 1949, the Regents of the University of Wash-
ington, in a case that has since achieved world-M'ide notoriety,
announced the ouster of two instructors who were members of
the Communist Party. On January 29, 1949, Senator Jack B.
Tenney, then chairman of California's Committee on Un-Amer-

The Berkeley Crisis 103

ican Activities, introduced a resolution in the legislature com-
mending the Seattle decision, which was promptly adopted. As
though to avoid the unpleasantness of a direct public threat, the
legislature sent a copy of this resolution to President Robert
Gordon Sproul at Berkeley and released a copy to the press.
There were then pending in the legislature some fifteen "thought
control" bills, proposed by Senator Tenney, including measures
requiring test oaths from lawyers, teachers, state employees,
and even from members of the legislature! In this context, the
inference was clear: either the University of California would
adopt a policy similar to that adopted in Seattle or the legisla-
ture would be compelled to take some coercive action, either
directly or in the form of a delaying action on the budget.

By way of replying to this ultimatum, Dr. Sproul forwarded
a copy of a resolution which the Regents had adopted on Oc-
tober II, 1940, stating that membership in the Communist Party
was incompatible with the obligations of faculty membership.
In effect this was Dr. Sproul's way of saying that the university
had already adopted the policy which the legislature obliquely
recommended. And here the matter might have rested had it
not been announced, right at this time, that Harold Laski, who
had spoken to overflow audiences at the university in 1940, was
to lecture at the Los Angeles campus on April 14 and 15. No
sooner was the announcement made than, from Berkeley, came
word that the lectures had been canceled. Later, in response to
a flurry of protest, the administration explained that the invita-
tion to Dr. Lasld had been "withdrawn" — not "canceled" —
because of a policy of not permitting visitors to speak at Los
Angeles unless they were also scheduled to speak in Berkeley, and
vice versa.^ The withdrawal of the invitation was a curious ac-
tion for a university which has pretty consistently supported
the principle of free speech and was doubly hard to explain in
view of the extraordinary reception which Laski had received
in 1940.

^See Laskl's account of the incident, the Nation, August 13, 1949. Later
Laski did speak in Los Angeles at a meeting of which I was one of six
sponsors.

I04 Witch Hunt

Dr. Laski rather naively suggested that the invitation had been
withdrawn by way of "revenge" for his activities in the British
Labour Party; but he was clearly mistaken. Dr. Sproul and Dr.
Clarence Dykstra, Provost of the Los Angeles branch of the
university, are both sophisticated "liberals"; they were perfectly
well aware of the fact that Laski was not a Communist. As a
matter of fact, I first met Laski at a party at which he and Sproul
held forth on many issues with obvious mutual enjoyment and
a large measure of agreement and Dykstra w^as Laski's old and
intimate friend. The fact is that the invitation was withdrawn
simply because the administration feared the repercussions in
Sacramento where, at precisely this time, the legislature was
studying the university's budget as well as the various thought
control bills which Senator Tenney had proposed. Thus the
reason for the "withdrawal" was quite different from ^\'hat it
appeared to be. Outwardly it appeared that the university,
alarmed by the red hysteria, had suddenly lost its capacity to
distinguish red from pink. Actually what the university feared
^^'as a demagogic manipulation of the fear of Communism,

As the legislative session drew to a close, the controversial
Tenney bills became the main point of debate and, for a time,
it looked as though the bills would be enacted. At this juncture,
the Regents adopted a resolution on June 12, 1949, requiring all
employees of the university to sign the follo\\ing oath:

I do not believe in and am not a member of nor do I
support any party or organization that believes in, advo-
cates or teaches the overthrow of the United States Govern-
ment by force or by any illegal or unconstitutional methods.

In the sequence of events, it is quite clear that the administra-
tion had hit upon the idea of requiring a test oath as a means
of offsetting the enactment of a statutory test oath, and also
of avoiding any embarrassment over the budget. But the strategy
seriously misfired: first, because the faculty promptly revolted;
and second because a majority in the legislature, weary of Sen-
ator Tenney's antics, also revolted. To the surprise of nearly
everyone, Tenney was replaced as chairman of the Un-Amer-

The Berkeley Crisis 105

ican Committee on June 25, 1949, and the Tenney bills were
tabled. But by this time Dr. Sproul and the Regents were caught
in the meshes of their own intrigue.

Once publicly committed, Dr. Sproul felt compelled to de-
fend the test oath on principle. On November i, 1949, he told
the American Bankers Association that "with this policy of the
Regents, I am in complete accord. Indeed, I played a part in
formulating it because, as a liberal, I believe that totalitarianism
. . . cannot be reconciled with individual liberty or with human
dignity." In this same speech, he also spoke of the loyalty oath
as a means by which democracy might defend itself against
"enemies within the walls." But who were these enemies? Surely
not the Communists. There was no Communist problem at
Berkeley in 1949 for the university had been committed, for
nearly a decade, to a non-Communist hiring policy. From the
record, it is quite clear that the real "enemies" were the dema-
gogues who were manipulating the anti-Communist hysteria.
Just as the Laski incident had only the most oblique reference
to the state of relations between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A.,
so the dispute over the loyalty oath had its origin in the ad-
ministration's abject fear of the manipulation of "the red menace."
The test oath controversy derives, in other words, from an in-
ternal rather than an external crisis.

2. "^ MEANINGFUL CEREMONY"

Two days after the Regents had adopted the loyalty oath
resolution, the Northern Section of the Academic Senate met
in emergency session. With only four dissenting votes, a resolu-
tion was passed asking the Regents to revise the oath or to delete
from it the specific abjuration. Later the Southern Section of
the Academic Senate took a similar position and with equal em-
phasis. It should be pointed out that the faculty did not object
to the constitutional oath to support and defend the Constitu-
tion, required of all state officials under iVrticle XX, Section 3
of the California Constitution which provides that "no other

io6 Witch Hunt

oath, declaration, or test, shall be required as qualification for
any office or public trust." This provision, of course, merely
echoes the language of Article VI of the Federal Constitution
which provides, inter alia, that "no religious test shall ever be
required as a qualification to any office or public trust under
the United States." Article VI clearly indicates that those who
drafted the Constitution were opposed to any attempt to make
orthodoxy a test of loyalty or of fitness for office.

More surprised than offended by the faculty's show of in-
dependence, the Regents adopted a substitute oath on June 24
which reads:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the
Constitution of the State of California, and that I will faith-
fully discharge the duties of my office according to the
best of my ability; that I am not a member of the Com-
munist Party or under any oath or a party to any agree-
ment or under any commitment that is in conflict with
my obligations under this oath.

The new oath was enclosed with contracts for the 1 949-1 950
school year which were mailed out during the summer although
execution of the oath was not made a condition to acceptance
of the contract. Apparently the administration aimed at getting
as many faculty members as possible to sign and return the
oath, along with their contracts, before the full faculty could
reassemble in the fall. To some extent the strategy w^orked but
a significant minority refused the bait and returned their con-
tracts duly signed but failed to execute the oath.

With the commencement of the fall term, the Northern Sec-
tion of the Academic Senate voted overwhelmingly on Sep-
tember 9 to reject the specific disavowal clause in the revised
oath while, once again, raising no objection to the oath to sup-
port and defend the Constitution. With 700 faculty members
present, only one dissenting vote was recorded and the faculty
at Los Angeles took a similar stand. Meeting on October 3, the
Regents reaffirmed their position that a generalized oath would
not be acceptable; thus the issue, which had originally seemed

The Berkeley Crisis 107

to be one of policy, had suddenly been converted into a major
constitutional crisis.

As though to emphasize the gravity of this crisis, the Regents
then proceeded to discharge Dr. Irving David Fox, a brilliant
young physicist, for his refusal to answer a question about his
political affiliations when called as a witness by the House Com-
mittee on Un-American Activities. Curiously enough, Dr. Fox
had executed the form of oath which the Regents had de-
manded and had also assured the Regents, when he appeared
before them, that he had never been a member of the Com-
munist Party although he had been interested in Communism
at one time. The period to which he referred, and about which
he had been questioned in Washington, was considerably prior
to his joining the faculty at Berkeley.

The issue in the Berkeley Crisis turns, of course, upon the
specific disavowal contained in the test oath proposed by the
Regents. Speaking for the proponents of the oath, the Los
A?igeles Times took the position that any pledge of loyalty
which failed to contain "an implicit disavowal of any group
whose aim is the violent overthrow of existing American insti-
tutions" would have no meaning whatsoever." At the same time,
however, the Times conceded that the oath would not eliminate
Communists from the faculty since it assumed that all Com-
munists were liars. Indeed the real basis for the insistence on a
specific disavowal of Communism is stated in this same editorial:
"The teacher never has fared better than under the system the
Communists contemptuously call bourgeois democracy; surely
he owes that system something, even if he regards its request
as somewhat redundant."

What this statement clearly reflects is the demand for total
ideological conformity upon which the dominant elements in
a society always insist in time of storm. For example, the word
"system," as used in the editorial, is fatally ambiguous; does it
refer to the "system of free enterprise" as defined by the N.A.M.
or does it have some broader reference? The abjuration is, there-
fore, primarily aimed at coercing conformity: only in the most

2 Editorial, September 22, 1949.

io8 Witch Hmit

indirect manner is it thought of as a means by which noncon-
formists might be identified. Edward A. Dickson, chairman
of the Board of Regents, made this meaning clear in his explana-
tion of the Regents' insistence on the disavowal clause: "The
world today," he said, "is standing at what is probably a great
historical crossroad. The people of the State demand an as-
surance of good faith from those who staff the great educational
institution." But an assurance of good faith about what?

In rejecting the specific disavowal, the faculty raised many
objections: the oath attempted to substitute a political test of
competence for academic qualifications; it placed the power to
hire-and-fire in the hands of the Regents, where it did not be-
long; it was redundant and insulting; it stressed a negative
subordinate assertion which had nothing to do wdth academic
qualifications; and the implied coercion was objectionable per se.
But the basic constitutional objection to the oath-of-abjuration
is that it violates the spirit — the historical meaning — of Article
VI of the Federal Constitution. To be sure, Article VI refers
to "religious tests" but the experience which this section aimed
to guard against was unmistakably political. Article VI was
intended to prohibit test oaths. Test oaths are abhorrent pre-
cisely because they contain specific disavowals; the specific
disavowal reveals the intention to make conformity-in-belief a
test of citizenship. The form of the oath is objectionable, in
other words, because it betrays this real purpose, this illegal
intention.

No rational person really believes that one loves one's coun-
try or one's wife the better for swearing to love. Every criminal
has sworn allegiance many times and the number of revolutions
in history would indicate that little reliance can be placed on
oaths of allegiance and supremacy. If the loyalty was the real
purpose, a general affirmation would suffice, but test oaths are
concerned with heresy.

The New York T'nnes, in an editorial of June 14, 1949, chided
the Berkeley professors for their "stubborn" objection to a mere
form or ceremony to which "no good citizen could possibly
object." But the ghost of Sir Thomas More would certainly

The Berkeley Crisis 109

appreciate the suggestion that test oaths are merely meaningful
ceremonies. And the 4000 members of the faculty doubtless ap-
preciate the imphcation that they are not "good citizens." The
editorial cites endless examples of public officials who take oaths
every day — as though that were the issue in the Berkeley Crisis!
The Berkeley professors have never objected to the constitu-
tional form of oath; indeed this oath has been taken by faculty
members as long as there has been a University of California.
The crisis at Berkeley is not over affirmations of loyalty but
over abjurations of heresy, the current insistence upon which
amounts to a form of noonday madness. In a similar vein, the
Los Angeles Times in an editorial of February 28, 1950, asked
the faculty if they were "Too Proud to Proclaim Loyalty?"
Who, indeed, is too proud to proclaim his loyalty? But if the
publishers of the Los Ajigeles Times and the New York Times
were asked to submit loyalty oaths, including a specific dis-
av^owal, from all their executives and employees, as a condition,
say, to the issuance of a publisher's license, would they think
this was a mere ceremony? Would they have anything then to
say about "freedom of the press"?

The fear that inspires oaths of abjuration is largely unrelated
to the existence of national enemies, real or imagined. On the
contrary, the fear springs from a feeling that new and danger-
ous thoughts are sweeping through the society and that these
thoughts, as such, imperil the social order. At such moments,
the concept of heresy is always revived since it is the only means
by which the state can hope to deal with Dangerous Thoughts.
In the long run, of course, the use of heresy as a weapon to
police thoughts is self-defeating, for heresy prosecutions spread
the heresies which they are supposed to condemn. But, from a
short-range point of view, the test oath, which is one of the in-
dispensable weapons in a campaign against heresy, is diabolically
effective.

For example, the test oath completely undermines the safe-
guard against compulsory self-incrimination. Today I abjure
Communism under oath; but tomorrow Communism is defined in
a manner that lands me in jail for perjury. Or the testimony of

no Witch Hunt

professional perjurers may land me there without any change
in the definition. If, sensing these dangers, I refuse to make
the abjuration, I will be branded or smeared, and may suffer
the most injurious consequences, simply by reason of my re-
fusal to do what no official has a right to ask me to do. The
inclusion of a specific disavowal in a test oath is the key to this
intention to subordinate the political will of the oath taker to
that of the oath giver. The viciousness of the oath is to be found
in the way it exploits the loyalty of citizens to achieve a partisan
political purpose.

Test oaths are weapons used to entrap political opponents.
They are not aimed at heretics per se but at "the other side"
in general. The oath is designed not to catch heretics but to
place the entire ideological opposition under an indeterminate
sentence of banishment and excommunication. Caught off guard,
this opposition invariably makes the mistake of debating the
forms and niceties of the sentence rather than challenging the
power to impose any sentence whatever. In the United States
at the present time, a test oath with a specific disavowal of Com-
munism places the entire left (that is, left of center) at the
mercy of the right, just as the oath of loyalty upon which the
Czechoslovakian government has been insisting places the en-
tire right at the mercy of the left. A general affirmation of loy-
alty is usually free of partisan implications but a test oath with
a specific doctrinal disavowal is necessarily partisan.

3. NONE BUT THE BRAVE
On February 24, 1950, the Regents adopted a resolution
which bluntly notified the faculty and employees of the world's
largest university that they would have to execute the revised
test oath by April 30 or leave the university. The "cret tous^h"
stand of the Regents was promptly endorsed by the Los Angeles
Times; the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce; by the Los
Angeles Realty Board; by the Republican Assembly; by nearly
every woman's club in the state; by Senator Jack B. Tenney and

The Berkeley Crisis iii

some of his colleagues; and by the Native Sons of the Golden
West. Generally speaking, public opinion divided on a sharp
left vs. right basis, the conservative elements demanding that
the oath be executed, the liberal elements supporting the faculty.
This division is itself the best evidence of the partisan purpose
of the oath.

In the face of this ultimatum, the faculty stood its ground
with admirable firmness. A group of lecturers, teaching assist-
ants, and other academic employees not represented by the
Academic Senate, voted 300 to i to resign in a body if any mem-
ber of the group were discharged for failing to sign the oath.
Headquarters were established in a hotel off campus and the
faculty announced that a war chest was being raised to carry
the fight to the courts. At a full meeting, attended by 900
faculty members, the Northern Section of the Academic Senate
unanimously refused to accept the revised oath. And the stu-
dents, in a series of mass meetings, rallied to the support of the
faculty. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that 95 per cent
of the department heads were opposed to the oath.

With the release of the ultimatum, the pubhc learned for the
first time that the Regents were no longer of one mind on the
subject of the loyalty oath. Only 12 of the 18 Regents voted
to issue the ultimatum. Among those voting against it were,
surprisingly enough. Dr. Robert Gordon Sproul and Governor
Earl Warren, both ex-officio members of the board. Apparently
Dr. Sproul had changed his mind about the desirability of the
oath and had persuaded his great friend. Governor Warren, to
exert his influence in an effort to get the Regents to reverse
their decision. The defection of Sproul so annoyed Mr. John
Francis Neylan, another member of the board, that he issued
a long statement in which he pointed out that the Regents had
not proposed the oath in the first place. "At no time," he de-
clared, "did the Regents originate any loyalty oath." On the
contrary, "the Sproul oath," as he referred to the oath, was first
proposed by Dr. Robert Gordon Sproul on March 25, 1949,

Caught in this embarrassing position, it became necessary to
offer some explanation for Dr. Sproul's singular behavior. And,

112 Witch Hunt

for the first time, the inner workings of the loyalty plot were
clearly revealed. For Mr. James H. Corley, vice-president, comp-
troller, and business manager of the university, then made the
humiliating admission that he had recommended the loyalty oath
to President Sproul in the spring of 1949 in an effort, so he said,
"to save the State University from being wrecked by possible
political influence." He had feared that the legislature might
be prompted to press for legislation which would give it direct
control over the faculty and funds of the university. "On
assurance from university officials," he added, "that we would
reaffirm our 1940 declaration of policy, pledging to keep our
institution free of Communistic influence, the bill was not pressed
in the legislature." But the administration did more than re-
affirm this earlier stand: it proposed the special test oath which
the Regents approved. And what did Dr. Sproul have to sav?
"I formerly favored the oath," he rather abjectly stated, "as
a means of rallying the faculty to a firm stand against sub-
versives." But who were the subversives, the Communists or the
anti-Communists in the legislature? Both Dr. Sproul's reversal
of position and Mr. Corley's frank admissions make it all too
clear that the administration had decided to barter academic
freedom for a fat budget. The fact that the administration later
attempted to beat a humiliating retreat can hardly serve to excuse
what was done — in the name of "freedom" and to "defend
democracy."

It is, therefore, a matter of uncontradicted fact that the loy-
alty oath stemmed not from a fear of Communism or of Com-
munist influences, but from a fear of the manipulation of anti-
Communist hysteria by demagogues. What President Sproul
had to say to the American Bankers Association on the subject of
loyalty was not only wide of the mark: it was sheer dema-
goguery. For the administration now admits that it proposed
the oath not to oppose Communists but to appease anti-Com-
munists. And this inglorious capitulation, it should be noted,
was entirely needless, for Senator Tenney was removed as Lord
High Executioner of the Un-American Committee and his bills
were defeated. The administration's advocacy of the test oath

The Berkeley Crisis 1 1 3

was not responsible for this victory; Tenney was replaced and
his bills were tabled without reference to the bargain which
the administration had made. Thus the fears to which the ad-
ministration yielded were not only base, they were groundless.

Unfortunately, however, the test oath issue has not been re-
solved at Berkeley. For one thing, the effects of the controversy
will not be dissipated for many years to come. As Dean Joel
H. Hildebrand- has pointed out: "No conceivable damage to
the university at the hands of hypothetical Communists among
us could possibly have equaled the damage resulting from the
unrest and ill will and suspicion engendered by the series of
events occurring during the past eight months." Once issues of
this sort arise, thev cannot be easily resolved bv simple "face-
saving" stratagems. The faculty remains conscious of the fact
that, in a critical time, it was betrayed bv the administration. A
majority of the Regents remains conscious of the fact that the
administration placed the board in an awkw^ard position. And
the relations between the administration and the legislature have
been seriously impaired. Indicative of the ill will which the con-
troversy provoked is the fact that the faculty has accused the
administration of sending "snoopers" to report on faculty meet-
ings. It is most disquieting, also, to learn that 86.5 per cent of
the faculty actually signed the loyalty oath. In other words, the
13.5 per cent who refused to sign represent a minority of ap-
proximately the same size that, in Germany, refused to take
the form of oath submitted by the Nazis.

It is also unfortunate that the faculty evaded the real issue by
its failure to challenge the non-Communist policy of the Regents.
By its failure to challenge the policy statement of October 1 1 ,
1940, the faculty robbed its opposition to the loyalty oath of
the full meaning which it might otherwise have possessed. For if
the Regents have a right to determine that membership in the
Communist Party is incompatible with faculty membership,
then they have a right to implement this policy by whatever
means are necessary or appropriate. In a curious evasion of this
prime issue, the faculty voted in a referendum to oppose the
loyalty oath but not to challenge the non-Communist policy. It

114 Witch Hunt

was thought, of course, that the Regents could be "appeased"
by this formula; but, as might have been foretold, the Regents
refused to rescind the loyalty oath.

At the zero hour, an alumni committee brought about a "face-
saving" solution: the oath would be withdrawn but the form of
contract used would contain a non-Communist clause. However,
non-signers were given the right to have their cases reviewed by
the faculty committee on academic freedom and* tenure, so that,
in name at least, the principle of tenure was preserved.

Despite the fact that Mr. Lawrence M. Giannini, president of
the Bank of America, resigned from the board with the state-
ment: "If we rescind the oath today the flag will fly in the Krem-
lin," a majority of the Regents approved the compromise formula.
However the compromise settled nothing: 412 members of the
faculty refused to sign the "non-Communist" pact and their cases
will have to be reviewed.

Currently Mr. John Francis Neylan has demanded the resigna-
tion of Dr. Carl Robert Hurley, a chemistry assistant, because the
AEC refused tp "clear" Dr. Hurley for employment in 1948. The
basis for this refusal consisted in the following facts. Hurley was
charged: (a) with having written a letter in 1940 protesting the
prosecution of two labor leaders; (b) with having once purchased
some phonograph records in a Communist bookstore; and (c) with
the fact that his wife had once written to a friend, allegedly a
"red," inquiring about housing on the Berkeley campus! Al-
though the "evidence" is strictly spectral, the incident is serious.
For Dr. Hurley was assured in 1948 that the AEC hearing — at
which he denied that he was a Communist — would be confiden-
tial. Apparently the AEC shares its confidences with John Francis
Neylan.

Just what, then, was this crisis really about? The cause of the
crisis is to be found not in the fear of heresy so much as in
the fear of the manipulation of this fear. One can argue that the
specter of Communism created the opportunity which dema-
gogues were quick to exploit; but the fact still remains that the
immediate threat to academic freedom stemmed from a legisla-
tive committee which had been created to expose "un-American

The Berkeley Crisis 115

activities." Inferentially, therefore, "academic freedom" is un-
American. The Berkeley incident is symptomatic of a new
fear of freedom which seems to be motivated by a loss of con-
fidence in the people. The fears which motivated the legislature
in setting up a committee on un-American activities, the fears
which prompted the administration to bargain academic freedom
for legislative consideration, and the fears which prompted a
majority of the Regents to approve this bargain, all stemmed
from a feeling that freedom had to be abandoned as a principle
of social action; that coercive tactics had to be applied to pro-
tect some of the people from the rest of the people. And this
strange attitude is related to a failure to recognize that social
freedoms transcend individual rights or, to put it another way,
that social freedoms can be injured and destroyed when the
people become so obsessed with individual rights and privileges
that they fail to see the larger social issue.

4. SOCIAL FREEDOM: PERSONAL RIGHTS

Heresy is a storm signal and when social storms are blowing
up questions of policy are quickly transformed into questions
of power. People are troubled in such periods by a feeling that
the issues they debate have a deeper meaning than that which
appears on the surface. It is this feeling which makes them
struggle so tenaciously over issues that, in normal times, would
never arise. In the guise of debating some specific, immediate
issue, larger questions of social power are really at stake. With
society "at a great historical crossroad," questions touching upon
the control of higher education clearly foreshadow the strug-
gle to determine which branch — which turn of the road — the
society is to follow.

In Berkeley a doctrinal debate about "loyalty" and "Com-
munism" quickly developed into a debate on a constitutional
issue, namely, "Can the regents of a state university coerce the
faculty on a matter affecting academic freedom?" On the ques-
tion of the fitness of teachers, both sides admit the necessity of

1 1 6 Witch Hunt

devising some method by which the qualifications of teachers
can be determined. But the issue arises: How can a teacher be
approved or rejected without limiting his intellectual freedom;
without making his "views" the test of his competence? The
American Association of University Professors believes that
the issue can only be resolved if the teacher is judged by his
colleagues. Teachers can be relied upon to preserve the inde-
pendence of the scholar because the independence of scholars
is a vital concern to all teachers. They are, therefore, the logical
guardians of the principle of academic freedom.

The regents of a state university have "legal power" over the
university; but their power is not unlimited even though it may
not be subject to formal limitations. The problem of power,
which is the central problem of politics, can never be resolved
unless there is general recognition of the principle that power
over other people is always to be exercised as a public trust
and must, therefore, be subject to certain limitations. Initial
consent can never confer unlimited power. That the people
have not taken from the regents the power to determine the
qualifications for faculty membership does not mean that the
regents have this power. In creating a state university, the peo-
ple have created a public trust and, at the same time, they
have limited their own power to interfere with the administra-
tion of this trust. They have said, in effect, that scholars must
be free. But scholars can never be free if they are to be subject
to endless referenda based on every shifting in "the winds of
doctrine." Hence the people have forbidden themselves, as Dr.
Alexander Meiklejohn has pointed out, "the power of direct
control over the academic work of the university." Similar im-
plied limitations control the power of the regents. In both cases,
the limitations are inherent in the idea of a university — that is,
in the purpose of the trust, in its social meaning and function.
A university would not long remain a university if the people
or the regents could determine the qualifications of teachers.

The power to determine qualifications descends from the
people (with self-limitations) to the regents (with self-limita-
tions), and from the regents to the faculty. The regents bring

The Berkeley Crisis 1 1 7

the faculty into being and confer certain powers upon it; but
they cannot determine academic questions, including the qualifica-
tions of teachers. In the first place, they are not competent to
make such decisions (if they were, they would be teachers);
and, in the second place, the faculty which is competent to
determine the matter cannot do so unless it is self-governing,
unless it is free. In attempting to force a test oath on teachers,
the regents are of course making a mockery of tenure rights;
but their action threatens something more important than the
economic security of the individual instructor — it threatens the
freedom of knowledge, the social freedom to learn and to know,
the freedom which only knowledge and intelligence can confer.

The Berkeley Crisis, indeed, furnishes an excellent case his-
tory of the distinction between individual rights and social
freedom. Much of the confusion about the issue stems from a
failure to recognize that the test oath strikes directly at a social
principle — that scholars must be free in order to defend the
freedom of scholarship — and only indirectly at a vested personal
riglit, in this case the rights conferred by tenure. So far as
the social freedom is concerned, the damage is done when the
challenge is issued. For example, suppose that the entire faculty
M^ere to acquiesce, without objection, and were to sign the
loyalty oath. Since they had freely "consented," it could hardly
be said that the civil rights of any faculty member had been
violated. But society would still have a right to object for it
could contend that scholars cannot acquiesce in the destruction
or surrender of a freedom which is theirs not as a matter of
individual right but of social necessity.

Academic freedom implies far more than that the individual
scholar shall not be told what conclusions he should reach. It
implies something more than economic security and pensions for
instructors. It implies that faculties must be free in order to
discharge a social function, namely, to guard truth as the test
of knowledge and freedom as the test of truth. This implies a
right to pass on what is taught, by whom, and by what methods.
It implies freedom of research, of publication, of travel, of
correspondence, of communication. We fail to recognize these

ii8 Witch Hunt

implications because the Constitution guarantees individual rights;
it does not directly guarantee social freedoms. For example,
"academic freedom" is only guaranteed by implication. Yet
academic freedom is vital to the meaning of freedom of speech,
of press, and of belief.

This is the issue, then, which the New York Times told its
readers should be resolved upon the basis that teachers, being
well-mannered and polite, should not object to "a meaningful
ceremony"! This casual offhand dismissal of the real issues —
this failure to recognize the importance of the principle at stake
— is, indeed, the most disturbing aspect of the whole controversy.
What this indicates, all too clearly, is that public opinion on con-
stitutional freedoms is today in a most unsatisfactory state. Civil
rights are merely restraints which the people have placed on
themselves; they are no stronger than the will of the people to
be bound by their commitments. But the issue is even more
urgent when it relates to social freedoms, which are not defined
in the Constitution but upon which individual civil rights have
come to depeqd.

Concurrently with the controversy at Berkeley, Dr. Charles
Seymour of Yale, Dr. James B. Conant of Harvard, and Dr.
Wallace Sterling of Stanford issued statements in which they
expressed definite opposition to loyalty oaths. For example. Dr.
Seymour announced that Yale, having managed to get along
without loyalty oaths for over a hundred and twenty-five years,
would continue to defend American political ideals "by positive
and imaginative measures" rather than by "rear guard actions." "''
None of these men can be fairly accused of being "soft" on the
subject of Communism; they are somewhat less "liberal," on
most issues, than either Dr. Robert Gordon Sproul or Dr.
Clarence Dykstra. But there is this crucial difference: Seymour,
Conant, and Sterling preside over "private" institutions which
enjoy a degree of immunity from political pressures and or-
ganized red-baiting. This difference underscores the fact that
it is the demagogic manipulation of anti-Communist feeling
which is the real threat to academic freedom today. For Com-

^N. Y. Times, June 22, 1949.

The Berkeley Crisis 1 1 9

munism can hardly be a greater evil at Berkeley than at Yale,
Harvard, or Stanford; what is "menacing" on one side of San
Francisco Bay must be equally menacing on the opposite side.
Generally speaking, however, the state universities, including
Michigan and Illinois, have taken the same position as Wash-
ington and California, and for the same reason, whereas the
private institutions have been able to ignore the demagogues.
But how long will this immunity last, what with the private
institutions already announcing that they must soon seek federal
aid?

Just as this telltale discrepancy was largely ignored in editorial
comment on the Berkeley Crisis, so the press also failed, with
rare exceptions, to point out that a special oath of loyalty im-
plies an intention to follow through and to verify the accuracy
of the answers given. This implied intention carries with it the
threat of a system of espionage by which instructors can be
kept under a degree of surveillance to determine whether, sub-
sequent to taking the oath, some of them may have become
tainted with heresy. Failure to understand the real implications
of this "meaningful ceremony" also accounts for the failure
to recognize that loyalt>^ oaths actually feed the fear of Com-
munism and thereby aid the cause of Communists. Phi Beta
Kappa, in opposing loyalty oaths, has pointed out that "in
institutions where such practices obtain, teachers are being in-
timidated and . . . students are being led to believe that colleges
dare no longer engage in disinterested pursuit of truth but must
become instruments of propaganda." * For the inference, of
course, is that Communist doctrine must be pretty solid and con-
vincing if the free discussion of Communism is to be silenced
by legislative fiat or if the presence of a single Communist in-
structor is not to be tolerated. To force the members of a
faculty to abjure Communism as a heresy can hardly fail to
discourage even the critical discussion of Communism.

Those who urge loyalty oaths for instructors are placed in the
curious position of advocating Communist methods "to defend
democracy." While the debate on the loyalty oath was agitating

*N. Y. T lines, June 19, 1949.

I20 Witch Himt

the Berkeley campus, C. M. Bowra, warden of Wadham Col-
lege, Oxford University, sent a cable which read: "iVIany Ox-
ford teachers are deeply shocked to hear of Soviet methods
applied to free American scholars at the University of Cali-
fornia. We who look upon America as the home of liberty can-
not believe so grave an infringement of academic liberties pos-
sible in a society which respects freedom and learning." Clearly
a majority of the Regents of the University of California are
fellow travelers of Communism for they have advocated a
"purge" of ideological deviationists which is, of course, the
Communist methods for dealing with heresy. The Regents have,
therefore, embarrassed all the friends of America who, with
the warden of Wadham College, want to believe that the cause
of America is the cause of freedom.

That the loyalty oath mania is invading the area of private
enterprise finds illustration in the KFI incident in Los Angeles.
On June 9, 1950, Earle C. Anthony, operator of Radio Station
KFI and KFI-TV, announced that henceforth all employees
would have to sign a loyalty oath disclaiming the Communist
Party. Station KFI has about 200 employees. All signed the oath
except Mrs. Charlene Aumack, a registered Republican, who de-
nies that she is a Communist. In refusing to sign the statement, she
said that she objected to the "infiltration of an insidious totalitar-
ian tactic into democratic life — especially because the order is,
in itself, a little thing. . . . Lack of protest by the majority . . .
indicates that many people already choose to see no further than
today's loaf of bread. It took but a matter of minutes for some of
those who disagreed with the order to weigh salary against prin-
ciple and decide in favor of salary." In opening her reply, Mrs.
Aumack stated that she was "not convinced that the use of
dictatorial methods is a sane way to combat undesirable ideologies.
Dictation is an admission that our democratic system cannot
survive by democratic methods." '' It should be noted, however,
that all that iMr. Anthony has done is merely to imitate a policy
suggested by President Truman when he signed the loyalt>^ order
on March 22, 1947.

^ Los Angeles Times, June 14, 1950,

VI
Imaginary Monsters of Error

Frame not imaginary monsters of error
with whom you may contend. He that
makes any man worse than he is, makes
himself worse than he.

— BISHOP JOSEPH HAI.L OF NORWICH

Once lighted, the fires of heresy must always be kept burn-
ing. In this there is nothing strange since heresy prosecutions
always spread like a fever. But there is something strange in the
failure to apply the heresy principle with any consistency. For
example, the idea of testing trade-union leaders for heresy has
found legislative approval in the Taft-Hartley Act; but Con-
gressman George A. Dondero's suggestion that the same prin-
ciple should be applied to guilds of artists has met with only
mild approval. What is needed, apparently, is a manual on
heresy, like Sprenger's Malleus Maleficarmn {The Witches^
Hmmner), first published in i486, by which our delusions might
be fashioned into a more consistent and coherent pattern. Lack-
ing such a manual, we dismiss Dondero's suggestion as a piece of
congressional foolishness while approving the same suggestion
as applied in another field. Actually there is nothing foolish
or illogical about Mr. Dondero's proposal, which was warmly
applauded in Congress and may yet win public acceptance.

1. ART AS A WEAPON
Congressman George A. Dondero first discovered "modem
art" as a theme for demagoguery in 1947. The State Depart-

122

Witch Hunt

ment, it will be recalled, had purchased some 79 paintings by
contemporary American artists for $55,000 and had sent the
exhibit on a tour through Latin America and Europe. The ex-
hibit was scarcely on its way, however, before the Secretary of
State was forced to call oif the tour in response to various
catcalls and shrieks of protest in Congress. To placate the irate
Dondero, and his colleagues, Mr. Marshall ordered army surplus
to dispose of the entire exhibit, as junk, for which some $5544.45
was realized by way of salvage.

From this successful foray into a new field of demagoguery,
Dondero got the idea that modern art offers great agitational pos-
sibilities. Striding to the well of the House on March 11, 1949,
he proceeded to deliver the first of a series of speeches on the
subject of modern art as a form of the Communist heresy. In
this first speech, the Congressman denounced as highly sub-
versive the effort of a group of artists to organize a Gallery-on-
Wheels by which works of art were to be exhibited in gov-
ernment hospitals by transporting the paintings to the patients.
At one such show — at the Naval Hospital at St. Albans, New
York — of 2 8 well-known contemporary artists who had loaned
paintings, so Dondero reported, 17 were mentioned in the
famous index prepared by Mr. Dies. That "subversive"
artists should "sneakingly" exhibit "propagandistic" works
of art to helpless veterans in army and navy hospitals was,
of course, tantamount to creating disaffection in the armed
services.

The response to this initial tirade must have been extremely
gratifying, for on March 25 Dondero delivered an oration on
the theme: "Communists Maneuver to Control Art in the United
States." If one examines this speech carefully, as well as an ora-
tion on "Communism in the Heart of American Art — What
to Do About It" (A4ay 17, 1949), and "Modern Art Shackled to
Communism" (August 16, 1949), it is readily apparent that
Dondero is neither a nitwit nor a buffoon. A cunning craftsman,
it must be conceded that he works with a sure hand and a
steady eye in the fabrication of paranoid delusions.

For example, the "average American" does not know what

Imaginary Monsters of Error 123

Dondero knows, namely, that the famous Armory Show of
191 3 was a "red plot": the first attempt to use art as a weapon
for the purpose of firing dumdum bullets at the cultural herit-
age of the native American. To the "common sense" preju-
dices of this average native American, the appeal is then made
that modern art is wholly lacking in merit; that it cannot survive
without subsidies and subventions; and that it necessarily seeks
to achieve covert support and hidden patronage. The modern
artist, foreign in inspiration, is essentially a racketeer who seeks
to wheedle funds out of gullible patrons, including the govern-
ment, so that he may propagandize at the expense of the aver-
age American taxpayer. Bv this time, of course, the average
American taxpayer is getting pretty indignant.

Readily admitting that there are many things about modern art
that he does not know, Dondero nevertheless knows enough to
know that "dadaism, futurism, constructionism, surrealism, su-
prematism, cubism, expressionism and abstractionism" are all
foreign "isms" representing "weapons of destruction" bv which
"our priceless cultural heritage" is to be destroyed. As the
argument develops, the appeal to prejudice becomes many-sided
and highly versatile and ingenious: it becomes an appeal to the
dislike of "modernity" in a time of social transition w^hen "old"
values appear to be threatened on all sides; to the hatred of the
foreigner; to the dislike of the idea, the work of art, or the theory
that one cannot understand; to the feeling of resentment that
"the eternal dupe" always feels when reminded that he is, in-
deed, a "sucker," a fool.

In the manipulation of these well-known agitational themes,
Dondero demonstrates a real expertness. For example, he makes
extremely effective use of the propagandistic trick of listing, like
beads on a string, the "enemies" and objects of his hatred. He rolls
off long lists of foreign-born "modern artists": Yasuo Kuniyoshi,
Japanese-born; Kandinsky, Russian-born; Xavier Gonzalez, Mexi-
can-born, and others, thereby creating the delusion that all mod-
ern artists are of foreign birth. This "lumping-together device,"
a favorite propaganda trick with modern agitators, is intended to
blur the distinction between the symbols of the various things,

124 Witch Hunt

ideas, and persons which the agitator wants to attack. It is a
device by which hatreds are integrated and resentments are fused.^
As a device of propaganda, not of rhetoric, it has been proved to
be immensely effective.

Dondero is equally adept in the use of the Nazi propaganda
trick of associating heretics doomed for destruction with loath-
some images and contemptible symbols. Thus contemporary art
is equated with "smallpox, cancer, and bubonic plague." It is a
caricature of art: "abortive, distorted, and repulsive." It is de-
praved, perverted, and diseased, just as the modern artist is "de-
generate." This vocabulary of abuse is all too familiar: it is the
language of fascist art criticism. The really "curious, disconcert-
ing and frightening part of the new attack," as Howard Devree
has noted, consists precisely in the use of the same terms and
phrases which Hitler used to attack modern art. Like the Nazis,
also, Dondero makes a studied appeal to parasitophobia by creat-
ing imaginary monsters of error to which he gives such names
as rats, termites, rodents, insects, bugs, vermin, snakes, and so
forth. What the agitator seeks to achieve by this appeal as Messrs.
Lowenthal and Guterman have scientifically demonstrated is "to
distort and corrupt the very process of the audience's vision and
audition. The audience must be conditioned to see the enemy as
an animal and to hear the enemy making animal sounds." The
violence with which a person eradicates vermin can then "serve as
a vicarious rehearsal for the lust to annihilate more substantial
enemies." ^

In his first speech, Dondero suggested how this monstrous evil,
this use of modern art as a vehicle for red propaganda, might be
remedied. The kev to the problem, he suggested, is to be found in
the economic insecurity of the modern artist. First off, therefore,
a direct frontal attack must be launched against the modern artists,
by name, and against modern artists, as a class. The way to launch
this attack is to stimulate the latent but potentially aggressive
"anti-intellectualism" of the "average native American." As a
grass-roots elite, this element can be urged, out of patriotic

''-Prophets of Deceit, p. 6i.
2 op. cit., p. 58.

Imaginary Monsters of Error 125

motives, to conduct a thorough "house-cleaning" of loathsome
foreign isms and these dirty, ratlike modern artists. By denounc-
ing the modern artist and associating his name with loathsome
symbols, the larger public can also be induced to boycott modern
art.

Then the big propaganda guns are trained on the independent
exhibitors, the museums, the art galleries. For example, Dondero
singled out for attack such institutions as the Museum of Modern
Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Fogg Museum, the ACx\
(American Contemporary Art Gallery), and, most viciously,
Artists Equity Association. To make this attack entirely mean-
ingful and perfectly explicit, certain art directors and museum
executives were mentioned by name. To attack an institution for
the crime of having exhibited the works of a certain modern artist
is to imply, of course, that the removal of these works would
purge the crime. To attack certain art directors by name, and on
the same ground, is also to suggest that the removal of these
directors would wipe out the offense. Also singled out for attack
were the art critics of most of the New York newspapers because,
at various times, these critics have spoken favorably of modern art
or praised certain of the artists that Dondero has denounced as
Communists. The newspapers and art journals, Dondero was hor-
rified to discover, did not apply "directional supervision" to their
art critics. He was justifiably indignant with the Neiv York
World-Telegram, that stoutly "anti-Communist" publication, for
its laxity in this regard.

Then, just to complete the circle, Dondero demanded that the
various art associations should throw out, "head over heels," those
members who were Communists or Communist sympathizers.
Again, and just to make his point clear, he called upon certain
associations by name to undertake this "noble" task, mentioning,
among others, the National Academy of Design, the American
Artists Professional League, the Allied Artists of America, the
Illustrators Society, and the American Watercolor Society. Like
an inquisitor of the Middle Ages calling upon a village to sur-
render up its heretics or face destruction, so Dondero insisted
that these associations should purge their membership lists of reds

126 Witch Hunt

or be branded as heretical. The danger we face, he said, is largely
due to the fact that the "hard-working, talented, reserved, patri-
otic proponents of academic art" have hesitated to undertake a
house-cleaning of this sort. Let these right-thinking hard-working
native Americans "organize themselves and fight these traducers
of our American inheritance njoith their own weapons if need be.''
(Emphasis added.)

To these attacks, the artists, exhibitors, and art critics replied
with far more spirit and solidarity than the educators had shown
when singled out for similar treatment. Congressmen Jacob K.
Javits of New York and Charles A. Plumley of Vermont made
good speeches in reply to those by Dondero, and the press, in
general, was not too enthusiastic about the attack on modern art
as a form of Communist propaganda. But even so there were
casualties: a number of exhibitors returned paintings which had
been submitted by artists who had been named by Dondero; a
number of members resigned from Artists Equity; one artist lost
a commission to do a mural; and another, a National Academician,
was summarily expelled from a conservative artists' club. In addi-
tion, Emily Genauer, who had served as art critic of the New
York World-Telegram for seventeen years, was relieved of her
duties shortly after Dondero had singled her out for attack. For-
tunately she was promptly employed by the Herald Tribune to
do an art column. Bv and large, however, the artists and art critics
were quite pleased with themselves for having been able to ward
off the attack with only minor casualties. But the damage was
more serious than they realized.

2. "BF THEIR OWN WEAPONS IF NEED BE"
Before assessing the damage, it is necessary to glance at the
ideological dispute: the debate of words and ideas. Dondero had
fashioned his argument somewhat as follows: the Communists,
who believe that art is a weapon, consciously use art as a means
by which "our" values are assaulted; therefore, "we" are justified
in using "their" weapons against them. If Lysenko exiles geneti-

Imaginary Monsters of Error 127

cists who disagree with him, Oregon State College is justified in
exiling Dr. Ralph Spitzer. If Kemenev, Stalin's art critic, calls
modern art "hideous and revolting," and expels modern artists
from Soviet guilds and unions, then we are quite justified in the
use of similar methods.

To the bulletlike simplicity of this argument, the contra-
Dondero spokesmen rephed that art is not a weapon. Besides, they
argued, it is absurd to abuse modern abstract art in America when
"socialist realism" and "national academicism" are about the only
art forms permitted under the Russian regime.^ By inference this
argument implies that Kandinsky, Braque, Ernst, Miro, Seligman,
and Dali, being persona non grata in Moscow, should be auto-
matically certified as "politically rehable" in New York. Howard
Devree, art editor of the New York Times, in developing a simi-
larly oblique counteroffensive, pointed out that the modern artists
attacked by Dondero are detested by the Soviet art disciplinarians
and that some of the isms which Dondero associates with Com-
munism were in existence long before the October Revolution.
He also objected because Dondero had used the word "Com-
munist" too loosely. By inference, therefore, the use of the term
would be justified if accurately applied. By their very oblique-
ness, these replies failed to answer Dondero. Bv demonstrating
that Dondero is a fool, his critics mistakenly concluded that they
had won an argument.

While Dondero may have intended that his argument should
be taken literally, the attack had a secret psychological meaning.
It was couched, perhaps unintentionally, in what Messrs. Lowen-
thal and Guterman have called the Morse code of the modern
agitator, which is a kind of political sign language. That the at-
tack contained many fallacies does not mean that it failed of its
purpose, which was to arouse hatred. Dondero was not trying to
convince Weldon Kees or Howard Devree; he was seeking to
aggravate a feeling of injury, of alienation, of resentment, of
social malaise, on the part of the thousands of social outcasts who
make up his audience. His speeches attacking the "human ter-
mites" in modern art brought forth, so he states, a warm and

^"Dondero and Dada" by Weldon Kees, the Nation, October i, 1949.

128 Witch Hunt

flattering response from the public, nor is there any reason to
question this statement.

The social malaise to which Dondero appeals is, as the authors
of Prophets of Deceit have pointed out, rather like a skin disease.
If the victim were to consult a doctor, the doctor would tell him
to stop scratching his skin and would then proceed to isolate the
cause of the irritation. But the agitator, who is a quack, urges the
victim to keep scratching; the harder the better. The agitator has
no real desire "to cure" the patient; he merely wants to sell a
patent medicine. It is absurd, therefore, to believe that Dondero
was "answered" by the art critics. The practical political ques-
tion is not who won the argument, measured by objective intel-
lectual standards; but what effect did Dondero's attack have, as
propaganda, upon the elements to whom, if it was not addressed,
it would normally appeal? The applause of this audience w^as not
heard by the critics but it doubtless was sweet music to Dondero.

There is, moreover, an inescapable logic to the Dondero at-
tack — for those who accept the heresv principle. When he ap-
peals for "directional supervision" of art critics, he is doing no
more than urging upon newspapers and magazines the policy
the motion picture industry officially adopted in response to the
dictates of the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
When he urges the "loyal, patriotic, clean-minded, right-thinking
artists" to clean house and purge their establishment of "this social
disease," he is doin^ no more than advocating^ the extension of the
principle of the non-Communist affidavit, embodied in the Taft-
Hartley Act, to artists' guilds and unions. In short, he is simplv
arguing, and with obvious consistency, the logical extension of
President Truman's loyalty program to the arts. In urging a purge
of Communists and reds from the art associations, he is merely
advocating a policy which the National Education Association
has approved for American educators with the added endorse-
ment of the x\merican press. If a Communist should not teach,
then why should a Communist artist be permitted to exhibit? It
is no answer to this question to engage in the familiar and tire-
some prattle about "tender, unformed minds" and the suscepti-
bility of college students to propaganda. A painting with a

Imaginary Monsters of Error 1 2 9

Communist theme is clearly a form of propaganda which can
influence "tender, unformed" minds.

By a painful irony, the very newspapers that criticized Dondero
for advocating a non-Communist policy for the guilds and unions
of artists had previously approved the same policy for American
teachers and educators. Indeed Dondero has managed to get a
good stout half nelson on his opponents and they will yet feel
the pressure of his argument if the present heresy hunt continues.
In effect these opponents lost the ideological dispute when they
failed to advance the one argument that would have trumped
Dondero's demagoguery. They should have said — and it is quite
easy to say — that the civil rights of a witch are precisely the
same as the civil rights of an art critic or a Congressman from
Michigan.

The irony of this strange spectacle in which an attack on certa'm
forms of heresy is denounced while the concept of heresy itself
is approved becomes even more painful when one realizes that
Dondero merely echoed, in a crude form, what a number of
highly respected and widely influential American artists and art
critics have said about modern art. Indeed one cannot escape the
conclusion that Dondero received some expert coaching from
these anonymous inquisitors. In any case, he was not expressing
a personal eccentricity in launching this attack; on the contrary,
he was giving expression to a pronounced trend in modern
thought. One might mention many names but one will suffice.
Dondero himself quoted with approval the charge of Thomas
Hart Benton, "the foremost art critic in the United States," that
"many . . . effeminate elect . . . blanket our museums of art
from Maine to California." The notion, therefore, that Dondero
is a "crackpot" is obviously ridiculous. What has the Right Hon-
orable Winston Churchill, Time'^s Man of the Half-Century, had
to sav about modern art? And, to bring the issue closer to home,
who has forgotten President Truman's Informal tirade on the
same subject? Dondero is no crackpot; whether he knows it or
not, he is the Kemenev of Michigan, so like his opposite number
as to be a twin. By referring to modern art as "degenerate," he
is not denouncing Communism; he is, on the contrary, calling, by

130 Witch Hwit

the clearest implication, for the direct censorship and outright
suppression of modern art.

Dondero's critics also missed the real edge of his attack when
they failed to relate what he said, his threats and his menacing
assaults, to the economic insecurity of the artist in America. In
replying to Dondero, Congressman Charles A. Plumley quoted
from a report which Elizabeth McCausland had prepared for the
Magazme of Art.'*' Miss McCausland had sent out 500 question-
naires to that number of American artists and about 40 per cent
had replied. Of these, 44 per cent stated that they depended
largely or entirely on incomes from sources other than art. With
an average of four years devoted to art education and twent}^
years to their profession, their average total income for 1944 was
$4144, but their average art income was $548! With scarcely an
exception, these artists had been forced to seek "outside" work:
42 per cent of the painters and 53 per cent of the sculptors taught;
32 per cent of the painters and 6 per cent of the sculptors did
commercial art; and only 2 per cent of the painters and 3 per
cent of the sculptors had an independent income. Other jobs per-
formed by these American artists — and the list was quite repre-
sentative — were: picture framing, apartment house management,
beauty shop management, museum work, printing, and so forth.
"I quote these figures," said Mr. Plumley, "to indicate the eco-
nomic pressure under which our artists work, all of which means
that they must devote creative time and energies to non-creative
jobs."

But these same figures have still another meaning for thev indi-
cate, with appalling brevit}^ how perilous is the "freedom" of the
artist in our society. We would never tolerate an official Kemenev
nor would we sanction "directional supervision" of art criticism,
for the tradition of individual freedom is too strong with us. But
the failure to construe Dondero's attack in the light of these
figures indicates the existence of a faulty social perception. Some-
how we fail to "see" the invisible dollar censorship which fetters
the American artist. Dollar censorship is less objectionable and
surely less brutal than censorship by commissars; nevertheless

*"Why Can't America Afford Art?" January 1946.

Imagifiary Monsters of Error 131

censorship by pressure can be deadly for the weight of the pres-
sure is distributed with impartial precision upon every aspect of
the life of the artist. The pressure, moreover, is constant. Indeed
it is almost as difficult to escape from this pressure as from a con-
centration camp.

The failure to see this reflects the fact that our tradition has
always placed the emphasis on individual rather than on social
freedoms. Social freedoms, in a way, are much more difficult to
protect than individual freedoms. The individual is the guardian
of his own freedom, for which, it is presumed, he will put up a
fight if necessary. But if social freedoms are to be protected, social
groups muse be held responsible for their protection and, at the
same time, they must be given certain assured freedoms to dis-
charge this function. Teachers must defend academic freedom;
scientists must defend freedom of scientific inquiry; radio com-
mentators must protect the impartial treatment of the news; law-
yers must defend freedom of advocacy; and artists must defend
freedom of cultural expression. Basic to this strategy, the public
must understand the importance of these freedoms without which
the freedom of the individual becomes more and more of an illu-
sion.

It may be possible to audit the extent to which individual civil
rights are protected by tabulating the violations of individual civil
rights; but social freedoms cannot be audited in this manner.
Freedom of the press, for example, is not secure merely because
left wing groups are permitted to publish newspapers and periodi-
cals; the real measure of the freedom is to be found in the content
of what appears in the large mass publications. The measure of
freedom of speech is not the fact that radicals are still permitted
to make speeches; the real measure is to be found in the long list
of speakers who are never permitted to speak before certain audi-
ences. The denial of social freedoms, in short, is measured by the
extent to which the public, or some particular public, is indirectly
denied access to information and forms of expression which it
must have if it is to voice a real consent, if it is to be truly self-
governing.

Thus the measure of Dondero's demagoguery is not to be found

132 Witch Hunt

in the fact that some injustices resuhed to individual artists. The
real measure would be this: to what extent have artists, as a result
of his attack, turned away from certain modes of expression and
certain themes and subjects? To what extent, for the same reason,
have galleries and museums been inclined to impose a self-censor-
ship upon their selection of works to exhibit and to recommend
for purchase? To what extent have museum directors and art
critics been induced to praise one group of artists and criticize
another solely or largely because of ideological considerations?
To what extent has the public been induced to shun certain artists
and to prefer others, without regard to the merit of their work?
To what extent has the economic position of the modern artists
been further undermined by reason of this attack? To what ex-
tent, finally, has art been "co-ordinated" to political considera-
tions — that is, to what extent has it ceased to be free expression
and become the partisan expression of a specific ideologv? To
whatever extent this has happened, the people have been denied
a social freedom which is indispensable to their growth, their
understanding, their development, in short, to their freedom.
And, in these and other related aspects, the social freedom of art
can be curtailed by a cleverly directed attack ^\'hich mav not, for
the time being, result in any individual casualties. If one keeps
looking for individual violations of civil rights, one cannot "see"
the larger denial of social freedom.

Artists have been given freedom not merely because self-expres-
sion is fun or the creative life a pleasure; they have been given
their freedom so that others may in time become free. Art is a
form of social guidance, a means by which "realit)'" is understood,
and it is an important aid to perception and self-knowledge. The
public is injured when freedom of artistic expression — which is
not specifically safeguarded by the Bill of Rights — is denied.
Mere freedom to express one's self, which is guaranteed, is hardly
the measure of real artistic freedom. The artist needs a gallery,
a museum; the writer needs access to an audience; the playwright
to a theater; the musician to a symphony orchestra. This is not to
say that society must guarantee each artist access to these facih-
ties, regardless of the merit of his work; but it is to say that none

Imaginary Monsters of Error 133

shall be denied access to these facilities solely because of his politi-
cal beliefs. And the reason for this principle is perfectly clear:
before we act, in any social situation, we take stock of ourselves,
we look inward, and what we see determines, to some extent,
how we act. True, the artist expresses "himself" but, in doing so,
what he expresses "is a reflection of our culture, limited or dis-
torted by the size and quality of the mirror that is the artist." ^
If the artist reflects, in this mirror, not what he sees, but what he
is told to see, society is to that extent the captive of the same
forces which have made a captive of the artist. Therefore society
insists that the artist must be free so that his freedom may be an
aid to a larger social freedom.

3. THE DEVIL AS AGITATOR

By asserting that he would destroy heretics "with their own
weapons if need be," Dondero has confessed his moral involve-
ment in the ideology of the Inquisition. Like the Inquisitors, too,
he is playing a dangerous game. For it is always a mistake, as the
wise Bishop of Norwich pointed out several centuries ago, to
frame imaginary monsters of error with whom to contend. When
men see a distorted image of themselves in the mirror of other
men's minds, they have been known to act like monsters, and
worse. Indeed this Is why the agitator is but one of many guises
by w^hich the Devil has returned to the earth, in these equinoctial
times, to set man against man by lighting once again the ancient
and never fully extinguished fires of persecution.

The modern agitator is a prestidigitator, a necromancer, a
sociological medicine man. He is a wizard who brews, out of a
strange assortment of herbs, bones, rags, hair, and bits of dung,
the poison which induces those who drink it to act out, on the
stage of history, their paranoid delusions and fantasies. The agi-
tator is the Devil of our times, but it must be admitted that he is
a strange and clever devil. For he appears in the guise of a clown,

'^^ "Freedom in the Arts," Annals of the A?nerican Academy of Political
and Social Science, November 1938, p. 96.

134 Witch Hunt

a house painter, a political jester and oratorical buffoon. Since
his nostrums are fantastic and he himself is so clearly a fool, his
disguise is nearly perfect; no one will believe that this is really
the Devil. But the agitator is full of satanic lore of a kind which,
once thoroughly understood and properly feared, has long since
been forgotten. For example, the agitator knows something which
is unknown to those that he intends to use to achieve his purposes.
He knows that the world is sick and that he has a medicine for this
sickness.

In a paranoid age, the Devil-as-Agitator can work miracles, for
his favorite, and in a sense his secret, weapons are confusion, de-
lusion, and dissension. His words are feverish and reflect delusion;
but his audience is made up of people whose cheeks are flushed
with the fever of resentment and whose minds are inflamed with
delusions of persecution. Just as we tend to confuse the image
of freedom with a reality which often negates it, so we dismiss
the modern Satan as a crackpot because he sounds foolish. We
say that he is not to be taken seriously; that he is "crazy"; that
he "doesn't talk sense." All this, of course, is quite obvious. But
his crazy word patterns reflect an image of reality to minds suf-
fering from delusion. Such minds, as history has shown on occa-
sion, can become subject to demonic possession.

About demonic possession there has never really been much
mystery. In periods of great social transition, some minds become
subject to demonic possession because the reality they know is so
horrible as to constitute a form of "illusion," a grotesque distor-
tion of the same reality as seen by others from the outside. The
real power of the Devil, who is an agitator, consists in the fact
that his suggestions are supported by a basic social reality. Not
seeing this reality, we dismiss the agitator as a charlatan and ignore
the meaning of his words. The Devil, of course, is always a charla-
tan. He appears in many guises; he claims a wisdom he does not
possess; he lures his victims to destruction by promises which
reflect their frustrations and desires. The Devil, indeed, is the
Great Quack; but people must be sick before they will listen to
a quack. Knowing of their sickness, the Devil speaks to them in a
language which reflects their distorted perception of reality.

Imaginary Monsters of Error 135

Their self-deception is his secret weapon. It is this secret knowl-
edge which enables him to wield such irrational and despotic
power, at certain periods, over the sick and the afflicted, the dis-
possessed and the resentful.

In his great manual for Inquisitors, James Sprenger defined
three methods by which the Devil, through witches, entices the
innocent to the horrid increase of both witches and heretics. The
first is "through weariness," that is, through inflicting grievous
losses in temporal possessions on the innocent; the second is to
seduce the young by working on their carnal desires and by
appeaHng to their frustrations; the third is the "way of sadness
and poverty." For Sprenger recognized in i486 what we have
apparently forgotten in 1950, namely, that the Devil knows how
to appeal to the scorned, the disappointed, the outcast. Powerful
as the Devil is, he must have something to work on; there must
always be some basis for his agitation. When this basis is lacking,
he disappears from the world; but, with the equinox, he always
returns. The Devil's secret is simply that he knows that those who
suffer from delusion are incapable of distinguishing fact from
fantasy and that they tend to project their inner fears upon other
persons, thereby creating imaginary monsters of error. To those
suffering from delusion, therefore, his words are as a crystal ball
in which they see a perfect reflection of their hopes and fears, in
which their "enemies" are clearly identified, and the "conspira-
cies" which threaten their security are lucidly defined. The Devil-
as-Agitator invariably reappears with the Heretic and he uses the
Heretic as his foil. For the Heretic is always mistaken for the
Devil, who cleverly masquerades as a fool. The Heretic is only a
symptom that the times are "out of joint"; but the Devil is a
symbolization of the principle that evil is social in origin. The
failure to understand that it is the Devil, not the Heretic, who is
the real architect of social disaster is one of the major delusions
of our time.

BOOK TWO

Witchcraft in Washington

Wars begin in the minds of men, and it
is in tlie minds of men that tiie defense of
peace must be constructed.

— From Preamble, UNESCO Charter

VII
Bury the Facts

While we are trained to recognize private
delusions, we tend to assume that every-
thing which is public must be real.

— EDMOND TAYLOR in Richer by Asia

The regents of the University of Washington performed a neat
trick in public relations in presenting their decision to the public.
The omission of the facts and circumstances out of which the
case of the six professors had arisen had the natural effect of
focusing public attention on a purely abstract issue, the answer
to which was predetermined by the wording of the question.
Few cases of academic freedom have aroused greater interest but
the resulting discussion has necessarily resembled that of a group
of persons, all victims of a common delusion, discussing their
irrational symptoms. Private delusions, of course, represent at-
tempts to create imaginary situations in which psychotic symp-
toms appear rational and acceptable; but the same mechanism can
also appear in "public" delusions. When a major social issue is
discussed minus the reality which alone gives it meaning, the dis-
cussion is certain to contain elements of delusion. One can no
more understand the University of Washington case merely by
reading the official documents than one can understand the Civil
War by reading the Dred Scott decision. In presenting the official
record, the Regents threw away the kernel of meaning and pre-
sented the public with a shell of abstraction. All they omitted
were the facts, the social reality, the vital substance of the case.^

^See Communism, and Academic Freedom, University of Washington
Press, 1949.

140 Witch Hmit

1. HOW PUBLIC DELUSIONS ARE CREATED
The University of Washington case has, of course, a specific
political background. It is perhaps not without significance that
the most important academic freedom case of our time should
have arisen in the state where the first effective popular front was
formed in 1936. Not only was the Washington Commonwealth
Federation the first effective popular front but the coalition it
represented dominated Washington politics for over a decade.
"Forty-seven states and the Soviet of Washington," used to be
Jim Farley's familiar lament. With a background of Populism
and Progresslvism, of labor radicalism and Utopian socialism,
Washington has always been "explosive, articulate, intractable"
(the phrase is John Gunther's). The key event in the state's
tumultuous political history is the general strike of February 6,
19 19 — the first effective general strike in this country.- I have
seen some intransigent radicals in my life but those of Seattle are
a special case. Indeed the liberal-labor-radical movement of the
state always operated under a full head of steam and this ram-
bunctiousness naturally found reflection, at a fairly early date, in
a corresponding boldness in the traditional liberalism of the uni-
versity.

One item in the immediate political background, however, has
a special relevance to the case of the six professors: a pungent
intra-left congressional campaign in 1946 in which Hugh DeLacv,
with the backing of the Communists, defeated Howard Costigan,
one of the founders of the WCF, for the Democratic nomination,
only to be defeated in the general election. Out of this campaign
a bitter and disastrous split in the liberal-labor-radical-pension
coalition emerged which paralleled a similar split in California
the same year. After the 1946 election, Seattle harbored any
number of embittered "ex-Communists," some of w^hom had
thoroughly well-founded personal reasons for their bitterness and
all of whom, as everyone knew, were ready "to talk" if a proper

-See History of the Americcrn Working Class by Anthony Bimba, 1927,
p. 278.

Bury the Facts 141

forum could be provided. Since the potential witnesses were
widely known left-wingers, any testimony they might give would
be particularly effective anti-Communist propaganda. Up to this
time, Washington had been successful in staving off various at-
tempts to create an un-American tribunal of the kind which had
flourished in California since 1940. With the final dissolution of
the popular front coalition, Washington was suddenly ripe for
the un-American treatment. For un-American investigations gen-
erally appear in the trough of a liberal wave that has reached its
crest and broken. Almost by definition, un-American investiga-
tions are post-mortems or inquests and are, therefore, essentially
anticlimactic.

The 1946 election was marked in Washington, as elsewhere,
by a swing to the right and the new legislature promptly author-
ized, among its first acts, the creation of a committee on un-
American activities under the chairmanship of Albert F. Canwell.
The committee was closely patterned after the Tenney Commit-
tee of California. At the same session, some $25,000,000 was ap-
propriated for a sorely needed medical school at the Universit)*
of Washington. Perhaps because of this, the Regents selected a
new president in 1946 — Dr. Raymond B. Allen. Dr. Allen had
previously served as dean and president of several medical schools
but lacked general administrative experience and, as events were
to prove, was a novice in the type of politics practiced in Wash-
ington. Canwell \^'as formerly a deputy sheriff in conservative
Spokane, where he had served as chief of the "identification
bureau," and his election to the legislature in 1946 represented
his first major venture in politics. The degree of his political
sophistication may be measured by the following excerpt from
a campaign speech: "If someone insists there is discrimination
against Negroes in this country, or that there is inequality of
wealth, there is every reason to believe that person is a Com-
munist."

From January 27 to February 5, 1948, the Canwell Committee
devoted the first of its public hearings to an investigation of the
Washington Old Age Pension Union — a relic of the former
popular front. The first report of the committee, entirely devoted

142 Witch Hunt

to the W.O.A.P.U., is a most remarkable document in that the
pension union is not described nor is its program discussed nor
are its activities analyzed. The hearings took the form of an at-
tempt to demonstrate that certain individuals, identified as Com-
munists, had infiltrated the pension movement and acquired
control of the W.O.A.P.U. But about the only conclusion to be
drawn from the testimony is that the power and influence of the
W.O.A.P.U. rapidly declined once the Communists were sup-
posed to have acquired control; in short, that the investigation was
anticlimactic.

By the time this spectacularly inefficient investigation was con-
cluded, the 1948 political season was far advanced and the com-
mittee was naturally anxious to find a sensational subject of in-
quiry. And so from July 19 to the 23 rd, 1948, the committee held
open public hearings in the 146th Field Artillery Armory in
Seattle; the subject, Communist infiltration at the University of
Washington. At this time, there were about 700 full-time mem-
bers of the faculty and a total teaching personnel of around 1400.
The Canwell- Committee, however, actually investigated ten al-
leged Communists. That intensive preliminary investigation
should have turned up only ten suspects out of 700 for investiga-
tion would indicate that the investigation was patently absurd;
but there is other evidence to support this conclusion.

The high-water mark of antifascism on American campuses,
as in other phases of American life, was reached in the period
from 1935 to 1938. Even prior to the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939, a
reaction had set in which was symbolized by the formation of
the Dies Committee in 1938. During the war years, political divi-
sions of all kinds were naturally minimized. But with the death
of President Roosevelt in April 1945, the red-baiting of the Dies
Committee was resumed on a bolder scale than ever and, as part
of this campaign, colleges and universities came directly wdthin
the line of fire for the first time. Many college presidents promptly
took the necessary precautionary measures, that is, they made
speeches blasting the reds and announced that Communists would
not be employed. The influence of radicals, of whatever political
coloring, had clearly begun to ebb as early as 1938; hence an

Bury the Facts 143

investigation of Communist infiltration at the University of
Washington in 1948 was like an investigation of prohibition ten
years after repeal.

Dr. J. H. Hildebrand of the University of California, who be-
lieves that Communists should not be permitted to teach in
American universities, points up the real situation in these words:
"We have not feared any serious influence by Communist pro-
fessors upon our institutions of learning because we have known
that, contrary to extravagant statements in the yellow press, the
colleges and universities are not 'hotbeds of Communism.' Com-
munist professors are in reality an almost vanishijjg mijiorityT ^
(Emphasis added.) A similar admission has been made by Dr.
T. V. Smith of Syracuse University, who, as a Congressman from
Illinois, voted in January 1940 to continue the Dies Committee
and who, in reporting the University of Washington case for the
New York Herald Tribune, strongly defended the action of the
Regents. "It is not a matter of fear, any immediate fear of Com-
munism; we need not be afraid of a handful of Communists in
colleges." ^ There cannot be the slightest doubt that the Canwell
Committee investigation set in motion the process which led to
the filing of charges against sLx members of the faculty on Sep-
tember 8, 1948. For example, Lawrence E. Davies in a dispatch
to the Nev} York Tijnes reported: "University leaders take the
position . . . that once the legislature had embarked upon its in-
vestigation of campus conditions the university, as a state-sup-
ported institution, had no alternative than to submit to investiga-
tion and welcome 'findings of fact.' . . . There is no denying
that had the university pioneered in an inquiry to weed known
Communists or 'Communist front' adherents from its faculty, it
would have drawn upon itself the charge of witch-hunting." ^
Yet, in his foreword to the official report, President Allen writes
that ". . . contrary to fairly widespread impressions, there is no
connection between the proceedings of this committee [referring
to the faculty trial committee] and the hearings conducted in the

^Pacific Spectator, spring 1949, p. 166.
^American Scholar, summer 1949, p. 344.
^February 10, 1949.

144 Witch Hunt

summer of 1948 by the Joint Legislative Fact-Finding Committee
on Un-American Activities unofficially known as the Canwell
Committee. The two proceedings were entirely separate and dis-
tinct with the single qualification that certain events occurring
during the Canwell hearing are made the basis of some of the
charges filed in this proceeding." ^

In the light of what actually happened, this is tantamount to
saying that the only connection between the Canwell hearings
and the charges filed against the professors is that the f onner led
to the latter! It is too clear for words that the universit)^ would
never have taken action against the professors had the adminis-
tration not felt that it was "under the gun" of the Canwell Com-
mittee. A fear of Canwell, not a fear of Communism, set the in-
quisitorial process in motion. Obviously, therefore, the transcript
of the Canwell hearings must be regarded as part of the official
proceedings: the "preliminary hearing" or "grand jury investiga-
tion" out of which the subsequent prosecution arose. Yet this vital
part of the record was entirely omitted not only from the official
report but from the semiofficial reporting of Dorothy Thompson,
T. V. Smith, Raymond Moley, and many other columnists and
commentators who praised the "fairness" of the ouster proceed-
ings. Before anyone becomes too lyrical in praise of the "fair-
ness" of this heresy trial, it might be worth while to see what
actually took place before the Canwell Committee.

2. WITCHCRAFT IN WASHINGTON

Freedom and truth must be sought in the
world we live in, not in a vacuum.

— DR. HELEN M. LYND

The second report of the Canwell Committee, consisting of
385 pages of fine print, is entirely devoted to the turbulent hear-
ings on Communism at the University of Washington. No one
should be permitted to qualify as an expert on this case who has
not first read this incredible document. The Canwell hearings,

* Official Report, p. 24.

Bury the Facts 145

moreover, raise the real issue of the ouster proceedings. To per-
mit this hearing to be charitably forgotten — to conceal the
crude and brutal character of the investigation behind mountains
of rhetoric devoted to an abstract issue — is to be guilty of a
form of intellectual quackery or pettifogging. Yet this is what
happened: the real case was artfully pushed into the background
and the abstract issue was skillfully moved forward until it com-
pletely monopolized the pubHc's attention. To get at the real
issues, therefore, one must cut back to the facts.

The principal fact about the Canwell hearings is that the at-
mosphere was so thick with paranoid delusions that even the
victims, as usually happens in witchcraft prosecutions, became
confused. "Hissing factionists with ardent eyes" were permitted
to pour thousands of angry, absurd words into the record while
the committee members sat nodding their heads like so many
sage owls. Such well-paid professional experts on the Communist
heresy as George Hewitt (later charged with perjury) and How-
ard Rushmore, the ex-Communist who functions as a specialist on
Communism for the Hearst press, were allowed a freedom of
denunciation which is probably unique in the record of un-
American investigations.

The very savageness of the denunciation immediately created —
as always happens in witchcraft trials — the delusion that some
direct link or relationship existed between the witnesses and their
victims. Why, for example, should these angrily aggrieved wit-
nesses display such morbid eagerness to injure professors Eby,
Ethel, and Jacobs, all of whom, like the witnesses themselves, were
joTiner members of the Communist Party? It is, indeed, a painful
experience to read the testimony of Nat Honig, a witness who
had good reason to dislike the Seattle functionaries of the Com-
munist Party but who permitted this dislike to be exploited in a
manner that worked against other persons precisely the same in-
justice of which he complained. The key to this hate-ridden
atmosphere — which is oppressive even in the reading — is to be
found in Edmond Taylor's observation that ". . . hating with
cause leads to the same mental results as the causeless feeling
of being hated. - . . The difference between the professional

146 Witch Hunt

paranoid and the clinical one is simply that the former's social
behavior ends by distorting his thinking, whereas the latter's dis-
torted thinking is the source of his social, or anti-social, be-
havior." ^

Throughout the hearing, the professors were browbeaten and
incessantly rebuked by the chairman and by counsel "for making
speeches," although the longest answers any of them gave were
mere fragments by comparison with the pages given over to the
outpourings of Rushmore, who regaled the committee with "in-
side" stories about the assassination of Leon Trotsky and similar
items. In this fog of delusion, the professors spoke vaguely of
"a right of silence" and then again of "a right of free speech."
The truth is that neither the defense nor the prosecution had the
most remote notion of what subject was really under investiga-
tion. A more chaotic and jumbled record it would be difficult to
imagine.

The record, however, does have its fine moments. As in the
passage where Dr. Garland Ethel, who admitted former member-
ship in the Communist Party but resolutely refused to name any
of his former associates in the party, told the committee: "My
own particular honor forbids that kind of naming persons to
their possible injury, but most of all it's a question of hving up to
my own standard of conduct ... I have a standard of honor,
and that standard is not to name other persons, and I told you
that would be mv position. That is my position, sir." ^ Or, again,
when Dr. Harold Eby testified: "I find that I couldn't face my-
self and live any more, if I were to name people that are my
friends and associates, who as far as I know are honorable and
loyal; and so inevitably this question is coming up, it might as
well come up now, and I cannot name anybody." "

Dr. Melvin Rader, for eighteen years a member of the faculty,
was not even accused of being a Communist. Yet here is a sample
of the manner in which he was questioned by the chief counsel for
the committee:

"^Richer by Asia, 1947, p. 75.

^Second Report of CanweU Committee, p. 133.

^ Ibid., p. 203.

Bury the Facts 147

Q. Do you believe in the form of government that exists
in the United States of America?

A. I certainly beheve, sir, in the Constitution of the United
States and the Bill of Rights and the government set up
under that Constitution, as it would be interpreted, for
example, by the Supreme Court.

Q. Do you believe in our system of society, a capitalistic
economic system?

A. I believe that there ought to be enough improvement in
our economic system so that we could avoid very great
depressions and a certain amount of unnecessary pov-
erty, and therefore I can't say that I believe in every
feature and aspect of our present economic system.

Q. Do you believe in the capitalist system?

A. I think I can best answer that question by saying my
general point of view about these economic matters
corresponds very closely — very closely indeed — to the
point of view set forth in the reports and recommenda-
tions of National Resources Planning Board . . .

Q. I am not asking you what they think, I am asking you
what you think. . . . Do you believe in the capitalist
form of government as it exists in the United States of
America today?

Among the witnesses summoned by the committee was a
Seattle private detective w^ho had joined the Communist Party
so that he might ferret out the reds on the faculty. The univer-
sity officials could see nothing dangerous in the practice of using
private detectives to spy on the political activities of professors.
Among the affidavits received was one by a neighbor of Dr. H. J.
Phillips, who told of having peeked through a window of the
basement in Phillips's home and of having seen there, on an inner
wall, a framed photograph of Joseph Stalin. A student who had
visited an off-campus home in which other students, boys and
girls, were living, some of whom belonged to American Youth
for Democracy, gave an affidavit with the breathless recital: "Both
men and women occupants were having breakfast, and seemingly
a good time. They were all dressed in their pajamas and appeared

148 Witch Hunt

quite relaxed with each other." ^° One of the professional "anti-
Communist" witnesses, a Negro, felt compelled to rebuke still
another friendly witness who, in the course of his testimony, had
used the word "nigger." ^^ This witness was then recalled to the
stand where he obligingly testified that some of his best friends
were Negroes!

All this, and pages more of the same, would be irrelevant were
it not for the fact that those who believe that Communists
should not be permitted to teach in American universities must
face a number of unpleasant realities. If Communists are to be
ousted, then Communists should not be employed. The screen-
ing of all applicants and present employees then becomes a neces-
sity. But since a general "loyalty" oath will not suffice — all Com-
munists being presumed to be liars — an investigation is next in
order. Hence it becomes entirely proper for a university to co-
operate with such agencies as the Canwell Committee, nor can the
university be too squeamish about the use of informers, private
detectives, "former members," malicious neighbors, neurotic stu-
dents, and other curious witnesses. But since such an admission
would be embarrassing, it is much pleasanter to talk about "the
tireless quest for truth" and similar matters.

3. WHERE WITCHES ARE PREVALENT
Three days before the Canwell Committee Hearings opened,
a department head,* who was under subpoena, was summoned to
an off-the-record session with the committee and its staff. For
over an hour this professor was grilled in a manner, to use his
own words, that "closely resembled" the third degree. The par-
ticular professor was not even listed as a suspect; he was merely
a witness. Yet he was told by Mr. Canwell that the committee
had "irrefutable proof" of his membership in the Communist
Party. He was also told that the Navy, in which he had served
during the war (he held a reserve officer's commission), was out

I*' Second Report of Canwell Committee, p. 239.
" Ibid., p. 228.

Bury the Facts 149

"to get" him. The suggestion was made that if he failed to "co-
operate" with the committee, he might forfeit his job and find it
very difficult to secure other employment. When he steadfastly
denied every accusation, he was called a "dupe" and told that one
could be a member of the Communist Party without being aware
of the fact!

In preparation for the hearings, the committee called in any
number of faculty members for private grillings of this character.
Great pressure was exerted, in all these interviews, to force the
witnesses to inform on their colleagues. In each case, the infer-
ence was clear that if the person interviewed were to turn in-
former, he could escape unharmed. Shown lists of "suspects,"
witnesses were asked to identify those who were reds by reputa-
tion. They were also grilled about their own political activities
ranging back over a period of a decade or more, including peti-
tions signed, meetings attended, speeches made, organizations
sponsored, and, of course, affiliation with such dangerous red out-
fits as the American Civil Liberties Union. Similarly students were
called in, interviewed, and asked to inform on their instructors —
always a tempting offer to a certain type of student — and agents
were sent into classrooms to eavesdrop on certain professors. Yet
this, too, is all part of a hearing which the American press, with
rare exceptions, praised for its "fairness" and respect for "due
process."

The university, of course, is not responsible for the methods
used by the Canwell Committee. Unfortunately, however, the
Regents had said that they "welcomed" an investigation by such
a "responsible" body as the Canwell Committee. At the conclu-
sion of the hearings. President Allen had said: "I do not feel that
the investigation . . . constitutes any abridgement of academic
freedom or civil rights." He then went on to thank the Committee
for its "unfailing courtesy" and to praise it for its "integrity." In a
handbill used in Canwell's unsuccessful re-election campaign.
President Allen was quoted as endorsing the work of the Canwell
Committee along with a similar endorsement from the President
of the Board of Regents.

The University of Washington case provides an excellent illus-

150 Witch Hunt

tration of what happens when, as Dr. Helen M. Lynd has pointed
out, "a University sets out to achieve academic freedom by get-
ting rid of Communists." The abstract question "Should Com-
munists Be Permitted to Teach?" seems to call for a simple
answer, yes or no. But there is nothing about the question which
suggests that the university might have to pay an exorbitant price
for their ouster. Here is an estimate of the price that the Univer-
sity of Washington paid for the ouster of two Communists, made
by a hundred members of the faculty:

We believe . . . that the action taken has already done
serious damage to the University and to the cause of educa-
tion. The reputation of the University as a center of free
inquiry has declined; the esprit de corps that gives confi-
dence and character to any institution has deteriorated; and
the University of Washington has invited education to join
it in a retreat from freedom which is democracy's best de-
fense against totalitarian communism.

Part of the cost, also, was a tolerance of perjury. At the
Canwell hearings, George Hewitt, one of the professional anti-
Communist witnesses, swore that Dr. Melvin Rader once attended
a Communist Party school at Kingston, New York. Dr. Rader
immediately entered a categorical denial and offered strong cor-
roborative proof. In fact, Dr. Rader's denial was so convincing
that the prosecuting attorney was compelled to issue a warrant
for Hewitt's arrest on a charge of perjury. The warrant could
not be served, however, since the Canwell Committee had hur-
riedly spirited Hewitt out of Seattle, by plane, on the day follow-
ing his appearance as a witness. Later, however, he repeated his
charges against Dr. Rader, in a long-distance conversation with
the district attorney.

Extraordinary pressure was immediately brought to bear on
Mr. Charles O. Carroll, the district attorney, to force him to dis-
miss the perjury complaint. Two inspectors of the U. S. Immi-
gration Service informed him that the Department of Justice
wanted the charges against Hewitt dismissed since Hewitt was
scheduled to appear as an important witness in several pending

Bury the Facts 151

anti-Communist prosecutions. Then Carroll was visited by Fred
Niendorff of the Post-lntellige?Jcer, who claimed, and not with-
out reason, to be the "father" of the Canwell Committee. Nien-
dorff, too, demanded that the complaint be dismissed. The Can-
well Committee was then seeking a new appropriation from the
legislature and Hewitt's conviction of perjury, he explained,
might jeopardize this request. Still later the unlucky Carroll was
summoned to a meeting in the office of Edward T. Stone, man-
aging editor of the Post-IfitelligeJicer, who demanded that the
Hewitt prosecution be dismissed. Carroll tells it this way: "Stone
told me: 'We elected one prosecutor, and we can defeat another.
We will blast you right out of office if you don't dismiss this
case.' " Then one of the commissioners of King County, who had
voted for Carroll's appointment, wrote an open letter to the press
demanding his resignation for failure to dismiss the Hewitt com-
plaint. The commissioner, incidentally, had been present at the
meeting in Mr. Stone's office.^"

Argument on the request for Hewitt's extradition was heard
by Judge Aaron J. Le\y of the New York Supreme Court in May
1949. Judge Levy, who has apparently not traveled widely on the
Pacific Coast, announced from the bench that to order Hewitt
returned to Washington would be to send him "to eventual
slaughter." "I am wondering," he said, "really genuinely wonder-
ing, what the civilization of that area is really like." If the Soviet
Union had asked for Hewitt's extradition, the judge's apprehen-
sion could scarcely have been greater. Needless to say the request
was denied.

However Judge Levy's remarks so provoked the Seattle Tmies
that it undertook an investigation which established beyond all
doubt that Dr. Rader had been in Washington during the entire
summer when he was supposed to have been conning the works
of Marx and Engels In Kingston. After reviewing this unassailable
documentary proof, President Allen invited Mr. Canwell to con-
fer w^ith Dr. Rader and representatives of the Seattle Times. Mr.
Canwell failed to keep the appointment. And the next day Presl-

^-See Seattle Times, February 2, 1949; Seattle Fost-lntelligencer, Febru-
ary 3, 1949.

152 Witch Hunt

dent Allen issued what is, perhaps, the most cautiously worded
exoneration on record: "The University is now fully satisfied by
the present evidence that Mr. Hewitt's allegations concerning
Professor Rader have been disproved." The Hewitt incident, in
its entirety, has been omitted from the official record.

The official record also fails to mention that the Canwell Com-
mittee, upon the basis of its investigation, made the following
recommendations to the legislature: (i) that a full-scale investiga-
tion be made into the manner by which textbooks and other
reading materials are selected and approved in the State of Wash-
ington; (2) that measures be taken "to stem the flow" of sub-
versive reading matter in the schools; (3) that suits for libel and
slander based on a charge of Communism be barred when brought
by those listed as belonging to three or more organizations offi-
cially designated as "subversive"; and (4) that recipients of relief
and old-age pensions should be required to sign affidavits stating
that "they will not use any such funds to aid the Communist
Party or communist conspiracy, or any of the party's officers, rep-
sentatives or front organizations."

The University of Washington is not, of course, responsible for
the follies of the Canwell Committee; but the listed recommenda-
tions have a relevance to the issue which the Regents decided. If
otherwise qualified instructors are to be driven from their posts
solely because they are members of the Communist Party, then a
purge of textbooks and reading materials is clearly in order. A
Communist text can be as "dangerous" as a Communist professor;
heresy printed has always been regarded as more dangerous than
heresy "talked." If public funds should not be used to pay the sal-
ary of a Communist professor, should public funds be used to aid
an indigent Communist or a pensioner? If individuals who are
Communists are to be publicly exposed, then some relaxation of
the laws of libel and slander would seem to be in order if onlv to
offer a slight premium for inaccuracy and to provide a margin of
safety for chronic liars.

The recommendations made by the Canwell Committee repre-
sent, in fact, an entirely logical extension of the doctrine of
heresy. Those who accept this doctrine cannot be heard to object

Bury the Facts 153

that a particular weapon used in a heresy hunt is a bit too crude
or that it might be used to destroy the innocent. For there is
nothing more damnable than heresy — if you believe in heresy;
indeed the evil is so menacing that the use of almost any weapon
can be justified. The Inquisition, as G. G. Coulton once remarked,
was like a revolver. "The man behind it might often be peaceful
enough, but the deadly tool was always there, ready to kill at any
moment." " It is dangerous to manufacture such weapons and
then leave them lying about, loaded, for anyone to use.

The sequel of the Hewitt incident is also interesting. Dr.
Rader had contended that in June 1938, when Hewitt had placed
him in the Communist School in New York, he had visited Can-
yon Creek Lodge, a resort near Granite Falls, Washington, to
make arrangements for a month's vacation in August. In the
hearing on Hewitt's petition for a writ of habeas corpus in New
York, a copy of the final report of the Canwell Committee was
presented and it was largely on the basis of this report that Judge
Levy released Hewitt despite the fact that Governor Thomas E.
Dewey had approved the request for extradition. This report
stated that Dr. Rader's first appearance at the Canyon Creek
Lodge was in August 1940, which would indicate, of course, that
Hewitt, and not Rader, had been telling the truth.

But from a report issued on May 5, 1950, by Troy Smith,
Attorney General of the State of Washington, it now appears that
the Canwell Committee had in its possession, at the time the report
was issued, conclusive evidence that Dr. Rader was telling the
truth; this evidence someone suppressed. For the Attorney Gen-
eral states that an investigator for the Canwell Committee signed
a receipt for the "Guest Ledger Sheets" of the Canyon Creek
Lodge; that the names of Melvin and Virginia Rader appeared
on one of these sheets, with the date June 12, 1938; and that this
evidence was in the possession of the committee at all times. When
the Seattle Times made its expose, the search for these registry
sheets, of course, became very lively. "In the Seattle office of the
Canwell Committee," reads the Attorney General's report, "the
trail of the documents became very confused." The investigator

^^ The iTiquisition by G. G. Coulton, 1929, p. 125.

154 Witch Hunt

who signed the receipt for the documents testified that he turned
them over to the assistant chief investigator, who testified that he
turned them over to the chief investigator, who couldn't re-
member ever having seen them!

The Attorney" General then requested the legislative council
to search the files and records of the Canwell Committee. The
moment this announcement was made, Mr. Canwell, who had
previously stated that he knew nothing about the missing docu-
ments, promptly notified the press that he just might be able to
produce them after all! And he did — ten days later, with the
explanation that the documents had been "wrapped up in an old
newspaper" and misplaced. Not only was this evidence — vital
to Dr. Rader's defense — suppressed by someone connected with
the committee, but the committee, with the evidence in its posses-
sion, aided Hewitt to escape justice.

But this is not all. The committee's report, upon which Judge
Levy relied, contained this statement: "Professor Rader termi-
nated his paid services (with the University) on the twentieth of
June, 1938, and did not resume employment there until Septem-
ber." The fact is, as shown by the records of the university, to
which the committee had full access, that Rader was paid for
teaching until July 20, not June 20. Slight wonder then that the
Attorney General of Washington — in a commendable effort to
right the wrong done Dr. Rader — should now conclude that
"George Hewitt did not tell the truth"! For his excellent work
on this case, Edwin O. Guthman of the Seattle Times was
awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the best reporting of 1949. In the
sordid annals of un-American investigations, it would be difficult
to duplicate the strange behavior of the Canwell Committee in
relation to the Hewitt case.

The official record of the University of Washington case does
not mention the fact that three of four members of the Canwell
Committee who stood for re-election in 1948, including Albert F.
Canwell, were soundly defeated. This fact alone would seem to
indicate that President Allen offered the Canwell Committee a
warmth of welcome and a degree of co-operation which the
people of the state would never have compelled him to give if

Bury the Facts 155

the issue had been taken to them. Even if President Allen had to
co-operate with the committee, he did not need to praise its in-
tegrity and fairness or to endorse the work of the committee. He
could have stood his ground; he could have defended the principle
of academic freedom. But instead of doing this he proceeded to
imitate the committee and to launch, as the next chapter will
show, an inquisition of his own.

VIII
Professors on Trial

I lost
All feeling of conviction, and, in fine,
Sick, wearied out with contrarieties.
Yielded up moral questions in despair.

— WORDSWORTH

Following the Canwell Committee hearings, formal complaints
were filed against six members of the faculty by the administra-
tion of the University of Washington. Ten members of the fac-
ulty, all enjoying tenure, had been identified during the hearings
as past or present members of the Communist Party. Two flatly
denied the charge; five denied present membership; and three
refused to testify. Charges, however, were only filed against six
of the ten. In the official report. President Allen fails to explain
why no charges were filed against three admitted ex-Communists:
Angelo Pellegrini, who had been a member of the party for about
a year in 1935 or 1936; Dr. Maud Beal, who had been a party
member from 1935 to 1938; and Dr. Sophus Keith Winther, who
had been a member in 1935 or 1936.

Presumably the fact that their membership was less recent than
that of the three ex-Communists against whom charges were filed
had removed the taint of heresy. Then, too. Dr. Sophus Keith
Winther belonged in a rather special category. He had published
an anonymous article in Harpefs in July 1937, which purported
to be a factual account of the experience of a professor in the
Communist Party but was forced to admit, at the trial of his col-
leagues, that the article was "an imaginary treatment" of the ex-
perience. As a "friendly" witness before the Canwell Committee,

Professors on Trial 157

Dr. Winther had shown no scruples about naming some of his
colleagues as former members of the Communist Party.

The charges against the six professors were automatically re-
ferred to the Committee on Tenure and Academic Freedom, the
committee established to hear all tenure cases. Consisting of eleven
members, the committee was appointed by the University Senate.
The faculty committee held closed hearings on the charges from
October 27 to December 15, 1948. On January 7, 1949, the com-
mittee filed its report with President Allen, who promptly trans-
mitted it to the Regents along with his analysis and recommenda-
tions. Although the transcript consisted of thirty-two volumes of
testimony and more than a hundred exhibits, the Regents met on
January 22, considered the entire record, and announced their
decision forthwith.

The session at which the decision was reached lasted three
hours. Although it is possible that the Regents could have studied
the record before making their decision, since the testimony was
typed as the hearing proceeded, it is highly improbable that this
was done. For example, one of the Regents had flown from
Chicago to Seattle on January 22, arriving just in time for the
meeting. The fact that the university's budget and the Canwell
Committee's request for a new appropriation were pending before
the legislature, which was then in session, may account for the
swiftness with which the Regents acted. It is admitted that their
decision represented a compromise verdict rather than a clear-
cut decision on the merits or a conscious formulation of policy
on a matter of paramount importance to American education.^
The willingness of the Regents to compromise on an issue of this
importance, to rise as it were "above principle," may also be re-
lated to the importance of the issues which were then pending
before the legislature,

A note or two about the Regents may, perhaps, be in order.
The Board consisted of Joseph Drumheller, a leading Spokane in-
dustrialist; Thomas Balmer, vice-president and general counsel of
the Great Northern Railway, a director of the Seattle National
Bank of Commerce, the Superior Portland Cement Company,

^N. Y. Times, February 9, 1949.

158 Witch Hunt

Washington Mutual Savings Bank, Pacific American Fisheries,
and the Crow's Nest Pass Coal Company, and a member, also, of
the University and Rainier Clubs of Seattle and of the Arlington
Club of Portland; three lawyers, Clarence J. Coleman, Winlock
W. Miller, and George R. Stuntz; John L. King, of the Washing-
ton State Grange, the one liberal on the board; and Mr. Dave
Beck, vice-president of the International Brotherhood of Team-
sters, chairman of the Western Conference of Teamsters (290,000
members), chairman of the Finance Committee of the Board of
Regents, a rabid anti-Communist who is, perhaps, the most suc-
cessful exponent of "business unionism" on the West Coast. Mr.
Beck, who believes that his truck drivers and bottle washers are
not competent to make "big decisions" affecting union policy, has
a love of fancy titles and a desire to associate with financiers and
industrialists described as "childlike in its intensity." ^ So much
for the Regents; but what of the six professors?

1. THE SIX HERETICS
Joseph Butterworth, fifty-one years of age, an associate in the
English Department, recognized authority on Chaucer, joined the
faculty in 1929. Quiet, mild-mannered, soft-spoken, badly crip-
pled, he has had more than his share of personal sorrows and mis-
fortunes. Butterworth joined the faculty in 1920. Like PhilUps,
he admitted to the faculty committee that he had joined the
Communist Party in 1935 and was still a member; he declined to
answer this question, however, before the Canwell Committee.
Herbert J. Phillips, fifty-seven years of age, assistant professor of
philosophy, joined the faculty in 1920. He likewise admitted to
the faculty committee that he had joined the Communist Party in
1935 and was still a member but refused to answer this ques-
tion before the Canwell Committee. For many years, Phillips
had made it a practice, at the beginning of each semester, to
tell his classes that he was a Marxist and that this fact should be

2 See Fortime, December 1948; and "Labor's New Strong Man," New Re-
public, August I, 1949.

Professors on Trial 159

kept in mind in appraising his personal views and opinions. For
thirteen years, Butterworth and PhilHps were known to all and
sundry as the leading "reds" on the faculty.

Ralph H. Gundlach, forty-six, associate professor of psychol-
ogy, joined the faculty after his graduation from the university
in 1924. At the time of his dismissal, he was president of the
Western Psychological Association. Dr. Gundlach refused to tell
the Canwell Committee whether he was a Communist but, before
the faculty committee, denied that he had ever been a member.
Cited for contempt by the Canwell Committee, he was convicted
by a jury on March 17, 1949, and his case is now on appeal. As a
good social scientist, Gundlach could not resist the temptation to
circulate a questionnaire among his students about his own case.
Five per cent thought that he was a Communist; the same number
thought he was a Democrat; 2 per cent believed he might be a
Republican; and 75 per cent had no opinion as to his political
affihations. In a statement to President Allen, Dr. Gundlach out-
lined his political behefs as follows:

I graduated from the University of Washington in the
field of poUtical science under Professor J, Allen Smith; and
from that great man and Vernon Parrington and William
Savery, I learned that human personality and individuality,
and kindly human relationships are the important values;
that human rights are a means of safeguarding the conditions
for general human development; and that our institutions in
society are not ends in themselves, but means, for the service
of the needs of mankind. So, I am anti-fascist, anti-authori-
tarian; a democrat; a humanitarian; in the broad, deep sense,
a Christian. I learned that the liberation of the peoples of
the world from tyranny was retarded more by psycho-
logical factors than by material ones; and that the direction
of liberation was the drive toward democracy — in religion,
politics, and economics. ... I am opposed to the use of
force and violence. In my personal life, I have never had a
fight. I firmly believe that peoples should be induced to co-
operate, not forced to comply. I want people to be mutually
helpful. I think it is evil to "use" other people for one's selfish
ends.

i6o Witch Hunt

Butterworth, Phillips, and Gundlach, each of whom had been a
member of the faculty for approximately twenty years, all en-
joying permanent tenure status, were summarily dismissed from
the faculty, without severance pay, on February i, 1949.

Garland O. Ethel, fifty, assistant professor of English, had been
a teaching fellow before joining the faculty in 1927. Just prior to
joining the Communist Party in 1934, he had visited both Ger-
many and Russia. He admitted that he had been a member of the
Communist Party but stoutly refused to name any witches he
might have seen at the Sabbats. He left the party in the fall of
1 94 1 because, so he said, the danger of fascism had abated. At
forty-three years of age, he enlisted in the army and was later
commissioned a captain. He told the faculty committee that he
did not intend to rejoin the Communist Party but that he still
considered himself an intellectual Marxist. The entire faculty
committee made a point of praising his "sincerity and frankness."

E. Harold Eby, forty-eight, professor of English, joined the
faculty in 1927 after finishing his graduate work at the univer-
sity. He admitted that he had joined the Communist Party in
1935 but refused to name any of his colleagues as members. He
left the party in the early part of 1946 because, so he stated, "I
came to the conclusion that I wanted to devote my whole time
and energy to my research and writing." Melville Jacobs, forty-
six, associate professor of anthropology, joined the faculty in
1928. He admitted that he had joined the Communist Party in
1935 or 1936, but, Hke Ethel and Eby, refused to name any of
his colleagues as members. Asked why he had joined the part\% he
said: "In the period of the depression and in the course of visiting
around the country, riding about in my car and seeing poor
devils starving or walking along the Bowery of New York, I be-
came aware of an aspect of life I had never had any occasion to
be interested in." Another major reason had been, he explained,
his abhorrence of the racial doctrines of the Nazis. He dropped
out of the party, rather informally, in 1945. As with Dr. Ethel,
his interest in Communism seems to have been an aspect of his
detestation of fascism.

These, then, are the six heretics.

Professors on Trial i6i

Of the group, one gains several distinct impressions. They
were, first of all, antifascists. By and large, the pattern of their
pohtical affihations and activities is the same. In varying degrees,
they were active in: the Washington Commonwealth Federa-
tion, the Washington Old Age Pension Union, the Teachers
Union, the Loyalist cause in Spain, free speech and civil liberties
issues generally, the New Deal, the defense of Harry Bridges,
opposition to the Dies Committee, independent political action
committees, and the formation of a labor school. The five who
admitted having joined the Communist Party became members
in the period from 1934 to 1936, the period of the popular front
and the pre-Munich crisis. Having left graduate school in the
late 'twenties, it is apparent that they had been profoundly dis-
turbed by the depression and the emergence of European fascism.
Only one had ever visited the Soviet Union, so far as the record
indicates. A glance at the list of their affiliations in the Canwell
report will show that these were men of real courage who, as
university professors, had never hesitated to support unpopular
causes. The record also shows that they had signed perhaps more
than their share of open letters, petitions, and memorials; and that
they had long taken an active part in the political life of an ex-
ceptionally liberal community. For over a decade, the six profes-
sors had been systematically red-baited — a fact which stands out
from almost every page of the record.

Most of these men were either graduates of the University of
Washington (Phillips, Eby, Gundlach) or products of its liberal
tradition. A protege of Vernon Parrington, Eby had edited the
third volume of Main Currents in America?! Thought. The lib-
eralism of men like Phillips, Eby, and Gundlach, therefore,
can be easily understood. It is part of the tradition of the univer-
sity in which they were trained; it is part, so to speak, of their
intellectual inheritance. Of J. Allen Smith, Parrington once wrote:
"That so outspoken a critic of the Constitution should have suf-
fered ungenerous attack was, no doubt, to be expected. The
hornets are quick with their stings if the nest of privilege is dis-
turbed. The high price exacted of him for his courage and sincer-
ity, his friends are well aware of, yet none ever heard him com-

1 62 Witch Hunt

plain or recriminate. It was part of the price the scholar must pay
for his intellectual integrity and he paid it ungrudgingly." It is
not surprising, therefore, that students of Smith and Parrington
should also be willing to pay a high price for their intellectual
integrity. What is surprising, however, is that their trial for
heresy should have been held in Parrington Hall on the campus
of the University of Washington.

2. THE CHARGE IS HERESY

Just what were the charges against the six heretics? The admin-
istrative code specified five, and only five, grounds for the re-
moval of a faculty member holding tenure: incompetency, neglect
of duty, physical or mental incapacity, dishonesty or immorality,
and conviction of a felony involving moral turpitude. Millions
of Americans have been told, in the press and over the radio, and
by the most responsible observers, that the hearing accorded the
six professors was a model of fairness. Due process implies the
existence of valid charges; indeed, the fairness of a hearing be-
comes irrelevant in the absence of validly grounded charges. Yet
Butterworth and Phillips were convicted of a "crime" which had
never been declared to be a crime either under the administrative
code of the university or under statutes of state or nation.

At the hearing, the administration withdrew all charges against
Butterworth and Phillips other than the charge of membership
in the Communist Party, which both men admitted. Five of the
eleven members of the trial committee were unable to find that
membership constituted a ground for discharge under the tenure
code. In effect, therefore, five of the trial judges found that the
university had failed to file valid charges and this, it should be
noted, was the ?najorhy finding. As a matter of fact, three addi-
tional trial judges concurred in the recommendation against their
removal although dissenting on other issues. Thus eight of eleven
members of the trial committee recommended against the re-
moval of either Butterworth or Phillips. One is therefore driven
to the conclusion that not only were valid charges lacking against

Professors on Trial 163

these men but that their removal from the faculty was in direct
contravention of a majority finding by the committee which had
been set up to try them and which alone could try them under
the tenure code! ^

Most American educators seem to believe that a fair trial and
not a witch hunt took place in Seattle. But the more that is said
about the fairness of the hearing, the more indefensible becomes
the action of the president and the Regents in setting aside the
verdict of the tenure committee. In acting as they did, the presi-
dent and Regents were guilty of a much greater offense than that
of having worked a grave injustice to the professors involved;
what they did, in effect, was to nullify the tenure system. For in
electing to oust two Communists from the faculty solely because
they were Communists, the administration, as Dr. Helen M. Lynd
has pointed out, set aside "all accepted canons of teaching and
scholarship in judging teachers" and substituted a political test of
competence.* The substitution, moreover, was accomplished in
defiance of the code which governed tenure at the university.

It is difficult, indeed, to understand how responsible officials
could act so arbitrarily on a matter of this importance. But their
decision becomes quite understandable if one will concede that
the six professors were charged with heresy, and not with any
offenses against the academic code. The inconsistencies disappear
the moment one is prepared to concede that the real purpose of
the prosecution was to establish Communism as an inadmissible
heresy. The six professors were not tried in their professional
capacit\^; they were tried as heretics. The administration admitted
as much when it stipulated at the outset of the hearing that

. . . we will indulge in the conclusive presumption that
every person here charged is sufficiently learned in his field

^The minority report on Butterworth and Phillips consists of two opin-
ions. In the first, two faculty members found that the grounds for discharge
listed in the code were "merely illustrative"; hence that the administration
could add to these grounds, from time to time, as need arose. In the second
dissent, the eleventh member of the trial committee agreed with the five-
man majority report about the Communist Party but disagreed with certain
recommendations.

^ Ainerican Scholar, summer 1949, p. 348.

164 Witch Hwit

and sufficiently skillful in his teaching, and that he is not
using the classroom as a forum for the indoctrination of his
students into communism, or anything similar thereto.

From this sweeping admission, it is quite clear that the adminis-
tration was not even interested in the character or professional
competence of the professors except as a man's character may
be inferred from his political affiliations and activities. If the pro-
fessors were guilty of anything, it was not of misconduct or in-
competence but of heresy or the taint of heresy.

This conclusion is implicit in other aspects of the trial. For
example, the committee rejected the testimony of scholars emi-
nent in the fields of learning represented by the professors on
trial. When a statement was offered by Dr. Lewis M. Terman,
chairman of the Department of Psychology at Stanford Univer-
sity, in support of Gundlach's case, the university's counsel ob-
jected: "The letter came from no amateur. Terman is listed three
times in the index of the Un-American Activities Committee."
It is doubtful if even Canwell would have raised this objection
to the testimony of an internationally famous scholar and scien-
tist. The faculty, however, readily accepted the testimony of
the head of the "red squad" in Portland and listened, with atten-
tion, to Dr. Sophus Keith Winther, who writes imaginary ac-
counts of alleged personal experiences and then publishes them
anonymously. In his summation, President Allen proceeds upon
the assumption that members of the Communist Part\^ are well-
nigh incapable of telling the truth; yet the testimony of Dr.
Edward Strono- of Stanford University, and Dr. Paul Sweezy,
formerly of Harvard, is characterized as "useless" because neither
man had ever been a member of the Communist Party! To
add to the confusion, the testimony of ex-Communists y^as
freely accepted and given full y^eight, apparently on the
assumption that a person's ability to tell the truth is immedi-
ately restored once he resigns or is expelled from the Communist
Party.

"It is hard to avoid the conclusion," y^ites Dr. Helen M. Lynd,
"that President Allen and those who stand ydth him wanted to

Professors on Trial 165

get these six men out of the University, or to discipline them to
conformity, by whatever evidence or logical devices would serve
these ends." To the question of how such thinking is possible for
educated men vested with serious educational responsibilities.
Dr. Lynd finds the answer in John Dewey's suggestion that
trained minds reason in an inverted fashion only when influenced
by some covert factor. But it is not necessary to assume the
existence of some covert factor, as, say, a fear of the Canwell
Committee, to explain the bizarre reasoning of President Allen
and the Regents. Once they had been induced to file charges of
heresy against the six professors, the perverse reasoning, the de-
sire to convict by any means, and the rest of it, followed quite
logically and inevitably. To the Inquisitor, heresy is like a fire.
One does not scruple about the methods to be used in putting out
a fire; any methods will do, including counter-fires and demoli-
tions.

The reasoning of President Allen and the Regents is not objec-
tionable for want of logic; indeed their reasoning is quite logical
if one accepts the heresy premise. They are not to be charged,
therefore, with being illogical but with having acted in a manner
that confuses the points at issue between authoritarian and demo-
cratic social philosophies. For example, the belief that all Com-
munists are without honor, morality, or integrity is not only false
and patently malicious: it ignores the real basis of the conflict
between Communism and democracy. This conflict arises not
between our "righteousness" and their "immorality" but between
two conflicting codes of morality. There is convincing evidence
in the case that Communists can be persons of honor and integrity
who make a point of adhering to a code of strict political and
personal morality. It is precisely because this happens to be true
that a basic moral conflict arises; otherwise the conflict would
have no moral implications. The confusion, the embarrassment
of the Seattle witch hunt, stems directly from the fact that the
Communists behaved so well, that is, so consistently; while those
who assaulted their rights in the name of "academic freedom"
and "safeguarding democracy" behaved so badly.

The action of the president and the Regents could be de-

1 66 Witch Hunt

fended on the score of expediency. True, the defense would be
ignominious and extremely disingenuous; but it could still pass
for a defense, of a sort. But both the president and the Regents
spurn the suggestion that expediency had anything to do with
their decision: they acted as they did out of an undying devo-
tion to democratic values, including academic freedom. It is this
discrepancy bet^veen what they did and what they say in de-
fense of what they did that reveals, with embarrassing clarity,
the self-defeating nature of the strategy of fighting Communism
as a heresy. It is only by clarifying and emphasizing the dif-
ferences between Communism and democracy that the nature
of the conflict between the two philosophies can be demon-
strated.

"Democracy and education and truth-seeking," as Dr. Lynd
has observed, "are serious, time-consuming processes." It is dif-
ficult to live as a democrat and it is surely difficult to get along
with Communists, at home or abroad; but neither consideration
justifies the abandonment of democratic principles. We cannot
at the same time say that a teacher has a right to be a Com-
munist if he will only declare this belief openly and then turn
around and punish him as a heretic when he takes us at our
word. As Dr. Lynd so rightly insists, we cannot "teach de-
mocracy by praising freedom while practicing dictation"; we
cannot open closed minds by confronting them with closed
minds; we cannot attack the idea of a police state while using
the methods of a police state. On the record, therefore, the
real heresy revealed in the Seattle witch hunt was the heresy
of the avowed democrats. The Communists acted like Com-
munists; the democrats acted like — dictators.

5. PROFESSORS ON PROBATION
The sentence meted out to Drs. Eby, Ethel, and Jacobs is,
in some respects, one of the clearest indications that the six
professors were tried as heretics. For it is clear beyond contra-
diction that these men were punished retroactively — for past

Professors on Trial 167

beliefs, associations, and activities. The entire faculty coinmittee,
without dissent, recommended against their dismissal. Yet they
were placed on two years' probatio?i and forced to abjure under
oath any sympathy or connection with Communism. The hu-
miliation of these scholars is quite without precedent in the his-
tory of American education. Professors have been discharged
from posts in American universities for their beliefs just as
professors have, for the same reason, been demoted and trans-
ferred. But this is the only known case in which professors
have been forced to abjure under oath a former belief as a con-
dition to being placed on two years' probation. But, here again,
the use of the test oath and the granting of probationary in-
dulgence is quite in keeping with the best inquisitorial practice.

Probation of course implies a testing or trial of one's conduct,
character, qualifications or the like (so reads the dictionary).
But what quality of these men was being tested? They had
been members of the faculty for many years and they were
men of recognized competence in their respective fields. The
sentence given them, therefore, indicates a clear intention to
test the sincerity of their withdrawal from the Communist Party
and to ensure, if possible, their future conformity. According to
President Allen, the university would not object to the presence
on the faculty of an "intellectual Marxist"; but President Allen
accepted and praised as "just" the decision of the Regents plac-
ing Garland Ethel, an intellectual Marxist, on probation for
two years. The professors were asked, on several occasions,
whether they would rejoin the Communist Party should an-
other depression occur. The requirement of a sworn disavowal
of Communist membership, coupled with two years' probation,
would seem to indicate that the Regents sought to guard against
this contingency. In the case of these men, therefore, thought
control was applied both retroactively and prospectively — for
two years at least. Such a sentence betrays, on its face, a de-
termination to humiliate and degrade heretics rather than to
safeguard academic freedom or vindicate any right or principle.

The issue of conflicting moralities is brought out sharply in the
case of these men. One of the charges against them was that,

1 68 Witch Hunt

having taken an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and noth-
ing but the truth, they had refused to reveal to the Canwell
Committee the names of former associates in the Communist
Party. Their refusal, on this score, is denounced as "dishonest
and immoral." ^ These, indeed, are harsh words. But in what,
precisely, did the dishonesty and immorality consist? Every day
hundreds of witnesses take a similar oath in American courts
and still refuse, without being denounced as either dishonest or
immoral, to answer questions to which, for example, objections
are sustained. Is a witness "dishonest" who refuses to testify on
the ground that his testimony might be self-incriminating? Is
a physician "immoral" who refuses to divulge, under oath, a
professional confidence? As a matter of fact, the refusal of Eby,
Ethel, and Jacobs to name their former associates ^vas the basic
charge against them; if they had turned informers they could
have escaped unscathed. And since when did it become "honest"
and "moral" to purchase one's own freedom by denouncing
one's former associates? This is Nazi doctrine; it has nothing to
do with truth or morality.

President Allen had told the faculty on May 12, 1948, that
the Canwell Committee was about to investigate the university
and he had implied that the administration would refuse to de-
fend any instructor who had been carrying on "in secrecy ac-
tivities the nature of which was unknown." One of the charges
against Eby, Ethel, and Jacobs was that they had remained
"silent" after this statement and had failed to disclose to Presi-
dent Allen their former membership in the Communist Party.
But what, precisely, was the nature of the duty which obligated
them to disclose their personal political beliefs to the presi-
dent of the university? He was never appointed the keeper of
their consciences. When they were employed, nothing was said
about Communism; nor had they ever been told that member-
ship in the Communist Party would jeopardize their tenure.
On the contrary, they knew that for thirteen years Butterworth
and Phillips, who had never denied or concealed membership,
were permitted to teach and to enjoy full faculty rights and

^Official Record, p. 123.

Professors on Trial 169

privileges. Enlightened moral codes have always avoided any
suggestion of compulsion where an obligation arises, if at all,
only as a matter of good conscience. Any obligation which
these men may have owed to President Allen, arising as a matter
of conscience and good faith, was forfeited when he threatened
to abandon those who failed to make disclosure.

The case of the sixth professor, Ralph Gundlach, Is tragically
mixed-up and confused. Gundlach, who refused to answer
questions about membership in the Communist Party before the
Canwell Committee, denied membership under oath before the
faculty trial board. But he seems to have been tried, not for his
conduct before the Canwell Committee, but on the score of
professional competence, and this despite the fact that the ad-
ministration had specifically waived any charges of this char-
acter. Four members of the faculty trial board voted against
his dismissal but the remaining seven members in three separate
reports (four, two, and one) voted, for different reasons, that
he should be dismissed. One finishes a study of the record with
the feeling that Gundlach, more than any of the other professors,
was the victim of a complicated plot. Of the six, ironically,
he was the only one who had never been a Communist! Yet he
was dismissed while Eby, Ethel, and Jacobs were merely "dis-
ciplined." It was probably because he had never been a Com-
munist that his dismissal was justified on grounds unrelated to
the charges. Gundlach, alas, occupied the dangerous middle
ground between the two Communists, with their defenders and
partisans, and the three ex-Communists, with theirs. Unfortu-
nately he stood alone.

As a tactical maneuver in the campaign to combat Com-
munism, the Seattle witch hunt must be pronounced a dismal,
a disastrous failure. The Communist Party did not suffer, here
or elsewhere, from this prosecution; on the contrary, the two
Communists involved acquitted themselves admirably and won
wide respect for their courage and integrity. In the process
of ousting these men, who showed real courage under fire,

lyo Witch Hunt

serious damage was done the principle of academic freedom, the
assurance of individual freedom of belief was gravely under-
mined, and widespread sympathy was aroused for the t^^o
heretics. In indicting the Seattle professors, democracy indicted
itself. The damage which the trial caused was not to Communism
or the Communist Party but to academic freedom and demo-
cratic values generally. In placing three of the professors on
probation, the Regents placed the entire teaching profession on
probation and weakened the morale of democrats everywhere.
According to President Allen, the ultimate judgment on the
Seattle case will be made ". . . by the larger forces that will
shape American education as it deepens and extends the freedom
of true scholarship." This ultimate judgment, I fear, will be
that six professors were convicted of heresy in Seattle, Wash-
ington, in the middle of the twentieth century.

The belief in witchcraft was built up bv the trick of imposing
delusion on delusion until the reality out of which the charge
emerged was hopelessly obscured. This same technique finds il-
lustration in the handling of the University of Washington case.
By omitting the essential background facts from the official
record, the first delusion about the case of the six professors
was created. The next delusion was produced by the simple
technique of praising as "fair" a trial based on irrelevant charges
in which the verdict of the jury had been set aside and the
rules governing trials of this sort had been deliberately ignored.
On the basis of the delusions created in this manner, the public
was then asked to concur in an abstract proposition which, in
strict legality, had nothing to do with the facts of the University
of Washington cases. The next chapter deals, therefore, with
the Great Debate by which the public was asked to acquiesce
in a serious violation of academic freedom in the guise of pro-
tecting this freedom.

The Great Debate

Not in Utopia, — subterranean fields,—

Or in some secreted island, Heavens knows where!

But in the very world, which is the world

Of all of us.

— WORDSWORTH

The decision made, the struggle for vindication began. Presi-
dent Allen left immediately for New York to invite an investiga-
tion by the American Association of University Professors be-
fore the six professors could file a complaint, and to get the
official version of the case to the public before the professors
had prepared their first press release. Indeed the ink was scarcely
dry on the documents before it became apparent that the issue
was charged with general political significance and, like most
political issues, would be resolved by public debate. Since
February 1949, the Great Debate has echoed in educational
circles, popular forums, in the press and over the radio. What,
then, are the merits of the arguments pro and con? How goes
the debate?

1. THE MATTER OF DISCIPLINE

Variously stated, a major argument for the aflSrmative is this:
By joining the Communist Party an instructor becomes sub-
ject to a discipline which is wholly incompatible with the dis-
interested pursuit of truth. "To stay in the Communist Party,"
writes Dr. Sidney Hook, "they [the members] must believe and

172 Witch Hunt

teach what the party line decrees." The argument rests on two
assumptions: the Communist Party not only claims the power to
discipline but in fact does discipline its members to the point
where they are no longer free agents; and for every area of
thought from art to zoology the party lays down a line to
which conformity is enforced. The second assumption is vital
for otherwise it would be difficult to apply the argument, for
example, to the case of Dr. Joseph Butterworth, a professor of
Old English. Any person, so the argument runs, is free to join
or leave the Communist Party, but once a member, and as long
as he remains a member, he cannot be a free agent.

But just what types of discipline were available to the Com-
munist Party in the year 1948, in the United States? The case
of the six professors throws some light on this question. For
example, Dr. Sophus Keith Winther testified that while he and
Mrs. Winther were members of the party, they declined to vote
for Earl Browder when he was the Communist candidate for
President. Voting for Browder, however, was supposed to be
mandatory for all party members. Indeed the chief function-
ary of the party in Seattle read the riot act to those who had
refused or failed to vote for Browder. Yet the fact remains that
only one vote was cast for Browder in the Seattle precinct in
which the "red" professors lived. Disturbed by this testimony
from a witness bitterly hostile to the Communist Party, counsel
for the Can well Committee then asked: "They [the Com-
munists] had quite an iron discipline then, did they not, in the
party?" To which Dr. Winther repHed: "It didn't work very
well." ^

The Communist Party has been charged with being a con-
spiracy to overthrow the government by force and violence.
Ordinarily the parties to a conspiracy are not free to withdraw
from the conspiracy whenever they wish. Yet M^hen Dr. Winther
was asked: "Now, what mechanics did you go through to get
out of the party?" he repHed: "None, whatsoever, except I
notified one of the members that I would no longer attend
meetings." From his own testimony it appears that he dropped

^Vol. II, p. 16.

The Great Debate 173

out of the party as casually and informally as one would cease
to be a member of a club by failing to pay dues. His examina-
tion on this point reads:

Q. Did any of them come to see you and try to get you

to return to the Communist Party?
A. No.

Q. They just let you go and left you alone?
A. Yes.

Dr. Melville Jacobs testified that during the time he was a
member of the Communist Party he was able to retain both his
critical faculties and his independence of judgment, "When the
Communists have urged a point for one or another special aspect
of anthropological science, I have often been in sharp disagree-
ment." On more than one occasion, scientific considerations had
forced him to come to conclusions "other than theirs." ^ Both
Dr. Butterworth and Dr. PhilUps, praised by their colleagues as
men of honesty and sincerity, testified that they were never haled
before "control commissions" or told what to think or say. Doubt-
less the Communist Party in this country has disciplined members
who were instructors and doubtless it claims the power to impose
an intellectual discipline on its members. But the facts of the
Seattle case simply do not support either contention. It may well
be that the Seattle functionaries were lax in the matter of disci-
pline or that Butterworth and Phillips were regarded as "sacred
cows," but these suppositions do not take the place of proof or
evidence.

The fatal weakness of the discipline argument, however, con-
sists not in the absence of proof but in the absence of power. "In
the Soviet Union," writes Dr. Alexander Meiklejohn, "Mr. Stalin
and his colleagues can, and do, enforce orders by police and mili-
tary might. But by what form of 'might' do they control an
American teacher in an American university?" To be sure, the
teacher can be expelled from the party; but expulsion, in terms
of the social realities of 1948, would be a boon, not a penalty.
Under the forms of discipline available here, a member's accept-

2 See N. Y. Ti?nes, February 9, 1949.

174 Witch Hunt

ance of the doctrines and policies of the party is voluntary, not
required. To say that beliefs are required as conditions to mem-
bership is not to say that beliefs are required by force unless it
can be shown that membership is enforced. If membership is free,
then the beliefs are free. And so far as the evidence shows, the
Seattle professors \vere ". . . free American citizens who, for
purposes of social action, have chosen party affiliation with other
men, here and abroad, whose beliefs are akin to their own. In a
word, they do not accept Communist behefs because they are
members of the Part)^ They are members of the Party because
they accept Communist beliefs." ^

In the years from 1934 to 1948 membership in the Communist
Party was clearly an enormous professional handicap to any in-
structor. If the affiliation were known, the instructor could hardly
hope for promotion and might well forfeit his professional career.
In fact, membership impHed a form of social and professional
ostracism. On the other hand, resignation or expulsion from the
Communist Party might lead to tangible rewards: a sinecure at
some Catholic university; lush royalties from autobiographical
"revelations"; handsome fees for "expert" testimony in various
hearings and prosecutions; and fees for motion picture scripts.
Dismissal implied, moreover, automatic rehabilitation in the good
graces of society. As a matter of fact, ex-Communists enjoy a
unique exemption from the suspicion of heresy in contemporary
American life and the status is probably desirable per se. It is
difficult to see, therefore, how the threat of dismissal could be
an effective means of enforcing discipline.

In the Seattle case, moreover, the discipline argument is clearly
refuted by the facts. "Three of the five men whom they con-
demned as enslaved by party orders," writes Dr. Meiklejohn, "had
already, by their own free and independent thinking, resigned
from the party. How could they have done that if, as charged,
they were incapable of free and independent thinking? Slaves do
not resign." Furthermore, if the discipline of membership in-
capacitates, by w^hat magic rite of purification does nonmember-
ship suddenly reinvest a person with integrity, independence of

^Anicle by Dr. x\lexander Meiklejohn, N. Y. Times, March 27, 1949.

The Great Debate 175

mind, and the love of truth? Indeed the discipline argument can
become a two-edged sword. Either Drs. Eby, Ethel, and Jacobs
were "free agents" when they resigned from the Communist
Party or they felt compelled to resign by reason of the pressures
for conformity imposed by American society.

The discipline argument rests on a familiar fallacy. In a clash
between rival ideologies, the apostate is always regarded as a
"captive"; the only reason he does not return to the true faith is
that he has ceased to be a free agent. That the apostate might
actually prefer the rival ideology is an assumption too frivolous
to be investigated. Critics of the Catholic Church like to believe,
and usually insist, that converts have surrendered their intellectual
independence; they are no longer "free men." To support this
belief, various Catholic texts and pronouncements are cited which
are seemingly in point. On the other hand, many Catholics doubt-
less believe that the love of a Mason for his fellow Masons is
stronger than the love of profit or personal advantage and doubt-
less there are passages in the Masonic ritual that give credence
to the belief. Yet the fact is that individual Masons place their
own interpretations upon the Masonic ritual and respect their
Masonic obligations with every variation of fidelity and recu-
sancy.

With rival political Ideologies, the temptation to believe that
the nonconformist is imprisoned in the enemy's camp is particu-
larly strong. I have known Communists who have expressed a
truly fanciful belief in the unanimity which is supposed to pre-
vail in "capitalist circles." On occasion, I have had direct, first-
hand knowledge that the community's capitahsts were violently
at odds on a particular issue. Yet I have been gravely assured that
these same leaders were necessarily of one mind on the particular
issue since "the necessities of the situation" would not permit
them to hold independent views. One reason for this delusion, of
course, is that feuding capitalists, like feuding Communists, usu-
ally keep their feuds to themselves. Whatever the reason, the
reality of membership in any social organization simply cannot
be deduced from a study of its bylaws, ritual, or best-known
manifestoes.

176 Witch Hunt

In all fairness, it must be recognized that an element of disci-
pline attaches to membership in almost any form of social organi-
zation. Medical associations rigorously discipline members who
favor compulsory health insurance and the Young Republican
Club that came out in favor of the Welfare State would not long
retain its charter. Social groups are driven to assert a discipline
which is invariably less effective than the power to discipline
would imply. In our time, surely, no Mason has been "disem-
boweled" for seducing a fellow Mason's wife. So long as mem-
bership is voluntary, all social groups must act with caution in
the matter of discipline. If the discipline is oppressive, the group
will disintegrate; on the other hand, if some discipline is not im-
posed, the group will soon cease to have any meaning or identity.
This is perhaps the most commonplace observation that can be
made of social groups outside an authoritarian state.

The discipline imposed by social groups always looks quite
different to the members than to outsiders. To the hostile out-
sider, the members are either morons or weaklings who lack the
"guts" to resign. But the members experience the discipline im-
plicit in membership as a pressure to win their acceptance; they
are not conscious of being "enslaved" or "disciplined." The fact
is that almost all social groups are to some degree coercive. The
members constantly balance the advantages of membership against
the disadvantages, the agreements against the disagreements, just
as the group itself must constantly balance the risks of discipline
against the risks of freedom. It is sheer nonsense to contend that
this inner debate is unknown to Communists. The turnover in
membership alone provides abundant evidence to the contrary. I
happen to believe that the structure of the Communist Party, as
an organization, tends to minimize the force of this inner debate;
but this does not mean that no freedom whatever attaches to
membership.

It is extremely difficult for the outsider to understand the real-
ity of Communist Party membership as it must be sensed by
many, if not most, members. On occasion, I have been furious
with Communist friends for going along with some program or
policy of their party with which I knew they disagreed. Yet it

The Great Debate 177

must be kept in mind that one cannot accept the Communist
ideology without taking certain propositions on credit, as an act
of faith. For example, there is no evidence to support the belief
that the dictatorship of the proletariat will eventually "wither
away." Yet there are people who believe that this will happen
and who act on this belief. The test of their good faith, and of
their independence, is not to be found in the credibility of the
belief but in the sincerity with which it is held. Obviously there
are opportunists in the Communist Party who believe because it
pays to believe. It is also possible that there are members who are
so thoroughly labeled and smeared that they are now afraid to
resign because they probably could not find employment outside
the orbit of the party's influence. But, by the same token, the
fact that there are members of trade unions whose membership
is coerced does not mean that membership in a trade union con-
stitutes "proof" that an individual has surrendered his intellectual
independence.

For many years the belief was widespread that the Mormon
Church severely punished apostates. Always implicit in this belief
was the notion that most Mormons wanted to "escape" into the
Gentile world. To the Gentiles, it seemed quite clear that the
saints and bishops coerced rank-and-file Mormons; otherwise how
could "sane people" beheve such "nonsense"? To many anti-
fascists, it seemed clear that the German masses were coerced
into an acceptance of the Nazi ideology and no doubt coercion
was an important factor in recruiting members. Yet more than one
antifascist was surprised to discover that an embarrassingly large
number of Germans freely accepted the Nazi ideology long after
the last Nazi had been disarmed. The same fallacy was always
implicit in the notion that the witch was "possessed" — that she
could not shake off the Devil's dominance.

There is, indeed, something ironic in the spectacle of a society
engaged in the act of bringing great pressure on a small political
sect to conform, yet insisting, all the while, that the members of
this sect are "captives" and "prisoners" of the sect's discipline.
If members of the Communist Party, in this country, are captives
in any sense, then they are clearly captives of the overwhelming

1 78 Witch Hunt

majority sentiment which, in effect, will not permit them to
escape from the party without visiting serious disabilities upon
them. The captive theory, however, does make a perverse kind
of sense. Otherwise, how is one to account, so the argument runs,
for the amazing loyalty of the heretic to his unpopular sect?
Again and again, in the various un-American investigations, the
committeemen have paused to express their utter amazement that
any person could freely accept membership in the Communist
Party when the disadvantages of membership are so apparent.
There is, therefore, a sort of "common sense" presumption which
implies that all heretics are either crazy, corrupt, craven, or
captive, for otherwise how is one to account for their stubborn
adherence to the unprofitable enterprise of being a heretic?

There is a humorless, Talmudic quality about the reasoning of
those who take a Communist text, study it, and then proceed to
deduce the character of all Communists, in all lands, and under all
circumstances, from this text. For example, Sidney Hook quotes a
passage from a Communist publication in which some part}^
pundit, in the. year 1937, urged all party members who were
teachers to take advantage of their positions and to give their
students "a working-class education." The passage is quoted in
a manner that implies that it expresses, not a pious hope, but a
universal fact. In other words, since "the book" says that sorne-
thing is true, it must be true. If we judged every organization by
this standard, America would be a madhouse.

Over a century ago, Macaulay pointed out the dangers of
seeking to read men's characters by studying the bylaws of the
organizations to which they belong. "To charge men," he wrote,
"with practical consequences which they themselves deny is dis-
ingenuous in controversy; it is atrocious in government. The
doctrine of predestination, in the opinion of many people, tends
to make those who hold it utterly immoral. . . . But would it
be wise to punish every man who holds the higher doctrines of
Calvinism, as if he had actually committed all those crimes which
we know some Antinomians to have committed? ... It is alto-
gether impossible to reason from the opinions which a man pro-
fesses to his feelings and his actions; and in fact no person is ever

The Great Debate 179

such a fool as to reason thus, except when he ivajjts a pretext for
persecuting his neighbors.'' ^ (Emphasis added.)

Dr. Henry Steele Coinmager has made the same point with
specific reference to the case of the six professors. "Now what
is the difference," he asks, "between the view of the faculty com-
mittee [at the University of Washington] and of President Allen?
It is a difference of method that involves, or symbolizes, a differ-
ence in philosophy. The committee subscribes to the inductive
and pragmatic method; President Allen to the deductive and the
a priori. The committee looks to the facts, the president looks to
the theory. The committee is unwilling to deduce unfitness from
the generalization of membership in the Communist Party; the
president first establishes his premise that membership in the
Communist Party is a priori evidence of unfitness, and then con-
cludes that all members of that party are, of necessity, unfit. The
committee's method is that of the scientific investigator; the
president's is that of the doctrinaire. It is not wholly facetious to
add that the committee's method is one we have come to think
of as characteristically American, the president's as un-Ameri-
can." '

Certain educators, however, have said that it is not discipline
per se that is objectionable but only "secret" discipline. But how
is the existence of a secret discipline established? If the discipline
is secret, it will not be apparent; if it is not apparent, then it
must be estabhshed by investigation, surveillance, and espionage.
Would the person subject to secret discipline be likely to reveal
this discipline by his conduct as a teacher? And if the discipline
were not revealed — if it did not affect his teaching in some ob-
jective manner — then how could it be dangerous enough to war-
rant the risks involved in using a political police to identify its
adherents?

Appreciating these risks, Dr. V. T. Thayer has suggested that
Communists should not be barred as teachers until a public warn-
ing has been issued. But if his assumptions are sound, then past

* Critical and Historical Essays, 1872, the essay on the "Civil Disabilities
of Jews."

s New Republic, July 25, 1949.

i8o Witch Hunt

membership in the Communist Party cannot be ignored as irrele-
vant. In dealing with this awkward problem of the former heretic,
Dr. Thayer writes: "The essential in instances of this character
... is to judge as well as we can the motives and intentions of
the individual as distinct from what we may consider to be the
validity of his conclusions." ^ But what could be more disastrous
to academic freedom and tenure than inquiries into the motives
and intentions of those who hold unpopular beliefs? Dr. Thayer
then goes on to suggest, quite casually, that there may be
". . . ground for requiring non-membership as a condition for
induction into teachi?ig." (My emphasis.) Thus the investigation
has now been pushed back one step further, from teaching to
learning to be a teacher. One is amazed, here, by the apparent
assumption that "membership" can be proved without an inquiry
into subjective beliefs and attitudes; and, second, by the innocent
notion that delicate issues of conscience and belief can be probed,
investigated, and "tried" without destroying the foundation of
intellectual freedom.

2. ''WHERE GOOD AND EVIL INTERCHANGE
THEIR NAMES''

A purge of Communist teachers is justified, one is next told, in
order to protect academic freedom. This argument has at least
the merit of audacity. The argument proceeds upon the assump-
tion that academic freedom imposes an obligation to teach only
what the instructor himself believes or has found to be true. As
developed by Dr. Arthur O. Love joy, the argument rests on the
following theorems:

1. Freedom of inquiry, of opinion, and of teaching in uni-
versities is a prerequisite if the academic scholar is to
perform the function proper to his profession.

2. The Communist Party in the United States is an organi-
zation whose aim is to bring about the establishment

^Harvard Editcatio?ial Review, January 1942.

The Great Debate

i»i

here of a political as well as an economic system essen-
tially similar to that which now exists in Russia.

3. That system does not permit freedom of inquiry, of
opinion, and of teaching, either in or outside of univer-
sities.

4. Therefore a member of the Communist Party is engaged
in a movement which has already extinguished academic
freedom and would — if it were successful — result in
the abohtion of this freedom in American colleges and
universities.

5. No one, therefore, who desires to maintain academic
freedom in America can consistently favor that move-
ment, or give indirect assistance to it by accepting as fit
members of the faculties persons who voluntarily adhere
to an orcranization one of whose aims is to abolish aca-
demic freedom.'^

Before analyzing this argument, it is extremely important to
note how Dr. Lovejoy qualifies its apphcation to the case of the
six professors. He insists, in the first place, that the argument re-
lates to -future appointments; he would therefore presumably
favor a warning or policy statement. Faced with the problem of
"present members of faculties who are on permanent tenure,"
Dr. Lovejoy visibly staggers under the weight of his argument.
Drs. Butterworth and Phillips, he writes, appear to be "unortho-
dox Communists." But by his own argument unorthodox Com-
munists cannot exist. In a final effort to hold on to tenure while
undercutting the principle of academic freedom, he suggests that
certain questions should have been put to Butterworth and
Phillips in default of which he is really not in a position to judge
their cases! Here are the questions:

■^ "Communism versus Academic Freedom," Aniericmi Scholar, summer
1949, p. 332. Dr. Lovejoy, incidentally, helped to initiate the movement
which resulted in the formation of the American Association of University
Professors; he also contributed the article on "Academic Freedom" to the
Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. For an interesting account of his views
on academic freedom during the First World War see Are Ainerican
Teachers Free?, p. 24.

I«2

Witch Hunt

1. Are you aware that the political program of the Com-
munist Party is the setting-up of a one-party dictator-
ship, and that, wherever it has attained power, it has
established such a dictatorship?

2. Do you reject this program, and will you publicly de-
clare that you reject it?

3. Do you also reject the teaching of Lenin that a party
member should, when it will serve the interest of the
movement, resort to any ruse, cunning, unlawful
method, evasion, and concealment of the truth?

4. If you reject these features of the Communist doctrine
and practice, are you willing to give proof that you do
so by resigning from the party?

Dr. Love joy frankly admits that negative answers to these ques-
tions would be evidence of "incredible ignorance" or "falsehood"
and then adds that either would be a sufficient ground for dis-
missal in itself! Thus he admits that he has prepared a set of
questions to which there can only be one answer. In short, what
he has done is to devise a catechism to catch heretics rather than
a formula to test the truth. What Dr. Lovejoy's questions amount
to is simply this: Communists should not be permitted to teach
but since Butterworth and Phillips have permanent tenure — a
most embarrassing fact — they should be given a chance to pro-
tect this tenure by resigning from the Communist Party. Should
they prove to be stubborn — a fatal weakness with heretics —
then they should be dismissed for "incredible ignorance" or
"falsehood" and not, of course, for their beliefs.

This argument, it will be noted, is really the reverse of the
argument advanced by Sidney Hook. Hook insists that member-
ship in the Communist Party is punishable as a?i act; but Dr. Love-
joy is concerned with beliefs. He insists that Butterworth and
Phillips should be compelled to convict themselves; he wants a
confession of heresy on the record. Hook would not favor the
dismissal of a teacher who believed in the Russian system but was
not a member of the Communist Party; but Love joy would make
belief the basis of dismissal. To be true, he uses the phrase "a
member of" in Theorem No. 4; but his argument would apply

The Great Debate 183

with equal force to the individual who subscribed to the tenets
of Communism but was not a member of the Communist Party.

The Love joy argument is really the modern version of the
familiar "tit-for-tat" delusion which has been used to justify
every witch hunt in history. Communists do not believe in free-
dom from compulsory self-incrimination; therefore members of
the Communist Party should be denied this right. The Com-
munists do not believe in academic freedom as we define the
concept; therefore Communists should be denied the protection
of this right. By the same token the right to practice law should
be denied to those lawyers who have shown an interest in social
systems which do not guarantee the civil rights set forth in the
first ten amendments to the Constitution. Similarly the right of
suffrage should be denied to those who believe that this right is
not always and everywhere and under all conditions enforceable
or practical!

To protect his argument against this extension, Sidney Hook
has given wide currency to Justice Holmes's famous remark
about the New Bedford policeman. A policeman may have a
constitutional right to talk politics, said Holmes, but he has "no
constitutional right to be a policeman." By analogy, therefore, a
citizen may have a constitutional right to be a Communist but
no Communist has a constitutional right to be a teacher. But what
were the facts in McAiiliffe v. New Bedford? * Called to testify
as a witness before a grand jury in a criminal investigation then
pending, a policeman declined to testify on the ground that his
testimony might be self-incriminating. For his refusal to testify,
under these circumstances, he was later disciplined as a police-
man. Now, if a teacher employed to teach history were to refuse
to explain what he was teaching, on the ground that his testimony
might be self-incriminating, the application of Justice Holmes's
remark would be pertinent. Hook, of course, clearly quotes the
remark out of context. The issue in such cases, as Justice Harry E.
Schirick of the New York Supreme Court has pointed out, is not
whether there is a constitutional right to teach, but whether the
ground asserted for denying this right or privilege, whatever it is,

^29 N. E. 517.

184 Witch Hunt

is one which is protected by the Constitution against legislative
encroachment.

The confusion about the New Bedford policeman is part and
parcel of the fallacy that it is possible to abrogate the political
rights of a minority without giving the minority a chance to
raise constitutional objections. This might be described as the
"one right removed won't hurt" fallacy. The British Protestants,
as Macaulay pointed out, were addicted to the notion that "the
Catholics ought to have no political power. . . . Give the Cath-
olics everything else; but keep political power from them." But,
as Macaulay demonstrated, the distinction between civil privi-
leges and political rights, is a distinction without a difference;
^^privileges are power.'''' To say that an American citizen shall be
protected in all his rights except that he shall not be a teacher, a
policeman, a government employee, or a writer in the motion
picture industry, is in effect to abrogate his citizenship. The
totality of these and other privileges is what makes citizenship
valuable.

Once heretics have been stripped of political rights, they might
as well be stripped of all rights. "If it is our duty as Christians to
exclude Jews from political power," wrote Macaulay, "it must
be our duty to treat them as our ancestors treated them, to mur-
der them, and banish them, and rob them. For in that way, and
in that way alone, can we really deprive them of political
power." Forcing the Communist Parry off the ballot would not
deprive Communists of political power; as long as they could
raise funds or influence votes they would have political power.
To be effective, therefore, the curtailment of rights must be
total. "If we do not adopt this course," wrote Macaulay of the
Jews, "we may take away the shadow, but leave them the sub-
stance. We may do enough to pain and irritate them; but we shall
not do enough to secure ourselves from danger, if danger really
exists. Where wealth is, there power must inevitably be."

It is dangerous, therefore, merely to harass and irritate a
minority. Although they may not realize it, the advocates of
second-class citizenship for Communists and other heretics, based
on a piecemeal denial of rights, would put the state in the position

The Great Debate 185

of having declared war upon certain categories of citizens. That
the state may elect to wage this war within certain limitations of
severity, or that it may seek to mask its warlike intentions by
"testing the loyalty" of heretics before issuing edicts of out-
lawry, does not change the consequences which arise when the
state withdraws its obligation of protection from certain groups
of citizens. The principal consequence, of course, is to make
outlaws of those from whom rights have been arbitrarily with-
drawn.

When the exercise of rights is made to turn upon the posses-
sion of "proper" beliefs, the effect is to divide society into war-
ring factions; into citizens and outlaws; into "we" and "they."
This consequence appears with startHng clarity in Dr. T. V.
Smith's version of the Lovejoy argument. '"''We do not owe any-
body the right to destroy what it is our dntv to maintain. But
loe may owe ourselves as democrats a duty which toe do not owe
those who warn us in advance of what they'' II do to us and our
schools when their suborned teaching enables the crouching com-
rades to seize our power. . . . Duties ■w\\ich. we owe merely to
ourselves are of course limited to our advantage. . . . Our duty
is in fact to maintain for ourselves the freedoms without which
nve cannot be good teachers. To make their rights the first line
of defense of our freedom foredooms us to lose that fight." ^
(Emphasis mine.)

The great merit of this argument is that it is utterly devoid of
double-talk. It states, with complete candor, the proposition that
the question of what rights shall be accorded citizens who are
Communists is solely a matter of expediency. Having determined
what rights we shall allow them, "we can move to co-operate
with the un-American activities committees of nation and state;
for they are within their rights even when they are off their
manners. . . . We do not need to be on the defensive about
Communists. We owe them nothing." We should sacrifice them
with a good conscience when it is inexpedient to defend them
and with gladness when it serves a purpose which we owe to
ourselves "professionally and to our kind patriotically." This

^ Aniericcm Scholar, supra, p. 343.

1 86 Witch Hunt

places the whole question of civil rights for Communists on about
the same footing that the Nazis placed the question of what
should be done with the Jews. From this point of view, it might
be politically expedient to retain Communists on university fac-
ulties if it served our foreign policy or if they were few in num-
ber, nationally, and were behaving themselves properly. That
there might be any difficulty in distinguishing between the "we,"
with rights, and the "they" without rights is a matter apparently
of little concern to T. V. Smith. But it might disturb him very
much someday if the political pendulum were to swing to the
other extreme and he suddenly found himself in the "they"
category.

In a period of great political tension, it is impossible to purge
faculties of partisans from both extremes. What then passes for
"impartiality" and "objective teaching" is an intense partisanship
of the right. "If it were possible," writes Dr. Robert P. Pettengill,
"to purge college faculties of all external restraint upon free in-
quiry and free teaching, I would favor action toward that end.
But it is impossible. You can only purge one group. And the
purge frightens those who remain so that the total amount of
external restraint increases. The fear of being accused of heresy
causes professors to lean over backward to avoid teaching any-
thing which might make them suspect. . . . And those in the pay
of approved groups or dependent upon their favor will continue
as now to violate the standards of free inquiry and free teaching
in the name of which wc would purge Communists." "

3. TO WHOM IS THE TEACHER RESPONSIBLE?

The basic argument for the purge of Communist instructors is
that a state university must yield to the demands of the legisla-
ture however outrageous these demands may be. As one member
of the trial committee in the Seattle case observed: "The people
are sovereign in respect to American public education. They
have the right to establish the policies governing the conduct of

^° Los Angeles Twies, May 19, 1949.

The Great Debate 187

educational institutions." The argument, in fine, is that since the
legislature has the power to oust Communists from the faculty,
the administration must take this action whenever the legislature
indicates that it should be done.

Underlying this notion that a legislature has unlimited control
over a state university is the idea that the policies of a state uni-
versit^" must conform to the climate of political opinion as meas-
ured by a public opinion poll. This idea in turn, as Dr. Henry
Nash Smith has pointed out, ", . . rests on a conception of primi-
tive tribal cohesion that \\'ould restrain intellectual diversity and
disagreement for the sake of organic integrity in the social group"
whereas it is the primary responsibility of a university to main-
tain *'. . . that constant play of mind over all the possibilities of
human existence which is the life of culture." When a fear of the
future spreads throughout a society, the fear often gives rise to
a desire to mobilize for defense, "to strengthen the society's
powers of survival at whatever cost to its powers of growth and
flexibility." At such moments, societies react almost reflexively;
exposed parts are quickly pulled under the shell of "securit)^" as
society "freezes," taut and tense. It is at such moments that un-
reflecting spokesmen invariably demand that differences of opin-
ion should be suppressed for the sake of security .^'^

There is always a special quality about this fear of the future.
It is not a fear of any one thing but of everything and anything,
of war, economic disaster, "alien" philosophies, "foreign ene-
mies," the exhaustion of resources, and many minor phobic fears.
The very ambience of these fears endangers the whole domain of
free thought. The least tolerable are those differences of opinion
which imply some agreement "with the enemy." Hence the first
effort to enforce orthodoxy always takes the form of punishing
supposed agents of the enemy but, as Dr. Smith has pointed out,
"the fear to which these efforts give expression is much broader
and vaguer than a simple fear of Russia. It is of any sort of vital
disagreement — in short, of heresy.^'' (Emphasis mine.) In the
very nature of things, this fear can never be appeased. Every
yielding to it only further distorts the image of "the enemy"

"^"^ Pacific Spectator, summer 1949, p. 329.

1 88 Witch Hunt

and each distortion brings new demands for additional repressive
measures.

Here, then, was the real situation in Washington: "The legis-
lature grows fearful, and seeks relief from its fears in the standard
device of an investigating committee. The committee, presumably
with ample help from the newspapers, sets about purifying the
University. This situation, and not the prese?ice of a fezu Com-
TJiimists on the faculty, contains the really serious threat to higher
education." (Emphasis mine.) It is this fear which threatens not
merely academic freedom but the whole structure of civic free-
dom in America today. The schools and colleges, however, have
a special relevance to the fear since they are so highly prized by
the people. Merely to suggest that the schools are being sub-
verted will always bring forth a protest from the people. Hence
universities must be specially safeguarded against this fear which
can stampede a legislature into the most absurd, and dangerous,
measures. And the way to shield a university from the endless
restraints and impositions of a fear-ridden legislature is to see to
it that the process of legislative intervention is checked at the
outset by defending the right of Communists and non-Com-
munists alike to responsible freedom of opinion and freedom of
speech.

This does not mean, of course, that academic freedom is an ab-
solute right or that teachers enjoy complete freedom. The vexing
question of the teacher's responsibility was given brilliant analysis
by Dr. Alexander Meiklejohn some twenty years or more ago
and his conclusions have stood the test of time. The question, as
he pointed out then, has two aspects: "responsible for" and "re-
sponsible to." The teacher is responsible for his students; not to
them. He is responsible on behalf of parents but not to them. No
teacher worthy of the name would ever agree that the success
or failure of his teaching was to be judged by what parents
thought of it. Nor is the teacher responsible to the public. "More
than anything else," wrote Meiklejohn, "the public interest of a
democracy demands that its learning and teaching shall be free,
shall not be subject to popular pressure or review. . . . No de-
mocracy can afford to have either its courts or its learning subject

The Great Debate 189

to its own whims, its caprices, its ignorances, or even its common
sense." ^"

Is the teacher, then, responsible to the donors, the fund raisers?
The question answers itself for if the donors retained the power
of control, they would deny their own competence; they make
donations because they think other persons are more competent
to instruct the young than they would be. Is the teacher respon-
sible to the trustees, the regents? Legally yes, since they have the
power; but "a college in which the faculty and president were
overruled on academic issues would be something other than an
institution of learning." To the state, then? "No state is safe either
for itself or for its people, unless its basic principles as well as its
customary procedure are open to the free and unhindered criti-
cism of its citizens. And in this sense our schools and teachers are
foremost in the work of critical understanding. Every free people
knows that its state is an instrument of its will which must be
constantly studied and examined, which must be kept true and
made even more true to the purpose which it serves. It follows
that no free people will allow its state to restrain its scholars and
teachers."

To whom, then, is the teacher responsible? And here is the
answer: "As against the truth which scholars have there is the
truth for which they strive." This truth is rarely achieved but
to it the teacher is responsible, for ". . . somehow in the very
nature of the world itself there is a meaning which M^e seek, a
meaning which is there whether we find it there or not. That
meaning is the final standard of our work, the measure of all we
do or hope to do or fail to do. To it we are responsible."

'^-Freedom and the College, 1923.

The Verdict of the Educators

As THE GREAT DEBATE moved foiward it became increasingly im-
perative that the educational organizations should take a position.
Of these, the National Education Association is the largest and,
by all odds, the most influential. With an active membership of
400,000 — made up of teachers, principals, superintendents, and
other school officials — it claims a total or affiliated membership
of twice this number. "Its policies," according to Benjamin Fine,
"are frequently put into practice in schools throughout the na-
tion." The manner in which the N.E.A. decided the Communist
issue, it was generally recognized, would constitute the verdict of
American educators on the Great Debate.

1. WAS THE JURY INTIMIDATED?

In June 1949, the Educational Policies Commission of the
N.E.A. issued a report on American Educatio7i and hiternational
Tensio7is which was clearly intended as a brief in support of the
campaign to put the membership on record against the employ-
ment of Communist teachers. The major premise of the report,
which was released on June 8, is to be found in the statement that
the cold war "will continue indefinitely without armed con-
flict." ^ And its most important recommendation is simply that
"members of the Communist Party of the United States should
not be employed as teachers."

The verdict, of course, was exactly what the public expected.
Dr. Earl J. McGrath, U. S. Commissioner of Education, promptly
presented the report to the President and briefed Mr. Truman on

1 Page 4 of this report.

The Verdict of the Educators 191

the politics of American education. The next day Mr. Truman
pubhcly endorsed the report, referring specifically to the recom-
mendation on Communist teachers. On the basis of this careful
build-up, the adoption of the report by the membership was a
foregone conclusion. Failure to endorse now would be tanta-
mount to a vote of censure of the nation's foreign policy and a
rebuke to the President.

One month later, the 87th Annual Convention of the N.E.A.
was called to order in Boston. At a special session called to discuss
the report in a preliminary way, some 250 delegates insisted on
endorsing the recommendation that Communists should be barred
as teachers. When a representative of the Teachers Union spoke
against the recommendation, she merely succeeded, according to
the press report, in making the chairman "very angry." "You
should know," he informed the delegates, "that the lady who just
spoke represents an organization that consistently follows the
Communist Party hne." ~

The next day the report came before the main body of the
delegates and was overwhelmingly adopted. In taking this action,
reported Benjamin Fine, "the teachers made American educa-
tional history." More than one editorial referred to the vote as
the most important ever recorded by American educators. As the
delegates prepared to vote, Dr. John K. Norton of Teachers Col-
lege made a speech in which he said that "nothing so important
as Communists being permitted to teach has come before the
N.E.A. in the last thirty years. . . . The country is looking at
what we do in the next half hour." Actually the report was
scheduled to come before the convention at another time and
both the debate and the vote were out of order and took place
under circumstances described as "tumultuous and confused."
Later the convention voted approval of a resolution barring Com-
munist teachers from membership in the association. A standing
vote was ordered when one educator demanded that the dis-
senters "stand up and be counted." Five delegates stood up.

"The educators recognized that it would be a difficult task to
detect and ferret out Communist teachers from either the N E. A.

^See N. Y. Times, July 6, 1949.

192 Witch Hunt

or the classroom," reported Benjamin Fine, "and they insisted
that the campaign against Communist teachers be conducted in a
thoroughly democratic fashion; that no one should be unjustly
accused; that no 'witch hunts' should take place. Only the bona
fide dues-paying Communist teacher, the educators held, should
be hounded out of the schools." ^ Communist teachers — and note
the phrasing — are to be "hounded" out of the schools in a
"thoroughly democratic fashion." At some future convention,
the N.E.A. may be called upon to define the procedures by which
this resolution can be implemented. Will it approve, for example,
the suggestion made by a spokesman for the Board of Higher
Education of New York that the screening process should start
with the admission of students to the teachers' colleges? *

The same convention that considered the Communist issue
heard the report of the Committee on Tenure and Academic Free-
dom which brought out these facts: (i) that 22 states have
adopted oath-of-allegiance requirements for teachers; (2) that
8 states in 1949 considered bills to authorize the dismissal of
teachers because of membership in "subversive" organizations;
(3) that 5 states in 1949 adopted laws which involve new re-
straints upon the intellectual freedom of teachers; (4) that 38
states have general sedition laws, 2 1 states forbid seditious teach-
ing, and 31 states forbid teachers belonging to groups which
advocate sedition; (5) that 12 states authorize the dismissal of
teachers for "disloyalty," undefined; and (6) that 2 states author-
ize "checks" on the loyalty of teachers.

Viewing these developments "with alarm," the N.E.A. went
on record against loyalty oaths. Still more recently the Educa-
tional Policies Commission has issued a sharp warning against the
dangers of loyalty oaths for teachers. But how can an organiza-
tion on record against the employment of Communists as teach-
ers logically object to loyalty oaths and investigations? Mrs.
Johanna M. Lindlof, an influential member, has attempted to
explain the contradiction by saying that loyalty oaths are inef-
fective in ousting Communists since "a disloyal teacher will not

^Ibid., July 10, 1949.
^Ibid., September 16, 1949.

The Verdict of the Educators 193

hesitate to sign any kind of oath." But what are the facts? In 1942
the Rapp-Coudert Committee reported to the New York Legisla-
ture that 69 Communists were teaching in the pubUc sciiools. Sub-
sequently these teachers either resigned or were removed and in
virtually every case the ouster came about as a result of false
denials under oath of Communist Party membership. It would
seem, therefore, that loyalty oaths can be effective in weeding
out Communist teachers.'^ By going on record against loyalty
oaths, the N.E.A. has put itself in the curious, position of refusing
to implement its policy statements on the employment of Com-
munists and their disqualification as members. Just what, then,
was the meaning of the adoption of these resolutions?

Some valuable clues to an understanding of the N.E.A.'s in-
consistent behavior may be found in Dr. Howard K. Beale's study,
Are A?nerican Teachers Free? (1936). According to Dr. Beale,
the N.E.A. has never shown much interest in academic freedom
(it first appointed a committee on the subject in 1934); and for
many years, the organization was largely responsible for blocking
the tenure movement for teachers in the United States.^ "During
the days of red-baiting (after the First World War)," writes
Dr. Beale, "one waited in vain for a pronouncement from the
N.E.A. in defense of 'radical' teachers." Instead the N.E.A.
proceeded to join with the American Legion, and other organiza-
tions, in a general witch hunt. Its current policy statements,
therefore, would seem to be in line with a traditional policy
adopted long before the present crisis in Soviet-American rela-
tions.

Today more than half the nation's 900,000 public school teach-
ers lack even the simplest tenure protection and can be dismissed
without explanation, notice, or a statement of reasons.'^ In this
fact may be found, perhaps, the real explanation for the N.E.A.'s
hysterical resolution of the question: "Should Communists Be
Permitted to Teach?" Lacking tenure, how could the members

^See article by Leon Egan, N. Y. Tmies, September i8, 1949.
^ See pp. 683-695.

'^See "Education in Review" by Benjamin Fine, N. Y, Times ^ October 2,
1949.

194 Witch Hmit

of the N.E.A. fail to concur in a policy statement which was
put up to them, in effect, by the President of the United States?
By adopting these statements, the members were proving to the
public, and to their employers, that they were loyal, trustu'orthy,
and opposed to heresy. In the guise of declaring war on Com-
munism, they were seeking a measure of security. What they
feared was not the presence of a handful of Communist teachers
but the possibility of their being caught up in the surge of anti-
Communist demagoguery. According to a Gallup Poll of Sep-
tember 2 1, 1949, 73 per cent of the American people believe that
Communists should not be permitted to teach, even in colleges
and universities. Naturally the public school teachers were afraid
of being put in a position of even apparent opposition to this
majority sentiment. On the other hand, many of the people who
participated in the Gallup Poll unquestionably voted against the
employment of Communists because they, too, feared the slight-
est identification with the heresy of Communism. As in all witch
hunts, the fear of being mistakenly identified as a witch stimulates
and sustains the belief in witchcraft.

The economic insecurity of teachers, however, has a further
relevance to this fear. By "pure coincidence," according to the
press, the report of the Educational Policies Commission was re-
leased on the same day, June 8, that the House Committee on Un-
American Activities acknowledged that it had sent out requests to
81 colleges and high schools for lists of textbooks in the follow-
ing fields: literature, geography, economics, government, phi-
losophy, history, political science, "and any other of the social
science groups." Could it be that the N.E.A. had decided to
launch an attack against Communist teachers as a means of
avoiding, if possible, a textbook investigation? ^

The N.E.A. is on record, of course, against the proposed text-
book investigation. But if a Communist teacher is objectionable,
then surely a Communist text is objectionable. If teachers cannot
be trusted politically, then they cannot be trusted to eliminate
Communist texts. The recommendation that Communists should
not be permitted to teach implies that there are teachers who are

^See story by Bess Furman, N. Y. Times, June 9, 1949.

The Verdict of the Educators 195

Communists. If there are teachers who are Communists, there may
well be Communist texts and teaching materials. Yet the N.E.A.,
while denying the right of membership to Communists, and op-
posing their right to teach, is against loyalty oaths, textbook in-
vestigations, and denounces as "thought control" any attempt to
restrict the political activities of American teachers!

Simultaneously with the N.E.A. convention in Boston, the
American Association of University Professors reaffirmed its tra-
ditional stand that membership in the Communist Party, so long
as the party is a legal party, should not preclude one from being
a teacher.'' Although the A.A.U.P. has had vastly more experi-
ence with academic freedom issues than the N.E.A. its position
was lightly glossed over by the press. Editorial writers who had
endorsed the stand of the N.E.A. uniformly opposed the stand
of the A.A.U.P.^«

At the same time, still another related issue failed to attract the
public's attention, namely, the right of members of various Catho-
lic religious orders to teach in the public schools. On March 10,
1949, Judge E. T. Hensley, in New Mexico, handed down a de-
cision permanently barring 143 priests, nuns, and brothers from
teaching in 26 tax-supported schools in the state.^^ These indi-
viduals were barred, however, for specific reasons: the teaching
of sectarian doctrine, the installing of crosses and religious pic-
tures, the hanging up of emblems and statues and the like. Some-
what later an initiative measure requiring members of Catholic
religious orders to appear in secular garb if they were to continue
teaching in the public schools was adopted in North Dakota
(where 75 Catholic sisters were teaching in a public school sys-
tem that included 6500 teachers). In both cases, the arguments
used were very similar to those advanced to justify the ouster of

^N. Y. Tinier, July ii, 1949.

^*^See two editorials in the Denver Post: "They'll Keep the House in
Order Themselves," July 8, 1949, praising the N.E.A.'s position, and "The
Professors Confuse Our Academic Freedoms," July 13, criticizing the posi-
tion of the A.A.U.P. Also see San Francisco Chroni'cle, July 7 and July 18,
1949.

^^ See "Church and State in New Mexico" by R. L. Chambers, the Nation,
August 27, 1949.

196 Witch Hunt

Communist teachers. Members of the CathoHc religious orders
were not "free agents"; they failed to distinguish between teach-
ing and advocacy; they had "dual loyalties," and so forth.

The fact that these issues were not related to the question dis-
cussed in the Great Debate indicates that the resolution of the
problems of Communist teachers by the N.E.A. was not so much
a reaffirmation of faith in democratic values as a tactical maneu-
ver designed to align educators and teachers with the forces sup-
porting the foreign policy of the administration in power. This
tendency to demand ideological conformity from all profes-
sional and occupational groups exists today, in varying degrees,
in almost every nation and the demand is being voiced in this
country with a steadily increasing arrogance and insistence. For
we live, as Stephen Spender has pointed out, in a world in which
"everything follows automatically from the dominant policy,"
whatever that policy may be. Total diplomacy seems to imply
total conformity.

Just how far this tendency has gone and how arrogant the de-
mand for conformity has become may be illustrated by a recent
development in the New York schools. Following the suspension
of eight teachers for failure to state whether they were or were
not members of the Communist Party, the Board of Education,
by a vote of 7 to i, barred the Teachers Union, Local 555, United
Public Workers, from all official dealings w^ith the cits^'s public
school system. The eight suspended teachers \^'ere all members
of this union. In a brilliant but lonely dissent, Mr. Charles J.
Bensley pointed out the meaning of the majority's decision: "If
the privilege of representation by the Teachers Union is denied
now, what then is the next logical step? Conceivably, any member
of the Board of Education who finds himself in disagreement on
any issue with any teachers organization, may then introduce a
similar resolution on the grounds that such organization is dis-
ruptive. The issues of the moment, ho^^^ever grave they be, must
not blind us so that we would sweep aside basic rights inherent in
our American democratic heritage," ^^

*&'

^^N. Y. Times, June 2, 1950, story by Murray Illson. For other stories by
Mr. Illson see same source, May 4, 5, 19, and 20, 1950.

The Verdict of the Educators 197

The deterioration in democratic rights for teachers has there-
fore followed this path: (a) the denial that a teacher, otherwise
competent and properh^ accredited, can teach if the teacher is a
Communist; (b) the denial to such teachers of the right of mem-
bership in associations of teachers and educators; and (c) the
denial to teachers of the right to be represented by unions of
their own choice. For example, the American Federation of
Teachers, meeting In Milwaukee, revoked the charter of Local
430 — the Los Angeles local — on a charge that that union fol-
lowed left-wing policies; and, in similar fashion many unions
have expelled members on a charge that they were Communists.^'

Thus any teacher can be placed in mortal danger by any super-
visor who cares to hurl the charge of "Communist" and the
whole structure of rights, including the right to be represented
bv unions of the teacher's choice, comes tumbling down. For
there is really no defense to the charge in the present climate of
opinion; and just how, indeed, does one go about the task of
proving that he is not a Communist? In short, any opposition —
to the government's policies, to the school board's policies, to
trade union policies — can be silenced simply by hurling the
charge of heretic. No finer technique was ever invented for silenc-
ing an opposition and for ruling without argument, debate, dis-
cussion, or consent.

2. THE SENTENCE COMES FIRST

"No, no!" said the Queen. "Sentence first
— verdict afterward."

— Alice In Wonderland

Shortly after the Regents had acted in Washington, Governor
Thomas E. Dewey signed the Feinberg Law by which the New
York Legislature in effect re-enacted the notorious Lusk Laws
of 192 1. Declared constitutional by the Appellate Division, Second
Department, on March 3, 1950, the Feinberg Law warrants atten-

'^^Ibid., August 28, 1949.

198 Witch Hunt

tion as the outstanding antiheresy enactment of 1949. The legisla-
tion was rushed through the closing hours of the session without
public hearings and with little debate. So slight was the considera-
tion given the measure that it was assumed that the governor
would request the Regents or the Department of Education to
submit an analysis of the bill before he signed it. As a matter of
fact, a memorandum urging a veto was actually being prepared
by the Department of Education when word arrived that Gov-
ernor Dewey had signed the bill almost as hurriedly as it had been
rushed through the legislature.^*

Here is Judith Crist's explanation for the extraordinary ease
and dispatch with which the measure was adopted. "Although
there are three reliable liberals on New York City's nine-man
school board, only one dared speak openly against the Feinberg
law . . . and when the law was under consideration by the board,
he had voted in approval. The State Commissioner of Education
and many members of the Board of Regents were known to be
opposed to the proposed bill from the start, but were silent. The
individual teacher knew of course that he could not with any
safety speak out against a law that in the future could be applied
against him. But why did so many liberals choose to sit this one
out? Because the Communist Party, by leading the fight against
the Feinberg law, had put the kiss of death on all others who
opposed it. Who dared to ally himself with the Communists?" ^^
Doubtless this was the explanation offered by the liberals but the
fear of being allied with Communists manifests a fear of anti-
Communist demagogues. Mere aversion to Communism and
Communists would hardly account for the failure of teachers
to oppose such drastic legislation. The teachers, the major interest-
group involved, were obviously intimidated by the fact that active
opposition could be cited as evidence of subversive inclinations
should the legislation be enacted.

At the time the Feinberg Law was passed, New York already
had a law requiring teachers to take an oath of loyalty. Indeed

^* See N. Y. Thnes, April 2, 1949.
^^See the Nation, December 10, 1949.

The Verdict of the Educators 199

the declaration of policy in the Feinberg Law recites, as one of
the reasons for the act, that "the propaganda disseminated by
Communists in classrooms is frequently so subtle as to defy de-
tection.'' (Emphasis added.) Witches, it will be remembered, were
supposed to practice a necromancy too subtle for ordinary lay-
men to fathom. If classroom propaganda is too subtle to be de-
tected by experts listening to recordings, could it possibly be
effective propaganda?

The Feinberg Law, of course, fails to define the word "sub-
versive." To remedy this defect, the Regents created a commit-
tee to study the matter and to define their responsibilities. Only
five organizations had been placed on the list when the law went
into effect on July i, 1949: the Communist Party; the Socialist
Workers Party; the Workers Party; the Industrial Workers of
the World; and the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico. At first the
Regents refused to hold open hearings but they finally consented
to hear from these organizations. The hearing, however, was held
after the organizations had been listed as subversive. This, of
course, is in line with the novel current theory of due process:
sentence first and then the verdict.

Having settled the problem of what organizations were "sub-
versive," the Regents then adopted a set of rules and regulations
of which the following are the pertinent provisions: (i) Before
appointing any superintendent or teacher the nominating official
shall make a personal investigation of the "loyalty" of the appli-
cant. (2) School authorities are required to designate one or more
officials to prepare written annual reports on the loyalty of each
teacher or employee. (3) The school authorities, in turn, are
ordered to report on the superintendents. (4) Membership in
any organization listed as subversive shall, within ten days after
the organization is listed, constitute "prima facie evidence of dis-
qualification." (5) Past membership in any such organization
shall be "presumptive evidence" that membership has continued,
thereby casting on the teacher the burden of proving termination
in good faith. Dr. Francis T. Spaulding, State Commissioner of
Education, commented on these regulations as follows:

200 Witch Hunt

The writing of articles, the distribution of pamphlets, the
endorsement of speeches made or articles written or acts
performed by others, all may constitute subversive activity.
Nor need such activity be confined to the classroom. Trea-
sonable or subversive acts or statements outside the school
are as much a basis for dismissal as are similar activities in
school or in the presence of school children."

Shortly after the law went into effect, Dr. William Jansen,
Superintendent of Schools in New York, announced that 6 of a
total of 40,000 teachers and employees were under investigation.
Can it be that this drastic legislation was called forth by such a
ludicrous disproportion betu'een "loyal" and possibly "disloyal"
employees? "Principals," reads the news account, "will file re-
ports with Dr. Jansen on all teachers and clerks in their schools.
The principals will, in turn, be checked on by assistant superin-
tendents. Bureau heads will file reports about janitors. The Board
of Education, as a whole, has the responsibility for ascertaining
Dr. Jansen's loyalty." ^' But what about the loyalt)^ of the board?
And who tests- the loyalty of the voters?

Despite the stringency of the rules and regulations, Mr. John P.
Myers, Vice-Chancellor of the Board of Regents, gravely reas-
sured the teachers that ". . . nothing under these rules will in
any way interfere with the freedom of any individual to join,
affiliate or associate with, support, or oppose any organization,
liberal or conservative, which is not disloyal to our form of gov-
ernment."^^ This reassurance will be of slight comfort to the
teachers of New York now that the act has finally been upheld in
the courts. Drastic as were the Lusk Laws of 192 1, they were mild
by comparison with the strait-jacket provisions of the Feinberg
Law. Yet when an effort was made to set up a committee to work
for the repeal of the law, the Catholics refused to work with
representatives of the American Labor Part}^; the Teachers Guild
(AFL) refused to participate with the Teachers Union (CIO);
and the movement soon collapsed. Both the enactment of the

^^N. F. Thnes, July 23, 1949.
^'^ Ibid., September 13, 1949.
^^ Ibid., July 16, 1949.

The Verdict of the Educators 201

Feinberg Law and the failure to repeal it may be traced to the
dangerous susceptibility of democratic leaders to the hypnotic
power of anti-Communist demagoguery. In this crucial test, the
democratic leadership capitulated without a struggle and with
scarcely a protest.

In Dubious Directions

Today we are living in an ideological
devil's cauldron, with ourselves and all our
values tossed about and obscured. This
... is one of the great historical eras of
institutional change ... a time when the
institutional chunks of our culture grind
against each other in a movement so vast
as to dwarf the individual. Never before in
our national life have the will and the voice
of a single man of integrity and good will
seemed so impotent; only group action
any longer counts for social change, and
the middle class man can find no group
with whom to move except those carrying
old banners in dubious directions.

— DR. ROBERT S. LYND

In recommending the ouster of two Communists from the fac-
ulty. President Raymond B. Allen took occasion to point out to
the Regents of the University of Washington that the pursuit of
truth must be not only "so objective that it will withstand the
fire of criticism" but so impartial as not to offend "the tough,
hard-headed world of affairs." This is tantamount to saying, of
course, that the pursuit of truth must lead to socially neutral con-
clusions or to conclusions that find support in the tough, hard-
headed world of affairs. In placing this severe limitation on the
pursuit of truth. Dr. Allen is the victim of a false idealism.

It is, of course, no answer to the problem of Communism to
point out that we have permitted this tough, hard-headed world
of affairs to control the higher learning in America; but, if true,

hi Dubious Directiojis 203

this fact should warn us against "carrying old banners in dubious
directions." It should also demonstrate that the removal of a hand-
ful of Communist teachers will not "free" American education.
The idealists who have urged the removal of Communist instruc-
tors in the name of "academic freedom" have maintained a truly
remarkable silence about the encroachment of the tough, hard-
headed world of affairs on the freedom of American colleges and
universities.

1. THE TRUSTEE AND THE COMMISSAR

The commissars who direct the higher learning in the Soviet
Union do so by forms and processes that are as plainly coercive
as a club in the hands of a policeman. But there are several differ-
ent kinds of clubs, some visible, some invisible, and comparisons
are generally invidious and futile for each society uses the type
of club it finds most effective. The discussion of clubs, moreover,
can skid off into a comparison of the relative disadvantages of
different forms of coercion. On this basis alone, one may sensibly
conclude that coercion by commissars is much worse than coer-
cion by trustees.

Under any form of government, the control of education is a
basic public question and "the higher learning" is the crucial phase
of the problem of control. For example, it is significant that the
debate about Communist teachers has been largely addressed to
the question of Communist teachers in colleges and universities.
Control of higher education has always implied control of the en-
tire education system for it implies control of what shall be
taught, by whom, and by what methods. But, of recent years, the
control of higher education has acquired an even greater strategic
significance. In the first place, the number of students has greatly
increased: from 237,592 college students in 1900, constituting
4 per cent of the college age youth, to 1,494,203 students, or 15.6
per cent of the college age youth, in 1940. Today some 2,354,000
students are enrolled in American colleges and universities.^ The

^ Vol. VI, Report President's Commission on Higher Education, p. 19.

204 Witch Hunt

great expansion in all types of scientific research, and the rele-
vance of this research to industrial requirements and military
strategy, have given the control of higher education an entirely
new significance. And these factors, of course, merely serve to
emphasize the increasingly significant role which institutions of
higher learning have come to play in influencing social change.
On this score, too, the importance of the social sciences can hardly
be overemphasized. Slight wonder, then, that the control of
higher education has become a major strategic objective in the
struggle between rival ideologies and conflicting social forces."

Between the Civil War and the turn of the century, the control
of American colleges and universities passed from the hands of
clergymen into the hands of businessmen and politicians. In i860
clergymen comprised 39 per cent of the trustees of private insti-
tutions of learning; but by 1930 they made up only 7 per cent
of the board members. In a study made in 1936, Dr. Earl J.
McGrath pointed out that "the control of higher education in
America, both public and private, has been placed in the hands
of a small group of the population, namely, financiers and busi-
nessmen. From tu^o-thirds to three-fourths of the persons on these
boards in recent years have been from this group." ^

One is told, of course, that it is entirely "natural" and "neces-
sary" that businessmen should dominate the boards of American
educational institutions. The inference, obviously, is that busi-
nessmen are selected as trustees because of their business acumen
and their ability to stimulate the flow of funds. But Veblen was
the first, perhaps, to discover that businessmen are selected as
trustees primarily to enforce conformit)^ to orthodox opinions
and observances; whereas the clergymen, ironically enough, are
extremely active and effective fund-raisers. The function of the
businessman as trustee is to exercise close surveillance over the
college in the interest of the business world.

Dr. Hubert Park Beck recently analyzed the backgrounds of
734 trustees making up the governing boards of 30 leading i\meri-
can universities (carefully selected on the basis of accepted cri-

2 See comments by Harold J. Laski, the Nation, August 13, 1949.
^Educational Record, Vol. XVII, April 1936, pp. 259-272.

In Dubious Directions 205

teria of excellence and leadership). Of this number, only 36 were
"educators" in any sense; only 6 came from the fine arts; 7 were
farmers ( i per cent of the total) ; 48, or 6.6 per cent, were clergy-
men; while 71 per cent were businessmen, proprietors, managers,
lawyers, or officials holding key directorships in business. In short,
two thirds of the trustees came from the world of business. Only
one of the 734 trustees had a trade-union background; and there
was no representation from the white collar or clerical group or
from the world of the small tradesman. It should be noted, more-
over, that both private and pubUc institutions were included in
the survey.^

Identification with the business community does not neces-
sarily imply class bias; but the businessmen in this study were not
just ordinary businessmen — they represented the elite of the
business world. The average net taxable annual income of half
the trustees included in the survey was $102,000. Nearly half the
total were sixty years of age or over; only 35, or 3,4 per cent,
were women; 417 were Protestants, 54 Catholics, and 9 Jewish;
and, of half the group, 259 were Republicans, 161 Democrats, and
22 belonged to some other political category. Approximately 437
were club members and one third were listed in the Social Reg-
ister. These and other facts cited in the study justify Dr. Beck's
conclusion that the control of the higher learning in America
shows "a biased class structure. . . . Unavoidably, the heavy
dominance of a single major social class . . . provides an oppor-
tunity for subtly perverting the great resources and potentialities
of higher education from the service of society as a whole to the
service of a special class — the highly privileged class to which
the board members principally belong." ^

It will be said, by way of reply, that this state of affairs merely
reflects the sudden emergence of business as a system of power
and that, later on, better balanced boards will be elected. But
trustees, unfortunately, are not "elected"; they are either ap-
pointed or "co-opted." Co-optation is, by all odds, the most com-
mon method — that is, the filling of a vacancy by vote of the

* The Men Who Control Our Universities by Hubert Park Beck, 1947.
^ Ibid., p. 143.

2o6 Witch Hunt

remaining trustees or board members. As a consequence, Dr. Beck
points out that the places of deceased members, and those who
resign, tend to be filled by men of the same generation and the
same political, religious, and social outlook. "Practical experience
. . . shows conclusively that self-perpetuating boards are exposed
to the risks of becoming devitalized through active and inactive
conservatism which comes from social and class inbreeding." ^

Most anomalous in a democracy is the fact that American trus-
tees exercise their po^^'ers without the consent of the governed.
Neither the faculty nor the students can review or veto board
decisions. The omnipotence of the trustees, in fact, is so com-
monly the rule that we tend to accept it as a universal aspect of
higher education; actually the practice is almost unknown outside
the North American continent. Elsewhere both students and
faculty have always been given a real voice in the control of
university affairs. The general European practice, in this respect,
has always been more "democratic" than the American.'^

Nor are American trustees figureheads or dummies. They have
real power. They select the president who, in the American sys-
tem, has important executive powers. The trustees generally can
approve or veto the president's recommendations for appoint-
ments, promotions, transfers, demotions, and dismissals. The presi-
dent proposes; the trustees dispose. Their control of the budget
is crucial. It is this control which creates the illusion of unlimited
freedom; only those research projects, for example, can be carried
forward for which provision is made in the budget. It is more
polite, of course, to limit the range of inquiry in advance but it
gives the instructor the illusion of a freedom which, in point of
fact, he does not possess.

The president, in the American system, has increasingly come
to occupy a role analogous to that of the chief executive in a
factory or business. His functions, as a "captain of erudition"
rather than as "a captain of industry," are largely strategic. To
this end, he must have an administrative staff which is loyal to

^Ibid., p. 117.

''The American Democracy by Harold J. Laski, 1948, p. 345; also Beck,
supra, p. 30.

In Dubious Directions 207

him; the whole university personnel must be organized along
much the same lines as the management staff of a large corpora-
tion, while the academic staff tends to become, as Veblen noted,
"a body of graded subalterns" with no decisive voice in policy.
As the key executive, the president is supposed to be "a strong
man" but he is strong, as Veblen so shrewdly observed, only
insofar as he is enabled "to move resistlessly with the parallelo-
gram of forces" — witness the amazingly high turnover in the
office. The real function of the president is that of "transmission
and commutation" rather than "genesis and self-direction."

This ambiguous distribution of power — the fact that power
does not reside where it seems to reside — accounts for the fact
that relatively few cases involving academic freedom have arisen
in American universities. The absence of cases, in turn, re-enforces
the illusion of complete freedom. "The cases in which there is
open and clear interference with freedom of speech," writes
Dr. Beck, "will be few. The more bafHing cases are those in
which a steady and powerful, but ahnost invisible and impalpable
pressure of an academic hierarchy suppresses, discourages, and
seriously interferes with the usefulness and development of the
independent and original thinker." ^ (My emphasis.) "The re-
sponse to these fears of injury," writes Dr. Edmund Ezra Day,
formerly president of Cornell, "is a policy of avoidance. . . .
Care is exercised to see that no fighting issues are raised. The
means that are employed to this end are usually well disguised —
conservative methods in the recruitment of staff, systematic dis-
crimination in the matter of promotions and increases of pay. . . .
Open dismissals on the score of radicalism are, of course, avoided;
restrictions on academic freedom must not be thought to play any
part in institutional policy." ^

The precarious economic status of the American college and
university instructor, which is much worse than is generally
realized, however favorably it may compare with other systems,
is an important factor in limiting academic freedom. During the

^ See also The American Colleges and the Social Order by Robert Lincoln
Kelly, 1940, p. 128.

^Safeguarding Civil Liberty Today, 1945, p. 154.

2o8 Witch Hunt

1930's, salaries for university professors "varied from genteel pov-
erty to comfort," but since then professors' salaries have risen less
than half as much as livincr costs and about one fifth as much as
the nation's per capita income. A recent study at Rutgers showed
that 6^ per cent of the faculty found it impossible to live on
their pay; living costs exceeded salaries by $708 on an average;
1 7 per cent were barely solvent; and only 1 8 per cent were able
to report savings. Of the 40 per cent who had been compelled to
take outside work, two thirds reported that this activity had
lessened their usefulness as instructors.^"

The more the instructor's income is augmented by outside re-
tainers, the more conscious he becomes of the limitations of
academic freedom. The more successful he is, in the sense of
increasing his income, the more rapid his rise within the academic
hierarchy is likely to be. The swifter his rise, and the higher he
rises, the more sensitive he will become to the intangible pressures
for conformit)^ Before long, he will be justifying himself to
himself by attacking the work of those scholars, for exam.ple,
who refuse to write slovenly historical monographs for Life. And
this crisis of the individual instructor, of course, merely parallels
the larger financial crisis which now so gravely imperils the free-
dom of American education. Costs have soared; the scale of re-
search has greatly expanded; the number of students has sky-
rocketed; tax-exempt dodges have been eliminated; and the num-
ber of donors, and the size of their donations, have been reduced
by the general tax situation. In 1950 the federal government will
finance research in American colleges and universities to the tune
of $100,000,000, and by the end of the decade the subsidy, it is
estimated, will have jumped to more than $600,000,000 annually.
The more dependent the colleges become on handouts from the
federal government, the more sensitive they will be to political
pressures and to the demand for conformit)^^^

^° "The Crisis in Higher Education" by Donald W. Mitchell, the Nation,
December 11, 1948, p. 669.

^^ See, generally: "The Threefold Crisis in Our Universities" by SevTnour
E. Harris, N. Y. Ti77ies, October 30, 1949; "Fund Study Shows Crisis in
Colleges" by Benjamin Fine, ibid., November 3, 1949; "More Colleges in
Business, Imperiling Tax-Free Status" by Benjamin Fine, ibid., January 12,

In Dubious Directio?2s 209

The same illusion of freedom also appears when one examines
the question of the extent to which higher educational facilities
are really open to all Americans on a basis of equality. The em-
barrassing fact is that whereas 80 per cent of the upper and upper
middle class children go to college, only 20 per cent of the lower
middle class and only 5 per cent of the lower class children get
there.^^ Although these facts are well known, it remains inherently
difficult to assimilate such information for the simple reason that
the visible reality seems to refute the facts. American colleges
appear to be "open"; the campus gates are not locked; anyone can
walk in. Similarly the extent of academic freedom is consistently
distorted by reason of the fact that it is primarily in one field only,
in the social sciences, that the restrictions are seriously vexatious.
It should not be forgotten that the American Association of Uni-
versity Professors came into being in 19 14 because of the special
concern for academic freedom that was then sensed by the Ameri-
can Economic Association, the American Sociological Society,
and the American Political Science Association. If an instructor
is not teaching in the social sciences, or if his views happen to be
conservative, he can enjoy an illusion of almost complete freedom
on the average American college campus.

2. DEGRADATION WITHOUT PARALLEL

As the history of the higher learning in Germany shows, illu-
sions of the kind described above can completely blind a people
to encroachments on academic freedom. The concept of aca-
demic freedom, of course, was born in Germany and was much
more securely and consistently safeguarded there, for many years,
than anywhere in the world.^^ Yet all the while the reality of
freedom was being steadily undermined. Even when the Nazis

1950; "U. S. Giving $100,000,000 for Research in Colleges" by Benjamin
Fine, ibid., December 5, 1949; "Choosing College Presidents" by Dr. Monroe
Deutsch, School and Society, October 25, 1947.

'^^ Social Class in America by Dr. W, Lloyd Warner, 1949, p. 25.

^^ "Academic Freedom," Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Vol. I, pp.
384-387.

2IO

Witch Hunt

came to power in 1933, and promptly insisted that every teacher
take an oath of fealty to Hitler, illusion-blinded instructors failed
to sense any threat to their freedom. At first, the Nazis ignored
the "practical" or "applied sciences" and concerned themselves
primarily with the disciplines related to molding public opinion:
history, sociology, psychology, and anthropology. But it was
not long before Hitler told the head of the Kaiser Wilheim
Society for the Advance of Science, which specialized in theoreti-
cal scientific research, that "if the dismissal of Jewish scientists
means the annihilation of contemporary German science, then we
shall do without science for a few years."

By 1937 a new institution, "the political university," had been
fashioned in Germany. The semiautonomous administration and
traditional liberties of the German university were arbitrarily set
aside; a pall of petty revenge descended upon institutions of
world-wide renown; the university atmosphere was poisoned at
its sources; freedom of discussion was subjected to wholesale
annihilation; and classrooms were thoroughly politicized. Stu-
dents spied on teachers and "loyal" instructors informed on their
colleagues. Long before the Nazi regime was destroyed, the
German universities had experienced a degradation without par-
allel in the history of education.^*

The destruction of the freedom of the German university was
a comparatively simple task as a brief glance at the mathematics
of the Nazi purge will indicate. The Nazis dismissed 14.35 P^^
cent of the university faculties; but these dismissals gave them full
control. The number of professors dismissed approximately
equaled the number who, at the outset, had gone over to the
Nazis (estimated at 960 or 11 per cent of the total). In other
words, about 11 per cent were ardently pro-Nazi; about 14.35
per cent were either anti-Nazi or Jewish or both; while the bulk
of the instructors, perhaps 75 per cent, simply acquiesced in the
-putsch. Illusions or no illusions, this element should have seen the
mounting peril to academic freedom in Germany. For example.
Dr. Frederic Lilge points out that the dismissal of Professor

'^^ The German Ufiiversities and National Socialism by E. Y. Hartshome,
1937; The Abuse of Learning by Dr. Frederic Lilge, 1948.

hi Dubious Directions

211

Gumbel at Heidelberg and of Professor Dehn at Halle, in 1925,
clearly" foreshadowed the demise of academic freedom; yet no
significant protest was organized.

The key to this abject acquiescence of scholars in the abuse of
learning is to be found in their blindness to the way in which
the Nazis used an attack on Jewish professors as a cover for their
attack on academic freedom. "The Jewish question," wrote Dr.
Best, "is the dynamite with which we explode the forts where
the last liberalist snipers have their nests. People who abandon the
Jews abandon thereby their former way of life with its false
ideas of liberty." ^^ Jew or Communist, the technique of using an
attack on certain instructors to cover an attack on academic free-
dom is essentially the same. The instructors selected as targets
are never identified with powerful groups or associated with
major parties. They are selected precisely because they are politi-
cal untouchables, that is, without significant influence. To believe
that those selected as targets constitute a "menacing" group is not
only to miss the point of the tactic but to co-operate in its
success.

If the target, the victim, is a political untouchable, without
much influence on the campus or in faculty councils, the chances
are that his colleagues will not spring to his defense. The fear of
being identified with heresy, however, rather than the political
untouchability of the target per se, is the real measure of their
reluctance to act. If these colleagues stand by and witness the
destruction of the target without protest, their ability to resist
later aggressions will be greatly weakened. By abandoning their
unpopular associate, they have established a precedent and, at the
same time, destroyed the basis of any real faculty solidarity.
Though they feel compromised as individuals, their guilt will be
rationalized in a manner that will later make it possible for them
to abandon less unpopular associates. Crusades against academic
freedom are not launched by a formal declaration of war; they
proceed by a stealthy testing out of the reflexes of those whose
moral duty it is to guard this freedom. One can rest assured, there-

^^ Quoted in The Higher Education in Nazi Germany by A. Wolf,
London, 1944, p. 29.

212 Witch Hunt

fore, that the first victim in any campaign of this character is
certain to be the least influential member of the faculty however
much he may be respected as a person. To accept the propaganda
that this person is a "menace" to academic freedom is to demon-
strate a political gullibility that is wholly indefensible in a world
that has been offered the opportunity to study the archives and
minutes, the memoranda and directives, of the Nazi chieftains.

Dr. Leo Szilard, distinguished professor of biophysics at the
University of Chicago, has explained the tactic of the unpopular
target in a manner that demands quotation:

A few months after the Hitler government was installed
in office, it demanded that instructors of the Jewish faith be
removed from their university positions. At the same time,
every assurance was given that professors who had tenure
would remain secure in their jobs.

The German learned societies did not raise their voices in
protest against these early dismissals. They reasoned that
there were not many Jewish instructors in German univer-
sities anyway, and so the issue was not one of importance.
Those of the dismissed instructors who were any good, so
they pointed out, were not much worse off, since they were
offered jobs in England or America. The demand of the
German government for the removal of these instructors
did not seem altogether unreasonable, since they couldn't
very well be expected wholeheartedly to favor the nation-
alist revival which was then sweeping over Germany. To
the learned societies it seemed much more important at that
moment to fight for the established rights of those who had
tenure, and this could be done much more successfully, so
they thought, if they made concessions on minor points.

In a sense the German government kept its word with
respect to those who had tenure. It is true that before long
most professors who were considered "undesirable" were
retired; but they were given pensions adequate for their
maintenance. And these pensions nrere faithfully paid to
the?7i zmtil the very day they ivere put ijjto concejitration
caiiips, beyond which time it did not seem practicable to pay
them pensions. Later many of these professors were put to
death, but this was no longer, strictly speaking, an academic

In Dubious Directions 213

matter with which the learned societies needed to concern
themselves.

The German scientists could not, of course, have saved
academic freedom in Germany even if they had raised their
voices in protest in the early days of the Nazi regime when
they still could do so with impunity. They could not have
changed the course of history, but they could have kept
their hands clea?i. . . .

It is well to remember that there was a wave of persecu-
tion of Communists after the first World War ... in many
ways the persecution then was worse than anything that
has happened this time — so far. But this time, the scientists
are being asked to sanction persecution by accepting stu-
dents into their laboratories on the basis of a selection that
is not free from political bias. . . .

Federal aid to education may be a necessity, but federal
political control of education is an evil. This evil our uni-
versities will not be able to resist unless scientists take a stand
based on the major principle which is involv^ed, and on
which they are united. Once nve give up this stand and re-
treat, there is no secojid line of defense behind ivhich ive
can wiite. . . .

Those who reconcile themselves to the first breach of our
tradition will in due time reconcile themselves to a second
breach. Those who follow the principle of the lesser evil will
have to retreat again and again. . . . Those of us who do
not wish to fight can at least refuse to help dig the grave.^^

i«"The AEC Fellowships: Shall We Yield or Fight?" by Leo Szilard,
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, June-July, 1949, p. 177, emphasis added.

XII

Freedom Is the Word

The great American word is freedom, and
in particular, freedom of thougtit, speech
and assembly.

— DR. ROBERT M. HUTCHINS

There are always inquisitions, as Hendrik Van Loon once
pointed out, and never an inquisition. In time of storm, heresy
is everywhere; it lurks in the most innocent guises; it appears in
the most unexpected sources. When Mr. Adolphe Menjou as-
sured the House Committee on Un-American Activities that a
Communist actor can import "subversive" meaning into the most
innocent line of dialogue, by a clever use of emphasis or gesture,
he was speaking in the tradition of the Great Inquisitors. A brief
glance at a number of heresy hunts in institutions located in
Oregon, Michigan, Illinois, Oklahoma, and New Hampshire will
show the amazing ubiquitousness of heresy in a period of social
stress.

1. LYSENKO IN CORVALLIS
On February 15, 1949, about two weeks after the Regents of
the University of Washington had passed judgment on the six
professors. Dr. A. L. Strand, president of Oregon State College
at Corvallis, announced that the contracts of Dr. L. R. LaVallee,
an assistant professor of economics, and of Dr. Ralph W. Spitzer,
associate professor of chemistry, would not be renewed. LaVallee
and Spitzer promptly charged that they were being released solely
because they had supported Henry Wallace in the 1948 election.

Freedom Is the Word 215

Up to this point, however, the issue of academic freedom re-
mained purely speculative since neither LaVallee nor Spitzer had
permanent tenure and might have been discharged for any reason.
But Dr. Strand, perhaps encouraged by the humiliating defeat of
Mr. Wallace, proceeded not merely to drive the heretics from the
campus but to tell the whole world why he had done so.

On February 23, the faculty was summoned into extraordinary
session to hear Dr. Strand discourse on the subject of modern
heresy. He had decided, so he said, to give a "partial" public ex-
planation of the reasons which had prompted him to sack Dr.
Spitzer. Denying that Spitzer's support of Wallace had anything
to do with the case. Dr. Strand proceeded to make the issue one
of academic freedom by launching a vigorous attack on Spitzer's
politics and his integrity as a scholar and scientist. "Exact proof,"
he said, "of a person's loyalties and beliefs is difHcult and often im-
possible to produce. About the only way is to choose an area in
which the person has undeniably committed himself, if that can
be found, and examine that area thoroughly to discover what such
commitment signifies."^ Curiously enough, the area which Dr.
Strand had chosen to examine, in an effort to convict Spitzer of
heresy, was not chemistry, which is Dr. Spitzer's field, but ge-
netics. In essence, his heresy consisted, according to Dr. Strand, in
defending Lysenko's defense of Michurin's genetics.

After reading a letter which Spitzer had pubhshed in the
Chemical ajid Efigineering News of January 31, 1949, Dr. Strand
went on to say: "He [Spitzer] supports the charlatan Lysenko
in preference to what he must know to be the truth. He is no
amateur scientist. He went far out of his way to combat the influ-
ence of Dr. Muller (Dr. H. J. Muller, the famous biologist, who
had attacked Lysenko), or to make such attempt as might fool
a good many people. Why should a chemist bother to stir up
controversy in the field of genetics? I can tell you. It is be-
cause he goes right down the party line without any noticeable
deviation and is an active protagonist for it. Did some one men-
tion academic freedom? How about freedom from party-Hne
compulsion? Any scientist who has such poor powers of dis-

^ Chemical and Engirieering News, March 28, 1949, p. 908.

2i6 Witch Hunt

crimination as to choose to support Lysenko's Michurin genetics
against all the weight of evidence against it is not much of a
scientist, or, a priori, has lost the freedom that an instructor and
investigator should possess."

This denunciation of Spitzer obviously rested, for whatever
validity it possessed, upon one crucial premise, namely, that
Spitzer had in fact "supported the charlatan Lysenko." Incredible
as it may sound. Dr. Spitzer had done nothing of the sort. His
letter was reprinted, in its entirety, along with Dr. Strand's state-
ment, in the Chemical and Engine emig News of March 28, 1949,
pages 907-908. It is too long to reprint here but anyone can check
the reference and read the by now famous letter. Nowhere in this
letter does Dr. Spitzer defend, support, or accept Lysenko's views.
The stated purpose of the letter, written by a chemist to the editor
of a chemical journal, was merely to suggest that American scien-
tists should study the Lysenko papers, then just published in this
country, before coming to any final conclusions about the merits
of the controversy. The letter does suggest that there might be
some truth in the Lysenko theories but it does not defend these
theories. It also points out that since research is socially planned
and publicly financed in the Soviet Union, any comparison of
freedom of research in the two countries should be based on a
recognition of this fact. Wise or foolish, false or true, partisan or
objective, the letter simply does not warrant Dr. Strand's inter-
pretation.

Somewhat later Dr. Linus Pauling of the California Institute of
Technology wrote a letter to Dr. Strand in which he suggested
that the failure to renew Spitzer's contract might constitute a
violation of academic freedom. To this letter. Dr. Strand replied:
"If by this action, Oregon State College has lost your respect and
support, all I can say is that your price is too high. We'll have to
get along without your aid. . . . How far need we go in the
name of academic freedom? How stupid need we be and just
how much impudence do we have to stand for to please the pun-
dits of dialectical materialism? As well as the right of free expres-
sion, academic freedom entails some discipline in regard to truth,
some loyalty to the ethics and logic of scientific inquiry. . . .

Freedom Is the Word 217

The notice to Spitzer and LaVallee . . . was no violation of
academic freedom. On the contrary, it was a move in the direc-
tion of such freedom."

Needless to say, Dr. Pauling had said nothing about withdraw-
ing his respect or support. He had, moreover, every right to ex-
press himself on the issue as ( i ) an alumnus of Oregon State Col-
lege; (2) president of the American Chemical Society of which
Dr. Spitzer was a member; and (3) chairman of the division of
chemical engineering at the California Institute of Technology
where Dr. Spitzer got his degree. Incidentally, it is interesting to
note that Dr. Pauling refers to Spitzer, in this letter, as being "in
the upper group of the able younger physical chemists in the
country." In view of these facts, the tone of Dr. Strand's reply
was hardly warranted.

The gagging, bitter irony of this episode is to be found in
Dr. Strand's adoption of an attitude toward heresy which cannot
be distinguished from the dogmatism of which he complains in
Lysenko and other Communist dialecticians and commissars. Com-
menting on the Spitzer case. Dr. Alfred Henry Sturtevant, world-
famous scientist at the California Institute of Technology, had
this to say: "The news accounts indicate that his [Dr. Spitzer's]
support of Lysenko, in the letter here under discussion, was stated
by the administration to be a reason for the dismissal. If this ac-
count is correct, I am certain that the great majority of geneticists
will agree with me in wishing to present the strongest possible
protest against an American university adopting the very policy
of making academic tenure dependent on conformity, that we
so strongly object to in Russia." ^ Obviously nothing could have
a more sterilizing influence on scientific inquiry in America than
the imposition of Lysenko-like orthodoxies on American scien-
tists. But is it not equally obvious that the policy of aping Russian
methods is also strategically self-defeating and disastrous? Instead
of allowing Soviet dogmatism to beat itself against the wall of
scientifically verifiable fact. Dr. Strand proposes to combat Soviet
dogmatism with counter-dogmatism.

Such is the strategy of the anti-Communist — the strategy of

" Ibid., p. 936.

2i8 Witch Hunt

fighting Communism as a heresy — and it is self-defeating on its
face. As Justice Robert Jackson has pointed out: "The iron cur-
tain is more disastrous to those it shuts in than those it shuts
out. . . . What we might need to fear would be an open-minded,
tolerant and inquiring Soviet Union, thirsting for truth. ... If
they want to handicap themselves by closing the Soviet Union's
eyes and ears to the actions and thoughts of the western world,
I do not think it strengthens them against us. . . . If they want
to send their scientists to Siberia because they do not make the
cold facts of science, such as genetics, support Soviet political
theories, I condemn it as inhumane; but I don't think it imperils
our security. . . . The Nuremberg evidence is that the seeds of
eventual annihilation for Hitler's power were sown when he
began burning books, exihng scientists and scholars, persecuting
students, and closing down on information."

To bring this incident to a close, it should be noted that the
Corvallis affair stemmed directly from the excitement at Seattle.
Commenting on the Seattle case, the president of the Associated
Students at Oregon State College was quoted in an AP dispatch
of January 23, 1949, as saying: "Communism is a real factor on
the Oregon State campus and certain people are on this campus
for the sole purpose of converting students to the cause of Com-
munism." (Emphasis added.) Clearly the conviction of the here-
tics at Seattle had stimulated the consciousness of heresy at Cor-
vallis. In a dispatch of the same date, Dr. Strand was quoted as
saying: "While we probably have less of this sort of activity
[Communism] than the average campus, we undoubtedly have
some. Hence it is gratifying to see the responsible student leaders
recognizing the situation and thus taking steps to guard against
it." If students were able to sense, with a little prompting from
the press, the presence of heretics on the campus, surely the presi-
dent must be equally alert. Catching a long forward pass from
President Allen, Dr. Strand turned and galloped the length of the
field for a touchdown, but alas! he crossed the wrong goal line,
standing up, alone.

Freedom Is the Word 219

2. ''A COLLEGE IS LIKE A BUSINESS -PLUS''
Olivet College, in central Michigan, was founded by Father
Shipherd, a revivalist minister, in the same year that James Polk
was elected President. Father Shipherd's favorite texts: "Be not
conformed to this world" and "Dare to do what we acknowledge
to be right" survived, under Dr. Malcolm Boyd Dana, in the form
of a famous "unified study plan," a fine tutorial system, and a
college remarkably free from racial or religious discrimination.
In the spring of 1946, when Dr. Dana resigned, Olivet had about
300 students and 35 instructors and boasted of the exceptionally
close relationship which prevailed between instructors and stu-
dents, as well it might with a ratio of one instructor for every
eight students.

To succeed Dr. Dana, the trustees selected Aubrey L. Ashby,
Olivet '08, former vice-president and general counsel of the Na-
tional Broadcasting Company, just the man, so the trustees
thought, to extricate the college from a difficult financial situa-
tion. At the meeting on July 2 1 at which he was selected, Ashby
told the trustees, in a two-hour speech, that part of his policy
would be "to 'DDT' those erring termites." The termites turned
out to be Dr. T. Barton Akeley, who had taught political science
at Olivet for twelve years, and his wife, who had long served as
college librarian. The Akeleys were dismissed without a hearing
or the filing of charges and were denied the usual sixty-day period
in which to vacate the home which had been assigned them on the
campus. A person of liberal views. Dr. Akeley carried his non-
conformity to such subversive extremes as the wearing of a beret,
the sporting of a great tuft of a goatee, and, on occasion, strolling
down the main street of Olivet in shorts. President Ashby charged
that the Akeleys had been indoctrinating students with "their
own peculiar ideas of democracy." His ideas about democracy,
also peculiar, may be suggested by his dictum that "a college is
like a business — plus."

To the trustees, the Akeleys complained that their dismissal
was based "on an appeal to curiosity, to prurience, to fears of

2 20 Witch Hunt

involvement . . . not justified in your constitution, nor in Chris-
tianity, nor in ethics." The American Civil Liberties Union found,
after an investigation, that the dismissals "flagrantly violated even
the shabby tenure poHcy of the college."^ On September 17, the
day of registration, student picket lines formed around the ad-
ministration building and sixty or more students refused to reg-
ister. Throughout the fall, the faculty continued to press for a
real tenure plan and to urge the reinstatement of the Akeleys. At
an alumni dinner in Detroit on December 9, President Ashby at-
tempted to divert attention from the real issue by charging that
students on the picket lines were "largely from one race and one
localit).\" The students immediately wanted to know what race
and Ashby flippantly replied: "The human race." Both students
and faculty, however, construed the remark as being aimed at
Olivet's Jewish students from New York. On December 17, four
members of the faculty were fired and a fifth was given a year's
notice. Those fired were Tucker P. Smith, president of the Olivet
Teachers Union, Julian Fahy, Arthur Moore, and Herbert Hodge.
Dr. Carleton Mabee, winner of a Pulitzer Prize in history, was
given a year's terminal notice. All five were active in the Teach-
ers Union and had protested the dismissal of the Akeleys.

When the new dismissals were announced, 140 students signed
a petition pledging themselves not to return to the campus until
the dismissed professors were restored to their positions, and on
January 28, 13 faculty members decided to organize a new college
and to secede, as it were, from Olivet. On that day Tucker Smith
placed an ad in the Lansing State Journal which is doubtless
unique in its relevance to the higher learning in America: "College
faculty for hire as unit. Prepared to offer balanced and advanced
curriculum for small, liberal arts college. Substantial upper class
student body and alumni group wish to accompany to aid in
transplanting unique educational tradition."

The trustees promptly offered a few faculty pets life tenure
but the exodus continued. Three instructors resigned on Janu-
ary i; another dropped out on March i; two more on March 3;
another on March 9; another on March 11; and so it went. At the

^ Nation, November 27, 1948.

Freedom Is the Word

221

end of the school year, Olivet had lost i8 of 35 faculty members;
a majority of its student body was determined not to return in
the fall; and the college faced the likelihood of being blacklisted
by the American Association of University Professors. Later a
planning committee of students, faculty, and alumni selected
Sackett's Harbor, New York, as the site of the new Shipherd
College and laid plans for a fund-raising campaign. Still later,
Dr. Malcolm Boyd Dana filed suit to recover $22,078 which he
had loaned the college to pay debts and salaries three years before.
Father Shipherd would no doubt be proud to realize how firmly
he had planted the nonconformist tradition at Olivet.

The Olivet incident, full of drama, lively characters, and a
most exciting plot, received nothing like the attention devoted
to the University of Washington dismissals. In none of the edito-
rials on the Seattle case which I have examined is any reference
made to Olivet College, although the excitement at Olivet was
parallel in time, significance, and general relevance. The failure
to correlate the two cases throws considerable light on the mean-
ing of the issue so prominently featured in the Seattle case. For
it is conceded that the Akeleys were not Communists and Tucker
Smith, Socialist Party nominee for the Vice-Presidency in 1948,
is yet to be accused of being a Communist. But this did not save
these instructors from the charge of heresy; out they went, along
with most of the faculty, the student body, and a large section
of the alumni.

3. HERESY ON THE MIDWAY

Subversive activities investigations never "just happen"; there
is always a plot and the same characters often reappear. The
"father" of the Canwell Committee's investigation of the Univer-
sity of Washington was Fred Niendorif of the Hearst Post-Intel^
ligencer; while John Madigan of the Hearst Herald- Ajjierica?!
master-minded the investigation of the University^ of Chicago
conducted by the Broyles Committee of the Illinois Legislature.
It will be recalled, also, that among the experts who appeared in

222

Witch Hunt

Seattle was Howard Rushmore, of the staff of the Hearst Jourjial-
American in New York, who reappears as the key witness in the
Chicago plot. But this is getting a bit ahead of the story; first the
setting, then the plot.

The Seditious Activities Investigation Commission, better
known as the Broyles Commission, came into being as a commit-
tee of the Illinois Legislature in 1947. For two years the commit-
tee failed to hold any hearings or to issue any reports. Sponsored
by Governor Dwight Green, the committee seems to have been
inspired by certain recommendations of the American Legion,
Illinois Department, and the ever-vigilant Chicago Herald-
American. On February 15, 1949, the same day that Dr. A. L.
Strand discovered heresy at Corvallis, the Broyles Commission
suddenly came to life after two years of profound inactivity.
Senator Broyles proceeded, on that day, to introduce a series of
bills to curb "seditious activities" which w€re almost identical
with a similar series of bills, introduced at almost exactly the same
time, by Senator Jack B. Tenney, then chairman of California's
Un-American Activities Committee, in the California Legislature.
That the Broyles Committee had held no hearings and issued no
reports would indicate that its sudden discovery of heresy must
have been prompted by the Chicago Herald-American or some in-
stitution equally alert to the dangers of heresy.

Suddenly, without prior notice, public hearings were scheduled
on the Broyles bills for one day only, March i, 1949. A hundred-
odd students from Chicago, representing such organizations as
the Young Progressives of America, Americans for Democratic
Action, and the Student Republican Club, got wind of the hear-
ing and appeared in Springfield to lobby against the bills. Only
a few of them got a chance to testify, however, since only an
hour had been set aside for the hearing. The delegation then ad-
journed to the office of Governor Adlai Stevenson and got from
him a promise to request additional hearings. Even as the stu-
dents were conferring with the governor, however, came word
that the committee had voted out three of the bills with a "do-
pass" recommendation. Vastly annoved, the students improvised
some crude signs and placards and paraded through the streets

Freedom Is the Word ii'^

in protest against the action of the committee and against the
bills.

The parade annoyed some of the legislators but they were more
annoyed when the students staged a sit-down strike in, of all
places, the Abraham Lincoln Hotel, where one of the group, a
Negro, was refused service. The next day the Chicago papers,
including the liberal Sim-Times, carried stories of wild demon-
strations in Springfield and editorials about "student hooliganism"
and other evidences of subversive activities. In a flurry of indigna-
tion, the legislature promptly voted an investigation of Roosevelt
College and the University of Chicago, these being the two
schools from which most of the students had come. One legislator
announced that he would not send his pet dog to the University
of Chicago, while still another legislator said that the students
were "so dirty and greasy" that they could not possibly be "clean
Americans on the inside." As soon as the investigation was voted,
John Madigan began a series of pieces about heresy at the Uni-
versity of Chicago for the Herald- America?! and J, B. Matthews
was summoned from New York to take charge of the investiga-
tion.

The hearings which got under way in Springfield on April 2 1 ,
1949, were in remarkable contrast to the Canwell Committee
hearings in Seattle. In Springfield, Dr. Edward Sparling and Dr.
Robert M. Hutchins lost little tim€ in seizing and holding the
initiative. Instead of genuflecting before the committee, Dr.
Hutchins promptly denounced the Broyles bills as an un-Ameri-
can attempt to impose a pattern of thought control on the people
of Illinois. "The University of Chicago," he said, "does not
believe in the un-American doctrine of guilt by association. . . .
It is entirely possible to belong to organizations combating fas-
cism and racial discrimination, for example, without desiring to
subvert the government of the United States." He then went on
to say:

The Constitution of the United States guarantees freedom
of speech and the right of the people peaceably to assemble.
The American way has been to encourage thought and dis-
cussion. We have never been afraid of thought and discus-

2 24 Witch Hunt

sion. The whole educational system, not merely the Uni-
versity of Chicago, is a reflection of the American faith in
thought and discussion as the path to peaceful change and
improvement. The danger to our institutions is not from
the tiny minority who do not believe in them. It is from
those who would mistakenly repress the free spirit upon
which those institutions are built. The miasma of thought
control that is now spreading over the country is the great-
est menace to the United States since Hitler. ... It is now
fashionable to call anybody with whom we disagree a Com-
munist or a fellow traveler. So Branch Rickey darkly hinted
the other day that the attempt to eliminate the reserve
clause in baseball contracts was the work of Communists.

In all such hearings, the primary tactic of the Inquisitors is to
shake the assurance and poise of the heretics by placing them
under a cloud of suspicion by either inference or direct statement;
to frighten them with the angry vehemence with which their
heresies are denounced; and to get them involved in the self-
defeating business of explaining, apologizing, and alibi-ing. The
purpose of the hearing is to stage an ideological ordeal or duel
of wits in which the heretic can be made to grovel and recant.
If the heretic can be defeated, the rival ideology suffers a sym-
bolic defeat and is thereby discredited. A rout of the witness
serves, in other words, to symbolize the rout of the doctrine with
which he is identified. Hearings of this sort are essentially like
Indian wrestling matches and it is this fact which makes them
newsworthy and invests the testimony with such importance from
a propaganda point of view. By controlling the hearings, the in-
quisitors have a marked advantage. Then, too, the very nature of
the inquiry — into "seditious activities" — has a tendency to place
many witnesses on the defensive. It is embarrassing to be sum-
moned as a witness in an investigation of red-light districts even if
one is called, say, as an expert on gonorrhea.

At Springfield, however, the duel soon developed overtones of
high farce. Matthews simply could not force Chancellor Hutch-
ins to take a defensive position. Hutchins not only avoided the
bear traps that were set for him: he used them to trap Mat-

Freedom Is the Word ii^

thews. The fact that the federal government had prosecuted Com-
munists in New York indicated, did it not, that the Communist
Party was a criminal conspiracy? "As a lawyer," replied Hutch-
ins, "I would hesitate to say that the government can be identified
with the Attorney General." Was Dr. Maud Slye still a member
of the faculty? "Dr. Slye," replied Hutchins, "retired many years
ago after confining her attention for a considerable time exclu-
sively to mice. . . . She was one of the most distinguished spe-
cialists in cancer we have seen in our time." Then the following
dialogue occurs:

MR. MATTHEWS. Are you acquainted with the fact that
Dr. Slye has had frequent affihations with so-called
communist front organizations?

CHANCELLOR HUTCHINS. I have heard that she has had so-
called frequent associations with so-called communist
front organizations.

MR. MATTHEWS. Is it the policy of the University to ignore
such affiliations on the part of the members of the
faculty?

CHANCELLOR HUTCHINS. As I indicated, Dr. Slye's associa-
tions were confined on our campus to mice. . . . To
answer your direct question, however, I am not aware
that Dr. Slye has ever joined or advocated the over-
throw of the government by violence.

MR. MATTHEWS. I Said nothing about mice. I am sorry you
misunderstood me. In your theory of education is there
not such a thing as indoctrination by example as well
as by precept?

CHANCELLOR HUTCHINS. Well, Dr. Slye never gave an exam-
ple of overthrowing the government by violence.

• * *

MR. MATTHEW^s. I havc here a copy of Life magazine for

April 4, 1949.
CHANCELLOR HUTCHINS. I have secn it. I think it is disgraceful.
MR. MATTHEWS. You refer to the double-page spread? [Of

so-called fellow travelers.]

CHANCELLOR HUTCHINS. YcS, I do.

2 26 Witch Hunt

MR. MATTHEWS. Do you recall the manner in which Presi-
dent Truman characterized Communist Party members
when he was asked about it?

CHANCELLOR HUTCHINS. I do.

MR. MATTHEWS. His Statement was that they were all
traitors.

CHANCELLOR HUTCHINS. I recall his statement.

MR. MATTHEWS. Do you concur with the President?

CHANCELLOR HUTCHINS. Am I required to?

MR. MATTHEWS. No, not at all, but I think it would be a
matter of interest to the people of the United States
to know your views on that subject.

CHANCELLOR HUTCHINS. Doubtlcss Mr. Truman's information
is superior to mine. Doubtless your information is supe-
rior to mine. If it is true that all members of the Com-
munist Party are traitors I should suppose they would
be proceeded against as such and that we should not
go through miscellaneous media and make charges that
have not been established by due process.

Summing up, Hutchins defined the issue with great clarity:
"The University does not believe that an individual should be
penalized for other acts than his own. The University believes
that if a man is to be punished he should be punished for what he
does and not for what he belonged to or for those with whom he
has associated."

The Broyles Commission had made much of a "secret witness'*
who was to appear at the hearings. This witness turned out to be
Howard Rushmore, who had insisted that his appearance be kept
secret until the day he was called. Apparently he did not care to
face the individuals he intended to "finger" as reds and radicals;
or perhaps he wanted to deny these individuals a chance to work
up a dossier on his background and former associations. Later uni-
versity officials presented affidavits showing that Rushmore had
given grossly misleading testimony. For example, of 50 instances
of alleged "fellow-traveling" on the part of 7 professors, men-
tioned in his testimony, only one case involved current member-

Freedom Is the Word iij

ship in an alleged "subversive" organization. Specifically Rush-
more had listed 38 organizations as "subversive" although only
II of these appeared on the Attorney General's list; 21 of the
organizations either did not exist or were utterly unknown to the
professors. The release of these affidavits forced the committee
to reopen the hearings and gave the seven professors a chance to
enter corrections on the record and, also, to confront the bashful
Rushmore.*

Upset by all these goings-on, Representative William Horsley
(R., Springfield), a member of the Broyles Commission, released
on June 23 a 23-page booklet in which he gave his analysis of the
testimony. From this booklet it would appear that sex and sub-
version are intimately linked. Citing figures to "prove" that 27
cases of "sex crimes and troubles," involving University of Chi-
cago students, had occurred over a period of some years, Mr.
Horsley proceeded to quote an informant as follows: "Of course
there is a university rule forbidding girls in men's rooms, but that
is a relatively easy thing to happen." Summing up, Mr. Horsley
found that "sex plays a hearty role on the campus of the Univer-
sity of Chicago"; that Communists use sex in obtaining recruits;
and that "shocking moral conditions" prevail along the Midway.^

In the Springfield investigation, unlike the sorry Seattle affair,
the trustees of the University of Chicago took a firm stand with
the chancellor. "In the spirit of academic freedom," the trustees
said in a statement, "the men of the university work today to find
a cure for cancer, to harness atomic energy for peaceful pro-
ductive use, to widen our knowledge of the social, political and
cultural forces in all human experience, and to train the teachers,
the scientists, the scholars and the enlightened citizens of tomor-
row. To be great a university must adhere to principle. It cannot
shift with the winds of passing opinion. Its work is frequently
mystifying and frequently misunderstood. It must rely for its sup-
port upon a relatively small number of people who understand the
contributions it makes to the welfare of the community and the
improvement of mankind; upon those who understand that aca-

*See N. Y. Times, April 30, 1949; May 20, 1949.
^Chicago Tribune, June 24, 1949.

2 28 Witch Hunt

demic freedom is important not because of its benefits to pro-
fessors but because of its benefits to all of us. Today our tradition
of freedom is under attack. There are those who are afraid of
freedom. We do not share these fears."

Largely because of the courageous stand of Robert M. Hutch-
ins and the trustees of the University of Chicago, the Broyles bills
were permitted to die in the legislature and the Broyles Commis-
sion died with the bills. Senator Broyles and Representative
Horsley were even unable to file a resolution threatening various
reprisals against the University of Chicago and Roosevelt College.^
Although the Springfield investigation fizzled out, it might well
have succeeded if the chancellor, the students, the faculty, and the
trustees had not taken a stand for freedom. As the chairman of
the student committee has pointed out: "There is nothing very
funny about the intention or effects of this sort of investigation,
and many of us who witnessed the hearings found it difficult to
reconcile the tragedy of the situation with the comedy of the
evidence or cross-examination."

Nor is there anything funny about the final report of the
Broyles Committee which included the following recommenda-
tions: (i) expulsion from any tax-exempt or tax-supported school
of any student who refuses to say whether he is a Communist;
( 2 ) further investigation of the University of Chicago and Roose-
velt College by "private" agencies; (3) prohibition of the sale on
campuses of Communist propaganda; (4) survey of textbooks to
eliminate theories and doctrines of Communism "or other sub-
versive doctrines"; (5) dismissal of professors who refuse to
resign from known Communist or Communist front organiza-
tions; (6) investigation of new campus organizations to determine
whether they should be denied campus "privileges"; and (7) de-
nial of tax exemption to any school which allows Communist
front professors to teach or which allows Communist front groups
to "flourish" under faculty sponsorship.

Certainly Chancellor Hutchins has not been misled by the ease
with which he unhorsed Mr. Horsely and embarrassed J. B.
Matthews. In a magnificent Commencement address on June 22,

^Chicago Sun-Ti?nes, July 5, 1949.

Freedom Is the Word 229

1949, he pointed out that there is less difference between pressure
and prejudice and purges and pogroms than some Americans
imagine. "We do not throw people into jail," he said, "because
they are alleged to differ with the official dogma. We throw them
out of work and do our best to create the impression that they
are subversive and hence dangerous, not only to the state but also
to everybody who comes near them. . . . To pressure people
into conformity by the non-legal methods popular today is little
better than doing it by purges and pogroms." In times like these,
the educated man must show the fruits of his education ". . . by
showing that he can and will think for himself. He must keep his
head, and use it. He must never push other people around, nor ac-
quiesce when he sees it done. He must struggle to retain the per-
spective and the sense of proportion that his studies have given
him and decline to be carried away by waves of hysteria. He must
hold fast to his faith in freedom. He must insist that freedom is
the chief glory of mankind and that to repress it is in effect to
repress the human spirit."

4. STRANGE DOINGS IN OKLAHOMA

Shortly after the Regents of the University of Washington an-
nounced their decision, the Oklahoma Legislature, by a vote of
102 to 7, passed a resolution demanding a loyalty oath from
schoolteachers and calling for an investigation of Communist in-
filtration at the state university. The main speech in the debate
on the resolution was delivered by Representative Edgar Boat-
man, of Okmulgee, who stated that he knew of one out-of-state
student who had come to the University of Oklahoma "carrying
a Communist card and a pistol in his pocket." The Oklahoma in-
vestigation was truly a ludicrous affair. The faculty was asked
to select representatives to appear before the committee for ques-
tioning. Eleven members of the staff and faculty, accordingly,
appeared before the committee on February 24, 1949. The chair-
man of the committee, a farmer with a fourth-grade education,
conducted the investigation. The first witness, Dr. Laurence Sny-

230 Witch Hunt

der, dean of the graduate school, was asked: "Where were you
borned at? What organizations do you belong to?" (The answer:
"'Only the Rotary Club and that is not secret.") "Do you know
anything about Karl Marx and did you ever study his book?"

After a few witnesses were examined the investigation was
promptly dropped. However all key administrative personnel, in-
cluding deans and academic department heads, must now sign the
following, and most remarkable, oath:

I, , being first duly sworn, on oath

state as follows: My position with the educational institu-
tion indicated above is that of . which

I have held for years. Except for those whose

names are hereinafter listed, I am of the opinion that no
member of the faculty in my department at this institution
is a member of the Communist Party, a communist sympa-
thizer or so-called "fellow traveler," is engaged in commu-
nistic activities of any kind, or teaches communistic doc-
trines either on or off the campus with a view to instilling
beUef in the -principles of communism. I use the words and
expressions communist, communism, communist sympa-
thizer and "fellow traveler" in their commonly accepted
connotation and not in any technical or restricted sense.
My opinion with regard to these persons is based upon per-
sonal acquaintance or upon inquiry, or both, and my infor-
mation concerning them and their views regarding commu-
nism is such that I consider it reliable. Those about whom
my information is insufficient to enable me to include in the
above statement, or whom for other reasons I do not wish to
include, are as follows:

In this instance the administration was able to ward off a serious
investigation by a purely ceremonial observance of the ritual of
purification against ideological heresies. For what possible mean-
ing can this quaint document possess? Of what probation value is
the bland assertion, by a chairman, that there are no Communists
in his department? And what are the commonly accepted conno-
tations of those much-fought-over words "Communist," "Com-
munism," "Communist sympathizer" and "fellow traveler"?

Freedom Is the Word 231

But Oklahoma — if one may speak without offense — is perhaps
a special case. Surely Ne^v England, with its unusually rich
historical experience with witches and heretics, has been able to
avoid the delusions reported in other regions. But the taint of
heresy is also prevalent in New England. Early in 1949, two bills
were introduced in the New Hampshire Legislature, one forbid-
ding teachers "to advocate the doctrines of Communism" and the
other providing for the appointment of a five-man committee to
investigate "Communism" at the University of New Hampshire.
This particular excitement seemed to have been touched off by
the pronouncements of James F. O'Neil, former national com-
mander of the American Legion, and a resident of New Hamp-
shire.

President Arthur S. Adams's statement before the legislative
committee contains this unique comment on the subject of Com-
munism: "It is easy enough to talk about the problem but it is
not so easy to say exactly what the issue is." It was by making a
similar admission that the saner residents of Massachusets finally
brought the insane Salem witch hunt to a stop. The question,
"Should Communists Be Permitted to Teach?" does not define a
social issue; it calls for a stump speech. If every legislature in
America were to answer the question in the affirmative, the solu-
tion of the problem which the question raises would not be any
nearer. The problem of Communism is not to be disposed of by
taking various punitive measures against Communists.

It is impossible to understand the ideological conflicts of the
Inquisition by a study of the doctrines of the Albigensians, the
Waldensians, the Fraticelli, and the Cathars. The doctrinal issues
are not only dead; they are quite incomprehensible. But the social
and psychological reality of these persecutions still has great
meaning and pertinence. The doctrines of the heretics did not
call forth the unrest of the times; the unrest produced the doc-
trines. Hence the pursuit of heretics is like chasing a mirage. The
persecution of heretics is more likely to drive the persecutors
crazy than to convert the heretics. Burleigh, Elizabeth's astute
minister, posed the real problem of dealing with heretics when he
said: "We do not wish to kill them, we cannot coerce them, but

232 Witch Hunt

we dare not trust them." Faced with this dilemma, most heresy
hunters have done what Burleigh advised against — that is, they
have stripped the heretics of political power but have soon dis-
covered that this, too, is no solution. For the problem is never the
heretic although the heretic always seem.s to be the problem.

BOOK THREE

The Strategy of Satan

The most frightening study of mankind is
Man.

— JAMES THURBER

XIII

The Roots of Heresy

In one sense, all heresy crusades are alike, whether they are
launched by the reds or the blacks, in Bulgaria or Bolivia. For
there are certain underlying psychological, social, and political
factors which make up, so to speak, the constants of heresy per-
secutions. Just as there is a general theory of neuroses although
there are many types of neurotics, so one can construct a general
theory of heresy despite the fact that there are many different
kinds of heretics. This chapter deals with what might be called
a sociology of heresy. The three chapters which follow will con-
sider, and in this order, the social psychology of heresy hunts;
the semantics of persecution; and the methods by which witches
are caught, which has to do with the politics of heresy.

1. THE DISTURBANCE OF BELIEF

The appearance of heresy is a symptom that social change has
brought about some basic disturbance in the general system of
belief. Every society has, of course, some system of belief or
ethos, however imperfectly defined, by which values, objectives,
and preferences can be shared. When a society is in its formative
phases, when it is growing and expanding, this system of ideas is
taken pretty much for granted. "An idea," writes Dr. Louis
Wirth, "is implicit in every institution, but it is only in periods
of change or crisis that we defend its meaning or redefine its pur-
poses." ^ It is during periods of rapid social change, as through

^ "Ideological Aspects of Social Disorganization" by Louis Wirth, Ameri-
can Sociological Review, Vol. 5, p. 472.

236 Witch Hunt

migration, war, or revolution, that people suddenly become con-
scious of ideologies. And the more conscious they become of
their particular ideology, the more they will insist upon conform-
Ity. For any major disturbance in the system of belief is Hkely to
produce mass fears, group anxieties, and weird distortions in per-
ception. The greater the disturbance, the more rigid the ideology
becomes and the more slavishly the people conform. At the
same time, the fears of the people transform the ideology into
a compulsive mechanism from which escape is almost impos-
sible; originally a refuge, it becomes a prison, with fear as the
jailer.

In such situations, nearly every aspect of social life becomes
"politicized" since everything has some relevance to the ideologi-
cal struggle, from the growing of gladiolas to the wTiting of
novels. The more critical this struggle becomes, the smaller be-
comes the measure of private life which the individual is per-
mitted to retain. As Dr. Ley once said: "There is no such thing
as a private individual in National Socialist Germany. The only
person who is, still a private individual in Germany is somebody
who is asleep." Ideas that were once implicit now become explicit;
values once taken for granted are now taught and propagandized;
what was formerly vague sentiment now becomes fierce official
doctrine. The change is from the apolitical to the political; from
the vague consensus to the rigid ideology. While this process
makes for a greater degree of internal solidarity, it sharpens the
tensions between groups holding different ideologies. And it is
out of this conflict that heresy stems. The literal meaning of
heresy is "choosing," and the periods in which heresy is reborn
are the periods in which people must make important choices or
decisions. Heretics appear only during periods of profound social
transition. "Where there is no mental activity," wrote Turber-
ville, "no education, no discussion, there may be faith, there can
never be heresy." ^

The heretic, however, must not be confused with the noncon-
formist or dissenter. Every society seeks to secure a measure of
conformity as the indispensable condition of social co-operation,

-Medieval Heresy and the hiqidsition by A. S, Turberville, 192 1.

The Roots of Heresy 237

but in all societies there are some who refuse to respect the norms
and values of the majority or the right of a majority to impose its
ideas upon a minority. In normal times, these dissenters can be
safely ignored. Should the breach between the attitudes of the
dissenter and those of society become too wide, the dissenter can
be marched off to a mental institution. For many reasons, how-
ever, the heretic cannot be ignored. Heresy is a collective phe-
nomenon which recurs in periods of transition; dissent is an
individual protest which can always be heard. The dissenter is
not necessarily resented; the heretic is always keenly resented.
The heretic rejects the dominant ideology but he does not reject
the notion of dominant ideologies; the dissenter is a critic of all
official ideologies and of the principle of conformity. The heretic
is possessed and driven by an ideology; the dissenter will not per-
mit ideas to ride him. Heretics are made; dissenters are born. The
heretic is the apostle of a new ideology, a heretic without an
ideology being as unthinkable as a minister without a theology;
but a dissenter may be merely critical of the existing ideology.
Criticism which assumes the continued existence of the old ideol-
ogy can be tolerated; but the adoption of a new ideology is a
"disloyal" act.

New ideologies are not "thought out" in advance; on the con-
trary, they are born of a feeling of resentment which arises from
the fact of alienation or rejection or self-estrangement. Resent-
ment is "interiorized hatred," a form of self-hatred "that is
blocked or repressed because the socio-historical situation in
which the individual finds himself provides no concrete direct
outlet." ^ Unable to find an outlet for their resentment, the dis-
affected launch an oblique attack on the ideology of the dominant
group. Karl Mannheim refers to the ideology of a dominant group
as a "topia," that of a subordinate group as a "utopia." The clas-
sification has merit for there is an intimate relation between the
two ideologies, the relationship of dominant-subordinate, major-
minor, father-son. One emerges from the other.

The attack which the alienated direct at the dominant ideology
is, at the outset, almost entirely negative, that is, it consists in a

^Society and Ideology by Dr. Gerald L. De Gre, 1943.

238 Witch Hunt

negation of the norms and values of this ideology. The disaffected,
in this respect, practice what has been called "an imaginary re-
venge" on the dominant element by categorically repudiating the
values of their ideology. By this denial, the rejected reject their
rejectors. Symbolically, they strip them of their power and pos-
sessions by stripping them of their values; it is about the only re-
venge which the ahenated can take while they are still an insig-
nificant minority. Later this "imaginary revenge" is given Utopian
statement, as when the heretics begin to talk about a "new class-
less society," "a city of God," and so forth. This, too, is a form of
revenge for it is tantamount to saying. See how much better our
city is than the miserable city which you possess and from which
we have been excluded.

Maladjustment creates new ideologies; new ideologies do not
create maladjustments. To proscribe the idea, therefore, is to get
the cart before the horse. Ideologies_are hiirn o£ resentment^and
resentment is a reaction ^^^OTit. something already in existence.
Because the resentment cannot find direct expression, it becomes
Interiorized as. "psychological self-poisoning." This poisoning is
the real acid that dissolves social bonds. Ideas may give resent-
ment form and direction; they may inspire it; but they do not
create it. If a society is healthy, you can hurl ideas at it with great
violence but they will have little effect. It is the gap, as Max
Scheler pointed out, between "traditional power" (old or domi-
nant ideology) and "actual power" (the new conditions) that
creates an explosive psychological situation. This situation should
be the paramount concern of the dominant group; but, because
of their relation to this situation, they see the heretics rather than
the situation which produces them. In the nature of things, it is
difficult to see "a situation"; and then, again, social situations are
often mutually exclusive. Caught in their own situation, the domi-
nant element cannot see the situation in which the heretic is
caught.

The Roots of Heresy 239

2. ON HERETICS AND THEIR DOCTRINES

And hissing factionists with ardent eyes.

— WORDSWORTH

Heresy arises ivithin a society. When the alienated constitute
a small minority, they are called heretics. Should the alienated
come to constitute, say, 30 per cent of the population, they will
be called "rivals." The hatred of the heretic is most intense when
the heresy is in its incipient phases for it is easier to hate the
weak than the strong; rivals are fought, heretics are persecuted.
By the time the heretics have gained the status of rivals, they
have, so to speak, grown up; they may still be hated, but their
numbers command respect. The heretic is hated because he arises
from within the society; he is a bastard, an ingrate, a blasphemer.

Hatred of the heretic is intense for other reasons, too. For one
thing, heretics are likely to be disagreeable types. In the Middle
Ages, according to Turberville, heretics were regarded as "cross-
grained, cantankerous, dangerous, certainly of some immoral pro-
pensities and perhaps sexually perverted." Although the descrip-
tion is stereotyped, it is based, like most stereotypes, on a dis-
torted reality. A society in disintegration will produce strange
types among the disaffected. There is often an element of maso-
chism in heretics; for example, many of the Flagellants were ad-
dicted to sexual perversions which stemmed from repressions
which society had originally approved. But if heretics were angels,
the pressures to which they are exposed would soon convert them
into obnoxious types. They have to be stubborn, for stubborn-
ness is a form of idolatry and heretics worship new gods.* They
are compelled to make virtues of their limitations just as they are
also compelled to make vices of the virtues of the dominant group
(the good manners of the aristocrat become evidence of deca-
dence and depravity). By definition, heretics are "obdurate, con-
tumacious, and incorrigible." To say that a heretic is obnoxious,
therefore, is to make an observation, not an accusation.

* See I Samuel xv, 23.

240 Witch Hunt

Throughout history, even tolerant magistrates have complained
bitterly, and quite properly, of the conduct of heretics. They
cannot be pleased or placated; they spit on their benefactors; they
bite the hand that feeds them; they see conspiracies in the most
friendly overtures. The more the inquisitor browbeats the heretic,
the more defiant and obnoxious the latter becomes. The relation-
ship betM^een the two is, indeed, highly complex, resembling, in
some ways, the relationship between the anti-Semite and the Jew.
It is impossible to think of a heretic without thinking of his op-
pressor; they make up, so to speak, one personality. And there is
no denying the ability which each possesses to bait the other.

The early Christians were typical heretics, described by tol-
erant historians as defiant, unreasonable, mean, backbiting, arro-
gant, and utterly inconsistent. The Puritans, too, w^ere a lawless
and turbulent lot. Even the Quakers, today so mild-mannered
and tolerant, were once mean and rebellious. "No other sect in
the Civil War Period," writes Dr. W. K. Jordan, "was as uni-
versally or as vigorously hated or feared. . . . Their contempt^
for public authority, their apparent irreverence, their disavowal
of the literal truth of Holy Writ, their strange habit and stranger
conduct, and their extreme intolerance towards other Christian
sects made them appear dangerous to civil and religious stabil-
ity." ^ Throughout the Cromwellian period, Quakerism continued
to display ". . . the militancy and stubbornness of devotion so
characteristic of nascent sectarianism. . » . So long as Quakerism
retained this vitality of immaturity it could scarcely be accommo-
dated within the religious framework which the Government had
devised." Eventually this "vitality of immaturity," which is so
characteristic of heretical sects of all kinds, tends to abate as the
external pressures are relaxed for it reflects these pressures and
not the "stubbornness," per se, of the heretic.

The major indictment against the heretic has always been that
he claims for himself and his group rights which this group would
promptly deny to others if it ever came to power. And the charge,
of course, is always true, for, in this respect, the heretic is his

^ The Development of Religious Toleration in England by W. K. Jordan,
1938, Vol. Ill, p. 177.

The Roots of Heresy 241

father's child. Born of arrogance, he is arrogant. The arrogance
of the heretic provides the dominant element with the key to the
solution of a difficult problem, namely, how is one to banish one's
own child? How is the heretic, a member of society, to be denied
the protection of the rules which society has formulated to pro-
tect its members? The heretic's intolerance enables the dominant
element to contend that the rules of the game should be sus-
pended; it enables them, in effect, to place the heretic "beyond
the pale," which is just where, in their opinion, he belongs. If a
person denies the rules of the game, so they argue, then the rules
can be suspended so far as he is concerned. But, conversely, how
can the heretic be expected to respect the rules of a game from
which he has been excluded? If he respected the rules, he would
cease to be a heretic.

To survive, the new ideology must be distinctive in its slogans
and symbols and the insistence on distinctiveness brings about the
necessity of dogma. A slogan cannot be distinctive if it is changed
or freshly stated every day, for people will forget its meaning.
It must be distinctive and it must be repeated, over and over, if it
is to be sharply differentiated from all other heretical slogans. To
withstand attack, new ideologies must also be compactly con-
structed around a framework of hard doctrine. For this reason,
heretics seize upon the concept of heresy, which has been used
against them, and convert it to their own uses. For example, their
doctrines are always "infallible," the better to induce people to
become martyrs to an unpopular cause. It is much easier to organ-
ize around a hard core of easily remembered doctrine than around
a method of inquiry or a collection of general principles; besides,
vague doctrines dissipate under stress and even soft doctrines
harden under pressure. The hardness, the dogmatic quality, of the
heresy is what attracts converts in a time of crisis. In a shipwreck,
the survivors set out for the rocks, not the driftwood.

Nearly every quality of the new ideology will reflect the situa-
tion from which it has emerged and with which it must contend if
it is to survive. The new doctrine will be exclusive, for it cannot
share truth with its rivals; if it did it would sooner or later lose
the distinctiveness which it must possess. The heretic will de-

242 Witch Hunt

nounce his opponents as beasts and monsters, the better to justify
their destruction; and, at the same time, he will describe them, for
other purposes, as weak, corrupt, and diseased — the better to
encourage others to attack them. The heresy will also be deter-
ministic, the better to encourage a minority to oppose a majority;
and it will emphasize discipline and teach the necessity of frequent
purges, for only in this way can it protect itself against raids and
betrayals.

Calvinism was a typical heresy. "By the crystallizing pressure
of persecution," writes Dr. Jordan, "by the act of worshipping
together; and by the comparison of their holy estate with the
manifest evil and sentences of damnation which they saw about
them, the Calvinist congregations soon enjoyed complete convic-
tion that they were of the Elect. . . . Such confidence, such
status naturally appealed especially to the rising middle class,
which suffered keenly from the fact that it had as yet gained no
status in society. Its activities and its point of view were despised
by the socially and politically powerful classes." The Calvinist
leaders sought .to arouse heroic moral energy in their followers by
making it appear that all mankind moved ". . . in chains inexora-
bly riveted, along a track ordained by a despotic and unseen Will
before time began." So long as Calvinism adhered to ". . . the
awful austerity and the complete certainty of its original religious
philosophy," it spread with amazing rapidity; but the moment
the pressures began to relax, the moment the storm began to
subside, the forces of disintegration set in. "This disintegration,"
notes Dr. Jordan, "in its most important form, occurred at the
very centre of the Calvinistic philosophy." ^ And this is where
most ideologies begin to disintegrate, for the relaxation of external
pressures is first sensed not at the margin, but at the center.

3. HERESY: THE INSTRUCTED AND THE
VULGAR VIEW

It is important to note that heresy prosecutions tend to become
popular with the masses, otherwise it is quite impossible to explain
^ Op. cit., pp. 203-209.

The Roots of Heresy 243

the onrushing, destructive force that they generate. The popu-
lace, of course, is always enraged when the tribal gods are blas-
phemed. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, for example, the
masses loathed the heretics; popular demand, in fact, played a
part in the creation of the Inquisition. A glance at the majorities
recorded on the resolution which created the House Committee
on Un-American Activities and similar resolutions which have
kept the committee alive should be sufficient to dispel any illu-
sions on this score: to create the committee, 181 to 41 (June 7,
1938); to continue it, 344 to 21, i absent, 57 not voting (January
1940); to continue, 354 to 6, with 71 not voting and 34 paired
(February 11, 1941); to continue, 331 to 46, 54 not voting and
26 paired (March 10, 1942). To be sure, the committee was sup-
ported by virtually the entire press; but the fact remains that the
votes in Congress correlate pretty accurately with public opinion
polls.

There is, however, an important relation between the "vulgar"
or popular view of heresy and the "sophisticated" or instructed
view. "To the vulgar," wrote Sir Frederick Pollock, "Christianity
appeared as a standing insult to the Gods; to the instructed, as a
standing menace to the government." ^ Or, as he also pointed out:
"The seditious intention will appear to the vulgar as self-evident;
the enlightened and conforming skeptic will consider that no one
would take the trouble and expose himself to the danger of attack-
ing the official religion unless there were some sinister political
object behind his professed scruples." The Jews, it was said, were
never accused of murdering Christian children except when the
king was in need of funds although the belief that they did was
probably constant with the king's subjects. To the masses. Com-
munists are subversive because they are Communists; to the in-
structed elite. Communists are subversive because they are "in
the pay of Moscow." In the vulgar view, Communism is a con-
stant menace; to the instructed, the menacing qualities of Com-
munism become extraordinarily dilated on the eve of national
elections.

'^Essays in Jurisprudevce mid Ethics, 1882, the essay entitled "The Theory
of Persecution," pp. 144-176.

244 Witch Hunt

The instructed never make the mistake of confusing heretics
and dissenters. "The only heresies," wrote Henry Charles Lea,
"which really troubled the Church were those which obtained
currency among the people unassisted by the ingenious quodlibets
of dialecticians." An intellectual may criticize "the free enterprise
system" to his heart's content, if he writes in a scholarly jargon
or for a sophisticated elite or with a saving touch of cynicism.
Heresy, as distinguished from dissent, has the special quaUty of
being able to arouse loyalty and enthusiasm in the masses. "For a
heresy to take root and bear fruit," wrote Lea, "it must be able
to inspire the zeal of martyrdom; and for this it must spring from
the heart, and not from the brain." Zeal is the mark of the heretic
who is usually the worker or the peasant, not the scholar.

Heretics are zealots because the new ideology or heresy makes
sense in terms of their situation; it reflects their hopes and aspira-
tions, their fear and frustrations. New ideologies can only inspire
martyrdom when there is a shocking discrepancy between the
norms of the dominant ideology and the everyday realities known
to the people.. The new ideology fits the situation in which the
heretic finds himself; the dominant ideology does not. The new
ideology offers a more satisfactory rationalization and, at the
same time, it gives meaning and purpose and dignity to the lives
of the disaffected. "iMultitudes were ready to face death in its
most awful form," wrote Lea, "rather than abandon beliefs in
which were ent\\'ined their sentiments and feelings and their
hopes of the hereafter; but history records few cases from Abelard
to Master Eckhart and Galileo, in which intellectual conceptions,
however firmly entertained, were strong enough to lead to the
sacrifice." ^ The true heresy is capable of arousing an evangelical
enthusiasm and a crusading zealousness.

The appeal of the new ideology measures the misery from
which it springs. Underlying every heresy, including the beUef
in witchcraft, is a basic and unmistakable realit}% namely, misery
and distress, hunger and fear, insecurity and unhappiness. No one
who has ever read Michelet's unforgettable account of the dis-
eases which ravaged Europe in the Middle Ages will doubt, for a

'^A History of the hiqicisition of the Middle Ages, 191 1, Vol. Ill, p. 539.

The Roots of Heresy 245

moment, that the belief in witchcraft was founded on the reality
of human misery. "In the existing wretchedness of the peasantry
throughout the length and breadth of Europe," wrote Lea, "reck-
lessness as to the present and hopelessness as to the future led
thousands to wish that they could, by transferring their allegiance
to Satan, find some momentary relief from the sordid miseries of
life. The tales of the sensual delights of the Sabbat, where ex-
quisite meats and drink were furnished in abundance, had an irre-
sistible allurement for those who could scantily reckon on a
morsel of black bread, or a turnip or a few beans . . . the devas-
tating wars . . . had reduced whole populations to despair and
those who fancied themselves abandoned by God might well turn
to Satan for help."

At the same time that heresy appeals to the keenly distressed,
other elements are sufficiently distressed to be looking about for
some satisfactory account of the public misfortune which has be-
fallen them. These elements are not so much resentful as they are
vengeful; they want to be given some rationalization of their
plight which will enable them to hold fast to the old ideology.
Sir Frederick Pollock pointed out why it is that these elements
believe in heresy while clinging to the old ideology. "If we con-
sider the persecutions that actually took place [in Rome]," he
wrote, "we shall find that . . . they were mostly connected with
public misfortunes of some sort. . . . Men sought for an account
of the famine, the drought, the pestilence, or the invasion of bar-
barians that had oppressed them; and the account was only too
easily found. The new and unsociable sect, the despisers of Jupiter
and doubtful subjects of Caesar, were always with them. It was
obvious that they had brought the wrath of the Gods on the
community which tolerated them, and the remedy was no less
obvious . . . Christians ad leonemr

The peculiar madness, the driving force, of heresy persecutions
is to be found, therefore, in this triple aspect of social misfortune
which: {a) creates a tendency on the part of those who feel them-
selves abandoned by God to turn to Satan; and (/?) gives rise to
a tendency on the part of those not quite so keenly distressed to
find a cause for their suffering which will enable them to hold

246 Witch Hunt

fast to a belief in the tribal God; and {c) creates a disposition on
the part of the dominant element to offer the heretics — those em-
braced in category {a) — to those embraced in category (b) as the
"cause" of the public misfortune. There are always causes for dis-
content; but the ruling elements in a society, from fear, ignorance,
and self-interest, seek to avoid a recognition of these causes. They
see heresies, however, wherever they look because their fears are
reflected in everything they see. Their reluctance to examine the
causes of the distress which produces heretics is like the neurotic's
reluctance to face the conflicts in his own personality.

4. HERESY HUNTING IS NOT SCAPEGOATING

Just as heresy is to be distinguished from dissent, so heresy
hunting is not synonymous with scapegoating. Scapegoating is
universal and perennial; it is based on the simplest form of delu-
sion. Witch hunting is a form of social madness based on delu-
sions which are paranoid. Scapegoating is largely an individual
phenomenon; witch hunting is a product of collective madness.
The key to the distinction is to be found in the fact that scape-
goating may be stimulated by mild frustration but witch hunt-
ing stems only from major social dislocations. Witch hunting, as
iMarion L. Starkey has pointed out, always comes "in the wake
of stress and social disorganization"; after wars, disasters, plagues,
famines, and revolutions. Scapegoating appears in all seasons; but
witch hunting only reappears in time of storm. The nature of
witch hunts as such, the manner in which they unfold, and the
dynamics which they set in motion, form an important chapter
in the sociology of heresy.

The psychology of the witch trail is the psychology of the un-
American investigation. Witches will lie; so will Communists.
Witches get innocent people to do their bidding; so do Commu-
nists. One can be a witch without knowing it just as one can be
a Communist without knowing it. Witches were convicted on
"spectral" evidence and today a "spectral" use is made of the
doctrine of guilt by association. Abigail WiUiams, whose fan-

The Roots of Heresy 247

tasies damned the innocent in Salem in 1691, can be identified
today as a fairly obvious psychological type; but even the wise,
intelligent, and honest Samuel Sewall was taken in, at the time,
by the antics of Abigail. And so today, equally wise and honest
men seem quite incapable of detecting the element of fantasy and
delusion which appears in the neurotically embroidered tales of
Abigail's modern counterparts, whose passion for truth and pa-
triotism is reborn simultaneously with the disappearance of their
fifth column lovers.

Major social dislocations seem to produce a kind of social hal-
lucination which makes it possible for simple delusions, based on a
failure to understand the psychology of chance, to go undetected
even by ordinarily astute minds. For example: the Polish Ambassa-
dor holds a reception; the wife of a scientist is invited; at the re-
ception she meets X, the so-called Soviet agent. A product of
pure chance, this meeting is put down, in time of storm, as evi-
dence of a conspiracy. It is the same delusion, however, which
once caused people to beheve that because the farmer's cow died
the day Goody Jenkins walked through the barnyard, therefore
Goody Jenkins, the witch, killed the cow. For in a time of storm
the line which divides fact from fantasy breaks down or becomes
hopelessly blurred and shifting. Delusions that would be spotted
immediately in normal times can then pass as the most self-evident
and uncontestable realities. In such periods coincidence looms
larger than logic and life-long reputations can be toppled over by
a whisper of suspicion launched by an anonymous informer.

Before social disorganization can produce a witch hunt, how-
ever, a well-organized system of police terror must be in existence.
It is this factor which calls forth the mania of denunciation which
is so characteristic of witch hunts. The motives for denunciation
are usually mixed — fanaticism, the conforming tendency, covet-
ousness, fear — but it is police terror which directly inspires the
mania. The susceptibility of the Germans to the form of witch
hunt launched by the Nazis is to be explained by the fact that a
long acquaintance with the methods of a political police, and a
long political police tradition, had bred in many Germans a pas-
sion for conformity. In all terroristic regimes, as Bramstedt points

248 Witch Hmit

out, ". . . the accused is everybody outside the Hmited circle of
privileged organizations and the ruling clique"; therefore, those
outside this hmited circle must constantly prove, by words and
deed, and principally by denunciations, that they are loyal. The
mania of denunciation springs not from the fear of heretics but
from a well-founded and quite realistic fear of the machinery
which has been set up to catch heretics.

Although this heresy-catching machinery provides an ingen-
ious form of social control, it has distinct hmitations. For one
thing, the price to be paid for the suppression of heresies in
terms of what it will purchase is clearly prohibitive. If we were
to enact every measure proposed by the anti-Communists for the
suppression of Communism we M'ould find that we had destroyed
the fabric of civil rights and that the number of Communists
would probably be the same or greater than it is today! The self-
defeating character of the anti-Communist strategy is reflected
in the headline of a story by W. H. Lawrence in the New York
Times of January 2, 1950: "Brazil Reds Busy, Though Out-
lawed." Outlawed three years previously, the Communists of
Brazil, Mr. Lawrence discovered, were more numerous and more
active than ever. Thus those who favor measures to suppress
heresy must be made to carry a dual burden of proof. They must
be made to prove: (i) that the dangers are "clear and present";
and (2) that repressive measures will actually guard against these
dangers. It is on the second point that their case Invariably breaks
down.

Not only are heresy hunts expensive in terms of what they will
actually accomplish, but they involve a peculiar law of diminish-
ing returns. At first, only the vulnerable, the easily "fingered"
victims are selected. For example, the first witches arrested In
Salem were an illiterate slave, an old crone, and a lascivious grand-
mother. Carting these victims off to the gallows aroused little op-
position; indeed it fanned the flames of intolerance. But heresy
hunts must be kept going; new victims must be found. The second
batch of victims will be less vulnerable than the first but their im-
molation will not arouse much protest either because these victims
are usually unpopular, poor, and lacking In social prestige. By this

The Roots of Heresy 249

time, however, the informers, inquisitors, and psychopathic wit-
nesses have become drunk with the new-found power of denun-
ciation. They begin to enjoy the notoriety that goes with being an
expert on witchcraft and a professional "denouncer"; they thrill
to the feeling of being able to destroy another person by merely
v^oicing a phrase, or pointing a finger, or whispering an accusa-
tion.

As the accusers become bolder, the range of accusation broad-
ens and "heresy" ceases to have any definable meaning. Individu-
als are now haled before the tribunal who have real roots in the
community, who are generally liked and respected. Doubts then
begin to arise, for the first time, that the informers are truthful,
doubts which never arose when the victims were marginal types.
But by this time the machinery of persecution cannot be stopped,
much less reversed. To admit error would be to cast doubt on the
prior convictions and to undermine the concept of heresy. The
informers, during this second act, usually become frightened of
the consequences of their perjuries, and the more frightened they
become, the bolder their accusations, the wilder their denuncia-
tions. Informers then begin to inform on informers in an effort
to prevent any possible betrayal of their fraudulent charges and
counterfeit "revelations." By this time, too, the power of de-
nunciation has become truly frightening. A destructive self-hatred
then exists in the societ}% like the fumes of an explosive gas, that
anyone can ignite by merely striking a match. Sooner or later,
however, the list of "expendable" victims must be exhausted, and
at this point societ\^ recoils from the excesses of witch hunting,
in weariness and horror. "Sound" elements, silent all this while,
then step forward to exert a moderating influence, and gradually,
slo-wly, like a patient recovering from a long fever, with its at-
tendent hallucinations, society begins to recover its sanity and
health.

But sanity does not always return; sometimes the soclet)'' de-
stroys itself, for the cost of eradicating heresy is in direct propor-
tion to the success of the operation. Who would care to estimate
the price paid for the Salem persecutions? Nor should it be for-
gotten that Spain was the one nation in which the Inquisition was

250 Witch Hunt

really successful and the price, there, was intellectual ruin and
political and moral decay. Once society starts burning heretics,
figuratively or hterally, the flames are likely to engulf the whole
structure of society. Thus the basic reason why heresy persecu-
tions are futile is the risk that they might succeed and the price
of success is utter ruin.

S. WHY THEY BURNED WITCHES

We must not always attach too much
weight to the confessions of those people
against themselves, for they have some-
times been known to accuse themselves of
having killed persons who turned out to
be alive and in good health, . . . How
much more natural and likely it seems to
me that two men are lying than that a man
could travel with the wind in twelve hours
from the East to the West! How much
more natural that our judgement should
be misled by the flightiness of our disor-
dered mind, than one of our kind, in flesh
and bones, should be borne away by a
strange spirit up the chimney on a broom-
stick.

— MONTAIGNE on Witches and
Witchcraft

In the history of persecutions, a special relation exists between
the witch hunting of the sixteenth and the heresy hunting of the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Both persecutions were
launched to suppress the same popular protest movement but at
diflterent dates, the latter being the precursor of the former, the
first act in the drama of protest. Seen in this perspective, it be-
comes quite clear that the great witch mania of the sixteenth cen-
tury was essentially an extension of the earlier inquisition which
had been exclusively concerned with heretics.

The social meaning of heresy has always been confused by the
failure to distinguish between the ancient episcopal Inquisition
and the new pontifical Inquisition created by Gregory IX in 1233.

The Roots of Heresy 251

Prior to this time, the bishops had long "cauterized heretical
growths on the body of Mother Church," but the new papal
Inquisition was something else again.^ It was, as Henri Pirenne
pointed out, "a kind of universal police whose function it was to
watch over the safety of dogma." ^° The new Inquisition was an
outgrowth of the effective consolidation of papal power. Lord
Acton characterizing it as "peculiarly the weapon and peculiarly
the work of the Popes." The secular authorities were eager to co-
operate because the Church had achieved a new unity and a
majestic dominion under Gregory IX and Innocent III. Not until
the Church had reached this pinnacle of prestige had it been pos-
sible to impose a strict orthodoxy on all men, and on all their
activities, and to make of every deviation from this norm a crim-
inal offense. Ironically it was just at this time, when the Church
had acquired hegemony of the Occidental world, that, as Pirenne
observed, "a new adversary rose up against it: heresy." ^^ In a
sense, therefore, heresy became a new and terrible crime because
the Popes had acquired a new and terrible power to coerce con-
formity. Without the strict orthodoxy which w^as now imposed
there would have been no increase in heresy, for the number of
heresies is always in relation to the strictness with which conform-
ity is enforced. The emergence of the papal Inquisition, however,
had another meaning.

In the first great heresy crusade, the Cathars were hunted down
and exterminated in every part of Languedoc, with great terror
and violence and bloodshed, in the period from 1208 to 1235. It
is not, therefore, without reason that the word which denotes
"heretic" in the Germanic languages, Ketzer or Ketter, should
be derived from the name of these unfortunate heretics. Like the
Anabaptists of a later period, the Cathars were regarded as a
menace to the social as well as to the religious order for they
preached a kind of primitive Communism. The Cathars were
principally recruited from the proletariat of the cities and, since
the cities were few in number then, the heresy was never widely

^ The Age of the Reformatioji by Preserved Smith, 1920.
^^ A History of Europe by Henri Pirenne, 1939, p. 298.
"^^ Ibid., p. 296.

252 Witch Hunt

diffused/^ The relative ease with which the Cathars were crushed
had the unfortunate effect of encouraging the Church to use
similar tactics against other heresies of which Catharism was
simply the first major manifestation. Catharism was a presenti-
ment of the Reformation.

Prior to the crusade against the Cathars, the Church had not
been seriously troubled with heretics. Indeed since the Arian
heresy of the fourth century, the peoples of the Latin Catholic
world had professed the same faith and acknowledged the same
dogmas. Europe, in these centuries, was a world in isolation
which, unlike the Byzantine world, lacked any intellectual tradi-
tion to rival that of the Church. But with the revival of com-
merce, the development of navigation, and the rise of the first
cities, heresy had been reborn. "By unknown ways," to quote
Pirenne, "but probably by the trade routes, the Manichaean doc-
trines were trickling in from the East." ^^

The seeds of heresy only sprouted, however, in those areas in
which the new cities had emerged: in Lombardy, in southern
France and Rhenish Germany. Before the renaissance of the cities,
the West had not been troubled with heresy. The first and most
formidable heresy known to Europe before the advent of Protes-
tantism was Catharism and Catharism was contemporaneous with
the urban movement. "Urban piety," as Pirenne noted, "was an
active piety." The layman insisted on the novel right of par-
ticipating directly in the religious life and this tendency was
merely symbolic of the challenge to authority which was im-
plicit in the new conditions of urban life. "In an age of com-
merce, industry and increasing use of coined money," writes Dr.
Henry S. Lucas, "it required unusual vigilance to check unauthor-
ized opinion." "

The centers of weaving, it is interesting to note, were the
centers of heresy. "Alany of the heretics appear to have belonged
to the crafts which manufactured cloth." ^^ In France, the word

^- Ibid., p. 297.

^^ Ibid., p. 296.

" The Renaissafice cmd the Reformatio?!, by Henry S. Lucas, 1934, p. 594.

15 Ibid., p. 566.

The Roots of Heresy 253

tisserand (weaver) was equivalent to radical and was sometimes
used to mean heretic, and the German word zettel, meaning
"warp" of a loom, gave birth to the verb anzettebi, meaning to
contrive or to plot, literally to warp or twist a movement.^'^
Kautsky and others have commented on the close connection
between the woolen trade and Communistic ideas, and trade and
heresy were certainly related since the Manichaean doctrines
found their first and strongest expression in the new trading cen-
ters. The weavers, an active and intelligent class of workingmen
throughout Europe, were everywhere associated with "dangerous
thoughts." ^'^ The looms that wove thread seem also to have woven
new ideas, new patterns of thought.

The city-states of the tw^elfth century were, of course, minia-
tures of the national states which came with the Reformation.
The society they produced contained, in relative isolation and on
a smaller scale, the same tensions and problems which later beset
the national states. Social divisions, for example, quickly devel-
oped. "Commerce and industry begot towns, towns begot wealth,
and wealth begot aristocracy. The patriciate and the masters of
the guilds formed a vast group of hereditary castes." ^^ The castes
were not at first oppressive but the new urban proletariat soon had
excellent reasons for resenting their monopolistic rights and privi-
leges. "Europe," to quote Dr. James Westfall Thompson, "was
stirred almost everywhere by the spread of radical social and
pohtical ideas which flared into violent action in Florence be-
tween 1379-82, in France at Lyons, Paris, Rouen, and in Cologne
and other cities of the Rhine in 1382." " The unrest, which often
found expression in the form of religious heresies, was most evi-
dent, of course, in the centers of the textile industry, notably in
Florence and in the Flemish towns.

Throughout the fourteenth century a strange wave of demo-
cratic agitation, characterized by crude and often violent protests

'^^ Econovnc and Social History of Europe in the Later Middle Ages by
James Westfall Thompson, 1931, p. 405.
'^'^ Ibid., p. 230.
^^^ Lucas, op. cit., p. 17.
^^ Thompson, op. cit., p. 403.

2 54 Witch Hunt

against tyranny and misrule, rolled over Europe. Historians have
been impressed by the simultaneity and the universality of this
movement: what happened in Florence happened at about the
same time in Ghent and Ypres. The new conditions of urban living
had created novel problems: diseases multiplied; pestilences deci-
mated populations; and the alienated sought to establish new social
unities by identifying themselves with all manner of weird "fads"
and "crazes." Social protest found perverse expression in such
strange movements as the Flagellant heresy which swept across
Europe. "Charlatans, mind-readers, sorcerers, witch-doctors, drug-
vendors," writes Thompson, "sprang up like mushrooms, along
with perfervid crossroads preachers and soap-box orators each
denouncing society and the wrongs around them, and each offer-
ing his panacea or remedy. . . . The whole population suffered
from 'shell shock,' from frayed nerves. It is this condition which
explains the semi-hysterical state of mind of thousands in Europe,
and accounts for their fevered or morbid emotionalism. The old
barriers were down, the old inhibitions removed." ^^ "The whole
of European society," to quote Pirenne, "from the depth to the
surface, was as though in a state of fermentation. . . . No previ-
ous epoch had ever furnished so many names of tribunes, dema-
gogues, agitators, and reformers." ^^ We should have no difficulty
in identifying these disturbances as symptoms of social disloca-
tion for many of them are endemic in our time. Heresy was
simply one of many symptoms that the pre-existing social unity
of Europe had been disrupted; like the black plague it was a
by-product of social change.

Unfortunately this first stirring of the European masses toward
the end of the long night of serfdom proved to be abortive; by
1382, according to Thompson, the bourgeoisie were firmly in the
saddle and the protest had been crushed. This initial protest M^as
naturally full of confusion and disorder; the world, as Pirenne
wrote, "was suffering and struggling, but it was hardly advanc-
ing." About this protest there was little coherence, continuits^
or unity, and, also, little secular thought for the leaders M^ere still

^'^ Ibid., p. 385.

-^ Pirenne, op. cit., p. 380.

The Roots of Heresy 255

dominated by the thinking of the Church which they hoped to
reform, not to replace. It is not surprising, therefore, that this
first protest should have taken place 'within the overarching ortho-
doxy of the time, that is, as a heresy. Its leaders were heretics, not
freethinkers.

After the defeat of this movement, heretical agitation ceased
for a time in Europe. Not for centuries had there been so little
in the way of new heresies as during the fifty years that preceded
the outbreak of the Reformation. Aided by the Inquisition, scho-
lasticism had done its work well; a logical framework existed
within which there was an answer for every question if not a
solution for many problems. In fact it has been suggested that the
absence of heretics gave rise to the new interest in witches. For it
was about this time (1484) that Pope Innocent VIII issued his
famous bull Simimis Desiderantes condemning witchcraft as
heresy, and that two diligent Dominicans, James Sprenger and
Henry Kramer, were commissioned to write their great treatise
on witchcraft. Malleus Maleficarinn or The Witches' Hammer.
Sprenger and Kramer, it should be noted, had been instructed to
devote particular attention to witchcraft in the rural areas of
Rhenish Germany.^^

This new interest in witchcraft, like the earlier interest in
heresy, was clearly social in origin. In the first half of the fifteenth
century a new class of capitalists had begun to appear who re-
sembled the mercatores of the twelfth century but were more
powerful and operated over much larger trade areas. The dis-
coveries of the period had given an enormous impetus to trade
and commerce by greatly expanding the market for European
goods. As the trade areas expanded, the nation-state began to
replace the city-state; production units expanded with the
markets. The growth of commerce and trade was followed by
a sharp increase in population, analogous to that which had
characterized the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The evolu-
tion of capitalism, in most of Europe, had tended to convert the

-^See "The Bull of Innocent VIII" reprinted in Malleus Maleficarmft,
published by The Pushkin Press, London, with an introduction by Montague
Summers, 1948, p. XIX.

256 Witch Hunt

peasant into a farmer or worker for wages in the city but in
Germany the reverse was true and there a new serfdom had
appeared.

The rural protest which this new serfdom occasioned in Ger-
many was responsible for the Church's concern with what might
be called "rural heresy" or witchcraft. The behef in witches, of
course, had never been supplanted; it was so much a part of the
folklore of the European peasantry that it was often called "the
old religion." As the ancient pre-Christian folk religion, upon
which Christianity had been superposed, witchcraft had always
retained its devoted if secret adherents."^ Because witchcraft was
a rural cult — a pagan religion of the countryside — it is not sur-
prising that, in a moment of social crisis, the rural people should
have turned to the Devil for aid and comfort, just as their op-
pressors turned to God in their tribulations. Frightened by the
prevalence of witches, Innocent VIII had issued his famous bull
and had sent Sprenger and Kramer into Rhenish Germany to
conduct an inquisition. Their energies might have been more
profitably and more charitably employed had they been concen-
trated on an effort to understand the causes of rural distress in
Germany.

There were, however, special reasons why the persecution of
witches assumed such extraordinary proportions in the sixteenth
century, a century in which more witches than heretics were
burned at the stake."* For one thing, the sharpest social protest
now centered in rural areas — witness the Peasants' Revolt of
1524 — and witchcraft was the peasants' heresy. Furthermore
scholasticism had been much less efficient in rural than in urban
areas. As the power of the Church to put down heresy had been
augmented by the use of secular authorities, the clergy had grown
increasingly indolent and slothful and had neglected rural opin-
ion."' The old belief in witchcraft, which had smoldered for years,

-^ See The Witch-Cult in Western Europe by Margaret Alice Murray,
1921; and, by the same author, The God of the Witches.
-* Lucas, op. cit., p. 358.
^^ Ibid., p. 151.

The Roots of Heresy isj

was now "blown into a devastating blaze by the breath of theo-
logians who started to try to blow it out," ^®

The same general areas in Rhenish Germany which had aroused
Innocent VIII's concern on the score of witchcraft were the areas
which spawned the first Protestant heresies of the Reformation.
Indeed the witchcraft of the time had never troubled the Church
until changing social conditions had suddenly created a challenge
to its prestige, authority, and privileges. Witchcraft was an an-
cient phenomenon in 1484. Clearly something had happened
which suddenly invested the belief in witches with new impor-
tance in the eyes of the Church. Troubled conditions may have
been a factor in reviving the beliefs and practice of witchcraft
but the determination of the Church to prosecute beliefs which
it had tolerated for centuries can only be explained by the fact
that its authority was now in jeopardy. Witches were really not
prosecuted for their beliefs; the great witch mania of the sixteenth
century was a counteroffensive directed by the Church against
the people in an effort to maintain its authority and its privileges.
Witches were merely so much expendable fuel used to kindle the
passion for conformity in time of crisis.^'^

The campaign against Protestantism, of course, gave an added
zest to the campaign against witches. Protestant heretics were co-
operative in the sense that they frequently confessed their heresies
and that they obligingly committed "overt" acts — such as public
worship and prayer — which made it possible to proceed against
them with ease and dispatch. But, as Dr. Preserved Smith has ob-
served, "the crime [of witchcraft] was of such a nature that it
could hardly be proved save by confession, and this, in general,
could be extracted only by the infliction of pain." ^ In those
countries where the Inquisition had least influence — Great Britain
is an example — fewer "witches" were discovered than elsewhere.
Indeed the number of witches correlated perfectly with the
power of the Inquisition and the use of torture; had there been

2^ Smith, op. cit., p. 654.

^'^ Lucas, op. cit., pp. 595 and 610.

'® Smith, op. cit., p. 655.

258 Witch Hunt

no Inquisition, there would have been no witches. Each trial only
bred other trials since the witch usually denounced imaginary
accomplices in a vain effort to win mercy for herself and the
denunciations often continued until the whole population of cer-
tain districts had been implicated. The fury of the witch hunts
was most intense, of course, in Germany, where the greatest rural
discontent prevailed.

Conceding that historical analogies are always somewhat mis-
leading, one might say that the witches were the "Communists"
and the Anabaptists and other emergent Protestant heretics were
the "non-Communist" socialists and liberals of that time. Ana-
baptism had been a Utopian doctrine at the outset but, as the
discontent grew, the peasants came to look upon it not only for
deliverance but also for vengeance and the mystico-social delirium
which it aroused has been compared, by Pirenne and others, with
the earlier ferment of Catharism. But whereas certain peasants
turned to Anabaptism for vengeance, others, perhaps more real-
istic, sought the aid of the Devil. Witches were simply a tougher
breed of heretics who managed to get along without God and
were therefore prosecuted with a special vigor. They were truly
agents of a foreign power.

Sir Thomas More was a humanist and the humanists were the
"liberals" of that time. As a humanist. More included a powerful
plea for tolerance in his famous Utopia. In 1 5 1 6, when this work
was written, he had had no direct knowledge or experience of
heretics. But a revolution was then brewing in Europe; new social
forces, which could no longer be controlled within the frame-
work of the old social order, were beginning to create a great
ferment in society. Once this revolution broke over Europe, witch
hunting became the order of the day. From the Peasants' War to
the Peace of Westphalia, Europe resembled a madhouse.

In 1526, the year following the outbreak of the Peasants' War,
the Index Librorum Prohibitoru?n was established in England and
Sir Thomas More was given the dreadful assignment of deter-
mining which works were heretical. Partly as a result of this

The Roots of Heresy 259

experience but more directly as a result of the Lutheran Revolt
and the verbal violence of the Anabaptists, he changed his mind
about heretics. Indeed he became convinced that heresy was in-
curable: "So harde is that carbuncle, catching ones a core, to bee
by any meane well and surely cured." Branding Martin Luther
as "an apostate, an open incestuous lechour, a playne limne of the
deuvill, a manifest messenger of hell," he who had advocated
tolerance when the concept was unknown became, for a short
period, the chief heresy hunter and inquisitor of England. Even
so, however, he was a fairly tolerant inquisitor. "Touching here-
tics," he said, "I hate that vice of theirs and not their persons." But
he continued to invent imaginary monsters of error and to be
troubled by all sorts of delusions. "Germany," he said, "daily pro-
duces more monsters than ever Africa did. What can be more
monstrous than the Anabaptists? ... A man may with as much
fruit preach to a post as to a heretic."

Then, in the year 1533, Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy
and, to the Anglicans, Sir Thomas More became just as stubborn
a heretic as, in his eyes, the Anabaptists had ever been. He could
have saved his life, if he had cared to sacrifice his principles. But
once the roles were suddenly reversed, he demonstrated that his
own heresy was "as hard as a carbuncle"; and that he was just as
defiant as Martin Luther. And so he was beheaded. Today it
is clear that the ideas and words of Martin Luther did not create
the confusion of the period although they may have added to this
confusion. The "monsters" who were as thick in Germany as in
Africa were merely the signs, the symptoms, of a storm then
sweeping over Europe. But Satan had excellent reason to be
pleased with the manner in which the leaders of the Reformation
and Counter-Reformation, blinded by delusion, proceeded to
ignore the storm and engulf Europe in a sea of blood.

XIV

The Strategy of Satan

It goes without saying that Satan would have been vanquished
long since were it not for the fact that he is a master strategist.
His strategy is quite simple. Satan aims at creating "combustions
and dissensions"; at getting men to fight among themselves. Simple
as this strategy is, it is difficult to bring off since men have more
reason to agree than to quarrel; their endless combustions and dis-
sensions make little sense. The reason man remains so consistently
vulnerable to Satan's strategy is that he is the victim of certain
delusions which form the subject matter of this chapter.

1. THE UNIVERSAL DOGMA OF INJUSTICE

Jacobus Acontius, born in Trent in 1565, later a resident of
London, was the first man in England to work out a systematic
defense of tolerance in ideas. Having wearied of man's incurable
folly of contention, Acontius developed an admirable psychology
of persecution. The basis of persecution, he concluded, was to be
'■"''^found in man's arrogant nature. Nothing could be more absurd
than the persecution of men for the ideas they hold, yet this
seemed to be one of history's main themes. Pondering the fact,
Acontius decided that the secret of Satan's strategy consisted in
man's aversion to contradiction. Under the sway of the peculiar
passion aroused by contradiction, man is capable of acting like
a monkey from whose paws a mango has been snatched; he be-
comes enraged, he screams and claws. Acontius, whose great work
Satanae Stratage?}7ata should be required reading today, acutely
observed that man's intellectual arrogance increases in relation to

The Strategy of Satan 261

"riches, offices, great benefices, great reputation, and the like."
Inhibited in the priest, the disHke of contradiction can become
gross and brutal in the prelate.

Man's rage, faced with contradiction, is Satan's secret weapon.
To free man from this hidden dominance, Acontius suggested
that his thinking should always be tempered by the realization
that error is the most prevalent evil in the world, and, at the same
time, the most difficult to detect. Alan should be extremely wary,
therefore, about accepting this favorite bait of Satan's. Error
cannot be overcome in the heat of passion; on the contrary, a
show of anger only drives the error deeper into the mind of one's
opponent. The use of force to eradicate error, which is man's
major tactical mistake, flows directly from this state of mind.
Satan never has anything to fear from the use of force in the
settlement of disputes; he has sown the seeds of error in the hope
that force will be used. "Are we so poorly equipped in the Word
of God for the destruction of error," asked Acontius, "that we
must needs defend ourselves with a lie, and counterfeit retrac-
tions?"

It is not arrogance alone, however, that prompts man to reach
for a club when contradicted. The confusion of illusion and real-
ity, which is characteristic of equinoctial times, comes about, as
Karl Mannheim has pointed out, because what is then "real" de-
pends upon the point of view of the observer and his relation to
the "situation." In such periods we no longer perceive the same
things as being "real" and our disagreements are so fundamental
that, often enough, we do not even realize how fundamentally we
disagree. Members of dominant groups — the groups with great
riches, offices, and benefices — have a fatal proclivity in such times
to believe, with all honestv^ that "agents," "termites," and "fifth
columnists" have undermined the ideological structure. Now ter-
mites do destroy foundations but they never destroy sound foun-
dations. Satan is nearly always successful, however, in inducing
man to believe that a holy war upon the termites will strengthen
the foundation.

This delusion or trap would be less successful were It not
for what Edmond Taylor calls the "master-delusion of right-

262 Witch Hunt

ness." ^ The burning of witches and the purging of deviationists
seem to be related to a theological attitude toward truth and
heresy, a tendency to regard all social happenings in terms of
rigid categories of good and evil. One and all, the actors in the
various persecution dramas of the Western World have been
blinded, as Michelet observed, "by the poison of their first prin-
ciple, the doctrine of Original Sin. This is the funda?7?e?ital dogma
of universal injustice.''^ " (Emphasis added.) It is this dogma which
provides the sanction for the disposition to persecute. Blame other
men for the ills and storms of the world; don't blame yourself;
don't trouble to inquire into the causes; just blame the "damned,"
and praise the "elect" from whom all blessings flow.

It is this ancient fallacy which prompts us to fasten on an inno-
cent wife and children consequences which attach to the hus-
band's having once been a member of an unpopular political
organization. The wife is clearly not to blame, nor were the chil-
dren born into this world as reds; yet, by an ingenious application
of the doctrine of Original Sin, we treat wife and children as
though they were accursed of Satan. Michelet was probably
wrong, however, in regarding this tendency as a "universal"
dogma. In India, as Taylor has observed, the Hindus are quite
successful at "dissociating their feelings about a human being from
their feelings about his ideas," whereas, with us, "right belief is
salvation and error is damnation." Our attitude toward error,
which is clearly theological, is admirably illustrated by a state-
ment which a young soldier in Franco's armies made to Taylor
during the Spanish Civil War:

We don't hate the Communists or want to punish them. It's
just that Communism is an incurable disease they are spread-
ing around so we have to put them out of the way. We have
to rid Spain of this disease and there is no other way of
doing it.

This is a typical Western attitude. It springs from the belief,
as Taylor has pointed out, that "every error is the child of more

^Richer by Asia, 1947, pp. 141, 232.

^Satajiimi and Witchcraft, American ed., 1939, p. xii.

The Strategy of Satan 263

basic error, every truth the child of shining truth and destined to
beget hosts of little truths." It is what prompts us, as he says, to
develop out of our zeal to exalt and safeguard the pedigrees of
truth and error "rigidly systematic ideologies which often come
perilously close to those that flourish among the paranoid cases in
our insane asylums. . . . That clumsy adjective on page 59 of
Comrade X's new novel is the cryptic footprint of a latent Trot-
skyism, the League of Nations failed because it did not insist on
conducting its business in Esperanto, and the weather is less brac-
ing than it used to be because the New Deal has undermined free
enterprise." ^ One of the reasons we think in this fashion is that
we have been taught to accept the psychology of accursed groups,
that is, to believe in devils and witches.

2. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ACCURSED GROUPS
f Throughout the Western World, every society seems to have,
fready to hand, what Yves R. Simon has called "an accursed
group" upon which to fasten responsibility for the evils which
perplex it and which can be blamed for every public misfortune.*
For a group to be "accursed," it must meet certain specifications:
(i) It must be a small and clearly distinct minority. (2) Rightly
or wrongly, an exceptional importance or power must be attrib-
uted to this minority. (3) It is considered certain that the minority
is perfectly unified: "that all its actions are preconceived and con-
certed"; and that it has possession of some mysterious rite or
formula, potion or dialectic, which makes it extremely dangerous.
(4) The group must also be shrouded in mystery; not too much
must be known about it. "Its unity," writes Simon, "is secured by
persons upon whom no one can lay hands and who are usually
anonymous." yThroughout history, accursed groups have served
invaluable functions: they have held societies together; and they

^Taylor, op. cit., p. 140.
* Co7mnumty of the Free, 1947, pp. 61-72.

^See also Bramstedt, op. cit., p. 176, for documentation on how the Nazis
build up in their propaganda precisely this image of an accursed group.

264 Witch Hunt

have often preserved social sanity in the face of incredible disas-
ters. If the bank fails, if the rains are late, if the well is poisoned,
it is all the fault of the accursed group.

Whenever misfortune befell the people of the Middle Ages,
wrote Turberville, they could always find a facile explanation for
unmerited calamity "in such an intrinsically innocent incident,
for example, as that of a sinister-looking old woman with a hooked
nose." Witches could cause abortion by merely laying a hand
upon a woman, and they could dry up the milk in her breasts if
she were nursing. Witches raised tempests and hailstorms which
devastated whole regions; they brought plagues of locusts and
caterpillars which devoured the harvests; they could make men
impotent and women barren and cause horses to become sud-
denly mad under their riders and throw them off. They could
make hidden things known and predict the future; or bring about
love or hate at will; cause mortal sickness, slay men with light-
ning, or even with their looks alone, or turn them into beasts.
Sometimes thev scattered powders over the fields which de-
stroyed the cattle. And since all these misfortunes happened, and
could be proved, what better proof could there be that witches
were real? ^

During the early years of the depression, a score or more of
states passed laws which were aimed at preventing Communist-
inspired runs on financial institutions. Banks w^re failing; there
were runs on financial institutions; these runs had to be organized
and who would organize them but the Communists? The bankers
or whoever it was that launched these rumors had an inspired ap-
preciation of the value of "accursed groups" in time of public
misfortune. Indeed it is always "proper, prudent, and comforting"
to have an accursed group at hand, ready to relieve the shock of
disasters; to make it possible for people to give expression to their
fears and anxieties; and, often enough, to divert attention from
the real causes. With the Germans it was the Jews; with us it is
the reds, the radicals.

Everyone must admit that the reds make a magnificent accursed
group. The very fact that we have selected a poHtical rather than

^Lea, op. cit., Vol. Ill, p. 502.

The Strategy of Satan 265

an ethnic minority for this role gives us a feeling of moral supe-
riority. We do not beat Jews; we have no pogroms; we favor
"civil rights" — for ethnic minorities. A small and clearly distinct
minority, contingents of reds are to be found in most of the large
centers of population. Their propaganda, symbols, and slogans
are unmistakable. Being a small minority, every politician can
afford to be against them; in fact, he has to be against them. By
being against them, he can divert attention from his record and,
more important, he can give a glib explanation for any public mis-
fortune. The reds, moreover, provide a universal alibi. They can
be blamed not only for high divorce rates in California — the
charge is a m.atter of public record — but for untoward happenings
all the way from Greenland's icy mountains to the coral-crested
islands of the South Pacific. Furthermore they provide the poli-
tician with a "subject" — no small boon in itself. Home, Mother,
and Flag are safe, popular topics; but alas! they can only be
praised, and in a season of unrest someone must be damned. There
can be no doubt, therefore, that the reds are God's gift to the
American demagogue.

Knowing this, the demagogues are basically opposed to meas-
ures which would actually outlaw, for example, the Communist
Party. They want to harass rather than exterminate the victim.
A successful extermination campaign would be a major disaster.
To be sure, the demagogues like to propose the outlawing of
"subversive" groups, but they make careful hedges against their
own proposals. Watch the demagogues when a red appears, for
example, at a legislative hearing on some controversial measure.
Their features light up with his appearance; their eyes brighten;
their pulses quicken. They behave like mastiffs who have caught
a glimpse of a cat. In a political sense, they actually love the reds.
This passion has reached the point, in my community, where
councilmen circulate anonymous leaflets charging that the Com-
munist Party has endorsed their rivals; indeed success seems to
hinge on which candidate can first accuse the other of wearing
the Communist colors.

Aided by the endless revelations of an endless procession of
former members, the Communist Party has been invested with

266 Witch Hunt

most extraordinary powers. For the last three years, 150,000,000
Americans have been asked to believe that 75,000 Commu-
nists have the power to undermine the economy and, like ter-
mites, to nibble away the ideological structure. At every un-
American investigation, the major strategic objective has been
to build up this image of the all-encompassing, all-powerful ac-
cursed group. Huge graphs are exhibited, showing the tentacles
of this octopus reaching into every hamlet and hamburger stand in
America. Words are bandied about which seem to suggest secret
power and mysterious influence: "apparatus," "factions," "cell,"
"operative," "agent," and so forth. Witnesses place Communist
agents as close to the White House as the laws against libel and
perjury permit and then go the rest of the way by innuendo.
The power of this accursed group is, indeed, grotesquely in-
flated—to its clear advantage. The trade unions, the armed
forces, the schools, the churches, the government — all are
"honeycombed" with reds. One would think, therefore, that
societies in which no Communists are supposed to exist, such as
Greece and Spain, would be the model communities of this age;
but the alibi is always adequate, even in these countries, for you
can never be quite sure that every Communist has been drawn
and quartered.

Similarly the reds are described as though their unity were
fabricated from a special steel. The description, of course, paral-
lels the anti-Semite's stereotype of the Jews as a powerful, clan-
nish, unified minority. The myth is essential because, in its ab-
sence, the size of the minority alone would make the propaganda
ludicrous. For the same reason, witches were invariably united
by mysterious bonds and were always highly organized, the bet-
ter to entrap the faithful. It was the ramifications of the "appara-
tus" of witchcraft, indeed, that induced thousands of people,
well-armed and living in castles, to shudder when a frail old lady
tottered along the trail that led to the woods. The power of the
papists also consisted in their "unity" and discipline (always care-
fully contrasted with Protestant disorganization). Thev, too, were
always in league with a foreign power; but, alas, so -w'ere the hated
Dissenters, who, of course, were also the mortal enemies of the

The Strategy of Satan 267

papists! There was, of course, a witches' international and from
one end of Europe to the other, witches were regarded as a fifth
column, the secret enemies that might be found anywhere, even in
a man's own house/ One thinks in this connection of Sam Wood,
the nervous Hollywood director who made provision in his last
will and testament requiring his heirs to execute non-Communist
affidavits! As a sample of the "power" of accursed groups: when
the cows went dry in one European village, during the witch-
craft delirium, the explanation was offered that witches had magi-
cally milked them from a distance — by the use of straws.

Lastly the Communists are shrouded in mystery; they are a
secret party. But, as with most "secret" organizations, there is a
vast published literature about them; almost as large, in fact, as
the library of witchcraft which we know, on the authority of
Montague Summers, is incalculable (one bibliography alone con-
tains 11,648 items). To the uninstructed, Communist doctrine is
so much gibberish, as unintelligible as a medieval manual on
witchcraft. Dialectical Materialimi is, indeed, a witchlike formula.
The Communists, too, claim a superior knowledge of world af-
fairs and this contention is deeply resented. Then, just to make
them the perfect accursed group, they are related to that most
mysterious country, Russia. Even the Orient is far less mysterious,
to the average American, than Russia. The folklore about Russia,
which had reached vast proportions before Lenin was born, is
now of an impenetrable density. Many American Communists
just happen to be of Slavic or Russian-Jewish background and
this, of course, completes the identification.

It Is one of the functions of accursed groups to invest other-
wise inexplicable public misfortunes with "a high des^ree of Intel-
ligibility." A palace revolution In Bolivia, a rice famine In China, a
strike in Kansas City, all can be readily explained by reference
to the accursed group. In short, the group provides a si77Q;le cause
for the multifarious evils of the world. "The high cost of living,"
writes Simon, "crushing taxes, ruinous competition, the difficulty
of getting ahead, political crises, strikes, riots, wars: the simplest
way to stand up against the mystery of all these accidents without

' Witchcraft in England by Christina Hole, 1947, p. 61.

2 68 Witch Hunt

losing one's sanity is to recognize in them — in each of them and
each time they occur — the hand of the Jesuits, concerted action
by the Jews, the dark plans of revolutionary associations." The
single cause must act secretly (otherwise the majority could im-
mediately cure the world of its evils by liquidating the witches) ;
and the witches must be widely distributed so as to provide a
plausible explanation for disparate and far-flung disasters.

Thanks to the accursed group also, we hope, as Simon says,
"to free ourselves one day from the bitter hardships of a per-
petual struggle against a multiplicity of difficulties." When the
last Jew, the last Jesuit, and the last Communist have been dis-
posed of, we can cease being bothered about the hardships and
tragedies of human existence. We hope, in this delusion, to be
able eventually to liquidate all these troubles in a single Herculean
deed, in one great Napoleonic battle; "the entire coalition will be
routed in one evening." The temptation to accept this belief is
very great; everyone has experienced it. For example, the liqui-
dation of the Russians would be a superb and glorious achieve-
ment. The problem of world unity would be entirely solved; the
churches and the granaries would be filled to overflowing; and
not even John L. Lewis \\-ould be able to disturb the peace, tran-
quillity and prosperit}'" that would then prevail throughout this
broad land. A tempting dream, a perfect fantasy. . . .

Finally the accursed group "serves to maintain the horror of
our human condition within reasonable limits," thus fulfilling
Satan's traditional assignment. But this function has, also, another
meaning. As Karl Mannheim has pointed out, "The scapegoat
system not only helps to relieve the community" of guilt, but
prevents hostility from being turned against the leader when dis-
satisfaction is aroused." ^ Despite the achievements of modern
science and technology, this is a dreadfully uncivilized world,
full of endless cruelties and privations. It is a world of anguish
and bloodshed; of crime and corruption; of perversities, calami-
ties, accidents, diseases, and violence without end. Merely to get
up in the morning and, after bringing in the newspaper with the
milk bottle and returning the emptied garbage pail to its place, to

^Quoted by Bramstedt, mpra, p. i68.

The Strategy of Satan 269

sit down, before one is fully awake, and attempt to digest this
daily diet of horrors imposes an enormous strain upon anyone.
This much is attested by the statistics on mental illness in America.
To be able to £nd a patented explanation for most of these hor-
rors in the activities of a single accursed group is, as Simon has
said, "no small thing."

3. THE IDEOLOGICAL SHELL GAME

All things have very different meanings,
depending upon the meaning you want to
put upon them.

— EDMOND TAYLOR in Richer by Asia

"Accursed groups" are never selected adventitiously; they
are created. The process by which "accursed groups" are fash-
ioned is quite similar to that by which racial stereotypes are
fashioned. Certain traits which the minority possesses, along with
all other people, are selected and combined to form a composite
portrait of a most undesirable type. Individual members of the
minority are then described wholly in terms of this stereotype
and are believed to possess certain "innate and heritable and
therefore unchanging and unchangeable" traits solely because
they are members of that minority. The traits selected are in-
variably those which impute inferiority and thereby "justify"
assignment to a secondary social role. The stereotype has the
further function of making it almost impossible for members of
the dominant group to get a clear view of the individuals who
make up the minority. By a curious paradox, the stereotype,
which is really a systematized delusion, becomes quite "real"
and tends to influence, and often determine, relations between
majority and minority. It becomes a "self-fulfilling prophecy,"
a prophecy that comes true although it is based on a delusion.^

Much the same process is used in creating a stereotype about

a political minority. There are, for example, approximately

75,000 dues-paying members of the Communist Party in the

^ "The Self -Fulfilling Prophecy" by Robert K. Merton, Antiocb Review,
summer 1048.

270 Witch Hwit

United States. Now despite the fact that a selective process has
drawn certain personality types to the party and repelled others,
thereby giving the membership a certain homogeneity, it is per-
fectly obvious that those members are not alike as human beings.
If classified trait-v/ise, they would show the widest possible
divergences. Yet when Communism is discussed we assume the
existence of some "ideal type" — that is, we have selected the
worst traits of all Communists and systematized them to form
"an imaginary monster of error." For certain purposes, the
creation of ideal types is a justified and convenient procedure;
but this should not blind us to the fact that ideal types are man-
made fabrications.

It is true that the stereotyping of a religious or political mi-
nority is less absurd than the stereotyping of a racial or ethnic
minority, since racial identification is purely accidental, whereas
affiliation with a political or religious organization can imply
conscious preference. Nevertheless the fact that 75,000 people
profess to believe the same creed does not make them alike, even
in the intensity of this belief. For example, there are 423,000,000
Catholics in the world. Patently they would distribute themselves
over the widest possible spectrum of traits, including the degree
of their attachment to Catholicism. Similarly there are 700,000,000
"Marxists," we are told, in the world today. But this is patent
nonsense. There are not that many people in the world who
can identify the name of Karl Marx. Clearly, therefore, it is a
dangerous delusion to speak, in world terms, of Catholics and
Communists as though all Catholics and all Communists were
alike.

When a minority is stereotyped, it is always by a dominant
group with a particular strategy in mind. The stereotv^pe is a
technique by which subordinate status is enforced, and this is
particularly true of the stereotypes of religious and political
minorities. "It is altogether impossible," wrote Macaulay, "to
reason from the opinions which a man professes to his feelings
and his actions; and in fact no person is ever such a fool as to
reason thus, except ivhen he ivants a pretext for persecuting his
neighbours." Negro maids in the South, as Dr. Hortense Powder-

The Strategy of Satan 271

maker discovered in writing After Freedom, have a much more
realistic understanding of their mistresses than their mistresses
have of them. The minority cannot afford to be bhnded by too
many delusions about the majority, and by minority, in this
sense, one really means the subordinate social groups. Workers
may talk a great deal of nonsense about "the bosses" but they
are never capable of quite the same social blindness as spokes-
men for the upper classes who speak of "mass man" and "the
working class." Their relation to the situation, the particular
view that they have of the social scene, prevents this degree of
blindness.

Strategically it is utterly stupid to assume that all Communists
are alike (witness the Tito defection). Those who hold this
belief indicate that they are, unwittingly, sympathetic to a major
point of Communist dogma; for this is the way Communists
reason about non-Communists. The myth of Communism stresses
the existence of an ideal type, the good Communist, to which
all other Communists are urged to conform. But this ideal type
never existed outside the imagination of Communists any more
than "the good Christian" is to be found anywhere in Chris-
tendom. The use of such phrases is simply a manner of speaking;
the type is merely an ideal, an aspiration, a myth. To take this
myth seriously, for all purposes, strategic as well as propa-
gandistic, is to be victimized by a serious delusion.

I know that I shall be told that I have never had to negotiate
with the Russians at Lake Success. As a matter of fact, I
never want to be given the assignment for I am painfully aware
that Communists often act alike even though they are not ahke.
It is quite true that ideological delusions can deeply color a
person's thinking about other groups and can influence his be-
havior toward these groups; but this is merely another illustra-
tion of the principle of "the self-fulfilling prophecy." Com-
munists, of course, have their ideological delusions. Taught to
believe certain things, associating constantly with those who also
believe these things, they come to act upon the assumption that
their prophecies about other groups are true. But the mere fact
that people should act alike in certain situations and relation-

272 Witch Hunt

ships does not make them alike and the belief that it does only
gives vitality to the delusion. For when we act toward them as
though their delusions about us were real, we convince them, as
nothing else could convince them, that their delusions are real.

Edmond Taylor has shown a wonderful insight into the na-
ture of "institutional delusions" of this sort and the relationship
between ideology and behavior.^" When they first came to In-
dia, he points out, the British civil servants were not alike nor
did they think alike, although they may have been blinded by a
similar stereotype about Indians. But the business of being a
British civil servant, and the situation in which this placed all
those who held this relation to Indians, built up, over the years,
an occupational ideology which eventually blinded a majority of
British civil servants to the most unmistakable Indian realities.
The British were well trained; they had long experience in deal-
ing with Indians and firsthand knowledge of things Indian. In-
deed the experience was so overwhelmingly "real" that they
ridiculed any suggestion that there might be aspects of the situa-
tion which they did not understand.

Yet on investigation, Taylor found that an amazing amount
of misunderstanding and delusion existed which he traced to
the relationship in which British civil servants knew Indians
most intimately— namely, that between the Sahib and his
bearer or servant. This relationship, of course, was calculated to
create gross delusions in perception on the part of both groups.
The British went about looking for "insolence" in the Indians,
the way the Indians looked for "insults" from the British. The
white man's "anti-native" political ideology was matched, point
by point, by the native's "anti-white" racist ideology. The
British could no more understand that their rudeness provoked
the "insolence" of which they complained than the Hindus
could understand that their threats and insults had anything to
do with the hostility of the Moslems.

Similarly, there can be no doubt that the business of being a
Communist, of associating largely with other Communists, and
of seeing and describing events in terms of the Communist

^^ Richer by Asia.

The Strategy of Satan z'jy

ideology, does make for the acceptance of certain similar atti-
tudes, of a similar manner of reacting to events, and of certain
feelings of hostility toward other groups. This is merely to say»
however, that the Communist ideology can blind people to cer-
tain aspects of reality, just as our "success ideology" can blind
us to certain aspects of American life. This juxtaposition of de-
lusions leads to the double paradox that an "idealistic" people,
the American, are much more realistic, in some respects, than
those "materialistic" Russians; and, conversely, that the material-
istic Russians have more social idealism, in some respects, than
the idealistic Americans. After all, Russians see Americans, and
vice versa, within the limitations of a certain situation and hence
neither's view of the other is free from delusion. In this case,
moreover, cultural differences fuse with ideological conflicts
to create a formidable barrier to understanding. But if we suc-
cumb to the delusion that the Russians are "monsters of error,"
then an international witch hunt or third world war is made
more likely than the situation, however grave, might indicate.

Institutional delusions always contain a perverse or distorted
reflection of reality. Take, for example, the delusion of claustro-
phobia from which great powers have been known to suffer;,
in which they fear, at the pinnacle of their powers, that they
are being "encircled" and "surrounded." One explanation for
this acute delusion is that great powers suffer, occasionally, from
unrecognized ills, of which "gigantism" is, perhaps, the most
important. Great powers have been known to attempt a solu-
tion of this problem by a further expansion in territory or in-
fluence when it is precisely gigantism from which they are
suffering. Great-power delusions, moreover, are an aspect of
the relation of these powers to each other and to the rest of the
world; they can only see the world, so to speak, from one win-
dow. And this relationship is historical as well as geographic.
The Russian suspicion of foreigners is certainly not Communist
in origin; and the American identification of socialism and so-
cialist ideals with "foreigners" and "aliens" has little to do with
"free enterprise."

The members of social groups which harbor delusions about

274 Witch Hunt

other groups will act toward the members of these groups as
though the delusions were real. At one time, seamen in the West
Coast ports feared that longshoremen were being used to dis-
place them from various port jobs which they had traditionally
performed. And since longshoremen were actually being used
in this manner, the delusion arose that all longshoremen were
"scabs." Actually, of course, the longshoremen were victims of
a situation which made them appear to be "scabbing" on sailors.
This occupational delusion is in part responsible for the con-
tinuing friction between the seamen, under Harry Lundberg,
and the longshoremen, under Harry Bridges. When groups are
found locked in opposition, we need to inquire, as Edmond
Taylor puts it, what there is about the sitiiatioji that makes
"mask meet mask" rather than man meet man. Sometimes, too,
the collision is caused by a storm which is blowing up in the
world of which the parties are unaware. In any case, it is the
storm, the situation, that we need to study, for there are no
"damned" in this world, and no monsters or witches. The Devil
is a situation. .

4. THIS PARANOID AGE

We are living in a paranoid age in which
people fail even to understand that they
do not understand each other.

— GUSTAV ICHHEISER

There is a sense, however, in which the Devil is in every
man. That a belief in witchcraft should survive in the atomic
age is in part to be accounted for by the fact that man's mecha-
nism for social perception is inherently faulty. People can be
victimized by social illusions in much the same sense that they
can be deceived by optical illusions. In some periods, this mecha-
nism functions with fair efficiency; but in periods of storm
and stress, the mismated bifocals by which we try to perceive
social reality become weirdly out of focus. Merely to glance at
the headlines should be enough to convince us that we live in

The Strategy of Sataji 275

a paranoid age; but those who want further proof can read, as
Edmond Taylor has suggested, the headlines in some newspaper
published by a party, nation, or social group with which their
group is in conflict!

Social delusions, of course, are much more a disease of society
than of the individual; nevertheless man's perception of social
reality is, as Dr. Gustav Ichheiser has demonstrated, inherently
defective/^ With Dr. Ichheiser's exposition of the technical prob-
lem, I am not concerned; but one or two of his conclusions have
a direct bearing on the belief in witchcraft and witches. Nearly
all of us believe, he notes, that we observe other people in a
correct, factual, unbiased manner. It seldom occurs to us that
our vision might be distorted, as, in some degree, it always is.
For one thing, it is the visible in social relations that impresses
us; the invisible factors, which may be of great moment, we do
not see. The failure to make allowance for these invisible fac-
tors can lead to the gravest distortions and delusions.

For example. Dr. Ichheiser notes that coercion is usually recog-
nized as coercion, by those not directly involved, only when
it "takes the visible forms of outright violence." Hence "visible"
coercion is always more objectionable, in the eyes of the ob-
server, than "invisible." The first type impresses us as "real";
of the second, we are seldom even aware. In recognition of this
principle, shrewd ruling groups in society "have always been
very eager to replace visible forms of coercion by invisible
forms, knowing very well that this procedure creates the peculiar
social illusion that there is no coercion operating in a given
social order" — an illusion that is clearly apparent in most cur-
rent disputes about civil rights.

Congress has passed no laws limiting the freedom of the
press, yet this freedom is being further limited all the time.
Since 1909 the number of daily English-language newspapers
has fallen at a fairly constant rate despite a great increase in
literacy, population, and total circulation. Only one out of
twelve of the cities in which daily newspapers are published

^^ Misunderstandings in Human Relations: A Study in False Social Per-
ception by Gustav Ichheiser, 1949.

276 Witch Hunt

have competing dailies; of an estimated daily newspaper circula-
tion of 48,000,000 some 40 per cent is noncompetitive. These
figures have a clear relevance to "freedom of the press"; yet we
find it far more objectionable when a totalitarian regime openly
suppresses a paper than when one disappears by merger in this
country. Today civil rights are being robbed of meaning by in-
visible pressures, and restraints which, if they continue, can
make certain civil rights as meaningless as the "freedom of sac-
rifice" which the Nazis sloganized following their defeat at
Stalingrad.

The same mechanism which makes it possible for us to see
some factors in human relations but not others also tends to
blind us to the situational factors influencing the behavior of
"other people." Many attitudes, motivations, and aspects of be-
havior lie "beyond the range of our psychological comprehen-
sion because other people are placed in a situation which is
radically different from our own." ^^ Suppose, suggests Dr. Ich-
heiser, four windows open on the same scene but each window
has a different color. The scene will appear red, green, yellow,
or purple, depending on which window you are looking through;
the actual setting may be black. These situational factors are
often responsible for conveying an utterly distorted meaning of
such concepts as "freedom" and "liberty" to particular groups.
For example, privileged groups have been known to call an
economic insecurity bordering on wage slavery, freedom. Con-
versely, these groups denounce as slavery social arrangements
which, in terms of the situation of the people involved, may
actually represent a form of liberation from prior oppression.

This particular form of social blindness — the failure to see
the life situation of the other person — leads to the most inac-
curate judgments. When the other person protests his life situa-
tion, we charge him with being "aggressive"; when he fails to
protest it, he is "inefficient and helpless," or, as we say of under-
privileged nations, backward. The plight of the other person
is usually interpreted in terms of "moral" characteristics in-
volving praise or censure. If he is poor, it is because he is "lazy"

^^Ichheiser, op. ciu

The Strategy of Satan 277

or "intemperate" or "backward." We see hiin; we do not see his
situation. "Many things," writes Dr. Ichheiser, "which happened
between the two world wars would not have happened if social
blindness had not prevented the privileged from understanding
the predicament of those who were living in an invisible jail.
It would be good perhaps if our justified horror about visible
concentration camps would not blind us to the horrors of 'invisi-
ble concentration camps,' of which there are a great many in
modern society. . . . Finally we should try to understand bet-
ter than we do that those who commit visible atrocities are
often only taking revenge for invisible ones of which they them-
selves were victims." Similarly, wherever the reality of persecu-
tion has existed, the delusion of persecution remains.

The tendency to ignore situational and other invisible factors
is directly related to the belief in witches, ancient and modern.
As I write these lines, the community in which I live is in a
lynch mood over the commission of an atrocious sex crime. The
man who committed this crime is described, in terrifying head-
lines, as a sex fiend. The newspapers relate, with obvious glee,
how spectators at his trial have expressed a desire "to tear him
limb from limb," to mangle and mutilate his body. Yet these
same newspapers also carry the story of the man's Ufe and from
this story it is quite apparent that this is a sick human being, not
a sex fiend or any other kind of fiend. But to many people this
old man, who is desperately ill, is a fiend, a devil, a witch to be
burned.

A little girl falls, headfirst, into an abandoned well. Here is a
"visible" tragedy. The community forgets everything, includ-
ing the Russians and the atomic bomb, and concentrates its con-
cern on the fate of this beautiful child. Vast crowds gather at
the scene of the attempted rescue; newspaper extras roll from the
presses; newsreel cameramen and radio commentators haunt the
scene; feats of incredible heroism are performed in a desperate
but unsuccessful effort to rescue the little girl. The circum-
stances which made this a sensational news story brought to
light the fact that occurrences of this kind are by no means
unique; that, indeed, similar tragedies happen all the time. Al-

278 Witch Hunt

most every week, in fact, some little girl, somewhere, falls into
an abandoned well. For a month or so, the newspapers carried
stories about similar tragedies but they soon ceased to do so be-
cause these tragedies were remote and therefore "invisible." A
thousand little girls could perish in abandoned wells in China
without creating a ripple of interest in Los Angeles.

If a man is drowning in a lake, his peril is clear and other
people, including his ideological enemies, will run to his rescue,
regardless of the risk. But, as Dr. Ichheiser points out, if this
same man is drowning in the "invisible" ocean of unemployment,
his predicament is likely to be ignored or rationalized in con-
formity with the prevailing "ideology of success," one tenet of
which is that the thrifty and competent never fail. Even the
victim, who better than anyone else should know that his failure
is due to impersonal causes, may actually develop feeUngs of
profound "guilt" and "blame" himself for a situational tragedy.
Here, again, one notices the principle of the self-fulfilling
prophecy.

Closely related to these "illusions" is the form of self-decep-
tion described by Dr. Ichheiser as "the mote-and-the-beam
mechanism"; that is, the tendency to perceive in others, as
something peculiar to them, certain traits which we are unable
or unwilling to perceive in ourselves. It is only the Russians, of
course, who are suspicious of foreigners. Gromyko is "rude"
but Senators Butler, Wherry, and Ferguson are models of Amer-
ican politeness. This tendency is the reverse of that by which
we attempt to project on others the impulses of which we wish
to rid ourselves; here we identify traits in them of which we
are unaware in ourselves. The mote-beam mechanism consistently
undermines the belief in the unity of human nature by making
other people appear "inhuman" or "beyond the pale" or victims
of monstrous errors. This, of course, is the way heretics are
marked for persecution.

Dr. Ichheiser lists other sources of distortion which have a
direct bearing on heresy hunts and similar forms of social delu-
sion. There is, for example, the tendency to overestimate the
unity of personality (each Communist is of one piece and all

The Strategy of Satan 279

Communists are alike) ; the tendency to interpret other people in
terms of our norms of success or failure (the Hindus are "back-
ward" although India is one land that has never indulged in a
witch hunt); to rely upon stereotyped classifications of all sorts,
occupational, racial, and socioeconomic (a tendency which
leads directly to the doctrine of guilt-by-association); the tend-
ency to stabilize the image of other people and to make this
image more "definite" by conveniently forgetting inconsistent
details; not to mention the distortions that come from looking at
other people through the glasses of some particular ideology.
And then there are the delusions which arise from the fear of
"the storm" — the fear of approaching war, of economic col-
lapse, of revolution — fears that distort reality by creating a de-
lusion — the phrase is Taylor's — of "the boundless hostility" of
the hypothetical enemy.

Each of these delusions, and all of them combined, interact
upon reality; they are all self-fulfilling prophecies. What many
people, over a period of years, expect will happen generally hap-
pens. After 1905, the residents of the West Coast "just knew"
that we were "destined" to fight Japan; and many of them pro-
ceeded to act toward resident Japanese-Americans as though
war had been declared, thereby making the eventual declaration
of war that much more certain. It is dangerous for an individual
or a group to carry about a distorted image of some other
person or group; the image may turn into a real monster. By
making the other person worse than he is, we not merely de-
ceive ourselves; we often encourage him to act the part which
he plays in our delusions. Wherever ideological and cultural fac-
tors play a major part in a conflict situation, the resulting ten-
sions, as Edmond Taylor puts it, are "less because men's values
clash than because their delusions collide."

There is always a discrepancy between ideological norm and
social reality but, in fairly stable periods, the discrepancy is
kept at a minimum; there is, as astronomers would say, little
"atmosphere wobble" to interfere with perception. But the
greater the discrepancy becomes, the greater also becomes the
distortion in social perception. Heresy is a symptom of this

2 8o Witch Hunt

discrepancy. Its appearance suggests that some people in the
society have become conscious of the prevailing ideology, and
to be conscious of an ideology is to be potentially critical of its
myths. Heresy is an evidence of ideological derangement which
finds reflection, also, in the estrangement or alienation of the in-
dividual. But as Dr. Ichheiser emphasizes, "A deeply intrenched
ideology . . . never disintegrates by merely rational considera-
tion or purely intellectual criticism." The failure to recognize
this truth is at the root of most heresy prosecutions.

Although our ability to understand other people is inherently
limited, the possibilities of misunderstanding reach fantastic pro-
portions in an age such as ours in which unlike peoples have been
thrown into an entirely new intimacy and when the discovery
of atomic power has invested the horror of war with an entirely
new dimension. Furthermore, the specialization, depersonaliza-
tion, and compartmentalization of occupations and modes of liv-
ing have created endless possibilities for misunderstanding since
each major occupational and social group tends to develop its
own ideology. Within the same society, people today can live
in a dozen "difl!"erent" worlds, each with its own ideological pre-
suppositions. Even where two groups are supposed to be in
sympathetic accord, as the leaders of the resistance movements
and the masses they were supposed to represent, the distance be-
tween the two may be so great as to make, as it did make in
many European countries, for an almost total failure of under-
standing.^^

Merely to point out a few forms of misunderstanding based
on delusion is to emphasize the importance of a scrupulous re-
spect for civil rights in a paranoid age. When two large nations
indulge in fairly well systematized delusions about the other,
both nations can be as dangerous as though they were individuals
suffering from acute forms of paranoia. They hear voices and
see visions. They are pushovers for Satan's strategy. What, then,
is the paranoia from which this age is suffering? Here is Edmond
Taylor's definition:

^^See Bramstedt, op. cit., p. 195.

The Strategy of Satan 281

Described in political terms, paranoia is the madness
which makes individuals behave like states, which' makes
them self-patriots, self-chauvinists and self-racists. It is the
self-sovereignty which makes the aggressions of others al-
ways seem persecutions, while sanctifying one's own perse-
cution of others. It is the condition of being perpetually
worried about one's status, perpetually suspicious of the
designs of others. It is the feeling that murder to defend or
even to enhance one's sovereignty is somehow not murder
but a necessary sacrifice for a great cause. It is the habit
of being one's own espionage service, of turning speech into
political propaganda for the furtherance of self.

The Semantics of Persecution

One of the techniques of successful witch hunting consists in
an amazingly dexterous use of certain slippery words and
phrases. Invested with all sorts of dark meanings and sinister
implications, these words and phrases are used as command sig-
nals. Indeed a choruslike ritualistic use of the particular word
or phrase, over a sufficiently long period, and with the proper
sanctions behind it, can produce a conditioned reflex in an en-
tire people. In such cases, social therapy requires that the victim
be urged to play with certain semantic blocks. Once he has
learned to manipulate these symbols, they no longer have the
power to distort reality. In this chapter, I want to examine three
witch phrases of our day: "a member of," "force and violence,"
and "agent of a foreign power."

1. ARE YOU OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN?

The question of how witches are to be identified is one of the
most vexatious problems of any inquisition. The key to the
problem, however, is always found in the fact that witches love
company — at the Sabbats or elsewhere. Where there is one
witch, there are always others. The way to catch witches, there-
fore, is to identify one witch and then see with whom this witch
associates. In modern times, with association being much more
informal and "freer" than ever before, it has required clever
rationalization to invest the mere fact of association with this
significance. To this end, a dogma has been made of the assump-
tion that every member of an organization wholeheartedly ac-

The Semantics of Persecution 283

cepts all of its doctrines in the sense in which these doctrines
are interpreted by persons not members of the organization. To
make this large assumption plausible, the phrase "a member of"
is bandied about as though it had a single, precise, unalterable
meaning, or, stated another way, it is assumed that "member-
ship" can be determined by simple one-dimensional objective
tests.

At the outset, one notes that to be "a member of" has two
meanings: technical or legal membership; and membership in
some broader sense, as of identification or sympathy. The first
refers to the type of proof that would satisfy a court for the
purpose of attaching legal consequences to an act. Intention is
not necessarily a controlling factor in this conception of mem-
bership. In the legal sense, one can be a member of an organiza-
tion with which one feels little identification or about which one
knows nothing whatever. What a court does in passing on ques-
tions of legal membership is simply to read the evidence in the
light of the definition of membership to be found in the bylaws.

In the current witch hunts, it is quite clear that "a member
of" is not used in this sense. Congressman Richard Nixon is
obviously not concerned with whether Mr. X is a member of the
Communist Party in the sense, for example, in which a court
might hold Mr. X responsible for a judgment entered against
the party or for an assessment levied in its name. In questioning
witnesses before the House Committee on Un-American Ac-
tivities, he uses the phrase in an entirely different sense and it is
this special usage which creates the first slight distortion in per-
ception. What he really wants to know, although this is not
made clear, is whether Mr. X subscribes to any of the stated
aims of the Communist Party or feels sympathetic, in the slightest
degree, to the party, its program, or its philosophy.

But even in this ideological or political usage "a member of"
is essentially ambiguous. It has, in fact, many meanings. This
is necessarily true since an ideology or a program cannot com-
mand the same degree of acceptance, or even the same kind of
acceptance, that would be involved, for example, in accepting
the bylaws of a fraternal lodge or a social club. In the legal sense,

284 Witch Hunt

membership is objective; in the political sense, it is subjective.
Subjective adherence to a party or its program is basically a
question of degree. In this sense, membership measures the
degree of solidarity, which may be complete or partial, tem-
porary or permanent, whimsical or serious, past or present. If
objective, legal membership were the issue in witch hunts, it
would not be necessary to create special tribunals to inquire
into heresy.

It will be countered, of course, that "a member of" has a clear-
cut, simply understood meaning which can be applied to poKtical
as well as other types of membership. But, if this is true, then
why are so many different uses and meanings to be found in the
proceedings of the various un-American investigations? From
these sources alone, it appears that the phrase "a member of"
can have any of the following, and many other, meanings:

1. Admitted membership. In this sense, the phrase means a
registered, dues-paying, self-acknowledged, fully convinced
member of the particular organization. In effect this is the
"legal" type of membership.

2. Concealed membership. Here Mr. X has joined the Com-
munist Party. He subscribes to its doctrines; he pays dues; he at-
tends meetings. But he never took out a membership card or,
if he did, it was under another name. With this type of mem-
bership, however, the degree of concealment may vary. For
example, Mr. X may not, and usually does not, conceal his
real identity from either the officials or the members of the party
that he knows.

3. Strategic nonmembership. The strategic nonmember sub-
scribes to the doctrines and perhaps pays dues; but he is not
known to the public as a Communist nor is he known to rank-
and-file Communists as a member nor does he take part, in any
guise, in party activities or functions. It is quite probable that the
strategic nonmember, whatever his conscious convictions, ex-
periences considerable difficulty in identifying himself with the
party. The nature of the relationship, in fact, impHes some
reservation. For example, can a person fee/ any real identifica-
tion with a mass organization in which he has never participated

The Semantics of Persecution 285

as a member? Can you feel like an Episcopalian if you have
never attended church services or participated in the rites of the
church?

4. Membership by interest. This type of membership assumes
that one can be a member of a particular organization merely
by reason of an intense interest in its doctrines and activities.
This may seem to be a fanciful notion but the psychological
and also the political reality is incontestable. A certain degree
of interest, sustained over a sufficiently long period, might well
be tantamount to membership. Here, of course, the legal con-
ception of membership is completely misleading.

5. "Subject to the disciphne of." This is a form of member-
ship long recognized by all the professional "experts" on Com-
munism. It refers to a relationship which is distinguishable from
those noted thus far. A person can be subject to the discipline
of an organization without being a member, in the legal sense,
or, for that matter, in any other sense. For example, a person,
for a variety of reasons, can be subject to the discipline of an
organization that he intensely dislikes. Examples: the politician
who hopes to pick up a few Communist votes; Louis Budenz
after he decided to leave the Communist Party but while he
was still on its pay roll; the young lady who travels in left-
wing circles to keep her job as the secretary of some organiza-
tion or her "friend," who is a party functionary.

6. Membership by assumption. The various un-American in-
vestigations are full of instances in which witnesses have iden-
tified other persons as being Communists on the basis of pure
assumption. "I never attended a meeting with him," testified a
witness before the Canwell Committee; "or even a closed meet-
ing. I just assumed that he was because he was accepted by the
leadership ... as one of the good fellows." ^ The ambiguities
here are as thick as a swarm of bees: what does "accepted"
mean? how "good" must one be to be a "good fellow"; and,
in both cases, whose standard of "acceptance" and "goodness"
is being applied and for what reasons and motives? It is not
to be assumed, however, that this concept is meaningless. If other

^ Canwell Committee Hearings, Vol. II, p. 63.

286 Witch Hunt

members assume that Mr. X is a member, and he acts as though
the assumption were true, knowing of the assumption, isn't it
apparent that, in a sense, he is indeed "a member of"? A judge
would say that X is "estopped" to deny membership. Under
these circumstances, also, Mr. X might actually have a feeling of
identification as strong, and as real, as though he were a mem-
ber.

7. Membership by reputation. This type is a variant of the
one above. If Mr. X is consistently discussed as though he were
"a member of," the experts would say that the real members
were justified in regarding him as a member; hence merely be-
cause of the reputation he bears, he should be regarded, for
purposes to which the most serious consequences attach, as "a
member of." Indeed, under the spell of this sorcerer-like doc-
trine, witnesses have sworn, under oath, that people were "mem-
bers of" the Communist Party. In this instance, the belief that
X is a member can be based upon a pure delusion. His "repu-
tation of membership" may be fictitious, maliciously inspired, or
deliberately assumed, as for espionage purposes, or indeed many
other purposes.

8. Lapsed membership. Many examples of this type are to be
found in the perjury-stained pages of the un-American inquisi-
tions. For example, the Communist apparatus in Connecticut
once completely collapsed, as a result of some internal dissen-
sion. When the apparatus was reconstituted, certain former
members were unknown to the new officials and were never ap-
proached to rejoin the party — more accurately, to resume their
activities and the payment of dues. But could a person who
was "a member of" at the time of the debacle testify today,
under oath, that he was no longer a member of the Communist
Party? He ivas a member; he never resigned; he was never
expelled.

9. Fellow traveler. To the experts, the fellow traveler is merely
another type of member. The test, here, is not "subject to the
discipline of," but the taking of parallel political positions over
a long period of time. This category, a favorite of the experts,
makes very little sense, for the taking of parallel political posi-

The Semantics of Persecution 287

tions can be accompanied by an active dislike of the party and
all its works.

10. Former member. The hearings are full of cases in which
individuals who, at one time, gave a vague assent to the idea of
membership later just as vaguely dropped out of membership.
In many of these cases, the individual would have as much
difficulty in proving that he was 7io longer "a member of" as it
would be difficult to prove, affirmatively, that he was ever a
member. The former member may have repudiated some phase
of party doctrine although continuing to accept most of its
teachings. Is he still a member? The experts would say yes;
because, to them, one cannot purge the taint of heresy except
by formal abjuration. To them, a former member remains a
member until he formally repudiates the heresy. Leaving an
organization is, indeed, a process with as many gradations as
joining. A witness before the Canwell Committee testified that
she had "gradually left" the Communist Party.^ The un-
sophisticated will deny that it is possible to leave an organiza-
tion "gradually"; you are either a member or not a member. But
the obvious truth is that membership, in the political sense, has
almost as many gradations of meaning as there are individual
members of any particular organization. For the reality of mem-
bership, in this sense, is really subjective; it is a question of feel-
ing, of identification, of attitude.

It is for this reason that complete credence can be given to
the stories of individuals who, although they once "carried a
card," have later contended, in all seriousness, that they "never
really were members." One of the witnesses in the Canwell in-
vestigation testified that he had always felt like "a spectator"
at party meetings; that he had never really thought of himself
as a member; yet he readily admitted that he had gone through
all the rites of membership. The truth is that people join or-
ganizations for all sorts of reasons and sometimes for no par-
ticular reason. Sometimes, for example, a person joins an or-
ganization out of a sense of personal loyalty. Mabel Winther,
wife of Dr. Sophus Keith Winther of the University of Wash-

''Ibid., Vol. II, p. 305.

288 Witch Hunt

ington, testified that she joined the Communist Party "because
my husband had been inducted into the Party." ^

To "have been" a member is to mark a person as a continuing
suspect since it clearly indicates the existence of the disposi-
tion or tendency which is heresy. But prior membership can
have a thousand connotations: a person could have belonged
to the proscribed organization one, five, ten, or twenty years
ago; and, similarly, a person's prior membership could have been
for an hour, six months, or ten years. Yet the consequences which
attach to having been "a member" are not, needless to say, ad-
justed to this complex scale of identification.

Nor are these distinctions Talmudic; on the contrary, they
measure an unassailable reality. Bona fide legal membership in
the Communist Party can be utterly devoid of political sig-
nificance, as in the case of morons, informers, and me-too wives
who have followed their husbands into the party. And it is
precisely for this reason that the witch hunters have always had
a better grasp of the reality of membership than common-sense
observers and. trained jurists. The heresy hunter knoM^s that,
to bell the cat, he must conduct a personal inquisition. He is
well aware that, if he is to catch the witch, he must cross-
examine the suspect, in minute detail, as to his beliefs, his at-
titudes, and his most intimate personal convictions. For this is
the only way by which the political or ideological significance
of membership can be explored. The heresy hunter is also en-
tirely logical in insisting that the suspect undergo certain or-
deals; that he be subjected to a war of nerves. For the inquisitor
proceeds upon the assumption that those who have espoused
heresy for frivolous reasons will not hesitate to abandon or de-
nounce it; only the confirmed heretic will remain defiant. Hence
any inquiry into membership must necessarily turn into a personal
inquisition if it is to succeed in its prime purpose. Today as yes-
terday, inquisitors know their business. It is foolish to talk
about "reforming" their procedures; the procedures are what
they are because of the nature of heresy. To say, therefore, that
joining the Communist Party is "an act" which can be deter-

^Ibid., Vol. II, p. 28.

The Semantics of Persecution 289

mined without an inquiry into the suspect's deepest beliefs and
convictions is sheer nonsense. If the members of un-American
committees are not to be accused of being frivolous or insincere,
it must be admitted that the nature of their assignment requires
them to probe consciences, to inquire into beliefs, to test con-
victions. In a period of great social crisis, the belief that needs
to be taken seriously is the belief that cannot be shaken even
in the shadow of the gallows.

Paradoxically, the heresy hunters, who have developed the
various "types" of membership, of which only a few illustra-
tions have been given above, refuse to recognize the reality
which they themselves have discovered— namely, that member-
ship is like a spectrum; that it has many gradations of meaning;
and that the real test goes to the intensity of feeling, which is
purely subjective.

2. "57 FORCE AND VIOLENCE"
It often happens that even the politically sophisticated are
unaware of the real meaning of certain words and phrases which
they have discovered can be used with great emotive force. To
certain of these phrases, people respond as a neurotic might
respond to some forgotten image or symbol of his childhood.
The real meaning having been lost, or perversely pushed to one
side, the person responds without knowing how or why the
phrase has come to have some strange, despotic power over his
imagination. Such a phrase, with us, is the ominous expression
"by force and violence."

The real meaning of this phrase is buried deep in the collective
unconscious of all peoples living in industrial societies, for it
identifies a traumatic experience through which all such peoples
have passed. With us, the phrase has a most specific history.
Prior to the Civil War, the phrase was either unknown or
wholly lacked its present connotations. Today one is shocked
by the free-wheeling, uninhibited, patriotically blasphemous
candor of pre-Civil War political discussion in the United States.

290 Witch Hunt

No Communist orator ever dreamed of denouncing the Consti-
tution of the United States as it was denounced by Wilham
Lloyd Garrison. The long shadow cast by the phrase "force and
violence" on the concept of free speech had not then fallen
across the intellectual life of America. Governors, Senators, and
Congressmen thought nothing of defying the federal govern-
ment and of advocating that it be overthrown or superseded.

The guarantee of free speech, which for the first time in his-
tory found formal sanction in the First Amendment, is wholly,
and intentionally, unequivocal. It was intended to mean pre-
cisely what the amendment states, namely, that Congress shall
make no law abridging the freedom of speech. And it meant
just this until about the fourth day of May, 1886, when a bomb
was thrown in Haymarket Square in Chicago, killing eight
policemen and wounding many spectators. The person who
threw the bomb, of course, was never arrested. But the state
of public opinion being what it was, it became necessary to
convict someone and the conviction had to be based, not on an
overt act, but on words, incitement, and an alleged conspiracy.
Accordingly the prosecution invented the fiction that inasmuch
as Spies and Parsons and Fielden had advocated the use of force
and violence, not once but many times, and had even urged the
manufacture of bombs, their culpability was clear. Thus eight
men were convicted of a murder with which the evidence con-
nected none of them and the conviction was sustained by the
Supreme Court of Illinois and by the United States Supreme
Court.

At the thue, it was clearly recognized that the convictions
had been secured by the use of a new doctrine, namely, "ad-
vocacy by force and violence," whereas today we accept this
doctrine as though it had always been a part of the Anglo-
American legal tradition. Robert Ingersoll, among others, im-
mediately recognized the precedent as a new departure. "It will
be," he said, "a great mistake to hang these men. The seeds of
future trouble will in this find soiir Governor Richard Oglesby,
who saved two of the defendants from the gallows, had been an
active Abolitionist and a great friend of Lincoln's. Referring to

The Semantics of Persecution 291

the decision of the Illinois Supreme Court, he once told a friend:
"If that had been the law during the anti-slavery agitation, all
of us Abolitionists could have been hanged long ago." And
there can be no doubt that he was right. Even Judge Joseph
Gary, who presided at the trial, later admitted that the con-
victions were based upon "new law." "They were hanged," he
wrote, "not for opinions but for horrible deeds." But once words,
and words alone, are used to connect people with "horrible
deeds," it is a delusion to believe that words do not form the
basis of the conviction. What then had happened, in American
life, that had made it necessary to place a brake on free speech
and the agitation for social reform?

In 1886 a majority of the American people doubtless be-
lieved that the reality of the Haymarket case was to be found
in the rhetorical violence of the Chicago anarchists. Just as
these anarchists were deluded enough to believe that revolu-
tion was imminent in the America of 1886, so the American
people were sufficiently deluded to believe that there was a real
danger of their institutions being overthrown by the advocacy of
"force and violence." Both beliefs were weirdly unreal. The half-
dozen anarchists who harangued the lake-shore meetings drew
crowds of only fifty or sixty people during a period of great in-
dustrial unrest and America was then at the beginning, not the
middle or the end, of a period of great industrial expansion.
Nevertheless the delusion under which the American people were
suffering, their fear of force and violence, had, like most delu-
sions, a reality of its own.

For the Haymarket case was one of the great forerunners of
industrial strife in the United States. It was one of a series of
dramatic events which, in the i88o's, symbolized the birth of a
new social order. This new social order, in the United States
as elsewhere, was born in force and violence. The people were
quick to sense that some profound change had taken place; that
values which they deeply respected were being violently up-
rooted; that some dreadful crime was being committed of which
the Haymarket affair was a symbol; that, somehow, the "do-
mestic tranquillity" had been irrevocably shattered. In short,

292 Witch Hunt

the force and violence with which the industrial revolution
came invested the phrase with a lasting meaning and significance.
And among the feelings which the phrase evokes today is a
feeling of guilt which is all the more powerful because it is not
recognized as guilt; a feeling which relates to the fact that in-
nocent men have gone to the gallows in America because they
selected the wrong words to express their aspiration for social
justice. It is this buried, long-forgotten, once-pregnant meaning
of the phrase which P. A. Brown had in mind when he said
that in Great Britain "force and violence" related back to
some half-buried tradition.^ Thus to latch an indictment with
this ominous phrase has always meant more than the words
would seem to imply.

To be sure, the "domestic tranquillity" had been broken in
the United States on many occasions prior to the Haymarket
affair; there had been strife and unrest, slave revolts and tenant
riots, Abohtionists and Copperheads. But there was a special
quality about the strife which came into being with the rise
of industrial capitalism. The ideology of Socialism, which came
with the new social order, seemed to be foreign-inspired and, in-
deed, was first advocated by "foreigners." But the real dif-
ference consists in the quality of the uneasiness and insecurity
that came with the transformation of the economy. Enemies that
can be seen can be opposed but those that cannot be seen can
only be feared and hated. The difference is best expressed, per-
haps, in the troubled feelings that Tom Joad and Muley, the "ol'
graveyard ghos'," voice in the opening scene of The Grapes of
Wrath.

Neither Tom nor Muley could identify "the thing" that had
set man against man. The secretary to the warden had told Tom,
before he left the prison, that "it don't do no good to read books.
Says he's read ever'thing about prisons now, an' in the old
times; an' he says she makes less sense to him now than she did
before he starts readin'. He says it's a thing that started way to
hell an' gone back, an' nobody seems to be able to stop her, an'
nobody got sense enough to change her. He says for God's sake

^The French Revolution m English History, 191 8.

The Semantics of Persecution 293

don't read about her because he says for one thing you'll jus'
get messed up worse, an' for another you won't have no respect
for the guys that work the gove'nments." And Muley then points
to the difference between "her" and all other predicaments and
contentions, "When you're huntin' somepin," he says, "you're a
hunter, an' you're strong. Can't nobody beat a hunter. But when
you get hunted — that's different. Somepin happens to you. You
ain't strong; maybe you're fierce, but you ain't strong. I been
hunted now for a long time. I ain't a hunter no more. I'd maybe
shoot a fella in the dark, but I don't maul nobody with a fence
stake no more . . . there's one thing about being hunted. You
get to thinkin' about all the dangerous things. If you're huntin'
you don't think about 'em, an' you ain't scared." But from "this
one," how do you escape? Which way do you turn? Where do
you go? What to do? Who, as Muley asked, do you shoot?

It was, indeed, the peculiar nature of the new social crisis that
brought about the necessity of reading a limitation into the
unequivocal guarantee of free speech contained in the First
Amendment. After 1886 the limitation was clearly implied: one
could still speak freely except that one could not "advocate the
overthrow ... by force and violence." After 1886 the phrase,
unknown prior to the Civil War, began to echo in court de-
cisions, state enactments, city ordinances, injunctions, criminal
syndicalism acts, and, during the First World War, in the Sedition
Act. Actually the phrase did not need to be repeated; it was
always there, deeply embedded in the American unconscious,
added by implication to the First Amendment.

Now the fact is that it is not a crime to advocate anything
whatever in the United States, including the overthrow of the
government by force and violence despite the possibility that the
Supreme Court may uphold the American unconscious when it
rules on the Smith Act. But the nearest the court has come to
doing so, in the past, has been to raise up the "clear and present
danger" doctrine as a test of permissible speech. Yet this phrase
has little meaning. As Alexander Meiklejohn has pointed out, why
must the danger of speech be present before the police power
can be evoked? If speech is that dangerous, it ought to be sup-

294 Witch Hunt

pressed. In conjuring up the "clear and present danger" doctrine
Dr. Meiklejohn accuses Holmes and Brandeis of following the
procedure described by James Stephens:

I would think until I found
Something I can never find;
Something lying on the ground,
In the bottom of my mind.

That, indeed, is where they found the "clear and present danger"
doctrine: in the bottom of their minds; deeply buried in the
American unconscious. The First Amendment does not say any-
thing about "force and violence" or dangers "clear and present";
it says, Congress shall make no law.^

The effect of these qualifications about "force and violence,"
and "clear and present danger," as Zechariah Chafee has observed,
was to make "the traditional language of socialism" subversive,
and this was, indeed, the intention. The traditional language of
Socialism was European in origin and it had been coined under
circumstances which clearly called for the revolutionary over-
throw of the established social order by force and violence. In
countries lacking a deeply seated democratic tradition, how
could Socialists ever expect to come to power short of "force and
violence"? Even so, by a curious paradox, they borrowed most
of their violent rhetoric from the anarchists, who are less inclined
to the actual use of force and violence, their words to the con-
trary, than any "leftist" group. The importation of this inflam-
matory rhetoric to the America of the post-Civil War period was
grotesquely inept and, to a degree, is still responsible for the
traditional antipathy to the words "force and violence."

But there is more to these words than their history implies.
Suppose two factions are at war; the Blacks and the Blues. Sup-
pose, also, that the Blacks hold possession of a strategically well-
located fortress, stocked with ammunition, which commands the
entire terrain over which the two factions have gone to war. A
prior rule makes it illegal for any ideological contender to ad-

^See Free Speech and Its Relation to Self-Govermnent by Alexander
Meiklejohn, 1948, p. 52.

The Semantics of Fersecution 295

vocate "assault"; both the act and its advocacy are banned. The
effect of this seemingly impartial rule, under these circumstances,
is to leave the Blacks in possession of the fortress from which
they cannot be dislodged. The Blacks do not favor the rule be-
cause they abhor force and violence in the abstract. If the Blues
held the fortress, the Blacks would be advocates of force and
violence. What the phrase "to advocate the overthrow by force
and violence" means, in actual social practice, is that any ad-
vocacy of social change, carried beyond a certain point, is danger-
ous. But the real difficulty is that any "urging," in the face of
adamant opposition, wdll tend to become violent and the violence
will then be related back to the advocacy.

Almost any strike will illustrate the social meaning of force
and violence. A picket line, to be effective, must interfere with
production or sales or both. The irate employer then sends for
the "metropolitan detail" or "red squad." The moment the
police appear on the scene, the possibility of force and violence
exists. From this point on, it is usually idle to attempt to fix re-
sponsibility for what happens or to name the parties who "cause"
the violence. The possibility of violence is inherent in the situa-
tion. In most strikes, labor must take the offensive, or it appears
to do so, even when, as in the case of a lockout, the employer
has made the first move. The public cannot "see" a lockout; but
it can see men on a picket line. The employer can usually afford
to wait out the union; he has possession of the plant; the initiative,
in most cases, rests with him. Thus labor will be forced to push
for a settlement, or to appear to be pushing, and any pushing
beyond a certain point is likely to result in force and violence.
The relation between the parties to the conflict, not the words
they use, creates the danger of violence.

The doctrine of force and violence, in short, is a partisan
weapon used in a two-sided conflict in which both sides are
attempting to convince the public that the other is using a club.
Force and violence, the phrase, is never a cause of conflict; it is a
legal cliche which indicates the existence of a conflict. The real
violence in the Haymarket affair — and it was this case, more
than any other, that fixed the meaning of the phrase — was not

296 Witch Hunt

to be traced to the anarchists shouting by the lake front but to
the police who, for a decade or more, had been attempting to
suppress the right of free speech, and all trade-union activity, in
Chicago. Today, in retrospect, we are appalled by the failure of
the public, blinded by delusion, to see the real situation in the
Haymarket affair. But the disturbing fact is that a majority of the
people still reach for a rope when the signal "force and violence"
is sounded.

The continuing emotive force of the phrase "force and vio-
lence" is closely related to the psychology of the "cinch" ques-
tion which, since the beginning of time, has been used by
conformists to bludgeon nonconformists. A cinch question, of
course, is a question which can only be answered in one way
by all God-fearing, sober, hard-working, right-thinking people.
By its very nature, the cinch question is a weapon which can
only be used by conformists, by the spokesmen for a large ma-
jority opinion. Those who have watched the behavior of a city
council or a state legislature over any period of time know how
effective the cinch question can be. The conservative majority,
wanting to hold the conformist line, will wait until a suitable op-
portunity arises and then introduce a resolution reciting that it
is the opinion of the council that husbands should not beat wives
or condemning the use of force and violence. The effect of the
resolution is to whip the opposition into line; either they vote
yes or they will be branded as advocates of wife-beating or force-
and-violence. Hearst editors have developed this weapon to its
ultimate effectiveness. A "cinch" question never poses an issue;
it is never intended to raise an issue; its real purpose is to club
nonconformists.

3. "AGENT OF A FOREIGN POWER"

When a majority sets out to fight a minority as heretics, the
minority is, with rare exceptions, promptly branded the "agent
of a foreign power." Example: "The Communist Party is not
an American political party. It is a Russian party with branches

The Semantics of Persecution 297

in other countries which work under direct orders from Mos-
cow; one of its basic principles is the necessity for the violent
overthrow of all non-Communist governments." ^ By inference,
the Communist Party would be "an American political party,"
and therefore acceptable, if it were not Russian-controlled.
Polemically, this is a superb argument: it is simple; it is massive; it
is fear-inspiring; it is dogmatic. This is just the kind of argument
to use in fighting a heresy for the heretic is not an honorable
opponent; he insists on fighting by his rules and not by the rules
of the majority. Since the majority has already made up its mind
to crush the heresy, by any means, the clever thing to do, of
course, is to brand the heretics as "agents of a foreign power,"
since this puts them, immediately, in the position of being
"enemies" in a state of war and, therefore, opponents to be de-
stroyed, if need be, by warlike methods.

The charge against the Communist Party may be true but it
has nothing to do with its members' indictment as agents of a
foreign power. For this is a cliche of all heresy persecutions.
Every heretic is guilty of two crimes; these crimes, indeed, are
what make him a heretic. In the first place, he is a malicious in-
grate, a fifth columnist, who seeks to disturb the freedom and
order of the society which gives him freedom and security; and
in the second place he is always "an agent of a foreign power."
Even the witch was the loyal agent of the Prince of Darkness.
Macaulay, who had a most remarkable insight into the inquisi-
torial mind, outlined the "foreign-agent" syllogism in this manner:

A Papist believes himself bound to obey the Pope.
The Pope has issued a bull deposing Queen Elizabeth.
Therefore every Papist will treat her grace as an usurper.

Therefore every Papist is a traitor.
Therefore, every Papist ought to be hanged, drawn, and

quartered.

To this logic, as he added, "we owe some of the most hateful laws
that ever disgraced our history."

® The Social Studies, May 1949, p. 225.

298 Witch Hunt

The answer to this logic-of-delusion, as Macaulay pointed out,
"lies on the surface" of the proposition itself. For as he said:

The Church of Rome may have commanded these men
to treat the Queen as a usurper. But she has commanded
them to do many things which they have never done. She
enjoins her priests to observe strict purity. You are always
taunting them with their licentiousness. She commands all
her followers to fast often, to be charitable to the poor, to
take no interest for money, to fight no duels, to see no
plays. Do they obey these injunctions? Do we not know
that what is remote and indefinite affects men far less than
what is near and certain? Does the expectation of being re-
stored to the country of his fathers make him [the Jew]
insensible to the fluctuations of the stock-exchange?

The fallacy here is that of confounding prophecy with precept.
Besides there is a still more searching answer to the "foreign
agent" bombast:

Nothing is so offensive to a man who knows anything of
history or of human nature as to hear those who exercise
the powers of government accuse any sect of foreign at-
tachment. If there be a proposition universally true in poli-
tics it is this, that foreign attachments are the fruit of
domestic misrule. It has always been the trick of bigots to
make their subjects miserable at home, and then to com-
plain that they look for relief abroad; to divide societ)% and
to wonder that it is not united; to govern as if a section of
the state were the whole, and to censure the other sections -
of the state for their want of patriotic spirit. . . . There is
no feeling which more certainly develops itself in the minds
of men living under tolerably good government than the
feeling of patriotism. . . . To make it ground of accusa-
tion against a class of men, that they are not patriotic, is the
most vulgar legerdemain of sophistry. It is the logic which
the wolf employs against the lamb. It is to accuse the mouth
of poisoning the source.

The statesman who treats them [the Jews] as aliens, and
then abuses them for not entertaining the feelings of natives,

The Semantics of Persecution 299

is as unreasonable as the tyrants who punished their fathers
for not making bricks without straw.

Rulers must not be suffered thus to absolve themselves of
their solemn responsibility. It does not lie in their mouths to
say that a sect is not patriotic. It is their duty to make it
patriotic.

XVI
The New Inquisition

An urban, sophisticated people, we do not believe in witches:
nor do we sanction witch hunts. Our loyalty oaths, un-American
investigations, and civil service purges have no relation, of course,
to the persecutions of yesteryear. The parallel is ridiculed because
the precedents seem utterly remote: the penal laws against witch-
craft were swept away in 1763. For more than a century, now,
it has been the fashion to regard the witchcraft delusion as being
no longer quite comprehensible, despite the fact that Hitler cre-
mated more "witches" in a week than were burned at the stake
in a century. "So thoroughly has the ancient specter been exor-
cised," writes Christina Hole, "that the majority tend to regard
the whole tradition as little more than proof of our ancestors'
credulity." ^

The belief that the witchcraft delusion has been overcome arises
from a failure to compare modern witchcraft and heresy prose-
cutions with those of the Inquisition. Fashions in heresy change
but the methods of prosecuting heresy cannot change. Once any
government attempts to punish "crimes of the intellect," it is
driven to adopt certain techniques and procedures which were
standardized centuries ago. That a New Inquisition is now upon
us can best be established by comparing the methods currently
used to banish heretics by bell, book, and candle with those in-
spired by Innocent the Third's enthusiasm for liquidating heretics.
To establish the similarity in method is not to indulge in a purely
academic exercise. The horror of all inquisitions, ancient and
modern, consists primarily in the methods used. The inquisitorial

^ See Witchcraft in England, 1947, p. 6; also, The Devil in Massachusetts
by Marion L. Starkey, 1949, p. 282.

The New Inquisition 301

process is an unmitigated evil in itself: it can never be used to
achieve good ends for its use will defeat the finest purpose. Just
what, then, are the basic characteristics of this process?

1. COURTS OF NO ESCAPE

Inquisitions date from the setting up of special and centralized
tribunals to deal with heresy. Every inquisition implies the ex-
istence of a Star Chamber, an Un-American Committee, or some
special centraHzed tribunal before which heretics can be haled
and questioned. There must be a centralized tribunal for the
simple reason that it would never do to have two or more in-
quisitions, of equal authority, operating at the same time. The
function of the tribunal is to organize total conformity of belief
by creating a morbid fear of the consequences of nonconformity.
This can only be done by a centralized agency with the power to
make authoritative pronouncements on the subject of heresy and
to consolidate, in one agency, the power of denunciation.

G. G. Coulton, for example, dates the inception of the Inquisi-
tion from the setting up of a special and centralized tribunal to
investigate heretics." There had been earlier inquisitions but it
was not until a special tribunal was created that the real terror
began. Heretics could be lightly admonished as long as the au-
thorities felt secure in the possession of their corrupt privileges
and powers; but as the volume of disaffection mounted a sharper
weapon had to be forged, a weapon especially designed to cut
down heretics. The creation of special antiheresy tribunals, there-
fore, is always an indication that the fight against heresy has en-
tered a decisive phase. Once established, the tribunals remain in
existence.

A heresy tribunal must be specialized in function, that is, it
must deal exclusively with heresy. For one thing, the work of
such a tribunal cannot be fettered in any manner; it must have the
widest and most unrestricted freedom of action. It must be in-
vested, for example, with the unusual power of defining the crime

^The Inquisition, 1929, p. 23.

302 Witch Hunt

it was created to punish and, also, of making its own rules. The
tribunal must exist "outside" the common or customary law for
the reason that accepted legal procedures and rules of evidence
must be set aside. The accused, by way of illustration, must be
saddled with a presumption of guilt since neither thoughts nor
attitudes can be satisfactorily appraised unless the accused can be
made to talk.

The creation of tribunals with these unique powers is invari-
ably justified in terms of the existence of some extraordinary
political emergency. "He has suspended the laws of the country,"
wrote Hazlitt of Lord Castlereagh, "to save us from anarchy! We
deny the danger and deprecate the remedy. If ministers could
afford to fan the flames of insurrection, to alarm the country into
a surrender of its Hberties, w^e contend that a danger that could
be thus tampered with, thus made a convenient pretense for seiz-
ing a power beyond the law to put it down, might have been put
down without a power beyond the law."

In heresy prosecutions there can be no acquittals. One or more
acquittals would destroy the atmosphere of fear and terror so
indispensable to the success of any well-considered thought-
control program. The functions of judge, jury, and prosecutor
must, therefore, be combined so that the inquisitors may control
the entire proceeding, including the verdict. Remy, the famous
Inquisitor of Lorraine, who consigned 800 witches to the stake,
made the perfect comment on inquisitorial justice \^'hen he ob-
served: "So sure is my justice that sixteen witches arrested the
other day never hesitated but strangled themselves inconti-
nently."

The people must be made to fear the tribunal and its processes;
the very thought of the tribunal must arouse foreboding and ap-
prehension. If the tribunal is to be feared, it must be fearsome:
hence its reputation becomes more important than its accomplish-
ments. To function as the silent censor of the people's thoughts,
the tribunal must acquire the reputation of being a silent, ruth-
less, and incredibly efficient machine from which there is no
escape. The victim, in short, must be made to feel his utter help-
lessness before a power which seems as strong and inexorable as

The New Inquisition 303

fate. This impression can best be created by special tribunals
which deal exclusively with heresy and heretics. If heresy prose-
cutions are to succeed, the people must be made to take heresy
seriously; that is, they must be made to fear the consequences of
being identified with heresies or heretics. Special heresy tribu-
nals stimulate and organize this fear.

A tribunal that is concerned only with heresy is able to keep
meticulous and detailed records. Every fragment of evidence is
carefully husbanded and the most casual gossip is jotted down in
the heretic's record. By the use of modern indexing, filing and
coding machines, we have perfected the techniques of political
surveillance. In "the dossier state" in which we Hve, a man can
no more escape from his dossier than he can elude his shadow;
whether he journeys to Kansas or Kenya, the dossier is certain to
pursue him. Just as every tribunal of the Inquisition had a notary
with a large stafi^ of clerks and scriveners, forever poring over
their bloodstained documents, jotting down the tips and reports
of informers, recording fragments of conversation, preserving
intimacies acquired in the confessional, so in the great central
fihng room of the FBI, with its lofty domed ceiling, hundreds of
clerks scurry about, taking dossiers here and there, as the heresy-
proof machines sort and code, file and index, mechanically "fin-
gering" victims from one end of the continent to the other. The
more elaborate and efficient this surveillance machine becomes,
the more fear it inspires and the more insecurity it breeds. Even-
tually it becomes the f ountainhead of the very fear and insecurity
which it was originally intended to allay.

The House Committee on Un-American Activities is the special
centralized tribunal which has organized the New Inquisition. It
is a permanent antiheresy tribunal which determines guilt and
metes out punishment. The committee, it should be noted, did
not come into being overnight; it was only set up, in fact, after
other and more conventional methods of dealing with heresy had
been tried and abandoned. For example, an attempt had been made
in the early 1920's to deal with social, economic, and political
heresies in the regular criminal courts as specially defined crimes;
witness the various "criminal syndicalism" statutes of that period.

304 Witch Hunt

But criminal courts, like the secular or "earthly" tribunals of the
Middle Ages, deal with overt acts, not with thoughts and feelings;
and, besides, regular criminal prosecutions are slow, cumbersome,
and inefficient.

Special heresy tribunals require a special, nonjudicial personnel.
The successful inquisitor must be "ardent with the fiery and
formidable zeal of fanaticism"; he cannot be judicial in tone or
manner. He, too, must be fearsome. The great inquisitors of an-
other age, Bernard Gui, Nicholas Eymeric, and the incredibly
diligent James Sprenger, were men of this stamp. They thought
of themselves, as A. S. Turberville has pointed out, "as servants
of God surrounded by that aureole of sanctity which gave their
court the name and reputation of the Holy Office." ^ Their mod-
ern counterparts obviously think of themselves in similar terms.
Indeed such men as Dies, Thomas, Canwell, Broyles, Tenney,
and the others, were selected as chairmen of our various un-
American heresy tribunals precisely because they are self-right-
eous political zealots with a passion for conformity. Half-hearted
inquisitors are rare and when one does appear, as in the case of
ex-Congressman Jerry Voorhis, he soon sickens of the task and
resigns in disgust.

During his term of ofHce, the medieval inquisitor enjoyed what
was known as "plenary indulgence," that is, he could not be ac-
cused of heresy. The reason is clear: if inquisitors could be
charged with heresy, there would be no one to investigate the
investigators. Faced with the same problem, we follow a similar
rule. For example, many of our inquisitors, including Rankin,
Dies, and Thomas, have been guilty of numberless heresies against
the democratic faith; yet no one could charge them with heresy
or impeach their authority so long as they served as inquisitors.
The medieval inquisitor possessed another special power which
we, too, have conferred upon our modern inquisitors — namely,
the power to grant indulgences. The indulgences granted Eliza-
beth Bentley and Whittaker Chambers — who readily confessed
their guilt as former heretics and violators of the law — are merely
two of many similar illustrations that might be cited. Once a

^Medieval Heresy and the Inquisition, 192 1.

The New Inquisition 305

heretic becomes a "friendly" witness or turns informer, he there-
after enjoys a complete immunity for past crimes, however grave,
nor can he be charged with heresy. The very existence of this
power places a high premium on perjury and endangers the lib-
erties of every law-abiding citizen.

Although there are striking similarities between modern in-
quisitorial tribunals and those of the Middle Ages, there is one im-
portant difference. Heresy tribunals were then financed from
the fines and fees assessed against heretics and from the proceeds
received from the sale of confiscated properties. For example, as
early as 1375 one finds Eymeric complaining bitterly that there
were no more "rich heretics" left to persecute. The Nazis, of
course, followed the medieval practice of confiscating the prop-
erty of the heretic and the same practice apparently prevails in
the Soviet Union and its satellite provinces; but we, as though to
emphasize our freedom from such undemocratic phobias, insist
that the general taxpayer foot the bill.

2. THE NATURE OF THE CRIME

Saint Thomas Aquinas insisted that a person in ignorance of
the truth could not be adjudged a heretic without proof of previ-
ous instruction in the faith. When Prynne, Bastwick, and Burton
were convicted of heresy on June 14, 1637, the Star Chamber
ordered that they should be branded on their foreheads with the
initials "S. L." — meaning Seditious Libeler — and that their ears
should be cut off. But at least they had been warned of the con-
sequences of error and, as the record shows, they had been ex-
posed to the truth. Nowadays, however, one can be branded with
the letter "S" for Subversive without any showing that one has
first been instructed in the truth about "free enterprise." In point
of literal fact, heresy is actually a more arbitrary conception with
us than it was in the Middle Ages.

Generally speaking, however, we have adopted the medieval
definition of heresy. A medieval heretic was a person who, on any
grounds, had separated himself from the traditional faith. Separa-

3o6 Witch Hunt

tion did not have this effect in theory but in practice it did since
every schism argued an error in belief. The basis of heresy has
alvv'ays consisted in a challenge to the existing order^ Heresy is
the disposition to be critical of the existing social order in time
of storm. Hence no charge is easier to bring and none so difficult
to disprove. The vagueness of the offense and the impossibility
of acquittal have always made heresy the perfect political weapon
to use in maintaining a social order in which many people have
ceased to believe. "When employed politically," wrote Henry
Charles Lea, "the accused had the naked alternative of submission
or of armed resistance." ^ "It created," writes Coulton, "a veritable
scramble for heresy, and even a systematic manufacture of heresy,
for, if your enemy was a heretic, then you were sure of your
cause against him." ^

Inherently vague, the definition of heresy was greatly expanded
in the Middle Ages by the practice of thinking of heresy as a
catalogue of beliefs, activities, and affiliations. Thus new crimes
could be created, so to speak, by simply adding new items to the
catalogue. With us, too, heresy is defined catalogue-fashion. The
catalogue, of course, is never completed; the list of errors is
never final. There is real logic in this method, too, for heresy is
basically a crime of the intellect, a matter of the state of a man's
mind and disposition, and thus it cannot be defined categorically.
Although heresy is sometimes revealed in an act, it more often
consists in a secret intention, a covert and latent rebelliousness.
Thus, as Turberville points out, the inquisitor ''must be a searcher
of the heart and a prober into the obscure workijjgs of the 77ii?id"
(Emphasis added.)

The Devil conceals heresy, of course, in strange places so that
its detection requires skill and training and rare imagination. In-
quisitors pride themselves on their ability to detect heresy in the
most unlikely guises and in the strangest forms. Heresy tribunals
soon accumulate a body of dogma of such vast proportions that
only the professional inquisitor is competent to identify heretics

*See Turberville, op. cit., p. 13.

^ A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, Vol. HI, 1921, p. 191.

Op, cit., p. 93.

The New Inquisition 307

and to ferret out heresies. For heresy may be revealed in the lift-
ing of an eyebrow (so Mr. Adolphe Menjou assured the House
Committee on Un-American Activities), the slightest ideological
deviation or emphasis, a barely perceptible nuance of meaning,
the faintest equivocation. Each inquisitor, of course, has a patent
on his favorite divining methods and none has ever been known
to testify without a fee. Indeed the higher the fee, the keener the
discernment of the expert, the more subtle his inferences, the more
audacious his conclusions.

Heresy tribunals rarely exonerate a person charged with heresy.
The intangible nature of the offense makes it almost impossible
for a person to be "cleared" of the charge. Since nearly everyone
harbors a tendency to be critical of the existing social order,
nearly everyone is guilty of heresy to some degree. Besides, just
how is a person to refute a charge based on "spectral" evidence?
The logic of the inquisitorial process, as Marion Starkey has
pointed out, is "a stern mad logic, a closed circle," a logic which
admits of only one reality: the affliction of witchcraft; the patent
unrest which the heretic is supposed to have caused. A person
charged with murder can be exonerated: either he committed the
crime or he didn't. But who knows whether a person actually har-
bors a disposition to be critical of the existing social order? And,
if you are charged with such an offense, just how do you prove
that you are innocent? How do you prove, in other words, that
you are not a witch?

Special heresy tribunals are more concerned with heretics than
with heresies and, curiously enough, they are more interested in
the person suspected of heresy than in the self-acknowledged
heretic. In fact the logic of heresy makes "suspicion of heresy"
a crime. The extension Is entirely logical since any connection
with heresy implies contamination. If ideas as such cause unrest,
then any exposure to certain ideas is likely to lead to further
unrest. To the inquisitorial mind, a person is an object of suspi-
cion either because the suspicion is well founded (although the
proof may be lacking) or because the suspect has, in fact, been
guilty of some indiscreet behavior or careless remark. In either
case, it seems entirely logical to afford the suspect an opportunity

3o8 Witch Hunt

to abjure the heresy. Of course the suspect is tainted by the
mere act of abjuration; but this is no concern of the inquisitor.
Thereafter it can be said of the suspect, "He denied it but . . ."
The denial can also be used to convict the suspect of perjury if,
at some later date, two or more professional perjurers can be
induced to swear that he was in fact a heretic. If the suspect
abjures the heresy, he places himself under a sentence of indefi-
nite ideological probation; if he fails to make the abjuration, he
stands convicted by implication. Since Sir Thomas More went
to the block, suspected heretics have been trying, without suc-
cess, to find some escape from this dilemma.

3. TO GUARD THE FAITH

The function of the inquisitor as missionary rather than as
judge provides an important key to an understanding of the in-
quisitorial process. His primary function is not so much to pro-
nounce judgment as to guard the faith. The heretic must be
forced to renounce his heresy, that is, to confess his error. The
inquisitor is, therefore, really a confessor, a spiritual guide. "He
was more than a judge," wrote Lea, "he was a father-confessor
striving for the salvation of the wretched souls perversely bent
on perdition." ' The real purpose in the questioning of heretics
is to bring the accused to a right state of mind; to secure a public
confession of error and recantation. Hence it is always preferable,
as Turberville observed, "that the lost sheep should voluntarily
return, or allow itself quietly to be led back into the fold, than
that it should have to be forcibly driven in."

Every opportunity and encouragement is given the heretic to
recant. If he will only abjure heresy and denounce his former
colleagues, he can expect to receive kindly treatment. The tone
and manner of the interrogation is promptly modified upon the
first showing on the part of the heretic of a desire to recant. To
wring a confession from a heretic implies a victory for the faith;
but to force him to recant is a personal triumph for the inquisitor.

'^Op. cit., Vol. I, p. 6j.

The New Inquisition 309

Once a witness has recanted, he is then treated with much the
same tenderness and deference shown the sinner who has finally
seen the light.

The inquisitorial process must be easily set in motion in order
to encourage denunciation. Under Roman Law, a prosecution
could only be instituted by the accusation or denunciation of an
official; but an inquisitio could be started simply by the fihng of
a diffamatio or general report of the inhabitants of a village or
parish. The diffmjiatio was based on a form of organized gossip
or rumor. "Synodal witnesses," or, as we would say, "patriotic
citizens," vocalized local rumor in preparing the report. In our
time, these synodal witnesses are the chairmen of the various
"Americanism" committees, the busybody spokesmen for the
patriotic societies, and the zealots who make a business of "re-
searching Communism." The ease with which the charge of
heresy can be brought explains the mania of denunciation which
accompanies an inquisition. Denunciation is a common feature
of all inquisitions and often reaches, as it did in Nazi Germany,
wholly unmanageable proportions.^

In addition to the diffamatio, the Inquisition developed two
ingenious techniques to flush out heretics, both of which are
widely used today. The first was the mquisitio gejieralis. Here
the inquisitor or his vicar would suddenly descend on a village
and, in a dramatic speech, demand that the villagers deliver up
the heretics known to be in their midst. A period of grace, usually
a fortnight, was ordinarily stipulated. Should the villagers remain
silent, an army of spies would be assigned to flush out the heretics
and a fine would be assessed against the village. In our time, the
inquisitor (chairman) or his vicar (field agent) simply denounces
a certain organization as Communist-dominated. The officials then
know that they must either launch a purge or face pubhc inves-
tigation.

Once the heretics were flushed out, the procedure could take
the form of the inquisitio specialis or the purgatio cafiomca (dat-
ing from 803 A.D.). The latter was a plea of innocence supported
by the oaths of friends and neighbors who acted as compurga-

^See Bramstedt, op. cit., p. i8i.

3IO Witch Hunt

tores, bearing witness to the good character if not to the inno-
cence of the accused. The plea survives in the form of the letters
and affidavits presented to the various loyalty review boards on
behalf of those regarded as "bad loyalty risks." In the Middle
Ages, as today, it was quickly discovered that the procedure is
inherently defective. An inquisition cannot proceed upon the
basis of charges and denials; the accused must be examined, his
conscience must be probed. Hence the inquisitio specialis, or
preliminary examination, which precedes the formal public hear-
ing-

In the public interrogation, the heretic is always at a marked
disadvantage. Even when the heretic is stubborn and clever, the
contest takes place under grossly unequal conditions. For one
thing, the inquisitor is at the same time prosecutor, judge, and
jury. His rulings cannot be appealed; his denunciations must be
endured in silence. The accused, of course, is presumed to be
guilty since the mere fact of defamation carries the taint of heresy.
But the major difficulty for the accused is that of proving a nega-
tive issue. Historically this difficulty has always been so formida-
ble that many heresy suspects have pleaded guilty rather than run
the risk of involving themselves in additional heresies in the course
of their examination or, even worse, inadvertently incriminating
other persons.

In this most unfair of all intellectual duels, it is considered
entirely proper for the inquisitor to disconcert the heretic by
means of disingenuous subtleties and subterfuges. It is presumed,
of course, that the heretic will lie since he is coached by the
Devil and this presumption is used to justify any methods that the
inquisitor cares to employ. Heresy, moreover, is a vastly com-
plicated subject; it is not easy for the accused to distinguish
between subversive and nonsubversive doctrines. The inquisitor
always has the advantage of having access to great storehouses of
heretic writings which have been carefully indexed and arranged
the better to trap the unwary suspect. "It was held to be legiti-
mate," writes Turberville, "to surprise and confuse the defendant
by a multiplicity of questions, which would involve him in con-
tradictions." Small wonder, then, that it should have been said

The New Inquisition 3 1 1

that the Inquisitors could have shaken the orthodoxy of Saint
Peter or Saint Paul.

Nor is the heretic ever given sufficient information upon which
to build a defense. A person haled before the Inquisition, like a
person haled before a loyalty review board, was merely given a
resume of the charges, never the charges themselves. He was
told that he was suspected of heresy but he was never allowed
to read the evidence or to see the complaint or to face his
accuser. It is a basic characteristic of the inquisitorial process
that the names of informers are never revealed. Where the in-
former is protected as a matter of policy, almost any person will
serve as an informer for the reputation of the informer cannot
be made an issue. Similarly the rules barring certain types of
witnesses are never followed by inquisitorial tribunals. The in-
quisitors accepted the testimony of persons who would have been
instantly barred from testifying in the secular courts. Convicted
heretics were permited to testify against suspected heretics despite
the fact that heretics were presumed to be incapable of telling the
truth. In the same manner, we readily accept the testimony of ex-
Communists against those charged with being Communists while
purporting to believe that all Communists are liars. The Inquisi-
tion encouraged husbands to testify against wives and vice versa
(the charge of witchcraft being widely used as an inexpensive
way to secure a divorce). Children were encouraged to testify
against their parents, servants against their masters, and evidence
obtained in the confessional was accepted without the slightest
hesitancy — that is, where the evidence was offered against the
accused.

One of the dramatic points in the Canwell Committee hearings
was marked by the testimony of a father against his son, and
before the House Committee, of a sister denouncing her brothers.
To date, however, we have not had a case like that of the famous
Infant of Montsegur who, six years of age, was permitted to
denounce his parents and a large number of relatives, all adults.
Criminals, harlots, thrice-confessed perjurers, spies, thieves, and
pimps are welcome witnesses before inquisitorial tribunals. A
glance at the backgrounds of the "friendly" witnesses who have

312 Witch Hunt

appeared before the various un-American investigations is suffi-
cient to demonstrate that the popular loathing of the informer
is based on a sound inference as to his character.

Since only a witch can catch a witch, it follows that inquisi-
tions must largely rely upon the testimony of ex-witches. The
matter of proof, moreover, is greatly simplified by the practice of
using the ex-witch as a witness in many prosecutions. The testi-
mony of the former witch thus acquires, by constant rehearsal
and repetition, a fine gloss and finish and can be repeated easily,
glibly, and with dramatic effect. Every inquisition turns up loath-
some professional perjurers, such as Titus Oates and the infamous
Castles and Oliver. In our time, certain individuals have made a
nice living for some years by testifying as informers in various
prosecutions; one, it is estimated, has testified in some twenty-five
or thirt)^ prosecutions. If the witness testifies on "Communism,"
he can be paid special fees as an expert. One witness in the
Bridges case, for example, was paid $ioo a week, over a period
of many months, on the flimsy pretense that he was being re-
tained as an expert. This particular witness, it might be added,
was originally most reluctant to testify for the government.

Ordinarily a reputation for truth, honor, and integrity would
protect an innocent person against the slanders of disreputable
informers and professional perjurers; but once an inquisition is
organized, it is presumed that the more reputable a person is the
less he can be expected to know about witchcraft. The matter of
identifying witches then becomes the exclusive privilege and
profitable profession of the ex-witch. The more disreputable the
ex- witch — the more she revels in her former high crimes and
treasons — the more credible and impressive she becomes as a
witness. The inference, of course, is that such a truly spectacular
moral monster must have acquired deep insights into the nature
of witchcraft. With these witnesses, therefore, a bad reputation
for truth, honor, and integrity adds weight and impressiveness to
their testimony. In time of storm, the word of even the craziest
ex-witch will often be given more credence than the word of a
person with a lifelong reputation for honesty and integrity and
an unblemished record as a good citizen. By the nature of the

The New Inquisition 313

situation, a belief in heresy carries with it a will-to-believe in the
mysterious power, the unbounded evil, the treachery and talent
for deceit of heretics. By telling a story that everyone wants to
believe, and which echoes the official propaganda of the period,
the ex-witch seems to speak as an oracle. Indeed her tale can
hardly be questioned without calling in question the official
propaganda.

"Yet another serious disability," writes Turberville of the plight
of the heretic, "was that the accused was not allowed the assist-
ance of counsel." Innocent III, like Martin Dies, expressly forbade
the appearance of advocates. The mischievous Eymeric, on the
other hand, often encouraged the appearance of counsel since,
by appearing for a heretic, the attorney automatically convicted
himself of "constructive heresy" or fautorship. The role of the
advocate in heresy prosecutions is dangerous and there is little
inducement to compensate for the risk. And if the theory of the
inquisitorial process is accepted, there is really no occasion for
the appearance of counsel. "If the inquisitor be considered as a
confessor," writes Turberville, "the accused as a penitent pater-
nally exhorted, lovingly urged to reconciliation, pardon being
assured for the truly repentant, what possible need can there be
for an advocate? The tribunal gave every facility for escape of
the prisoner from all possible unhappy consequences of his defa-
mation, down o?ie avenue — confession, penance, reinstatement."

In preparing a defense, the heretic has only a limited choice of
pleas. "Ignorance," of course, Is no defense. A special plea was
often used in the Middle Ages which is still quite popular, namely,
the plea of lapsus linguae — th^Lt is, that the heresy was spoken
thoughtlessly, on the spur of the moment or in idle jest. Still
another standard plea is "great perturbation of mind" — that is,
that the heresy was spoken or committed under circumstances of
unusual stress. However, the madness of love (Judith Coplon) is
never accepted as a defense unless the heretic has also recanted
and come forth with denunciations (Elizabeth Bentley). Indeed
about the only defense to a charge of heresy consists in being
able to point out that your accuser, if you can discover his name,
was motivated by malice.

314 Witch Hunt

When all else failed, the inquisitors of another age could use
physical torture to secure confessions. With stunning verbal in-
genuity, the doctrine was evolved that torture could not be
repeated but that it might be continued. Thus in the famous case
of the Forty Witches of Arras, the inquisitors were allowed to
torture the accused forty times since each successive application
was regarded as merely a continuance of the first. Being a humane
people, we do not tolerate the use of direct physical torture
(except in the form of police brutality and the third degree).
Torture was used, however, in Nazi Germany on a scale, and
with an ingenuity, that would stagger the good Bishop of Bam-
berg, who boasted of having sent 600 witches to the stake in a
year, or his still more distinguished colleague, the Bishop of
Wiirzburg, who managed to achieve the magnificent record of
900 executions in a comparable period. Psychological torture and
the agony of insecurity generally suffice where direct physical
torture runs counter to the mores.

4. THE YELLOW CROSS

Acquittals being unknown, the original inquisitors had to in-
vent an ingenious system of penalties. Since the fiction prevailed
that the Inquisition was concerned with "errors" rather than
crimes — indeed that the tribunals were pubhc confessionals
rather than courts — most of the penalties imposed were expatia-
tory in character. Convicted heretics were ordered to go on pil-
grimages, to perform missions, to do penance. The penalties, also,
were often pecuniary. A favorite, perhaps the most common,
form of punishment consisted in requiring the heretic to wear
some mark of heresy on his clothing — say, two crosses of yellow
felt, a red tongue, a hammer, or the figure of a demon.

Although we do not send heretics on pilgrimages or impose
fines or confiscate their homes, we do indulge in the use of the
symbolic badge designed to warn the innocent of the danger of
contamination by exposure. In a figurative sense, heretics go forth
from our tribunals branded as social pariahs, mugged, finger-

The New Inquisition 315

printed, indexed, cross-indexed, smeared, and blacklisted. In the
Middle Ages, the heretic's symbol had to be worn continuously
indoors and out and for an indefinite period. As long as it was
worn, it was difficult for the penitent to find employment. And
so, of course, it is with us. We deny heretics important civil
rights and privileges while insisting that they have never been
accused of "crime." Branded with the yellow cross of sub-
version, a heretic cannot work for the government; hold public
office; teach in the public schools; serve as a grand juror; find
employment in certain branches of industry; or receive instruc-
tion in certain fields of science, and so on.

In the Middle Ages, heretics were classed as contumacious,
impenitent, and relapsed. The relapsed heretic was one m ho, hav-
ing once done penance, resumed his former sinful ways. If Louis
Budenz were once again to espouse Communism, we would re-
gard him as a relapsed heretic. The penalty for the relapsed heretic
was death. In the curious nomenclature of the Inquisition, the
word "abandon" had a terrible connotation. The inquisitors de-
nied that they had ever sentenced a heretic to death and they
were technically correct for the death sentence was pronounced
in this manner: "We abandon thee to the secular arm, beseeching
it affectionately, as canon law requires, that the sentence of the
Court judges may spare you death or mutilation." In a similar
sophistical vein, modern inquisitors contend that it is quite all
right to strip citizens of basic civil rights and to brand them as
traitorous and subversive, all without a hearing or due process,
since they are not being accused of the commission of a "crime"!

In all inquisitions, the fiction prevails that the purpose of the
procedure is not to punish heretics but to root out heresies. The
only difficulty with this fiction, however, is that it is quite im-
possible to root out heresies without punishing heretics. Never-
theless it is true that many inquisitors labored long and hard to
save as many heretics as possible from the stake. During seven-
teen years as an inquisitor, Bernard Gui only found it necessary
to "abandon" forty-five heretics to the secular authorities. And,
in our time, many inquisitors are more concerned with the preva-
lence of heresies than with the burning of witches. "The Inquisi-

3i6 Witch Hunt

tion," writes Turberville, "did not aim at making great holocausts
of victims; it desired only to make a few examples. Except in
Languedoc, where the heretics were a majority and powerful, a
few examples always sufficed. The Inquisition sought not ven-
geance, which was a synonym for failure, but reconciliation,
which meant success."

However the inquisitors never hesitated to impose the death
penalty on the obdurate heretic and, again, no exception can be
taken to their logic. For, if you believe in heresy, just what
remedy can be suggested for the confirmed heretic? To those
who believe in heresy, a confirmed heretic is more dangerous
than a mad dog or a carrier of bubonic plague. Should he be
banished from the realm? Banishment will only spread the in-
fection. Should he be imprisoned? But to what end? The man
is irredeemably damned. "It is a strange obtuseness," writes Tur-
berville, "that does not see that the whole attitude of the Inquisi-
tion to the heretic points logically, and indeed inevitably, to
death as the fate of the obdurate."

Prior to the. rise of Fascism in Italy and Germany, the West-
ern World had dismissed the Inquisition as part of the nightmare
of history people were trying to forget. But with the current
prevalence of witches, we are once again making the fatal mistake
of punishing, as crimes, errors in intellectu. In our innocent but
unpardonable neglect of history, we still cannot understand how
it was possible for decent, warmhearted, law-abiding Germans to
acquiesce in the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps. But,
as Turberville has pointed out, "once granted the point of view
that heresy is a more heinous offense than coining or than treason
and the penalty of death for heresy appears not shocking and
horrible, but something eminently just and proper." This con-
cession, which seems hard for us to understand, is based upon
a form of paranoid delusion which it is one of the major resoonsi-
biUties of this age to overcome.

The New Inquisition 317

5. THE CONFESSIONAL DELUSION
The belief in witches rests on what is, perhaps, the oldest
fallacy of proof. Ordinarily we regard a confession as the most
convincing evidence of guilt. It seems conclusive, irrefrangible,
completely "real." The penalty for witchcraft was, of course,
about the most dreadful that can be imagined. Yet thousands of
human beings freely "confessed" that they were witches know-
ing that the penalty was death at the stake. What, then, could be
more convincing proof of the reality of witchcraft than this
steady flow of confessions? Indeed the evidence seemed to be
overwhelming. "Statements of disinterested eye-witnesses," wrote
Henry Charles Lea, "complaints of sufferers, confessions of the
guilty, even after condemnation, and at the stake, when there
w^as no hope save of pardon of their act by God, are innumerable,
and so detailed and connected together that the most fertile
imagination would seem inadequate of their invention."^

The more witches carted off to the stake, the more terrified
the community, the more numerous the denunciations, the more
perfect the delusion of guilt. "In such an atmosphere of uncer-
tainty," writes Christina Hole, "suspicion naturally flourished,
and any chance coincidence or untoward happening was enough
to set men looking askance at some hapless individual. ... A
witch could work so much evil that it was easy to believe every
misfortune was the result of witchcraft. It was often simpler to
think it so than to admit it might have been caused by the care-
lessness or stupidity of the sufferer." ^^ When a witch could
stand up in a courtroom crowded with people she had known
all her life, and confess the most monstrous crimes, without ap-
parent coercion or duress and well knowing that a confession
would send her to the stake, what stronger proof could there be
that witchcraft was a terrible reality?

And witches confessed every imaginable crime, without coer-
cion, with the greatest ardor. Most of them doubtless confessed

^Op. cit., Vol. Ill, p. 544.
^^Op. cit., p. 61.

3i8 Witch Hunt

/ in the hope of receiving mercy or of buying their freedom by
denouncing some more important person as a witch; but it is also
clear that many witches confessed because they suffered from
the same delusions that had made sadists of their persecutors.
"When the peasant wise-women came to be examined as to their
dealings with Satan," writes Lea, "they could hardly help . . .
from satisfying their examiners with accounts of their nocturnal
flights. Between judge and victim it was easy to build up a co-
herent story, combining the ancient popular behef with the
heretical conventicles. . . . The consentaneity at the time was
an irrefragable proof of truth." " The terror of the charge itself
was sufficient, in most cases, to frighten confessions from the
accused. But it was always the combination of some real act with
the social hallucination that witches existed that, when related to
the confession of the witch, created the perfect illusion of guilt.

Why do so many persons charged with heresy confess their
guilt? The theories are legion but there is little scientific evi-
dence to support any of them. Fear and a sense of guilt unre-
lated to the particular act of witchcraft are, perhaps, the basic
reasons. Often, though, the suspect half wishes that he were
a witch or wizard. The confession doubtless voices this identifi-
cation. Or, again, the witch may be genuinely deluded; she
may really believe that she did what she is charged with doing.
By confessing to difficult and daring acts, the witch may enjoy
a vicarious sense of power and take revenge upon those by whom
she has been rejected. Whatever the reason, witches have "con-
fessed" every imaginable crime and neither fear nor torture is an
entirely satisfactory explanation for these confessions. Surveying
the century and a half of delirium and delusion during which
30,000 witches were sent to the stake. Lea was moved to ask:
"Could any Manichaean offer more practical evidence that Satan
was the Lord of the visible universe?" It is still a good question.

The delusion of guilt, which false confessions create, is always
based on a reality, although the confession distorts the meaning
of this reality. The point can be illustrated by an incident related
by Lea. In the year 1586 the spring was tardy in the Rhineland

^^ Op. cit., Vol. Ill, p. 500.

The New Inquisition 319

and the cold of winter was prolonged until June. This could
only be the result, of course, of either sorcery or witchcraft
and so the Archbishop of Treves ordered 118 women and two
men, from all of whom confessions had been obtained, to be
burned at the stake. "It was well that he acted thus promptly,"
wrote Lea, "for on their way to the place of execution they [the
witches and the two wizards] stated that had they been allowed
three days more they would have brought cold so intense that
no green thing could have survived, and all the fields and vine-
yards would have been cursed by barrenness." Here, then, is the
syllogism on which the delusion rests: a late freeze had unde-
niably taken place; this unusual freeze must have a cause; witches
had vast powers and could doubtless delay the coming of spring;
therefore, the witches having confessed, the proof of witchcraft
was invulnerable.

There is, however, a further elemmt in the confessional delu-
sion that needs to be emphasized.f At the outset, the Church
condemned the belief in witchcraft as a heresy; but as the social
chaos of the times mounted the witchcraft delusion seemed to
square with reality. For so much evil, the people reasoned, there
must be a cause; and thus, by a roundabout process, the Church
found itself in the position of having to accept as real the behef
it had originally condemned as a delusion. For unless the evil of
the times could be blamed on witches, it might be blamed, in
part, on the Church. The moment the Church began to prosecute
witches, however, it gave a terrible impetus to the belief in
witchcraft«,!Every prosecution was a public demonstration that
the belief was not a delusion. Neurotics then began to imagine
that they had actually witnessed scenes in which foul mysteries
were demonstrated and, to these, the myths of witchcraft became
articles of orthodox belief. Others found a wonderful intoxication
in proclaiming their powers as witches and in exploiting, often
quite profitably, the popular fear of witches. Throughout this
dreadful period, confessions continue to invest the delusion of
witchcraft with the appearance of reality. With us, too, there
can be no doubt that the various un-American investigations and
hearings have spread the fear which they were supposed to arrest.

320 Witch Hunt

The confessional delusion was used effectively in Nazi Ger-
many; a "witch," it will be recalled, confessed to having set fire
to the Reichstag. The detailed and circumstantially ingenious
"confessions" which accompanied the 1937 "purge" in the Soviet
Union are also in point. The same element of delusion, however,
is clearly present in the "confessions" of some of the witnesses
who have appeared in the Un-American hearings and the pros-
ecutions which have arisen out of these hearings. It seems hard
to beheve, in some cases, that there could be an element of delu-
sion in these confessions. Why should apparently "normal" in-
dividuals seek to destroy their reputations in this manner? But,
in a season of terror, delusion thrives as an aspect of the "distor-
tion" which seems to pervade every phase of life. In recent trials
in Hungary, Rumania, and Bulgaria, and elsewhere, political
heretics have "confessed" various crimes with apparent freedom,
knowing that the chances of a pardon or commutation were
negligible and that their confession would only add to the politi-
cal confusion of the times. Why, then, have they forfeited a
chance to defy their persecutors and to appeal their case to the
bar of world opinion? All one can say is that) in periods of great
social crisis, illusion and reality tend to be transposed. The social
chaos interacts upon the personal neurosis and vice versa. In the
last analysis, the delusion upon which the belief in witches rests
cannot be explained in terms of the fantasies of witches or the
terror which the charge of witchcraft inspires; the real delusion
is social, it is part of the confusion and distortion that come
when men, in fear and desperation, "pluck up mercy by the
roots."

XVII
The Boughs and the Storm

Heresy prosecutions are truly an invention of the Devil for
they are based on a cruel transposition of illusion and reality
in which angry devotions become locked in mortal combat over
doctrinal issues which conceal rather than define the source of
conflict. The more violently a heresy is combated, the vaguer
become the doctrinal issues which blind both parties to the dis-
pute. Combating heresy is like trying to drive devil grass from
a California garden: the more you weed it, the more it grows.
Banished in one guise, heresy promptly reappears in a new form.
No sooner are heretics defeated in battle than their heresy crops
up in the ranks of the victors. It is not by chance that heresy
crusades are endlessly protracted and generally inconclusive.
Looking back on these long dark nights of delusion and mad-
ness, one can see that the doctrinal issue was never the source of
the conflict; but, at the time, the parties could see only this issue.
That a similar delusion underlies the rebirth of heresy becomes
apparent the moment one attempts to pin down and define the
modern heresy.

1. "WE GOT A LITTLE LIST"

As some day it may happen that a victim must be found,

I've got a little list — I've got a little list

Of society offenders who might well be underground.

And who never would be missed — who never would be missed! . . .

The task of filling up the blanks I'd rather leave to you,

But it really doesn't matter whom you put upon the list,

For they'd none of 'em be missed —

They'd none of 'em be missed!

— Ko-Ko the Lord High Executioner, in The Mikado

322

Witch Hunt

Just what is the heresy which, in this time of storm, we are
fighting with purges and persecutions, by total diplomacy and
global encirclement? The leaders of the anti-Communist crusade
contend, of course, that Communism is the heresy. In order to
appreciate that Communism is not the real heresy, however, all
one needs to do is to listen attentively to the anti-Communists.
In the course of the argument about the loyalty oath at the
University of Cahfornia, which was aimed specifically at Com-
munists, Mr. C. C. Teague, a member of the Board of Regents
and one of the most powerful and influential business leaders in
the state, addressed an open leter to President Sproul defending
the oath. "I have a profound conviction," he wrote, "that free-
dom in the world is being destroyed by Communism, of which
Socialism is the first step. Freedom has been destroyed in Eng-
land by Socialism, and the United States has traveled a consider-
able distance along the same road. It has been demonstrated many
times that Socialism destroys incentive and reduces production." ^

For some reason the argument that Communism is the heresy
of our time invariably veers off in this direction if it is pursued
closely and logically. Indeed the official propaganda of Big Busi-
ness has now begun to develop the theme that Socialism, not
Communism, is the real heresy. Following the election of Novem-
ber 1948, full-page ads sponsored by various business and indus-
trial concerns began to elaborate on the theme that Socialism is
a more serious threat to the "free enterprise system" than Com-
munism because, as a heresy, it is more insidious and beguiling.
The shift in emphasis, of course, was partly tactical. For one
thing, the Communist theme had been overworked (the election
returns showed that); besides, how could an administration
which had sponsored the loyalty program and proclaimed the
Truman Doctrine be accused of harboring Communists in high
office? Even reaction's joint chiefs of staff were finally compelled
to recognize that it was more plausible to attack "the welfare
state" directly than to attempt to pin a Communist label on it.

This new orientation is set forth with admirable bluntness and
candor in John T. Flynn's The Road Ahead, a condensed ver-

^ Los Angeles Times, March 2, 1950.

The Boughs and the Storm 323

sion of which appeared in Reader's Digest for February 1950.
According to Mr. Flynn, the real heresy is not Communism but
"National Planning" or Socialism. True, the Communists are "a
traitorous block in our midst" but "if every Communist in
America were rounded up and liquidated, the greatest menace
to our form of social organization would be still among us."
And clearly Mr. Flynn is right. The mass execution of the entire
personnel and membership of the Communist Party in the
United States would not abate the current agitation against
"reds" in the slightest degree. Nor would the enactment and
vigorous enforcement of every "anti-Communist" measure pro-
posed during the last quarter century allay the fears upon which
this agitation rests.

The reason, of course, is that our reactionaries are the victims
of paranoid delusion. In political history, deep fears take the form
of a delusion of encirclement in which, as Max Lerner has written,
"the threats from within are only threats from the shadows cast
by the fears themselves." This delusion, as he points out, "leads
logically to witchhunting within a nation, and to militarist and
imperialist adventures without. In the measure that the fearful
men grow panicky of the liberal state, they call upon it in the
name of encirclement to set up a watch and ward over dangerous
thoughts. In fact, the very people who most violently protest
against a Domesday Book of entries of wealth, income, wages,
profits are the people who are most passionately in favor of a
Domesday Book of entries of ideas and their professors." ^ These
are the people, of course, who have their little lists of society
offenders although it really does not matter to them whose names
appear upon the list.

Anti-Communism is a typical heresy trap — that is, it is not an
argument against heresy but a highly versatile weapon to catch
heretics. Note, for example, the ease with which Mr. Flynn is
able to manipulate the stereotype of an "accursed group" — the
stereotype of the heretic — to suit the changing tactical require-
ments of reaction. The new accursed group is not the Socialist
Party (this would be patently ridiculous). No, the real heretics,

^Safeguarding Civil Liberty Today, 1945, p. 55.

324 Witch Hunt

as one might expect, are "a small group ... of mysterious Fa-
bians," who, guided by a secret program and strategy, operate
clandestinely in the labyrinthine bureaus of Washington. Amaz-
ingly enough the "apparatus" through which these conspirators
function is Americans for Democratic Action! So obsessed is
Flynn with the plottings of the sinister Fabians that he vehe-
mently insists that all the talk about Communism and the Com-
munist Party simply confuses the real issue. And, once again, he
is clearly right.

Long before Flynn made this discovery, however, Max Lerner
pointed out that the big ideological specter of our time — the
specter that haunts the men of power, the specter that is driving
us in the direction of a police state — is Socialism. In doctrinal
terms, Socialism is no doubt the real heresy. The forces that seek
to whiplash the American people into a blind acceptance of the
anti-Communist police state, in the guise of fighting the Com-
munist police state, are by their own admissions primarily con-
cerned with the threat of Socialism. But they would oppose any
movement that threatened their privileges with the same vigor
that they oppose Communism and Socialism. Socialism is only
the doctrinal name for a set of ideas; by any other name these
ideas would still be heretical. The theological definition of heresy
as "the obstinate adherence to opinions arbitrarily chosen in
defiance of accepted ecclesiastical teaching and interpretation" is
still the best definition. For the real nature of heresy consists in
the stubborn will and perverse defiance of the heretic. It is pre-
cisely because heresy consists in the defiance of the heretic that
no attempt has been made to provide a clear-cut definition of
such terms as "disloyalty," "subversive conduct," and "un-
American activity." ^

An illusion widely propagated by professional anti-Communists,
that is, by those whose social philosophy consists of an intense op-
position to Communism and nothing else, makes it difficult to ac-
cept the proposition that Socialism is the real doctrinal heresy of
our time. Communism is basically objectionable, so insist the anti-

^ "The Real Danger — Fear of Ideas" by Henry Steele Commager, N. Y.
Times Magazine, June 26, 1949.

The Boughs and the Storm 325

Communists, not because of its ideas or program but because of
the manner in which the Communist Party is organized, that is, as
a societas perfecta, a society-within-a-society which is destined to
destroy the society it is within,* The argument carries the infer-
ence that if Socialism, were advocated by some other type of
part)^, it would not be heretical. But this is clearly an illusion.
Heresy does not consist in organizational forms; witches were
persecuted, not because they belonged to the society of witches,
but because they rejected the one true faith. The Albigensians
were not disobedient because they had an "apparatus"; they had
an apparatus because they were disobedient. If the form of the
Communist Party were all that mattered, recent heresy cam-
paigns would have taken an entirely different direction. What
does the form of the Communist Party have to do with Owen
Lattimore's views on China? Or with the quality of Ring Lard-
ner's work as a screen writer? The argument that the "anti-red"
crusade is directed not against the idea of Socialism but against
the Communist Party as such is as fallacious as it would be to say
that gangsters are prosecuted not for what they do, but for the
way in which gangs are organized. There are many organizations
in our society that are organized no less undemocratically than
the Communist Party; for example, corporations with nonvoting
stock, certain religious organizations, and others. We do not
harass these organizations or their members for the reason that
their objectives meet with tacit approval. But Socialism advo-
cated by angelic missionaries preaching nonviolence and prac-
ticing the purest democracy would still be objectionable, would
still be a form of heresy.

Heresies cannot be defined in doctrinal terms for the simple
reason that the doctrinal issue masks the real dispute. No one can
understand the doctrinal guises in which the heresy crusades of
another age found expression; the reality of these crusaders is to
be found in the struggle of privileged groups to suppress any
challenge to their authority in time of storm. It is the rise of
new ideas, brought into being by changing social conditions, that,
as Lerner points out, makes the free discussion of any ideas

^Yale Law Journal, Vol. 58, p. 12 18.

326 Witch Hunt

dangerous. Communism is heresy, Socialism is heresy, Planning
is heresy. Welfare is heresy, indeed it would be quite impossible
to complete a listing of the doctrinal guises and forms in which
modern heresy finds expression. Jazz music and abstract art are
heresies. Any idea can be heretical if it registers nonconformity.

If the real nature of heresy consisted in doctrinal differences
and ideological deviations, then heresy hunts would logically
be conducted in the form of doctrinal debates. But heresy is never
debated: it is suppressed. The characteristic weapons of a heresy
hunt are those of the police state and the inquisition. And it is
by their choice of weapons that heresy hunters betray their real
intention, which is not to win a debate but to control thoughts
and stop the free discussion of ideas. Their first impulse is to
reach for a club; they want the opponents locked up, silenced,
terrorized. What they really fear is not doctrine but disobedience.

Late in 1949 a young minister scheduled a series of panel dis-
cussions for the enlightenment of his congregation. The first
panel was to be devoted to a discussion of the topic: "Is
Socialism or Capitalism More Consistent with Christian Values?"
Despite the fact that the particular denomination stems from the
great tradition of Protestant dissent and that the congregation
enjoys a reputation for liberality, the discussion was canceled
at the insistence of influential members of the church. The morbid
fear of ideas which the cancellation implies cannot be explained
by the statement that Socialism is a doctrinal heresy. What the
congregation feared was not Socialism but miy significant dis-
cussion at this time. Nowadays meetings are canceled not be-
cause the speakers are "radical" or the topics forbidden but
because, in the present political atmosphere, any significant dis-
cussion is likely to be "controversial." Controversy is per se
taboo because it implies disobedience or nonconformity. Any
group that sponsors a meeting devoted to the discussion of a
controversial subject runs the risk of being branded Communist;
therefore, the way to avoid the risk is to avoid controversy, to
practice total conformity.

It is this fear of heresy rather than heresy itself that needs to
be defined. Heresy is tolerated in all societies, in all times, so

The Boughs and the Storm ^zj

long as it does not assail the privileges of some dominant group.
Spokesmen for such groups talk a great deal about "authority"
and "order" and "freedom" and "discipline"; but they are not
interested in any order they do not control or in freedom except
as it serves their purposes. Witch hunts never restore social
order; they are a form of disorder u^hich breeds further disorder.
"Bigots," wrote John Goodwin (1594-1665), "exalt the power or
authority of the ruler only when they are quite certain that this
power will be exercised in their own interests." When they talk
about discipline, they really mean "persecution calculated to sup-
press the spread of truth." Heresy hunts produce conformity, not
unity; indeed they destroy the basis of unity by insisting on total
conformity. The basic aim of heresy crusades is to create a single
official ideology. Anything that does not square with this ide-
ology or that fails to support it is automatically denounced as
heresy.

If an emergent heresy becomes the official ideology, the heresy
concept is frequently applied in reverse. "Capitalism" and "Lib-
eralism," "Free Speech" and "Zionism," then become dangerous
heresies which must be fought with police-state methods. For
the truth seems to be, as Gilbert Murray once pointed out, that
"the limitations that have to be imposed, or at any rate are im-
posed, on free speech and thought in various societies are usually
in exact proportion to the degree in w^hich that society has lost
its reserve of security and thus fallen away from civilization. The
more truly a society Is civilized, the more fully speech and
thought within Its precincts are free." ^ A regime that has failed
to acquire "reserves of security" can act as arbitrarily, in this
respect, as an older society conducting a delaying action against
forces pressing for social change.

In the latter case, however, it is often difficult to see that the
loss of these reserves of security Is what really Inspires the fear
of heresy. It Is hard to believe, as Lerner has pointed out, that
"freedom can die as effectively from exhaustion of the air in a
closed chamber as from a dagger thrust by an avowed enemy."
The dagger can be seen and is therefore real: "the exhaustion of

^ Liberality and Civilization, 1938.

328 Witch Hunt

the air" is invisible and therefore an illusion. Actually the fear
of heresy always manifests a prior loss of freedom. A free people
will not fear heresy. There are many people in our society who
are so fearful of their precarious status, their marginal security,
that they dare not examine ideas which have been branded hereti-
cal. With them the officially banned heresy becomes a synonym
for all the things they fear and, since it is difficult to hate an idea,
the "accursed group" becomes the symbol of everything they
hate.

The fear of ideas, in turn, is based on the belief that ideas re-
flect absolute truths which exist independently of the real world
and are capable of being divided into neat categories marked
"good" and "evil," "safe" and "dangerous." This belief has al-
ways given rise to the suggestion that there should be an official
guardian of the truth; that some infallible authority should sort
out the good ideas from the bad; and that the people should be
protected from "false" ideas by political censorship. It is a belief
which seems to experience a rebirth whenever a social order is
under serious attack for it provides an excellent ideological prop
for the contention that social relationships should be cast in a
permanent hierarchical order because ideas can be arranged in
this order. Just as ideas have their neatly prearranged places in a
timeless hierarchy of values, so each man has his proper place and
each social group its ordained social role. Under various names,
the belief has always been the cornerstone upon which the con-
cept of heresy rests.^

2. THE BLOODY TENETS YET MORE BLOODY

It is proper for a cruel religion to live
upon blood. For us, we will save whom we
can; but whom we cannot, we will not kill.

— BISHOP JOSEPH HALL

Crusades against heresy are organized on the assumption that
ideas cause social storms and that the suppression of the idea or

® See Ideas Have Consequences by Richard Weaver, 1948, one of the more
interesting elaborations of this doctrine.

The Boughs and the Storm 329

heresy will cause the storm to subside. The attempt to suppress
ideas, however, leads to the adoption of methods which are
essentially self-defeating. Heresies, for example, cannot be liqui-
dated by force. "Unless every Catholic in England can be de-
stroyed," wrote Sir Robert Bruce Cotton (1571-1631), "and that
with one blow, it is fruitless to cut down a few for the sake of
an example." Heresy prosecutions spread the storm by arousing
the undying enmity of those against whom they are directed. The
heretic lives for the day when he can stalk his inquisitor as a
heretic. The more viciously the heretic is attacked, the more re-
sentful he becomes. Even the disappearance of a particular heresy
will not abate the storm, for heresy is a symptom and not a cause.
If one symptom disappears, the patient will promptly develop
other symptoms. Put the heretic to death, and you make a martyr
of him; cut off his tongue, and he will write with his hand; cut off
his right hand, and he will write with his left. Even the threat
of the death penalty will not dissuade him for men will die, un-
fortunately, almost as readily for error as for truth.

Heresy prosecutions have the disastrous effect of dividing a
society into irreconcilable camps. At the outset of the storm,
there is usually a party of "moderates" between the inquisitors
and the heretics; but if the inquisition is prolonged, this party is
quickly depleted for most of the moderates will be compelled to
take up a position in one camp or the other, not upon the basis
of conviction or preference but simply because they fear or
dislike one extreme more than the other. The effect of heresy
prosecutions, therefore, is to weaken and often to immobilize the
only elements that enjoy a relative immunity from the delusions
of both extremes.

In heresy inquisitions, also, the temptation arises to use the
charge of heresy in an indiscriminate manner. Inquisitors seldom
bother to define the heresies they condemn. The effect is to
spread error and confusion and to add unwilling recruits to the
camp of the heretics by applying false labels. "Take heed,"
warned Thomas Fuller, the church historian, "of trying to kill
all in a dragnet." The persecution of heretics also deprives the
persecuting party of whatever moral advantage this party may

530 Witch Hunt

initially have enjoyed by reason of its rejection of police-state
methods. Once the Protestants began to persecute Catholics as
heretics it was said; "Wherein now are the Protestants more
merciful than the papists, or the papists than the Turks?" It is
the peculiar evil of heresy prosecutions that they are invariably
justified by sentiments of the deepest piety, a circumstance which
makes possible the use of the most savage reprisals. "In effecting
their ends," wrote Jacobus Arminius, "a persecuting party spares
no injury, which either human ingenuity can devise, the most
notable fury can dictate, or even the office of the infernal regions
can supply. Those who differ from the persecuting part)^ are
attacked with all kinds of weapons; with cruel mockings, calum-
nies, execrations, curses, excommunications, anathemas, degrading
and scandalous libels, prisons, and instruments of torture." ^

The persecution of heretics also has the paradoxical effect of
weakening the solidarity of the persecuting parry by spreading
confusion in its ranks. Some will believe that not enough violence
is being used; others will conclude that less violence would be
more effective. Some, out of sympathy, will begin to identify
with the heretics. Unfortunately, also, power always tends to
gravitate, in heresy persecutions, into the hands of irresponsible
extremists. The more brutally heretics are persecuted, the more
guilt the persecutors will feel; and the guiltier they feel, the less
scruples they will have about the use of violence.

The human mind being fallible, the persecution of heresy Is
really tantamount to a condemnation of human nature and a
betrayal of one's humanity. The theologians of another age, who
had seen oceans of blood shed in holy wars against heretics,
recognized more clearly than we do that there Is a saving grace
in all men, regardless of their views, and good In all things, even
those that appear to be entirely evil. Sir John Selden argued,
some centuries ago, that It Is Idle to persecute heretics since men
choose their opinions for reasons which too often have little to
do with the truth. Most men, moreover, are quite sincere when

'Quoted by Jordan, op. cit., Vol. Ill, p. 326. The three volumes making
up Dr. Jordan's study — The Development of Religious Toleration in
England — contain materials indispensable to the study of heresy.

The Boughs and the Storm 331

they espouse a new social doctrine however mistaken this doc-
trine may be. "It would indeed be a strange man," wrote Acontius,
"who would deliberately incur hatred and danger if he were not
sincere. To condemn him is like condemning God for not en-
dowing him with good sense."

Once, when the pathology of the disease was not understood,
the victims of St. Vitus's dance were beaten wdth sticks and
stones, as a therapeutic measure. The beatings, of course, only
aggravated the disease. Much the same is true of attempts to beat
heresies out of heretics. "In a learning way," wrote Richard
Baxter, "men are ready to receive the truth, but in a disputing
way, they come armed against it with prejudice and animosity.
. . . Nothing so much hindreth the reception of truth, as urging
it on men with too harsh importunity, and falling too heavily on
their errors. For thereby you engage their honour in the business,
and they defend their errors as themselves, and stir up all their
wit and ability to oppose you."

In the course of a war against heresy both parties stray further
and further from the truth; indeed the truth becomes entirely
irrelevant and the doctrinal differences become utterly meaning-
less in view of the similarity in methods. Divisions are enlarged
by the fury with which conformity is demanded and fear so
distorts the image of "the enemy" that this image soon bears no
resemblance to reality. There is, as Charles Horton Cooley once
pointed out, a real subservience in contradiction.

To use coercive methods to force heretics to abandon their
heresies before they have attained a measure of truth is, as Jere-
miah Burroughs (i 599-1 646) observed, "to seek to beat the nail
in by the hammer of authority, without making way by the
wimble of instruction. Indeed, if you have to deal with rotten,
or soft, sappy wood, the hammer only may make the nail enter
presently, but if you meet with sound wood, with heart of oak,
though the hammer and hand that strikes be strong, yet the nail
will hardly go in. It will turn crooked or break; or, at least, if it
enter, it may split that wood it enters into; and, if so, it will not
last long."

Heresy prosecutions can have a somewhat different effect in

332 Witch Hunt

new societies, which are seeking to prevent attacks upon social
structures not yet fully formed, than in older societies seeking to
prevent social change. If the former are really developing new
"reserves of security," they may show a greater long-range re-
sistance to the disintegrative effects of heresy prosecutions than
the latter. The appearance of heresy in a society whose social
relations have become historically obsolete is an indication that
some essential social truth has been too long neglected in that
society. The passion and fury with which heretics are attacked
would indicate that there is usually some central truth in their
dogmas. Heresy prosecutions tend to divert attention from the
discovery of this truth, and at the same time they destroy the
unity and consensus necessary to carry through major social
reforms. The longer the heresy hunt lasts, the greater the disunity
it creates. Soon people are being denounced not for their heresies
but simply because they refuse to denounce the heresies of others.

This is not to argue that heretics should be treated with special
solicitude. The question is: By what means are heresies to be
opposed? Essentially the question relates to the problem of how
to deal with conflict in society, of how to reconcile conflicting
ideologies. Perhaps the most important tactical point is one em-
phasized by Edmond Taylor. "Instead of attempting the hopeless
task of removing irremovable delusions in others," he writes, "we
should concentrate on the difficult but possible task of preventing
them from begetting new delusions in us. . . . It is our inability
to free our own minds from delusions that blinds us to the tre-
mendous power for dispelling delusion exercised by a mind which
is itself free from delusion. The key to the problem of combating
delusion therefore appears to be mainly a question of trying to
acquire this power." Essentially this is what Max Lerner had in
mind when he wrote in Ideas Are Weapons: "If we are to be
successful in retaining democratic institutions and expanding their
meaning, we must be clear about the meaning of democratic ideas,
we must make these ideas persuasive, and we must above every-
thing make them an integral part of our daily lives." ^

The anti-Communist ideology is shot through and through with

' 1939. P- 10.

The Boughs and the Storm 333

elements of pure delusion. For example: that freedom of the press
cannot be undermined by the economics of newspaper publish-
ing in a "free enterprise" system or that free enterprise means
anything other than the freedom of corporate management from
social controls. Or the delusion that academic freedom is in
greater danger from Communist infiltration than from the eco-
nomic pressures which have begun to undermine the security and
independence of American colleges and universities or the twin
notion that the best way to prepare young minds to live in a
world of dangerous ideas is to protect them from all such ideas
while they are in college. Artists are "regimented" in Socialist
regimes but enjoy, of course, complete freedom in a free enter-
prise system, just as Socialism imperils civil liberties while mon-
opoly capitalism does not. Russia, of course, is interfering in the
affairs of eastern European countries; but we are merely "help-
ing" the nations of western Europe. The basis for this last and
most similar delusion is suggested in Howard K. Smith's comment
that "Russian influence over other governments is crassly visible;
American influence is like an iceberg, only the smaller part can
be seen by the naked eye." ^

If we were to examine our relations with the Russians after
freeing our minds from these and many similar delusions, it is al-
together possible that we might see the problem in somewhat
different terms. It is equally possible, also, that we might then
say and do some of the things which would dispel rather than
confirm the delusions which the Russians entertain about us. It
has been pointed out again and again that the Russians are the
prisoners, in this respect, of their official dogmas; but we seem
determined to confirm these dogmas. "Godly opposites," wrote
a sixteenth-century theologian, "have a tendency to regard one
another as monsters."

Another tactic recommended by Taylor Is this: "Never attempt
to combat delusion by using the subversive, disintegrative, and
delusive technique of psychological warfare against those who
are afflicted with it." This, if you please, from the foremost
American authority on psychological warfare. Heresy inquisi-

^ State of Europe, 1950.

334 Witch Hunt

tions are a form of psychological warfare directed by a govern-
ment, not against "enemies" abroad, but against the people in
whose name the government functions. The use of the tactics of
psychological warfare against a people already suffering from
the effect of these tactics is doubly dangerous. Once men have
lived under the yoke of oppression, anywhere, at any time in their
lives, either as individuals or as social groups, they will be likely,
in less oppressive circumstances, to be self-assertive, arrogant, and
suspicious. The delusions of persecutions from which they suffer
must not be circumstantially confirmed; time alone will cure re-
sentments stemming from prior persecutions and repressions. Any
attempt to encircle or contain a nation which is already suffering
from delusions of encirclement can be an extremely dangerous
undertaking.

Taylor's formula for dealing with paranoid delusion is simply
this: the delusion may be denounced but not the deluded one.
On this score we might well borrow a page from the Hindus,
who seek harmony rather than truth in social relations. "They
try to dispel their group-delusion," writes Taylor, "by seeking
to eliminate the element of hate from group relationships." In
this respect they retain a feeling which we seem to have lost of
the reality of the oneness, the unity, of human nature. To them
the intensity and sincerity of a person's longing for truth matters
more than the "correctness" of his views. But with us, as Taylor
points out, "all truth proceeds from God and all error from
Satan." It is either appeasement or unconditional surrender; de-
featism or counter-fascism; Communism or anti-Communism.
Either we want to burn witches or we go off and bury our heads
in the sand. Taylor was surprised to discover that the Hindus
actually seemed to listen to one another in the course of political
discussions; they really seemed to hear what a political opponent
had to say and to be interested in his views. But we merely pause,
with obvious impatience, until we can regain the floor and resume
our favorite political monologue.

In ideological conflicts, the first task is to attempt to free one's
own mind from delusion and then to seek to identify the element
of delusion in the opponent's point of view. Often this element can

The Boughs and the Storm 335

best be exposed by emphasizing the discrepancies between the
heretic's ideology and his behavior; by calling attention to the
prophecies that have gone unfulfilled and the promises that re-
mained unredeemed. It is usually a mistake, however, to undertake
a frontal attack upon an ideology. The ideology can be analyzed,
dissected, criticized, and rejected in toto without denouncing it
as a heresy. The professional anti-Communists, who are totali-
tarians in a thin disguise, would have us believe that he who says
A must say B: that those who oppose Communism must be will-
ing to fight it as a heresy. But heresy campaigns have certain
strategic limitations apart from the fact that they involve the use
of self-defeating methods. It is implied, for example, that any
idea or measure which is in any manner associated or identified
with the heresy must be rejected simply for this reason. The
anti-Communists have even carried their obsession with heresy
to the point of denouncing any criticism of capitalism as sub-
versive. Yet, with Congress appropriating billions "to fight Com-
munism," the Federal Trade Commission reports that certain
trends in the American economy, if permitted to go uncorrected,
will eventually lead us into some form of collectivism.^" Pre-
sumably, however, any attempt to deal with these trends in a
radical manner would be automatically ruled out of considera-
tion by our prior commitment "to fight Communism," although
a radical reform of capitalism might be one means of countering
Communism. It is a serious mistake to commit America to an
anti-Communist strategy for the choice confronting this country
is not between Communism and anti-Communism but, as Lancelot
Whyte has pointed out, "between a social order which the whole
world accepts as just, and no order at all." However if Com-
munism is to be fought as a heresy, then the anti-Communists
are entirely correct, and having said A we must then proceed to
say B, C, and D, that is, we must buy the whole anti-Communist
program.

A basic objection to this program — prepared by those who
have made a career of "fighting Communism" — is that in time
of storm the fear of heresy is exploited in the most unscrupu-

^''See The Merger Movejnent: A Summary Report, 1948.

336 Witch Hunt

lous manner and for the most diverse purposes. Whatever the
purpose, however, the effect is always to stimulate the fear it-
self. A major problem in deahng with heresy, therefore, is to
minimize the fear of heresy: to keep it within manageable
bounds. For sooner or later, and generally sooner, the fear of
heresy becomes more troublesome than the agitation denounced
as heretical. Every measure taken to suppress heresy — each
yielding to the fear of heresy — only augments the fear and
arouses further apprehension which in turn leads to the demand
for additional and still more repressive measures. Soon the meas-
ures w hich are proposed — which are in fact demanded — bear
no relation whatsoever to any real or imagined risk. Thus a
government that launches a heresy prosecution, either from a
fear of heresy or to win an election, will eventually discover that
the imaginary monsters of error it helped to create have turned
into real monsters who are quite capable of destroying the gov-
ernment that brought them into being.

Repressive measures will never allay the fear of heresy, for
these measures describe, in statutory terms, the fears of their
sponsors. For example, the requirement of non-Communist affi-
davits will only lead to the demand for more comprehensive
abjurations at frequent intervals. We were originally told that the
loyalty program was primarily designed to protect certain "sensi-
tive" positions in the government service and that it was tempo-
rary in character. Today the program has been expanded to cover
virtually the entire field of government service, state and local as
well as federal (in Los Angeles, street cleaners must abjure the
Communist heresy). The suggestion is now made that loyalty
review boards should be set up as a permanent agency of govern-
ment and that the whole loyalty program should be "broad-
ened."^^ But the program can never be broadened enough to
quiet the fears of those who fear heresy.

The main tactical point to observe in dealing with the fear of
heresy is that repressive measures stimulate this fear; if the
measures are necessary, so the people reason, then the situation
must be even worse than it is described. One of the best ways,

^^ See story by Cabell Phillips, N. Y. Ti/Jies, February 19, 1950.

The Boughs and the Stor?n 337

therefore, to cope with the fear is to throw special safeguards
around the exercise of civil rights. "The greater the importance
of safeguarding the country from incitements to the overthrow
of our institutions by force and violence," as the late Chief
Justice Hughes pointed out in the De ]onge case, "the more im-
perative is the need to preserve inviolate the constitutional rights
of free speech, free press, and free assembly, in order to maintain
the opportunity for free political discussion, to the end that
government may be responsive to the will of the people." And to
the further end that the fears of the people may be quieted: for
free political discussion is the best medicine for the fear of heresy.

A program to combat the fear of heresy would include such
steps as the following (the list is not intended to be inclusive):
the early enactment of the President's civil rights program; the
abrogation of Executive Order No. 9835, of March 22, 1947,
setting up the loyalty program; the removal from the Attorney
General of the power — if it is finally ruled that he has the power
— to list, in a purely ex parte manner, organizations which in his
opinion are "subversive"; the abolition of the House Committee
on Un-American Activities, and the various state committees
created in its image, and all similar inquisitorial bodies; a strength-
ening of civil service guarantees which have been disastrously
undermined in the last three years; the strengthening, at every
point, of teacher tenure and of the principle of academic free-
dom; the rejection of the test oath in all its forms, including the
non-Communist affidavit required by the Taft-Hartley Act; a
prompt reversal of the tendency to use the FBI as a political
police; a reaffirmation of the right of free political association;
and a firm rejection of the notion that political conformity can
be a test of loyalty or of the right of a citizen to receive an edu-
cation or to exercise any other right of citizenship.

Such a program should also stress the necessity of restricting
special security measures, including all forms of security censor-
ship, to an absolute minimum in accordance with the urgent
recommendations which have been made by virtually every
scientist who has been associated, in any manner, with the atomic
energy program. Scientists simply cannot function in what David

338 Witch Hunt

Lilienthal has called "the neutron-infested squirrel-cage atmos-
phere" which is immediately created when security becomes an
obsession. Security is not incompatible with freedom; on the con-
trary, our freedom is still the best measure of our security,
"Secrecy," writes Hanson W. Baldwin, "is not security. . . .
Security above all is spirit and morale and progressive, ad-
vanced and imaginative thinking and secrecy is the enemy of
these." ^" Security regulations and loyalty investigations will
seldom if ever reveal the potential traitor, nor are they likely to
turn up the spy or agent. Besides, democracies are committed
to certain risks for the reason that freedom itself is a commit-
ment. Police state methods do not provide insurance against these
risks. They increase the risk by destroying the morale and unity
of the people and by spreading, far and wide, the fear of heresy.
They create, as Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer has pointed out, "a
morbid preoccupation with conformity, and a widespread fear
of ruin, that is a more pervasive threat precisely because it arises
from secret sources." ^^ "Many of our best scientists left Nazi
Germany because science was not free," Dr. Arthur H. Compton
told the closing session of the Rotary International on June 16,
1949, "and the tenor of political thought today is leading many
a scientist to ask himself whether this situation is not repeating
itself in America, whether even in the United States thought can
be free and humane motives be supreme." The freedom of the
scientist has become, indeed, the key test of whether we intend
to solve social, economic, and political problems by free discus-
sion and the application of scientific methods; or whether ^ye
intend to permit a manipulated fear of ideas to silence all dis-
cussion and to make prisoners of modern scientists.

In dealing with heretics and the fear of heresy, the basic tactic
is to cope with situations rather than symptoms; or, as Acontius
said, "with problems not with doctrines." If Protestants and
Catholics had tried to reconcile their doctrinal differences, the
religious wars of Europe might well have been carried over to
this continent. Fortunately they decided to co-operate in the

^-IV. F. Times, May 26, 1949.
^^Neiv Republic, June 6, 1949.

The Boughs and the Storm 339

upbuilding of the American nation, and in the course of this
undertaking they learned to practice a measure of doctrinal for-
bearance. This margin of tolerance, however, is beginning to
vanish as new problems beset the nation and its churches; the
more acute these problems have become, the more sharply the
doctrinal differences have once again come to be emphasized.
If a team of social scientists had been asked to arrest the belief
in witchcraft, they would certainly have concerned themselves,
not with the doctrines and delusions of witches, but with what
Michelet assigned as the real cause of the belief in witchcraft,
namely, "the instability of condition and tenure, this horrid,
shelving declivity, dow^n which a man slips from free man to
vassal — from vassal to servant — from servant to serf." By f aihng
to be concerned with "this horrid, shelving declivity," Europe be-
came, by the time of the Reformation, "a vast subterranean vol-
cano, an unseen lake which, now here, now there, betrayed its
existence by outbursts of fire and flame." Doctrinal disputes
doubtless aggravate conflicts but the conflicts antedate the quarrel
over doctrine.

The belief in heresy is tantamount to the belief in original sin.
It is a variation of the notion that people can be divided into
categories of the "damned" and the "elect" for it implies that
there are "good" ideas and "bad" ideas and that problems are
merely the result of bad ideas. Thus problems are not to be
solved by the application of scientific method but by the applica-
tion of thought control, for if enough people have the right ideas,
how can there be any problems? The heresy manual of the
inquisitor with its neatly graduated scale of punishments for a
vast specification of heresies was the counterpart of the medieval
conception of a purgatory in which endless special punishments
had been worked out for an unending catalogue of minutely de-
fined sins and punishments. The belief in heresy is a form of
intellectual predestination utterly incompatible with a belief in
freedom and, as such, it is the one real heresy.

By a strange but understandable paradox, the more we yield to
the anti-Communist hysteria, the more we minimize the dif-
ferences between democracy and Communism. The more vio-

340 Witch Hunt

lently we "fight Communism," as a heresy, the more we are
compelled to borrow and apply the methods of the police state.
Already a note of official "correctness" has begun to invade even
informal political discussions and nearly everyone is nowadays
concerned to avoid, if possible, any criticism of the main tenets
of the anti-Communist ideology. Today it is quite clear that any
criticism of social conditions is likely to be met with a charge of
Communism and the knowledge that this can happen has had a
clear tendency to stifle social criticism. The differences between
democracy and Communism are still great; but they need to be
clarified, not confused.

Before we proceed any further along the road that leads to
the police state, it might be well to consider a figure of speech
suggested by Jeremiah Burroughs which can be read today as a
parable. "It is with the saints here," he wrote, "as with the boughs
of trees in time of storm. You shall see the boughs beat one upon
another as if they would beat one another to pieces, as if armies
were fighting; but this is but while the wind, while the tempest
lasts; stay awhile, you shall see every bough standing in its own
order and comeliness; why? because they are all united in one
root; if any bough be rotten, the storm breaks it." The boughs
grind against each other because the storm drives them; they do
not drive the storm. It is with the storm, not with the beating of
the boughs, that we should be concerned; for it is only while
the wind, wliile the tempest lasts, that the boughs beat one upon
the other.

Index

A.A.U.P. See American Association
of University Professors

Abelard, Peter, 244

Abolitionists, 74

Abraliam Lincoln Hotel, Springfield,
Illinois, 223

ACA, American Contemporary Art
Gallery, 125

Academic freedom, purge of Com-
munist teachers as protection of,
II, 180-186; problem of, 11-13;
defense of violations of, 22; teach-
ers and scholars as guardians of,
116, 117; implications of, 117-118;
threats to, 118-119, 188; economic
factor in, 208; restriction of, in so-
cial sciences, 209; in Germany,
209-213; techniques of attacks on,
211-213. See also Education, Free-
dom (s). Teachers

Accursed groups, psychology of,
263-269; creation of, 269-274. See
also Scapegoating

Acheson, Dean, McCarthy's charges
against, 19

Acontius, Jacobus, psychology of
persecution, 260-261; quoted, 331,
338

Act of Supremacy, English (1533),

259

Acton, Lord, quoted on papal In-
quisition, 251

Adams, Arthur S., quoted on Com-
munism, 231

Adams, John, 40, 42

Adams, John Quincy, 86

AEC. See Atomic Energy Commis-
sion

After Freedom (Hortense Povi^der-
maker), 271

Agent of a foreign power, cliche of
heresy persecutions, 296-299

Agitator, modern, 133-135

Akeley, T, Barton, case of, 219-
221

Albigensians, 231, 325

Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Car-
roll), quoted, 197

Alien and Sedition Acts, 27, 41-43

Alienation, malaise of, 60-64

Allegiance, American and English
conceptions of, 28

Allen, Raymond B., President of
University of Washington, 141,
154-159, passim, 164-171, passim,
179; on investigation of Univer-
sity of Washington, 143-144, 149,
152; on pursuit of truth, 202

Allied Artists of America, 125

American Artists Professional
League, 125

American Association of Univer-
sity Professors, 171, 221; cited on
academic freedom, 11; position on
testing of teachers, 116; position
on Communist Party members,
195; organization of, 209

American Bankers Association, 105,
112

American Civil Liberties Union, 149;
annual report (1947) quoted, 5;
balance sheet for civil liberties,
7-8; quoted on dismissals at Oli-
vet College, 220

American Contemporary Art Gal-
lery, 125

American Economic Association,
209

American Education and hitema-
tional Te7isio7is, 190-191

344

Index

American Federation of Teachers,

197
American Jewish Congress, report

quoted, 9-10
American Labor Party, 200
American Legion, Illinois Depart-
ment, 222
American Political Science Associa-
tion, 209
American Russian Institute, 19
American Sociological Society, 209
American Watercolor Society, 125
American Youth for Democracy,

147. ,

Americanism, absence of official ide-
ology and creed in, 54-55

Americans for Democratic Action,
222, 324

Anabaptists, 251, 258, 259

Anarchists, 294

Anglo-Saxons, 57

Anthony, Earle C, 120

Anti-Communism, as heresy trap,
322-326; delusions of, 332-333,
335. See also Communism

Anti-Defamation League of B'nai
B'rith, 9

Antifascism, on American cam-
puses, 142

"Apologie for the Oath of Alle-
giance" (King James I), 30

Aquinas, Saint Thomas, 305

Are American Teachers Free?
(Howard K. Beale), 193

Argonne Laboratory, Chicago, ura-
nium lost and found, 82, 96

Arian heresy, 252

Arminius, Jacobus, quoted, 330

Armory Show (1913), 123

Art, modern, attack on, 1 21-126;
counteroffensive on, 126-128; im-
plications of attack, 128-133

Art Institute of Chicago, 125

Artists Equity Association, 125, 126

Ashby, Aubrey L., President of Oli-
vet College, 219-221

Assembly, right to freedom of, 74-

75
Assent, submission and, 69, 71

Association, right to freedom of,
74-75. See also Membership

Atomic bomb, effect of secrecy con-
cerning, 100

Atomic Energy Commission, 114;
sponsorship of Freistadt, 82, 83,
84; research and training financed
by, 88, 90; loyalty oath and FBI
clearance required of fellows, 89,
95-96; Edelman case, 90-91; reac-
tion to loyalty oath requirement
from fellows, 92-94; reduction of
research fellowships, 95-96

Aumack, Mrs. Charlene, quoted,

Bailey, Dorothy, case of, 18, 20

Baldwin, Hanson W., quoted on se-
crecy, 338

Balmer, Thomas, 157-158

Bamberg, Bishop of, 314

Baxter, Richard, quoted, 331

Beal, Maud, 156

Beale, Howard K., quoted on Lusk
Laws, 36-57, on N.EA. and aca-
demic freedom, 193

Beck, Dave, 158

Beck, Hubert Park, study of con-
trol of higher education, 204-206,
207

Behavior, relation of ideology to,
270-274

Belief, right to freedom of, 74-75;
heresy a symptom of disturbance
in system of, 235-238

Bensley, Charles J., quoted on rep-
resentation by Teachers Union,
196

Bentley, Elizabeth, 62, 304, 313

Benton, Thomas Hart, quoted, 129

Berger, Victor, 38

Berkeley crisis. See University of
California

Bernal, J. D., cited on scientific
workers, 97

Best, Dr., quoted on Jewish ques-
tion, 211

Big Business, civil liberties and, 9;
control of higher education by,

Index

345

204-205; supposed threat of Social-
ism, 322

Bill of Rights, 132; provision against
indirect intimidation, 70; individ-
ual freedoms guaranteed by, 99

Birmingham Riots (1789), 48

Black, Justice Hugo L., 8i

Board of Higher Education of New
York, 192

Board of Supervisors, Los Angeles,
test oath of, 39

Boatman, Edgar, 229

Boleyn, Anne, 29

Bolshevism, denunciation of, 37

Books. See Publications

Bowers, Claude G., quoted on Dem-
ocratic Clubs, 40; on Alien and
Sedition Acts, 41, 42

Bowra, C. M., cable to University
of California quoted, 120

Bramstedt, E. K., quoted on men-
tal climate of dictatorship, 76-77;
on accused in terroristic regimes,

247-248
Brandeis, Justice Louis D., 294
Braque, Georges, 127
Braxfield, Judge, quoted on sedition,

Brazil, Communists in, 248

Bribery, in modern dictatorships, 76-
80

Bridges, Harry, 21, 274

Bridges case, 312

Brogan, D. W., cited on govern-
ment by consent, 68; quoted on
argument and force, 69

Bronk, D. W., position on Freistadt
case, 88-89

Browder, Earl, 172

Brown, P. A., quoted on British re-
action to French Revolution, 45;
on Pitt and ministers, 45; on
Birmingham riots, 48; on force
and violence, 292

Broyles, Senator, 222, 228, 304

Broyles Commission, investigation
of University of Chicago, 221-229

Budenz, Louis, 285, 315; testimony
of, in Lattimore case, 20

Burke, Edmund, reaction to French

Revolution, 43
Burleigh, Baron, quoted on heretics,

231-232
Burroughs, Jeremiah, quoted, 331,

340
Business. See Big Business
Butler, Hugh, 278
Butterworth, Joseph, case of, 158-

163, passim, 168, 172, 173, 181,

182

California, 1946 election, 140. See
also University of California

California Committee on Un-Amer-
ican Activities, 102, 104-105, 112,
222

California Institute of Technology,
216, 217

Calvinism, 242

Canwell, Albert F., 141, 148, 149,
151, 154, 164, 304

Canwell Committee, creation of,
140; investigation of Washington
Old Age Pension Union, 140-
141; investigation of University of
Washington, 142-154, 157, 221

Capitalism, American doctrine of,
53; supposed unanimity of, 175;
rise of, in fifteenth century, 255-
256

Captive theory, of sect and party
membership, 177-178

Carlyle, Thomas, quoted, 3

Carr, Edward Hallett, quoted on
government by consent, 68

Carr, Robert K., quoted on civil
liberties and civil rights, 9

Carroll, Charles O., 1 50-1 51

Castlereagh, Lord, 302

Cathars, 231, 251-252, 258

Catholic religious orders, member-
teachers in public schools, 195-
196

Catholicism, conversion to, 175

Catholics, 270; English, persecution
of, 29-30, 184; imposition of test
oath in England, 30-3 1 ; position on
Feinberg Law, 200; power of, 266;

34<^

Index

Catholics (Contimied)
Protestants and, in America, 338-

339

Censorship, by pressure, 1 30-1 31

Centers, Richard, on contemporary
social groupings, 62-63

Chafee, Zechariah, quoted, 294

Chambers, Whittaker, 304

Chapman, John Jay, quoted on sup-
pression of free speech, 72

"Charges of Freedom Curbs Rising
in Nation's Colleges" (Benjamin
Fine), 11

Chemical and Engineering News,
215, 216

Chicago Herald-American, 221, 222,

223

Chicago Tribune, 13

China, 21

Christians, early, as heretics, 240

Churchill, Winston, 129

Cicero, quoted on ballot, 73

Cinch question, 296

City-state, rise of, 253. See also Na-
tion-state

Civil Disobedience (H. D. Thoreau) ,
68

Civil liberties, distinguished from
civil rights, 8-10; separation of,
into categories, 10; report of
President's Committee, 4-6

Civil rights. President Truman's pro-
gram, 5, 8; illusion and reality in
field of, 6-8; of economic and
political minorities, 8, 10-12; dis-
tinguished from civil liberties, 8-
10; state of American public opin-
ion on, 12-13

Civil Rights in the United States in
1949, quoted, 10

Class consciousness, in present-day
America, 62-64

Claustrophobia, delusion of, 273

Coercion, in modem dictatorships,
76-80; visible and invisible, 275-
276. See also Conformity, Perse-
cution

Cold war, as source of loyalty ob-
session, 28

Cole, W. Sterling, 82
Coleman, Clarence J., 158
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 45;

quoted on British reaction to

French Revolution, 44
Colleges, growth of enrollment, 203.

See also Education
Cologne, radical ideas in, 253
Commager, Henry Steele, quoted

on loyalty, 50, 57-58; on trial of

Washington professors, 179
Commerce Department, employees

of, removed, 17
Commerce Department Loyalty

Board, 17
Commission on Freedom of the

Press, report of, 5; quoted on

management of public opinion,

71 .

Committee for Examination and Ad-
justment, Hitler's loyalty review
board, 83

Committee for the First Amend-
ment, 67

Committee on Tenure and Aca-
demic Freedom, University of
Washington, 157, 192

Communism, in academic life, 10-
II, 13, 21-22, 142-143; fear of
identification with, 22; loyalty to,
51-52; American loyalty and, 52-
54, 56; deceptive logic in destruc-
tion of, 75, 76; aided by loyalty
oaths, 119; basis of conflict with
democracy, 165, 166; vulgar and
instructed views of, 243. See also
Heresy

Communist Party, 38, 199; member-
ship in, 92-93; fallacy of discipli-
nary power of, 1 71-175

Communists, alleged infiltration of
State Department, 13-15, 17; sec-
ond-class citizenship advocated
for, 184-186; as cover for attacks
on academic freedom, 211-212; as
accursed group, 264-269; stereo-
typing of, 269-274

Compton, Arthur H., quoted,
338

Index

347

Conant, James Bryant, opposition to
loyalty oaths, ii8

Conformity, ardor for, 76; pressures
making for, 76-80; coercion of, in
University of California contro-
versy, 107-108; ideological, of
professional and occupational
groups, 196; pressures for, in
higher education, 208; German
passion for, 247-248; basis of
heresy hunts, 326-328. See also
Coercion, Freedom, Heresy, Non-
conformity

Congress, under government by con-
sent, 69-71; power to force dis-
closure of political beliefs, 72-
74, See also Government by con-
sent and House Committee on
Un-American Activities

Cojigressional Record, 82

Consent. See Government by con-
sent

Constitution of the United States,
First Amendment, 5-6, 7, 52-53,
96, 290, 293, 294; described, 18;
Fourteenth Amendment, 28; Ar-
ticle VI, 106, 108

Contradiction, as basis of persecu-
tion, 260-261

Cooley, Charles Horton, cited, 331

Coolidge, Calvin, 38

Co-optation, 205-206

Coplon, Judith, 313

Corley, James H., 112

Corvallis, Oregon. See Oregon State
College

Costigan, Howard, 140

Cotton, Sir Robert Bruce, quoted,
329

Coulton, G. G., quoted on Inquisi-
tion, 153, 301; on heresy as polit-
ical weapon, 306

Crist, Judith, quoted on enactment
of Feinberg Law, 198

Crump machine, 73

Cults, in American life, 61

Curti, Merle, cited on loyalty in
America, 57, 58

Czechoslovakia, no

Daily Worker, 90

Dali, Salvador, 127

Dana, Malcolm Boyd, 219, 221

Darwin, Charles Robert, 97

Davies, Lawrence E., quoted on in-
vestigation of University of Wash-
ington, 143

Day, Edmund Ezra, quoted on re-
strictions on free speech and in-
quiry, 77-78; on control of edu-
cation, 207

Dehn, Professor, 211

De Jonge case, 337

De Lacy, Hugh, 140

Delusions, of anti-Communism, 332-
333, 335. See also Social delusions

Democracy, basis of conflict with
Communism, 165, 166

Democratic Clubs, Federalist oppo-
sition to, 40, 41, 42

Democratic Party, position on
claims of Senator McCarthy, 14

Demonic possession, 134

Denver Post, quoted on Freistadt,
86-87

Der Abe77d, Berlin, 83

Devil-as-Agitator, 133-135

Devree, Howard, on attack on mod-
ern art, 124, 127

Dewey, John, 38, 39; quoted on
Lusk Laws, 37; cited on trained
minds, 165

Dewey, Thomas E., 153; signs Fein-
berg Law, 197

Dialectical materialism, 93, 267

Dickson, Edward A., quoted on test
oath at University of California,
108

Dictatorships, rise of, 35-36; plebi-
scitarian, 68; coercion, bribery,
and propaganda in, 76-80

Dies, Martin, 304, 313

Dies Committee, 142, 143

Dies index, 122

Discipline, of Communist Party, 171-
175; in social organization, 176-

Discrimination. See Racial discrimi-
nation

348

Index

Disloyalty. See Loyalty

Dissenters, 266; distinguished from
heretics, 236-237, 244

Dondero, George A., attack on mod-
ern art, 1 21-128; implications of
attack, 128-133

Dossier state, 303

Douglas, Justice William O., 81

Drumheller, Joseph, 157

DuBridge, Lee A., quoted on loy-
alty oath for AEC fellows, 92

Dulles, John Foster, 85

Dykstra, Clarence, 104, 118

Earle, George, President Truman's
letter to, 7

Eby, E. Harold, case of, 145, 146,
160, 161, 166-169, '75

Eckhart, Master, 244

Economy, dictatorial, dissension un-
der, 22

Edelman, Dr. Isidore S., case of,
90-95

Edgerton, Justice, quoted on Dor-
othy BaUey case, 18

Edmundson, Charles, quoted on
Crump machine, 73

Education, higher, growth of col-
lege enrollment, 203; control of,
203-206; role of college president,
206-207; economic status of col-
lege instructor, 207-208; pressure
for conformity, 208; availability
of, 209; academic freedom in Ger-
many, 209-211

Educational Policies Commission
(N.EA.), opposes employment of
Communist teachers, 190-191, 194;
warns against loyalty oaths for
teachers, 192-193

Educators. See Teachers

Edwards, Willard, 13

Elections, under democracy, 73

Electors. See Voters

Embree, Edwin R., quoted on Uni-
versity of California, 102

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, quoted on
office of America, 66

Encirclement, delusion of, 323

England, conception of allegiance,
28; persecution of Catholics, 29-
30; imposition of test oath, 30-
31; economic revolution and re-
ligious controversy, 33-34; reac-
tion to French Revolution, 43-
48; witchcraft in, 257; Act of
Supremacy (1533), 259

Ernst, Max, 127

Error, prevalence of, 261

Ethel, Garland O., case of, 145, 146,
160, 166-169, 175

Executive Order 9835, creates Pres-
ident's loyalty program, 16, 19,

27, 337
Exodus, Book of, quoted, 68
Eymeric, Nicholas, 304, 305, 313

Fabians, 324

Fahy, Julian, 220

Farley, James A., quoted on Soviet
of Washington, 140

Fascists, revival of test oath by, 35;
rise of, 60

FBI. See Federal Bureau of Investi-
gation

Fear, in loyalty obsessions, 37, 64;
exploitation of, by politicians,
loo-ioi; in imposition of test
oaths, 109; In motivation of Uni-
versity of California controversy,
1 1 4-1 15; legislative, as threat to
academic freedom, 187-188; of
heresy, 327-328

Federal Bar Association, President
Truman's speech to, 19

Federal Bureau of Investigation, 303,
337; clearance of AEC fellows,
89, 90, 94, 95-96

Federal employees, loyalty of, tested,
16

Federal Protection of Civil Rights
(Robert K. Carr), 9

Federal Trade Commission, cited,

335
Federalist Party, reaction to French
Revolution, 40-43, 48

Index

349

Feinberg Law, 197-201

Fellow traveler, defined, 286-287

FEPC, io

Ferguson, Homer, 278

Fermi, Enrico, cited on joining Com-
munist Party, 92-93

Fifth columnists, 36

Fine, Benjamin, quoted on dismissal
of Communist teachers, 11; on
opposition to loyalty oaths, 11;
on National Education Associa-
tion, 190; on adoption of report
of Educational Policies Commis-
sion, 191; on detection of Com-
munist teachers, 191-192

First Amendment, 5-6, 7, 52-53, 96,
290, 293, 294

Flag salute, campaign for, 38

Flagellants, 239, 254

Florence, radical ideas in, 253

Flynn, John T., The Road Ahead,
322-324

Fogg Museum, 125

Force and violence, use and signifi-
cance of phrase, 289-296

Forty Witches of Arras, 314

Fouche, Joseph, 80

Fourteenth Amendment, 28

Fox, Irving David, case of, 107

Fraticelli, 231

Free speech, guaranteed by Consti-
tution, 97; influence of Haymar-
ket case, 290-292, 295-296. See also
First Amendment

Freedom of the press, 13; report of
Commission on, 5; measure of,
131; limitation of, 275-276

Freedom (s), image and reality of,
in contemporary America, 22;
American tradition of, 54-55, 59;
of association and belief, 74-75;
weakening of idea of, 75-76; of
scientific research, 96-101; social,
problem of, 99; individual, pro-
tection of, 131; legislative fear as
threat to, 187. See also Academic
freedom, Civil liberties. Civil
rights. Conformity, First Amend-
ment, Social freedoms

Freistadt, Hans, charges against, 82;
background and life, 82-84; Com-
munist affiliation, 84, 90; appear-
ance before Joint Committee on
Atomic Energy, 85-86; position of
University of North Carolina on,
87; aftermath of hearings, 88-90,
91-96; real issues in case of, 96-

lOI

French Revolution, reaction to, in
United States, 40-43, 48; in Eng-
land, 43-48

Friedrich, Carl J., quoted on test
oath, 36

Fuller, Thomas, quoted, 329

Galileo, 244

Gallery-on- Wheels, 122

Gallup Poll, 97; on Communist
teachers, 194

Garrison, William Llovd, 290

Gary, Judge Joseph, quoted on Hay-
market case, 291

Genauer, Emily, 126

Germany, Nazi revival of test oath,
35; academic freedom in, 209-213;
democratic agitation in, 254;
witchcraft in, 255-258

Giannini, Lawrence AL, quoted on
test oath at University of Cali-
fornia, 114

Gigantism, of great powers, 273

Gitloiv case, 52

Goebbels, Joseph, 35

Gonzalez, Xavier, 123

Goodwin, John, quoted on bigots,

327

Government, impersonality in, 60-
61; electors and representatives in,
70

Government by consent, problems
of, 68-71; assumed hostility of se-
crecy to, 72-74; Freistadt case an
attack on, 98-101

Government employees, civil rights
for, 8

Grapes of Wrath, The (John Stein-
beck), 292

350

Index

Great-power delusions, 273

Green, D wight, 222

Gregg, Alan, cited on loyalty test
in AEC program, 93-95

Gregory IX, Pope, 250, 251

Gromyko, Andrei A., 278

Groups. See Accursed groups

Gui, Bernard, 304, 315

Gumbel, Professor, 211

Gundlach, Ralph H., case of, 159-
160, 161, 164, 169

Gunpowder Plot, 29

Gunther, John, quoted on State of
Washington, 140

Guterman, Norbert, quoted on pres-
ent-day malaise, 61-62; on attack
on modern art, 124; cited on
Morse code of modem agitator,
127

Guthman, Edwin O., 154

Hall, Bishop Joseph, 133; quoted,
121, 328

Hallowell, John H., quoted on Nazis
and liberalism, 79

Hamilton, Alexander, 42, 43

Harper's, 156; quoted on Crump ma-
chine, 73

Harvard Medical School, 90

Haymarket case, 290-292, 295-296

Hays, Arthur Garfield, quoted on
Abolitionists, 74

Hazlitt, William, 45; quoted on Lord
Castlereagh, 302

Hearst press, campaign against "rad-
icals" in schools and colleges,
38-39

Hensley, Judge E. T., 195

Heresy, loyalty program and control
of, 17, 21, 49-50; nature and mean-
ing of, 22, 239-241, 324; concept
of, incompatible with American
tradition, 54-56; use of, as weapon
to police thoughts, 1 09-1 10; incon-
sistency in application of principle
of, 121; Canwell Committee and
doctrine of, 152-153; at University
of Washington, 162-166; underly-
ing factors in persecution of, 235;

symptom of disturbed belief, 235-
238; rise of, 239, 250-255; slogans,
dogma, and doctrine of, 241-242;
instructed and vulgar view of, 242-
246; hunting of, distinct from
scapegoating, 246; social disorgan-
ization in production of witch
hunts, 246-248; price of suppres-
sion of, 248-250; rise of interest in
witchcraft, 255-258; symptom of
discrepancy between norm and
reality, 279-281; centralized tribu-
nals in prosecution of, 301-305;
logic of, 305-308; function of in-
quisitor, 308-310; technique of in-
quisitorial process, 310-314; penal-
ties of, 314-316; confessional delu-
sion, 317-320; effect of prosecution
of, 321, 328-332; supposed threat
of Socialism, 322-326; conformity
as basis of crusades against, 326-
328; problem of dealing with,
332-337; program for combating
fear of, 337-339; belief in, 339-340.
See also Accursed groups, Com-
munism, Conformit\% Inquisition,
Persecution

Heretics, recantation of, 80; associa-
tion of, with loathsome images,
124; advocacy of second-class citi-
zenship for, 184-186; problem of
persecution of, 231-232; distin-
guished from dissenters, 236-237,
244; nature of, 239-241

Heretics, The (Humphrey Slater),
76 _

Hewitt, George, 145, 150-152, 153,

154
Hickenlooper, Bourke B., 97; reac-
tion to Freistadt-Edelman hearings,
88, 91, 94-95, 96
Higher education. See Education
Hildebrand, Joel H., quoted on Uni-
versity of California case, 113; on
Communists in American colleges,

143
Hillenbrand, Martin J., quoted on

free expression, 69
Hindus, 262, 272, 279, 334

Index

351

Hinshaw, Carl, quoted on testimony
before Joint Committee on Atomic
Energy, 94-95

Hitler, Adolf, 300; attack on modem
art, 124; undermining of academic
freedom, 210

Hodge, Herbert, 220

Hole, Christina, quoted on witch-
craft, 300, 317

Hollywood Ten, confusion of issues
in case of, 67-68; government by
consent in relation to, 68-71; in-
vestigation of, 71-72; importance
of case, 76; application of pres-
sure, 77-80; fate of, 80-81

Holmes, Justice Oliver Wendell,
294; quoted on dictatorship and
free speech, 52; on McAuliffe v.
New Bedford, 183

Honig, Nat, 145

Hook, Sidney, 178, 182, 183; quoted
on Communist discipline, 171-172

Horsley, William, 228; quoted on
moral conditions at University of
Chicago, 227

House Committee on Un-American
Activities, 10, 107, 128, 214, 337;
indirect intimidation by, 7 1 ; inves-
tigation of Hollywood Ten, 71-72,
77, 80-81; list of college and high
school textbooks requested, 194;
voting on, 243; centralized tribu-
nal of New Inquisition, 301, 303-
305

Hughes, Chief Justice Charles Evans,
quoted, 337

Huie, William Bradford, 90

Humanists, 258

Hunt, Leigh, 45

Hurley, Carl Robert, 114

Hutchins, Robert M., quoted, 214;
in investigation of University of
Chicago, 223-229

IcHHEisER, GusTAv, quoted, 274; on
man's perception of social real-
ity, 275-280, passi?n

Ideas, attack on, through individuals,
75; fear of, 328

Ideas Are Weapons (Max Lemer),

Ideologies, nonexistence of official,
in America, 53; a form of delu-
sion, 56; symptom of present-day
malaise, 61-64; destruction of, 75;
discipline argument, 175; dominant
and subordinate, 237-238, 244; re-
lation to behavior, 270-274; recon-
cilement of, 332. See also Con-
formity, Heresy

Illustrators Society, 125

"In the Shadow of Fear," report of
American Civil Liberties Union.
8

"In Time of Challenge," report of
American Civil Liberties Union, 8

Independence, distinguished from
freedom, 59

Index Librorum Frohibitonmi, 258

India, 279; British civil servants in.

272
Indiana Medical School, 90
Indulgences, granting of, 304-305
Industrial Workers of the VVorld.

199

Industry, political opinions and, 22;
research development expendi-
tures, 98. See also Big Business

Infant of Montsegur, 311

IngersoU, Robert, quoted on Hay-
market case, 290

Injustice, dogma of, 260-263

Innocent III, Pope, 251, 255, 256, 257.

300. 313
Innocent VIII, Pope, 255
Inquisition, 133, 153, 243; ideological

conflicts in, 231; in Spain, 249-250;

papal, emergence of, 250-255;

witchcraft and, 257-258. See also

Heresy
Intimidation, indirect, 70-71
Irish, Alien Act aimed at, 41-43
Issei, in World War II, 64-66
Italy, revival of test oath by Fascists,

Jackson, Justice Robert, quoted on
iron curtain, 218

352

Index

Jacobs, Melville, 145, 160, 166-169,
175; quoted on Communist disci-
pline, 172

James I, King of England, quoted on
Catholics, 30

Jansen, William, 200

Japanese-Americans, abrogation of
constitutional rights, 6; treatment
of, in World War II, 64-66; World
War II intelligence agents in
United States, 66

Javits, Jacob K., 126

Jefferson, Thomas, 41, 43, 48

Jenkins, Goody, 247

Jessup, Philip, quoted on disloyalty
charges, 19; McCarthy's charges
against, 21

Jesuits, 29; as accursed group, 268

Jewish Children's Agency, sponsor-
ship of Freistadt, 83, 84

Jews, 184, 186, 243; as cover for Nazi
attacks on academic freedom, 210-
213; as accursed group, 264-265,
268

Johnston, Eric, quoted on trial of
Hollywood Ten, 80-81

Joint Committee on Atomic Energy,
Freistadt hearings, 85-86

Joint Legislative Fact-Finding Com-
mittee on Un-American Activities.
See Canwell Committee

Jordan, W. K., quoted on Quakers,
240; on Calvinism, 242

Journal- American, New York, 222

Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the

Advance of Science, 210
Kandinsky, Vasili, 123, 127
Kansas, loyalty statute, 11
Karl Marx Study Group, 84
Kautsky, Karl Johann, cited on
woolen trade and Communistic
ideas, 253
Kees, Weldon, 127
Kemenev, Stalin's art critic, 127, 130
Kennan, George, quoted on McCar-
thy attack on State Department, 1 5
KFI, Radio Station, loyalty oath re-
quired from employees, 120

Kilpatrick, Carroll, quoted on
McCarthy campaign against State
Department, 15

King, John L., 158

Knowland, William F., 21

Kramer, Henry, 255, 256

Krock, Arthur, cited on McCarthy
attack on State Department, 15

Kuniyoshi, Yasuo, 123

Langer, Susanne K., cited on key
issues, 22

Languedoc, Cathars in, 251-252;
heretics in, 316

Lansmg State Journal, 220

Lardner, Ring, 325

Laski, Harold Joseph, quoted on
loyalties, 65; lecture invitation
withdrawn at Los Angeles, 103-
104

Lattimore, Owen, 325; accused of
espionage by Senator McCarthy,
14; Budenz's testimony on, 20;
heresy of, 20-21

LaVallee, L. R., 214, 215

Lawrence, Ernest O., 88, 102

Lawrence, W. H., quoted, 248

Lawson, John Howard, 81

Lea, Henry Charles, quoted on her-
esy, 244, 245, 306; on inquisitor,
308; on confessional delusion, 317,
318, 319

Lee, Michael, removed from Com-
merce Department, 17

Lenin, Nikolai, 182

Leningrad Literary Group, 27

Lemer, Max, 324, 325; quoted on de-
lusion of encirclement, 323; on
freedom, 327; on democratic ideas,

332
Levy, Judge Aaron J., 151, 153,

154

Lewis, Clyde A., President Truman's
letter to, 19-20

Lewis, Fulton, Jr., 82

Lewis, John L., 268

Ley, Dr., quoted on private individ-
ual in Nazi Germany, 236

Liberalism, Nazis and, 79

Index

353

Life, 208, 225

Lilge, Frederic, 210

Lilienthal, David E., position on
Freistadt case, 88, 89; Edelman
case, 90; quoted, 337-338

Lindlof, Mrs. Johanna M., 192

LitvinoflF, Maksim, 39

Livingston, Edward, quoted on Alien
Act, 41-42

Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce,
no

Los Angeles Realty Board, no

Los Angeles Times, 109; quoted on
pledge of loyalty, 107; endorses
test oath, no

Lovejoy, Arthur O., position on
Washington professors, 180-183,
185

Lowenthal, Leo, quoted on present-
day malaise, 61-62; on attack on
modem art, 124; cited on Morse
code of modem agitator, 127

Loyalty, President Truman's pro-
gram, 5-7; obsession with, 27, 36-
38, 60, 95; campaign of 1934-1935,
39; Soviet influence on obsession
with, 39; meaning of, 50-51; attack
on, an act of disloyalty, 51-52;
coercion of, 56; two traditions of,
in America, 56-^50, 62; self-
estrangement and problem of
present-day malaise, 60-64; Japa-
nese-Americans in World War II,
64-66

Loyalty oath, opposition to, by edu-
cators, 11-12, 13; historical back-
ground of, 30-33; modem revival
of, 35-36; of Board of Supervisors
of Los Angeles, 39-40; reaction to
requirement of, from AEC fel-
lows, 92-94; at University of Cal-
ifornia, 102-103, 104-109, 110-115;
prohibition of, under Article VI
of Federal Constitution, 108; vi-
ciousness of, 109-110; implications
of, n9-i2o; invasion of private
enterprise, 120; opposed by
N.E.A., 192-193; at University of
Oklahoma, 229, 230

Loyalty order. President Truman's
of March 22, 1947, 5, 7, 11, 16, 49

Loyalty program, investigation of
federal employees, 16; control of
heresy, 17, 21; witch hunt stimu-
lated by, 17-18; instruments of, 28;
influence of economic-ideological
confusion, 33-36; motivation for,
36-40; of Board of Supervisors of
Los Angeles, 39-40; example of
French Revolution, 40-48; punish-
ment of heresy, 49-50

Loyalty Review Board, activities of,
16

Lucas, Henry S., quoted on check-
ing unauthorized opinion, 252

Lumping-together device, 123-124

Lundberg, Harry, 274

Lusk Laws, 36-37, 39, 197, 200

Luther, Martin, 259

Lynd, Helen M., quoted, 144, 150,
163, 164-165, 166

Lynd, Robert S., quoted, 202

Lyons, radical ideas in, 253

Lysenko, 21, 126, 215, 216, 217

Mabee, Carleton, 220

Macaulay, Thomas Babington,
quoted on test oath, 32; on rea-
soning from opinion to action, 178-
179, 270; on civil privileges and
political rights, 184; on foreign
attachments, 297-299

McAuliffe V. Ne'W Bedford, 183-184

McCarthy, Joseph R., attack on al-
leged Communists in State De-
partment, 13-14; support of, 14-15;
loyalty obsession, 16-17; quoted on
Secretary Acheson, 19; adminis-
trative reaction to charges of, 19-
20; charges of, against Lattimore
and Jessup, 21

McCausland, Elizabeth, cited on in-
come of artists, 130

McGrath, Earl James, 190; quoted
on loyalty oaths, 12; on control
of higher education, 204

Macleish, Archibald, 13

McMahon, Brien, 89, 93

354

Index

Madigan, John, 221, 223

Madison, James, quoted on censorial
power, 68

Magazine of Art, 130

Main Currents in American Thought
(Vernon Parrington), 161

Maladjustment, 238

Malaise, background of present-day,
61-62

Malleus Maleficarum (James Spren-
ger), 121, 255

Manichaean doctrines, 252, 253

Mannheim, Karl, quoted on topia
and Utopia, 237; cited on confu-
sion of illusion and reality, 261;
quoted on scapegoat system, 268

Marshall, George C, disposal of ex-
hibit of contemporary paintings,
122

A'lartyrdom, 244

Marxists, 270

Maryland, loyalty statute, 11

Masons, 175, 176

Alassachusetts, loyalty statute, 11

Matthews, J. B., 223, 224-226, 228

Meiklejohn, Alexander, cited on
loyalty in America, 59; quoted
on fear of self-betrayal, 59; on
America after World War I, 60;
on control of university, 116; on
Communist power of discipline,
173, 174; on teacher's responsibil-
ity, 188-189; cited on speech, 293-
294

Membership, meanings of term, 282-
289

Menjou, Adolphe, 307; cited, 214

Michelet, Jules, cited on disease in
Middle Ages, 244-245; quoted on
doctrine of Original Sin, 262; on
cause of belief in witchcraft, 339

Michurin, 215

Mikado, The (W. S. Gilbert),
quoted, 121

Miller, Winlock W., 158

Minorities, racial, civil rights for,
7-8, 9, 10; rights of economic and
political, 8, 10-12; persecution of,
65; coercion in government by

consent, 69, 70, 71; stereotyping of,
269-274. See also Accursed groups

Miro, Joan, 127

Modem art. See Art, modem

Moley, Raymond, 144

Montaigne, Michel de, quoted, 250

Moore, Arthur, 220

More, Sir Thomas, 108, 258-259, 308

Mormon Church, 177

Morse, Philip M., quoted on single
scientist, 98

Morse, Wayne, 89

Morse code, of modem agitator, 127

Mote-beam mechanism, 278

Motion picture industry, 128. See
also Hollywood Ten

MuUer, H. J., 215

Murray, Gilbert, quoted on free
speech and thought, 327

Museum of Modern Art, New York,
125

Myers, John P., quoted on Fein-
berg Law, 200

N.A.M. See National Association of
Manufacturers

National Academy of Design, 125

National Academy of Science, 88;
reaction to clearance of AEC fel-
lows, 95-96

National Association for the Ad-
vancement of Colored People, re-
port quoted, 9-10

National Association of Manufactur-
ers, 107

National Education Association,
128; membership and influence,
190; opposes employment of Com-
munist teachers, 190-192, 194, 196;
Communist teachers barred from
membership, 191-192; opposes loy-
alty oath, 192-193; inconsistent be-
havior of, 193-195; opposes text-
book investigation, 194

National Research Council, spon-
sorship of scientists by, 88, 89;
selection of AEC fellows, 96

National Resources Planning Board,
147

Index

355

National rivalries, 34

National Science Foundation, 100

Nationalist Party, Puerto Rico, 199

Nation-state, rise of, 255-256. See also
City-state

Native Sons of the Golden West,
III

Naval Hospital, St. Albans, New-
York, 122

Nazi-Soviet Pact (1939), 142

Nazis, 305; revival of test oath, 35;
liberalism and, 79; attack on mod-
ern art, 124; acceptance of ideol-
ogy of, 177; undermining of aca-
demic freedom, 210-213; German
susceptibility to witch hunts of,
247-248

N.E.A. See National Education As-
sociation

New Deal, fear of reforms of, 39

New Jersey, loyalty statute, 11

New York City, suspension of teach-
ers, 196

New York Council on Education,
quoted on membership in Social-
ist Party, 38

New York Daily News, 82

New York Herald Tribune, 126, 143

New York State, loyalty statute, 11;
Feinberg Law, 197-201

New York Times, 118, 127, 143, 248;
quoted on support of Senator
McCarthy, 15; on loyalty issue, 16;
on Berkeley professors, 108-109

New York World Telegram, 125,
126

Newspapers, decreased number of,
275-276

Neylan, John Francis, 114; quoted
on loyalty oath at University of
California, iii

Niendorff, Fred, 151, 221

Nisei, in World War II, 64-65

Nixon, Richard, 283

Nonconformity, American doctrine
of, 55-56; distinguished from
heresy, 236-237. See also Con-
formity

Norton, John K., 191

Oates, Titus, 312

Oath. See Loyalty oath

Oglesby, Richard, quoted on Hay-
market case, 290-291

Olivet College, 219-221

O'Neil, James F., 231

Oppenheimer, J. Robert, 88; quoted
on AEC program, 93; on police-
state methods, 338

Oregon State College, 22, 127, 214-
218

Original Sin, dogma of injustice, 262

Paine, Tom, 45

Palmer raids, 6

Papists. See Catholics

Paranoia, political, 280-281. See also
Social delusions

Paris, radical ideas in, 253

Parrington, Vernon, 159, 161; quoted
on J. Allen Smith, 161-162

Pasteur, Louis, 97

Pauling, Linus, 216-217

Peasants' War (1524), 256, 258

Pellegrini, Angelo, 156

Pennsylvania, loyalty statute, ir

Pepper, Claude, quoted on Senate
rider on AEC fellows, 89

Periodicals. See Publications

Perlman, Philip B., cited on civil
rights and civU liberties, 9; quoted
on totalitarian government, 10

Persecution, logic of, 65 ; witch hunt-
ing and heresy hunting, 250; psy-
chology of, 260-263; reality and
delusion of, 277; semantics of, 282-
299. See also Coercion, Heresy

Pettengill, Robert P., quoted on
purge of college faculties, 186

Phi Beta Kappa, quoted on loyalty
oaths, 119

Phillips, Herbert J., case of, 147,
158-163, 168, 173, 181, 182

Pirenne, Henri, 258; quoted on rise
of radical ideas in Europe, 251,
252, 254; on urban piety, 25Z

Pitt, William, 45

Plebiscites, 68

Plenary indulgence, 304

35^

Index

Plumley, Charles A., 126, 130

Political rights, civil privileges and,
184-186

Political university, German, 210

Politicians, threat of, to freedom of
science, 96-101

Pollock, Sir Frederick, quoted on
test oath, 30; on heretics and in-
fidels, 46-47; on attack on religion,
243; on persecution of early
christians, 245

Popular front, in State of Washing-
ton, 140

Post-Intelligencer, 151, 221

Powdermaker, Hortense, cited, 270-
271

Power, problem of, 116

President's Committee on Civil
Rights, report of, 4-5; threat to
freedom of conscience and expres-
sion neglected, 5-6

Press. See Commission on Freedom
of the Press and Freedom of
the Press

Pressure, application of, in modern
society, 76-80; censorship by, 130-
131; visible and invisible, 275-
276

Price, Melvin, at Freistadt hearing,
85-86

Privileges, civil, and political rights,
184-186

Probation, 167

Professors. See Teachers

Propaganda, in modem dictator-
ships, 76-80; tricks of, 123-124

Prophets of Deceit (Lowenthal and
Guterman), 61, 128

Protestants, persecution of, 257-
258; Catholics and, in America,

338-339
Public opinion, management of, 71
Publications:
Books:
After Freedom (Hortense Pow-
dermaker), 271
Are American Teachers Free?

(Howard K. Beale), 193
Bible, Exodus, 68

Federal Protection of Civil

Rights (Robert H. Carr), 9
Grapes of Wrath, The (John

Steinbeck), 292
Heretics, The (Humphrey

Slater) , 76
Ideas Are Weapons (Max Ler-

ner), 332
Main Currents in American

Thought (Vernon Parring-

ton), 161
Malleus Maleflcaru?n {The

Witches'' Hammer) (James

Sprenger), 121, 255
Prophets of Deceit (Lowenthal

and Guterman), 61, 128
'Rejections (Edmund Burke),

43
Richer by Asia (Edmond Tay-
lor), 139
Rights of Man, The (Tom

Paine), 45
Road Ahead, The (John T.

Flynn), 322-324
Satanae Stratage?nata (Jacobus

Acontius), 260
Utopia (Sir Thomas More), 258
Essays:
Civil Disobedience (H. D, Tho-

reau), 68
Periodicals, Yearbooks:
Chemical and Engi?ieering

News, 215, 216
Chicago Herald- American, 221,

222, 223
Chicago Tribune, 13
Congressional Record, 82
Daily Worker, 90
Denver Post, 86
Der Abend, Berlin, 83
Harper's, 73, 156
Journal- American, New York,

222
Lansing State Journal, 220
Life, 208, 225
Los Angeles Times, 107, 109,

no
Magazine of Art, 130
New York Daily News, 82

Index

357

New York Herald Tribune, 1 26,

143
New York Times, 15, 16, 108-

109, 118, 127, 143, 248
New York World Telegram,

125, 126
Post-Intelligencer, 151, 221
Reader's Digest, 323
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 85
San Francisco Chronicle, 15, 87,

III
Seattle Times, 151, 153, 154
Social Register, 205
Sun-Times, Chicago, 223
Tar Heel, University of North

Carolina, 84
University of Pennsylvania Law

Review, 78-79
Washington Post, 15
Puritans, 240

Quakers, 240

Questions, phrasing of, 22

Race Riots (1943), 6

Racial discrimination, improved pub-
lic opinion on, 7-8, 9

Rader, Melvin, case of, 146-147,
1 50-1 5 1 passim

Rader, Virginia, 153

Rankin, John, 304; quoted on Frei-
stadt, 83

Rapp-Coudert Committee, report of,
on Communist teachers, 193

Reactionaries, delusion of encircle-
ment, 323

Reader's Digest, 323

Recantation, 80

Reds. See Communists, Heresy

Reflections (Edmund Burke), 43

Reformation, 252, 253, 255, 257,

339

Regents of state university, power
of, 116. See also University of Cal-
ifornia

Religious vicars, fanaticism of faith
and avarice in, 33-34

Remington, William, removed from
Commerce Department, 17

Remy, Inquisitor of Lorraine,

quoted, 302
Representatives, intimidation by, 70
Republican Assembly, California,

no
Republican Party, position on claims

of Senator McCarthy, 14, 15
Research, influence of, on control

of higher education, 203-204, 208

Resentment, 237-238
Reston, James, quoted on Senator

McCarthy, 15
Revenge, imaginary, 238
Richards, A. N., position on Frei-

stadt case, 88-89
Richer by Asia (Edmond Taylor),

/39
Rickey, Branch, 224
Rights, individual, distinguished

from social freedom, 11 7-1 18;

political, civil privileges and, 184-

186
Rights of Man, The (Tom Paine),

Rivals, distinguished from heretics,
239

Road Ahead, The (John T. Flynn),
322-323

Rockefeller Foundation, 93

Roman Law, inquisitorial process un-
der, 309-310

Roosevelt, Franklin D., 142

Roosevelt College, investigation of,
223, 228

Rosen, Nathan, 84

Rouen, radical ideas in, 253

Royce, Josiah, definition of loyalty
quoted, 50, 51; cited on loyalty in
America, 58; quoted on loss of
social unity, 60, 61

Rushmore, Howard, 145, 146, 222,
226-227

Russia. See Soviet Union

Rutgers College, 208

Sabbat, 245, 282
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 85
Salem, Massachusetts, persecution of
witches, 246-247, 248-249

358

Index

San Francisco Chronicle, quoted on
McCarthy attack on State Depart-
ment, 15; on Freistadt, 87; cited
on test oath at University of Cal-
ifornia, III

Sanctions, application 'of, 79-80

Satanae Stratagemata (Jacobus
Acontius), 260

Savery, William, 159

Sawyer, Charles, Secretary of Com-
merce, 17

Scapegoating, heresy hunting and,
246. See also Accursed groups

Scheler, Max, quoted on traditional
and actual power, 238

Schirick, Justice Harry E., 183

Schools, drive for patriotic con-
formity in, 38-39. See also Edu-
cation

Science, role of, in present-day life,
97-98

Scientific research, freedom of, 96-
loi; expenditures for, 98

Scientists, reaction of, to Freistadt-
Edelman hearings, 91-94

Scotland, disaffection in, 46

Seattle, radicals in, 140. See also
University of Washington

Seattle Times, 151, 153, 154

Secrecy, assumed hostility of, to
self-government, 72-74

Secret ballot, 73

Sects, in American life, 61

Security, loyalty and, 16

Sedition Act. See AHen and Sedition
Acts

Seditious Activities Investigation
Commission. See Broyles Com-
mission

Selden, Sir John, 330

Self-estrangement, problem of, in
present-day America, 60-64

Self-government. See Government
by consent

Seligman, 127

Sewall, Samuel, 247

Seymour, Charles, opposition to loy-
alty oaths, 118

Shipherd, Father, 219

Shipherd College, 221

Simon, Yves R., quoted on ac-
cursed groups, 263, 267-268

Slater, Humphrey, quoted on urge
to conform, 76

Slye, Maud, 225

Smith, Gerald L. K., 15

Smith, Henry Nash, quoted, 187

Smith, Howard K., quoted on Rus-
sian and American influence,

333

Smith, J. Allen, 159, 161-162

Smith, Lieutenant General Walter
Bedell, cited on internal tensions
in Soviet Union, 27

Smith, Preserved, quoted on crime
of witchcraft, 257

Smith, T. v., 144; quoted on Com-
munists in colleges, 143; version
of Lovejoy argument, 185-186

Smith, Troy, 153

Smith, Tucker P., 220, 221

Smith Act, 293

Smyth, Henry D., 88

Snyder, Lawrence, interrogation of,
229-230

Social classes, differentiation of, in
United States, 62H54

Social delusions, visible and invis-
ible coercion, 275-276; blindness
to situational factors, 276-278;
mote-beam mechanism, 278; other
sources of, 278-279; as self-fulfill-
ing prophecies, 279; result of dis-
crepancy between norm and real-
ity, 279-280; political paranoia,
280-281

Social freedoms, problem of, 99;
individual rights distinguished
from, 1 1 7-1 18; protection of, 131-

132

Social groups, discipline in, 176-178

Social sciences, restriction of aca-
demic freedom in, 209

Social Register, 205

Socialism, 34; denunciation of, after
World War L 38; ideology of,
292; language of, 294; assumed
threat of, 322-326

Index

359

Socialist Workers Party, 199

Southey, Robert, 45

Soviet Union, 305; obsession with
loyalty, 27, 39; nationalism of, 34;
influence of, on American loyalty
obsession, 37, 38, 60; recognized
by United States, 39; art in, 127;
control of education in, 203; In-
quisition in, 249-250

Sparling, Edward, 223

Spaulding, Francis T., quoted, 199-
200

Spender, Stephen, quoted, 196

Spitzer, Ralph W., case of, 127, 214-
218

Sprenger, James, 121, 135, 255, 256,
304

Sproul, Robert Gordon, 104, 118;
imposes test oath at University
of California, 103, 105; reverses
position on test oath, 111-112

Standard Oil Company, 61

Star Chamber, 301, 305

Starkey, Marion L., quoted on witch
hunting, 246; on logic of inquisi-
torial process, 307

State Department, attacked by Sen-
ator McCarthy, 13-15, 17; pur-
chase of contemporary paintings,
121-122

State university, power of regents,
116; legislative control of, 186-
188

Steinbeck, John, 292

Stephens, James, quoted, 294

Stereotyping, of minorities, 269-274

Sterling, Wallace, 118

Stevenson, Adlai, 222

Stimson, Henry L., quoted on
McCarthy campaign against State
Department, 15

Stone, Edward T., 151

Strand, A. L., President of Oregon
State College, 214-218

Strong, Edward, 164

Student Republican Club, Chicago,
222

Students, screening of, 94. See also
Atomic Energy Commission

Stuntz, George R., 158

Sturtevant, Alfred Henry, quoted
on Spitzer case, 217

Subjugation, economic, 79

Submission, distinguished from as-
sent, 69, 71

Subversive organizations, banning of,
6

Summers, Montague, 267

Simnnis Desiderajttes (Innocent
VIII), 255

Sun-Times, Chicago, 223

Supreme Court, as guardian of civil
rights, 70, 71; review of case of
Hollywood Ten declined, 81

Sweezy, Paul, 164

Szilard, Leo, quoted on academic
freedom under Nazis, 212-213

Taft-Hartley Act, 121, 128, 337

Tar Heel, University of North Car-
olina, 84

Tawney, R. H., cited on religious
wars in Europe, 33

Taylor, Edmond, 275; quoted on
private delusions and public real-
ities, 139; on professional and clin-
ical paranoid, 145-146; on master-
delusion of Tightness, 261-262;
statement of Spanish soldier
quoted, 262; quoted on error and
truth, 262-263; on meaning, 269;
on British civil servants in India,
272; on groups in opposition, 274;
on delusion of hostility, 279; on
political paranoia, 281; on delu-
sions, 332, 333, 334

Taylor, Glenn, 89

Teachers, effect of Lusk Laws on,
36-37; loyalty oath requirement,
39; guardians of principle of aca-
demic freedom, 116, 117; Com-
munist purge as protection of
academic freedom, 180-186; re-
sponsibility of, 188; Communist,
position of N.E.A. on, 190-192,
194, 196; lack of tenure protection,
193; Communist, position of
A.A.U.P. on, 195; deterioration in

360

Index

Teachers (Continued)

democratic rights for, 197; Fein-
berg Law, 197-201
Teachers Guild (AFL), 200
Teachers Union (CIO), 191, 196,

200
Teague, C. C, 322; quoted on So-
cialism and Communism, 322
Tennessee, Crump machine in, 73
Tenney, Jack B., no, 222, 304;
"thought control" bills proposed
by, 102-103, 104-105; replaced on
Un-American Committee, 1 1 2-

Terman, Lewis M., 164

Termites, 36, 271

Test oath. See Loyalty oath

Textbook investigation, of House
Committee on Un-American Ac-
tivities, 194

Thayer, V. T., quoted on problem
of former heretic, 179-180

Thomas, J. Pamell, 62, 67, 80-81, 304

Thompson, Dorothy, 144; quoted
on Lattimore, 2 1

Thompson, James Westfall, quoted
on rise of radical ideas in Eu-
rope, 253, 254

Thoreau, Henry David, quoted on
free exercise of judgment and
moral sense, 55, 68

Thurber, James, quoted, 333

To Secure These Rights, report of
President's Committee on Civil
Rights, 4-5

Topia, 237

Tories, political use of French Rev-
olution by, 44-48

Town Meeting of the Air, cited on
Japanese-Americans, 64

Trade-union leaders, testing of, for
heresy, 121

Treves, Archbishop of, 319

Trotsky, Leon, 146

Truman Doctrine, 322

Truman, Harry S., 39, 129; civil
rights program, 5, 8; loyaltj'' or-
der of March 22, 1947, 5, 7, 11,
16, 49; quoted on loyalty pro-
gram, 16; reaction to McCarthy-

ism, 19-20; endorses report of
N.E.A., 191

Trumbo, Dal ton, 81

Truth, pursuit of, 202-203

Turberville, A. S., quoted on faith
and heresy, 236; on medieval no-
tions of heretics, 239, 264; on
medieval calamit)', 264; on inquisi-
tors, 304, 306, 308, 313; on In-
quisition, 315-316

Un-American investigations, na-
ture of, 141

UNESCO, Charter quoted, 137

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
See Soviet Union

Universities. See Education

University of California, size and
standing of, 102; test oath con-
troversy, 102-103, 104-109, no-
li 2; Laski lecture invitation with-
drawn, 103-104; capitulation to
anti-Communists, 1 1 2-11 3 ; effects
of controversy, 11 3-1 14; fear of
motivation of controversy, 114-
115; issues involved in controversy,
115-120

University of Chicago, Freistadt at,
83-84; investigation of, 221-229

University of Illinois, 119

University of Michigan, 119

University of New Hampshire, in-
vestigation of, 231

University of North Carolina, Frei-
stadt at, 82, 84, 87

University of Oklahoma, investiga-
tion and loyalt)^ oath at, 229-230

University of Fennsylvania Law Re-
view, quoted on forces making for
conformity, 78-79

University of Washington, ousting
and disciplining of faculty'' mem-
bers, lo-ii, 23, 102; Regents' rec-
ord of controversy at, 139; polit-
ical background of controversy,
140-141, 171; Canwell Committee
investigation, 142-154; Regents'
trial and verdict, 156-158; victims
of trial, 158-162; heresy as basis
of charges, 162-166; probationary

Index

361

thought control at, 166-169; esti-
mate of indictments, 169-170; fal-
lacy of Communist power of dis-
cipline, 1 71-180; Communist purge
as protection of academic freedom,
180-186; investigation of, a re-
sult of legislative fear, 188

Uranium, lost and found at Ar-
gonne Laboratory, 82, 96

Urban movement, heresy in rela-
tion to, 252-254

Utopia, 237

Utopia (Sir Thomas More), 258

Van Loon, Hendrik, cited, 214

Veblen, Thorstein, quoted on con-
trol of education, 204, 207

Vienna, anti-Semites in, 83

Violence. See Force and violence

Vishinsky, Andrei Y., 21

Voorhis, Jerry, 304

Voters, as representatives of the
people, 70; right of, to freedom
of association, 74-75

Wadham College, Oxford Univer-
sity, 120

Waite, Chief Justice Morrison R.,
quoted on allegiance and protec-
tion, 28

Waldensians, 231

Wallace, Henry, 214, 215

Waltz, Jay, quoted on State De-
partment loyalty board, 17

Warner, W. Lloyd, quoted on
American social system, 62

Warren, Earl, opposes test oath ul-
timatum at University of Califor-
nia, 1 1 1

Washington, State of, political back-
ground, 140-141; activities of Can-
well Committee, 140-154. See also
University of Washington

Washington Commonwealth Feder-
ation, 140

Washington Old Age Pension
Union, investigation of, 141-142

Washi?igton Post, quoted on
McCarthy attack on State Depart-
ment, 15

Weaving, heresy in centers of, 252-
Western Psychological Association,

Wheeling, West Virginia, Senator
McCarthy's speech at, 13

Wherry, Kenneth S., 21, 278

White, Bishop, quoted on opposition
to Alien and Sedition Acts, 42

White, WUliam S., quoted on Sen-
ator McCarthy's attack on State
Department, 1 5

Whyte, Lancelot, quoted, 335

WUberforce, William, 45

Williams, Abigail, 246-247

Winther, Mabel, 172, 287

Winther, Sophus Keith, 156-157,
164, 172-173, 287

Wirth, Louis, quoted on idea, 235

Witch hunt, illusion and reality in,
3-4; victims of, 23; defined, 246,
See also Heresy

Witchcraft, rise of interest in, 255-

Witches, medieval notions of, 264;
as accursed group, 267. See also
Heretics

Witches^ Hammer, The (James
Sprenger), 121, 255

W.O.A.P.U. See Washington Old
Age Pension Union

Wood, Sam, 267

Wordsworth, William, 45; quoted,
25, 95, 156, 171, 239

Workers Party, 199

World War I, loyalty obsession dur-
ing and after, 36, 60

World War H, civil rights in, 6-7;
treatment of Japanese-Americans,
64-66; Japanese intelligence in
United States, 66

Wiirzburg, Bishop of, 314

Yale, William, quoted on rise of

dictatorships, 35
Yearbooks. See Publications
Young Progressives of America, 222
Ypres, democratic agitation in, 254

Zealots, heretics as, 244

LEGE LIBR)
Ddif'^ Due

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

3 1262 08913 6567

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