What's Next?

In the latest blow struck in the name of the sanctity of the American way of life, the House Veterans Affairs Committee recently approved a rider which will prohibit the use of any GI Bill educational funds to Communists, Communist sympathizers, or anyone whose allegiance is to a nation "subservient" to Russia. If this should become law, no longer might American colleges be burdened with government-financed veterans who are subversive in the eyes of Parnell Thomas and other defenders of the democratic tradition.

But, lest valuable time be expended in raising such embarrassing questions as "Academic freedom?" or "How would this be enforced?," it should be quickly remarked that there is little to worry about on this issue. This legislative hitch-hiker will not be entered on the statute books at this session of Congress. The rider in question, it seems, is attached to the bill to raise subsistence payments for student-veterans. The chairman of the Rules Committee predicts it will not even reach the floor for a vote at this time. Why should it? Have not the concerned congressmen salved their consciences by demanding that assistance go only to the 99.44 per cent pure?

And so it goes. Ten State Department employees have been discharged as "bad security risks." The Department's press office said, "This does not necessarily concern the loyalty of the individuals, but may refer to his discretion or the company he keeps." A few days later, a high U. S. court rules against proceeding with a trial of the score of Americans indicted during the war as pre-fascist seditionists, claiming it would be a travesty on justice.

When the House Un-American Activities Committee calls the Southern Conference for Human Welfare a Red-front group, the report, admittedly timed to coincide with the Conference's sponsorship of a Wallace speech in Washington, receives front-page play from New York to Los Angeles. At the same time, a booklet, "Fascism in Action," a lengthy, documented expose of Fascist activity in this country over the past few years is bottled up in a House committee, probably never to see the inside of a government printing-office. Its sister publication, "Communism in Action," was approved with alacrity and is now available for public distribution.

The hitherto unchecked surge of near-panie that has of late been seeing the mildest New Deal voter as Communist goblin, must inevitable be slowed by a principle of limits. The field of free inquiry, then, must by its nature oppose a mentality which presumes to pass on a man's right to an education in accordance with its whims about his "company." Plainly, the danger of the unchallenged witch hunt is that it can quite conceivably begin defining as ineligible Communist soreheads all students it considers in any way "difficult"--from pacifists to students who support a larger allotment, or who simply protest energetically the allocation of Yale game tickets. Possibly the most pathetic figure of this situation would be the Congressman who voted for the bill in an attempt to keep America from becoming a "police state."