Free Speech in Indiana

Last summer three student members of the Young Socialist Alliance at Indiana University were indicted for subversion under a 1951 State Anti-Communist Act. The indictment was based on two YSA meetings. One was a public gathering at which a Negro spoke on the "Black Revolt in America," urging Negroes to seek political power and to meet violence with violence. The other was a private meeting at which the defendants and friends gathered to plan a defense against a previous indictment.

The three men are charged with assembling "for the purpose of advocating and teaching the doctrine that the government of the United States and or the State of Indiana, should be overthrown by force, violence, or any unlawful means." The maximum penalty is six years in jail.

Responsibility for the indictment belongs chiefly to the local district attorney, Thomas A. Hoadley, a recent graduate of Indiana Law School. When he decided that the University withdraw its recognition of YSA, instead of talking to the IU administration, Hoadley issued a statement to the press. University officials first learned of his campaign in the next day's newspapers. Later, Hoadley violated the secrecy of grand jury testimony by announcing that the dean of students, one of the witnesses, had recommended that the three students be indicted. The dean denies making such a recommendation.

Hoadley also raided a coed's apartment with a search warrant later discovered to be invalid. The prosecution told the press that he had been watching the coed for a long time because of her connection with YSA. She and the YSA both denied her affiliation with the socialist organization, and she threatened a libel suit.

But energetic as he is, Hoadley would be powerless without the state law on which he is basing his prosecution. Although it has never been tested, the twelve-year old Anti-Subversion Act is probably unconstitutional. In 1956, the United States Supreme Court ruled in the case of Pennsylvania V. Nelson that the Federal government pre-empts prosecution of subversion, forbidding action by state authorities. But the Indiana act makes it "the public policy of the state of Indiana ... to exterminate Communism and communists, and any or all teachings of the same."

Hoadley's modus operandi, distasteful in itself, has already had its unhappy effects. None of the three defendants will return to school this term. Their parents have suffered economic reprisals and one friends was evicted from an apartment.

The prosecutor originally announced that he intended to force the University to withdraw recognition from YSA. Aside from the fact that interference in University affairs is beyond the sphere of a public official, it has become increasingly obvious that Hoadley is using the case to advance his own political ambitions. Conducting what the Indiana student newspaper termed "trial by newspaper," the district attorney has consistently chosen the paths to justice most likely to make headlines.

With laws like the Anti-Subversion Act and prosecutors like Hoadley, it is small wonder that Bloomington, Indians, has been called the "all-American city."