The Super Patriot-Menace to Freedom
MAYO, DR. CHARLES W.
THE SUPERPATRIOT Menace to American Freedom By Dr. Charles W Mayo In the postwar period, the warning that we run the risk of investigating ourselves to death has been sounded many times by many...
...However, let us put aside the personal feelings of the men who are put to the inquisitor's test...
...By its very nature, a totalitarian state stultifies the minds of its citizens...
...The drumbeat of the second guesser is growing louder in our nation...
...Basic to our way of life is the concept that our people have a right to know...
...Freedom is made up of many intangibles...
...There is danger in Government officials deciding what people are entitled to know about their affairs...
...This article is adapted from an address by Dr...
...Each era in our history has presented its peculiar problems that required special solutions...
...These are but a few of the examples of the risks of being a people at liberty...
...Scientific pre-eminence and freedom of thought and inquiry are inseparable...
...World public opinion, weighted on the side of freedom, is a weapon to be reckoned with...
...yet, today the problem confronts us as powerfully as ever...
...It has a rare flavor that can easily be lost...
...In the minds of many Red-hunters, the hasty, irrational decision of a college student suddenly becomes of vital importance to the security of the nation when the student reaches full maturity...
...As Thomas Jefferson once suggested, let us put forth a good idea—freedom—to replace a bad one—unfair attacks on our citizens in a scatter-gun attempt to root out Communists in Government...
...Uncertainty and a feeling of helplessness go hand in hand with frustration...
...Besides steps to give the American people more information, consideration should be given to a program of re-education in the meaning of freedom...
...United States defense officials often complain that we give the Soviet Union considerable useful military data by printing this material in magazines and newspapers available to all Americans...
...when they are in possession of the facts, have the greatest power of any people—the power to act as individuals...
...that persons are not judged guilty without a fair trial...
...Among the perils from within are those which might cause us to lose our freedoms in an overzealous approach to danger in the United States from Communists in Government and in our educational system...
...Frustrated and bewildered, many of our citizens, however well-meaning, set out to attempt to fix the blame...
...Jefferson added: "Punishment is no solution for bad ideas...
...I am shocked and alarmed when other scientists are, in effect, put on trial by groups which do not have the power to try them...
...Purely selfishly, let us consider what freedom means in scientific research, what it means to the success of all endeavors...
...Is it all over...
...It means that a man who honestly and with no malice in his heart made a wrong decision must bear the scar for life, and too often his family are co-sufferers...
...It is not too far-fetched to say that a form of calm hysteria holds many Americans in its grip...
...These assuredly are uncertain times...
...There is real danger in underestimating the intelligence of our citizenry and in tempting the imagination of people with just part of a story...
...Freedom's comer-stone is the right to an opinion, the right to disagree...
...We, as Americans, must now of all times realize that we must be tolerant of the necessity to temper our ideas of what we can and cannot do...
...Second guessing is a great game...
...Mayo at the Minnesota Congressional dinner...
...Too often, we tend to forget that from disagreements have sprung many of our most noteworthy achievements in science, the arts and political life...
...It is possible that the American people have never been more bewildered, and at the root of bewilderment is fear that breeds on lack of knowledge...
...that there is a difference between disloyalty and apparent disloyalty...
...The rash of Red-hunting going on in the United States today and its repercussions are having serious effects abroad, particularly in the rest of the free world...
...What of the superpatriots who threaten our freedom...
...Our power to act is strengthened by the knowledge of our freedom...
...And let him answer the charges...
...The scientist who, in 1942, looked on Russia as an ally and entertained a Russian in his home apparently might just as well forget about working for the Government, no matter what his views are today...
...The threat of global suicide is ever present...
...And the scientists are not the only ones who have their loyalty questioned...
...Of course, we know that Soviet Communism undoubtedly is the greatest danger that we or any other free nation fare from without...
...Before we can find a cure for this strange twist in our nation's history, we must look for the cause...
...It is not unusual, or unprecedented, for a nation to be threatened as the United States is today, on two sides, both from within and from without...
...Most Americans hold the charitable view that persons who make mistakes in good faith are entitled to a second chance...
...Let him finally win clearance...
...Time is with us, because if we support and reaffirm our basic beliefs, our strength will grow...
...That is because the making of vital decisions is not their concern...
...Charles W Mayo In the postwar period, the warning that we run the risk of investigating ourselves to death has been sounded many times by many persons...
...Of great help to the superpatriot is a technique that is becoming increasingly popular in America—the second guess...
...In 1954, we were a victorious nation...
...It is possible that we may and do become bewildered by the intricacy of the problems that face our nation and its leaders...
...Because of super-secret measures necessary to preserve our security, we must place faith in our leaders, but it must not be a blind faith...
...If he did present himself to the probers, he would need the patience and tolerance of a superhuman...
...This hysteria manifests itself in many ways...
...Nowhere has this been more graphically demonstrated than in the United States...
...In a seeming flash we found ourselves confronted with a menace greater than the Fascist hordes...
...The free world, seeking collective security through the United Nations, presents the most formidable bulwark against aggression in the history of mankind...
...We would have it no other way...
...We have seen our freedoms threatened before and eventually have acted wisely in the presence of danger...
...The arms of the investigators have the strength to reach into each American home and expose each skeleton in each closet...
...We are a curious people, and therein lies a great potential strength...
...My work is in the field of science...
...One of America's most brilliant physicists found out recently that it is not...
...There are evidences that our present administration is mindful of this shortcoming...
...On the brighter side of this attack by the superpatriots on basic freedom is a growing awareness in the minds of many Americans that we have this problem...
...The corollary is that, armed with the facts, we can reach proper decisions...
...Their abilities to do so are being strengthened...
...I believe there is further need for a thorough re-evaluation of the Government's public-information program in the fields of atomic re search and defense...
...Second guessing, to the extent that it is practiced today, is a frightening thing...
...It brings to those who practice it an Olympian feeling of never being wrong...
...If we need reinforcement of this fact, we have only to consider what happened to the art of medicine during Nazi rule in Germany...
...A full appreciation of the meaning of freedom would include an understanding that our way of life is not without its risks...
...Members of Congress are given secret military information that in the Soviet Union would be available to only a select few within the Kremlin...
...The totalitarian-controlled masses can be pushed only to a certain point before lack of freedom of thought and inquiry will take its toll in decay or revolution for freedom...
...This is a lesson of history we should not forget in these days when we wish for time so desperately...
...The answer to this problem rests, I think, with the American people, who...
...The agencies of the Federal Government have demonstrated that they are able to cope with the Communist menace from within...
...We Americans thrive on the unaccepted, the untried, the new, the unorthodox...
...Fear and frustration are very much in the picture...
...Foremost in gaining a full appreciation of freedom is the knowledge that right is on our side—that if we do not sacrifice our freedoms and thus destroy ourselves from within, our message to the peoples of the world who sway between Communism and liberty will become stronger...
...We also need to know more about the Reds-in-Government issue—not from the lips of Congressional investigators, who keep an eye on their constituents, but from the agencies that should be getting the first crack at infiltrating Communists...
Vol. 37 • May 1954 • No. 21
