Hysteria Shenanigans

America's Great Post War Red Scare, which has already smeared the good name of David E. Lilienthal in the minds of political illiterates, will soon focus upon the Hearst-coined issue of "Communism in the Colleges." A brief but lurid orgy looms; if the House Un-American Activities Committee acts with customary discernment, faculty and undergraduates the country over may look forward to hearing they are "subversive." One may anticipate such an edifying seene as Ralph Barton Perry in pitched verbal battle with J. Parnell Thomas. So high is the current national pulsebeat on the Communist issue, moreover, that the attack will no longer center solely on the social and economic views a particular professor happens to embrace. The oft-repeated struggle for academic freedom, most recently waged by students at the University of Texas in the Rainey incident, is likely to share the limelight this time with a struggle for freedom of campus organizations.

Precisely what this can mean has been demonstrated in capsule scale during the past month in Michigan, where newly-elected Governor Kim Sigler declared war in Michigan Youth for Democratic Action, an affiliate of American Youth for Democracy. When the administration of Michigan State College made membership in its tiny AYD chapter a probationary offense, 22 faculty members representing 11 departments and 27 students representing 16 organizations jumped into action immediately at the nearby University of Michigan in Ann Arbor to form a Committee for Academic Freedom. The broad base of this solidified campus hostility is mild indication of what the intellectually alive student body will do in return for inquisitorial tactics--or even the promise of them.

Michigan's Committee encompasses the influence of the student legislature and the University Religious Association. It would be preposterous to claim that these groups like lending their support to the AYD. Many of their members combat the AYD where it hurts most: in the large AVC and Interracial Association units which are objects of infiltration. They know, however, that what they are really coming to grips with is an entering wedge for controlled extracurricular student life; and while they duly shun the AYD, they realize that suppression will only force it underground.

If the AYD or any other Communist-front can carry along well-meaning youth in the most despicable form of political exploitation, the real job is not to look under the bed but to offer a genuine progressive program in the democratic organizations. A witch-hunt indiscriminately pinning the Red label to independent-thinking individuals or magnifying the significance of the neurotic schoolboy Party Liner will only serve to arouse thousands of students across the country in defense of civil liberties. The informed in every stratum of society will surely resist obvious hysteria-shenanigans. Republican leaders are inviting near-unanimous condemnation from intelligent citizens if they throw thought-police methods in the face of American Education.