Resolution Urges Scientists to War On Fascist Forces

Thirty-nine Harvard science professors, assistant professors and instructors, were among the 1,284 American scientists who signed a manifesto made public yesterday which declared that the defence of democracy is the sole means of preserving intellectual freedom and insuring scientific progress.

Acting as spokesman for the committee of eminent scientists, including three Nobel Prize winners, Franz Boas, professor of Anthropology, emeritus, at Columbia, said the manifesto was based on a resolution of the American Association for the Advancement of Science which stated that science was wholly independent of national boundaries, and "races and creeds can flourish only when there is peace and intellectual freedom."

Manifesto Condemns Fascism

The manifesto summons scientists to educate the American people against all false and unscientific doctrines, "such as the racial nonsense of the Nazis," as Boas put it. Agents of Fascism were seen to be increasingly active, and Boas urged that his colleagues join with men of "good will" to defend democracy, and avoid the fate which was meted out to men like Albert Einstein, James Franck, and Thomas Mann.

"The thousands of teachers and scientists who have been exiled since Hitler came into power bear testimony to the incompatibility of Fascism and science," Boas continued. The manifesto extended Boas' statement: "Any attack upon freedom of thought in one sphere, even as non-political a sphere as theoretical physics, is an attack on democracy itself."

Bart J. Bok, professor of Astronomy; Edwin G. Boring, professor of Psychology; Frederick L. Hisaw, professor of Zoology; Ernest A. Hooton, professor of Anthropology, Kirtley F. Mather, professor of Geology and director of the summer school, were among the signers of the manifesto.,