Stampede

Red-blooded associations like the Keep American Committee and Protect Americanism League may fare poorly in most of the Union, but they can always claim California as their stamping ground. Combined with the local virulent brand of Hearst journalism and American Legionnaires, they are a formidable array. And in their perpetual stampede, it is the state school system which suffers most.

Last year's target for super-patriotic clodhoppers was the Pasadena school superintendent, who apparently was not sufficiently versed in the benefits of the Three R's campaign. This year discord grew from use of a booklet printed by the U.N. which suggests ways a teacher might best explain the United Nations Educational, Social, and Cultural Organization.

Los Angeles schools found it handy, but to the leagues, legions, and committees it was a stark example of red infiltration. The battlecry sounded, and from all parts of the state the super-patriots came, brandishing their copies of McCarthyism (the Senator's version) and denouncing the U.N.

The Parents Teachers Association, the League of Women Voters, and even Paul Hoffman struggled on the booklet's behalf, but it is doubtful that the Los Angeles Board of Education heard much of what they had to say. An organized claque made certain that no one defending UNESOO proceeded uninterrupted. The Board, of course, banned the booklet.

Happily, noise seldom conquers intellect so roundly elsewhere. Few communities have reached a point where book-burning is so popular, where men like Paul Hoffman are hissed into silence, and where UNESCO and the Comintern can be mentioned in the same breath without evoking general laughter. Nevertheless, the increasing popularity of extremism is no less discouraging for the localization of its success.

The appeal of this militant groupthink is obvious--the frustrations of war and a love of certainty, a love that all too easily fastens on to the values of the good old days-and no one can do much about it. Its successes, few though they may be, are another matter, for the super-patriots are a small minority, and it is only the fears and apathy of the majority that allows them to exist.

Neither present laws no future ones offer any solution, since throttling the, extremes would inevitably threaten the moderates' freedom as well. The answer is the simple one that a democracy has always afforded to citizens: counterpressure, provided by the majority, only public realization of freedom's worth in education all public pressure to protect that freedom can rid communities of super-patriot footholds.

Unlike, say, the movie industry, education has at last one agency to ward off the extremists. Moreover, groups like the Women Voters are available as well. This makes the task somewhat simpler, as it provides nucleus for public action. Continued and vigorous sport of these organizations is the one way to make he that affairs such as Los Angeles has been suffering will not happen all over the nation. Perhaps it might work in California too.