Dubious Means to a Worthy End

Goaded by professional critics like Senator McCarthy and facing the challenge of an election year, the Administration now feels that it must actively push its program to rid the country of the Communist menace. Friday evening, Attorney General Brownell offered what he termed a "new and powerful" program of legislation. But on closer examination, it seems that the Administration has offered some innovations which are hardly new at all, and others which would only serve to undermine the foundations of personal liberty.

Keystone of the Eisenhower program is a bill, now in committee stage, which would take away the citizenship of any person found guilty of advocating the overthrow of the Government by force. In introducing the bill, Michigan's Senator Ferguson said it would mean the end of the Communist party; actually, it would have little effect at all. For the Smith Act, used during the Truman administration, provides punishment for anyone conspiring to advocate the Government's overthrow. In addition, such a conspiracy is a felony, and persons convicted of a felony are now deprived of virtually all the rights of citizenship. Further, persons convicted of actual treason have every right of citizenship taken away. So the Administration's new bill would not deprive of citizenship a single Communist who would not already be in jail with his rights seriously curtailed. It seems little more than a sop tossed out to appease the witch-hunters.

A second bill would allow employers to dismiss from defense plants during a national emergency any person whose record showed he was likely to engage in sabotage or espionage. Such a measure was in force during World War H, and experience indicates that unless great discretion is used in its application, it can become a weapon of personal vindictiveness. It is conceivable, for example, that one employee might report another from motives that are personal, not patriotic.

Another clause in this same bill would prohibit employees from paying dues or giving other support to a union deemed under Communist domination, and would deny any member of such a group employment in a defense plant. Although it is, of course, vital that saboteurs be kept out of industry, a blanket measure of this kind raises more problems than it answers. It would be up to the Subversives Activities Control Board to decide if a union is Communist dominated, and in times of fear, this Board could be pressured into unwise decisions. Also, it would be an easy matter to extend control from unions to organizations of every sort. Indiscriminately used, such a measure would enforce a conformity that could stifle all expression of dissenting opinion.

Wire Tapping

Third on the Attorney General's list of legislation is a bill that would allow courtroom use of evidence secured by wire tapping. Here again any possible advantage is far outweighed by the damaging effects such a measure would have. In the hands of an unscrupulous prosecutor, for example, innocent phone calls could be transformed into admissions of guilt through splicing and editing. There is no need whatsoever for a wire-tap bill, for tapping is now a legalized means of investigation. But under present usage, it is used to learn of future criminal action, not to incriminate on circumstantial evidence.

One of the Administration's recommendations, however, can fill a conspicuous gap in this country's present security program. This is a bill that would permit the Government to compel testimony of those who invoked the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination by granting them immunity from prosecution. For it is just this silence barrier that has given publicity-hungry investigators so many headlines in the past. Time after time, persons who have not testified for fear of self-incrimination have actually had nothing to hide, yet their actions have blown the subversives issue up to gigantic proportions. An immunity bill would clear the name of the innocent; it would also expose conspiracy were conspiracy exists.

This last-named proposal seems the Administration's one constructive addition to the nation's security system. While it is admirable that the leaders of the Republican party should want to take publicity away from the demagogues of the far right, it is unfortunate that their proposed legislation contains so little that is new or worthwhile.