RADIO DEMOCRACY

One of the most significant steps in the history of radio campaigning was disclosed yesterday, when the Columbia Broadcasting System announced that it will give the Communist Party free time on the air. It is evident that the radio has assumed a place of political importance at least equal to that of the daily newspaper, and an impartiality whose scope and influence far exceed the best local press organs. At the bottom of this policy of non-partisanship lies the Federal Communications Commission, a body, which, if its present principles are maintained permanently, will do more for the success of democratic government than any possible mechanical reform.

The great flaw of free governments has long been declared to dwell in the distortion of public opinion and in the misinformation of consistently biased newspapers. With the gradual development of a kind of rebuttal campaigning like the Smith-Robinson speeches and the proposed Communist vs. Capitalist arguments of Earl Browder and Hamilton Fish, Jr. political bally-hoo is soon likely to be tempered by more intelligent debates. Ready access to the microphone, its far-reaching power and its nation-wide publicity, make calling an opponent's false cards relatively easy and highly effective. Such suggestions as Owen D. Young made the other day at Rollins College, urging more temperate speech and restraint of campaign hyperbole, may become tactical necessities to future politicians.

But again it must not be forgotten that at the heart of this new instrument of democracy, which is so superior to the partisan newspaper, lies the Federal Communications Commission. By act of Congress it is the duty of the Commission to see that the candidates of all parties are afforded equal broadcasting facilities. As yet campaign broadcasting is comparatively young, and the larger radio station owners have not had their partisan animosities seriously aroused. But, if ever such feeling should rise in the future, the American public should resist any effort at repeal of the law as they would an abolition of equal suffrage. An impartial Communications Commission should become as firm an American institution as the Bill of Rights.