WHAT IS LOYALTY?
STOUT, JONATHAN
Washington and the Nation What Is Loyalty? By Jonathan Stout New Leader Washington Correspondent WASHINGTON. D. C—The name of Dorothy Bailey, a comely but relatively obscure young...
...But these are if's and maybe's...
...3, Whether she had association on various occasions with known Communist Party members...
...Answer: I would say it is extremely hard to identify a Communist...
...The gist of the "Bailey Case" is as follows: Miss Bailey, a supervisor of the U. S. Employment Service's training section, and a former president of Local 10 of the United Public Workers of America, CIO, was discharged from her job because, Noyes says, she cajinot prove her loyalty to the United States...
...The unique contribution of Noyes to the sometimes emotional debate concerning the loyalty issue is that his account of the Bailey case represents one of the few uncolorcd, factual presentations of it...
...THE IMPENDING FEDERAL court trial gives the Bailey case more than local interest because it will provide the first legal test of the President's loyalty order...
...There has been no statement from the Loyalty Review Board to explain what position it took, what it conceived its job to be, end how it discharged what it took to be its responsibility...
...D. C—The name of Dorothy Bailey, a comely but relatively obscure young woman today, probably will become a subject of great debate in the homes of millions...
...A review of Noyes' report strongly favors the conclusion that Miss Bailey is not a Communist now, and probably never was one...
...As I say, I have not read the (Communist) constitution...
...As a result, tlje following questions may receive a thorough judicial airing: 1. What are the rights of the individual where the security* of the government is concerned...
...Question: Are you telling us that yoif don't know substantially what a ' Communist is...
...up in favor of the Communists, and that, therefore, she is not in a position to prove affirmatively her loyalty to the United States...
...5. What, precisely, are the functions of loyalty review boards, and on what ground should their decisions be based...
...MUCH OF THE EVIDENCE concerns Miss Bailey's role as former president of UPWA Local 10, given in what is known as "the objective test...
...But this is enough...
...2. Should loyalty review boards follow regular court procedures...
...Answer: I don't know...
...She has been both on the Communist and the anti-Communist side...
...Question: Do they believe in overthrow of the Government by force...
...Hence, the objective evidence cancels itself out...
...ay ' ¦:¦ ! i V.-v .,(•-' I ' .. ;. . : ' THIS MAY HAVE SOUNDED like evasion to the Loyalty Review Board...
...This will be because of the circumstances of her case, the result of recent developments, and the efforts of an able young newspaperman named Newbold Noyes, Jr., on the staff of the Washington Star...
...And the answers will be of importance to every citizen of the United States...
...Answer: I would say it is very difficult to identify a Communist...
...On March 18 the Federal Loyalty Review Board refused her a third hearing in her case, which means she has exhausted all avenues to appeal within the civil service structure...
...4. Should such an employee be confronted by witnesses who have given the FBI information against him...
...I have been informed in some of the books I have read that their conntituti'-n docs nut pi-ov;<»> 11...
...Her next resort must be to the Federal courts, to which her attorney, Paul A. Porter, former OPA Administrator, has said he will carry the issue...
...Moreover, it will take the whole issue out of the Concessional arena for the meantime...
...In that event, the Board may have reflected that a government employee who has not yet made up her mind may do so some other time and that she might possibly make it...
...Miss Bailey: I did not know that A brain Flaxer is a Communist Party line follower...
...The only basin left on which a judgment might bo made-which is the basis apparently used by the Loyalty Review Board—is that provided by Miss Bailey's own words...
...7. What about the damage to the future of a government employee discharged on loyalty grounds...
...Noyes himself refrains from venturing an opinion on this question, and presents only the factual data...
...3. Has a government employee who lias been dismissed on loyalty grounds a right to a "bill of particulars...
...But in this case the test leads only to inconclusiveness...
...Question: Do you mean to say you haven't had enough intellectual curiosity to form your own idea of what a Communist is...
...6. What should the qualifications of a member of a loyalty review board be...
...Presumably these questions will be answered only when Miss Bailey brings her case into the Federal courts...
...2. Whether she had .attended Communist Party meetings...
...Or, again, it might have seemed like the state of mind of a person who has not yet made up her mind...
...And the Board may have regarded its duty solely to be that of deciding whether Miss Bailey could prove her loyalty to the United States...
...An example is the following exchange: •Examiner: The Civil Service Commission has information to the effect that your continual defense of Abram Flaxer (president of the UPWA and a notorious- follower of the Communist Party line) and other party liners and the official party line of the Communist Party, is the chief obstacle to the overthrow of the Communist Party Jino in the UPWA...
...He relates that Miss Bailey was interrogated in the first hearing last September on three main points: 1. Whether she was or bad been a member of the Comunist Party...
Vol. 32 • April 1949 • No. 14
