The Prosecution of the U.S. Communists
H., I.
With the fatality of opportunism, the government is pursuing its prosecution of the Communist party under the McCarran Act of 1950. After 12 years of harassment, it is now within striking...
...That danger the Attorney General is now enforcing...
...but in the special Kennedyite version of real politik they show zeal in prosecution rather than trying to educate the American public to repealing an iniquitous piece of legislation...
...Morally, it is a shameful business because it would drive political enemies into the position of either dishonor or jeopardy: either informing upon their followers or suffering jail penalties...
...but we also know when you refuse to face a truth you know to be true, that when you go along with repressions you know to be repressive and deceits you know to be deceitful, you are no longer being shrewd or realistic, you are conniving in something rotten...
...And that is precisely what the Attorney General's office is doing as it hunts down the aging leaders of American Communism instead of letting them molder in the obscurity in which they would otherwise be...
...Failure to comply with the registration provisions is punishable by a five-year prison sentence and a fine of $10,000 for each day of refusal...
...Politically, it is stupid, for it allows the futile American Communists to pose as—in deed, to be—martyrs...
...Very likely, the leading figures in this prosecution understand this as well as we do...
...Both principle and expediency suggest that in their extremity of self-exposure the American Communists be allowed to speak without interference or punishments— as exhibits of confidence in the idea of a free society...
...in putting Gus Hall and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn into jail...
...After 12 years of harassment, it is now within striking distance and may again succeed — some triumph...
...When these provisions first came to President Truman, he wrote in a veto message that "they represent a clear and present danger to our institutions...
...The McCarran Act requires that "Communist-action organizations" make public the names of their officers and members, as well as forfeit a variety of privileges...
...And yes, yes, we know all the political difficulties this would involve...
Vol. 10 • January 1963 • No. 1
