Render unto Caesar...

Senator Jenner's Internal Security Sub-Committee is supposed to be gathering information for possible Congressional legislation. Yet, apparently in Jenner's mind lies the idea that he is judging individuals and passing a verdict for the American people. During yesterday's hearing the senator referred to his questioning as "judicial process," and treated his witnesses as defendants. The irony of all this is that Jenner is, in fact, deciding the fates of many of his witnesses, by merely calling them to his hearings.

Up to now, both Jenner and Velde have limited their education probes to professors. As Jenner stated yesterday, a vast majority of them are loyal beyond question. Most of those with any red tinge at all were members of the Communist Party a long time ago. Now, they are in a position to tell the committee that it was youth and inexperience which led them to join. They've grown up, enough to put their mistakes behind them. Because of the hearings, these men will undoubtedly get the cold shoulder from some people, but their careers are not necessarily ruined.

It will be different with two of the witnesses who appear before the committee today. They are not professors and Jenner's group is not calling them to testify about things that happened over fifteen years ago. They are students here at the Law School, who must appear in open hearings before the press and the public to talk probably about their undergraduate activities at Cornell. Their presence at the hearings is enough to cripple if not completely end their ambitions as lawyers. If they speak freely, they will undoubtedly have to give the names of friends, who in turn will be called. If they claim silence, they will live under continual suspicion.

The calling of students to testify points even more emphatically at the harm these hearings will do to American education. It is obvious that the Committee knows no crime the Lubell brothers have committed; if it did, they would be testifying before a genuine court of law, not Jenner's selfstyled jury. Instead, they probably engaged in leftist activities. Perhaps, they were stupid; perhaps, they joined some organizations with flashy liberal labels without considering their aims. They were, however, undergraduates whose emotions may have been stronger than their young intellects. In no way that we can see, does Jenner and his committee have the right to condemn even stupidity, as long as that stupidity does not actually endanger the security of the United States.

As a result of these hearings, we will probably see a breed of undergraduates even more silent than those described in a recent Time Magazine article. It is difficult to imagine many students joining any organization that deviates even partially from the accepted public point of view; for all they know, it may soon become subversive. Not only will the professors mumble their one-sided lectures in the state these investigators seem to be planning, but the students will take their notes without question.

How can the universities save themselves? The investigators are here, and the press follows like so many mongrels at their heels, devouring bits of sensational meat and discarding the vast amount of data on the "loyal" as though it were so much inedible gristle.

We believe, since there is no way to stop the investigations, the soundest course is to speak frankly and answer each question honestly, as it comes. Revealing friends, heinous though it may be, is far better than tacitly incriminating a whole university community. Those testifying must consider their relation to everyone around them, not merely their selves and immediate friends. They must answer, giving the committee all the information it wants, then speak their minds, tell the investigators the meaning of academic freedom and the evil of these highly publicized probes. Perhaps, the committee members don't know. And perhaps the silence of so many has convinced them that beneath the surface of education is an organized subversive movement. Only speaking forth and leaving none of their doubts unanswered can possibly dispel this myth. It is up to those who testify, both students and teachers, to open their months and clear the imaginations of both the investigators and the public.