LIBERTY & LOYALTY
Barley, Edwin R.
Liberty & Loyalty THE LOYALTY OF FREE MEN, by Alan Barth. Viking Press. 253 pp. $3. Reviewed by Edwin R. Bayley FREEDOM of thought and speech is so integral a part of our system of...
...Similar warnings have been voiced by many, and with good reason, back over the years...
...From this vantage point he has seen the development of the encroachment of lawmakers upon the rights of the individual, and the gradual stifling of free thought...
...That they would suppress and punish different sorts of opinion is less significant than that, alike, they would suppress and punish...
...Somewhat to the surprise of this reviewer, who, because of proximity, has regarded Sen...
...You may say this, but not this, if you would be considered loyal...
...Most of us are loyal, and would be considered so...
...Alan Barth says in this excellent book...
...McCarthy for imputing guilt by association when the loyalty boards, operating under a Presidential order, had for two and a half years been condemning men on grounds of 'sympathetic association' with organizations arbitrarily called 'subversive' by the attorney general...
...Topics covered by Barth include the treason trials and their effect...
...Our hitherto cherished liberty may be lost in the conflict with our understandable desire for security against the threat of Communism, he warns...
...But it is good that someone has done it so well...
...Joseph R. McCarthy as the mainstay and leading spirit of this sort of suppression...
...the FBI, and—one of the best chapters—the real nature of the Communist threat...
...At the bottom," Barth writes, "the Communists and the Americanists are frighteningly similar: they are believers in the suppression and punishment of dissent...
...but the loyalty boards from the beginning used anonymous, unsworn testimony from just such sources...
...It is a book full of common sense, knowledge, and sound thinking, based on the American tradition and documented with the opinions of our best jurists...
...The fundamental blame is placed upon the Truman Administration, which, chiefly through the loyalty program, created the climate of opinion which made it possible for McCarthyism to flourish...
...Reviewed by Edwin R. Bayley FREEDOM of thought and speech is so integral a part of our system of self-government that it is worth taking some risks to maintain...
...Barth assigns little importance and devotes little space to the extravagances of Wisconsin's Senator...
...The reason that this book is so welcome is that Barth does such a good job in summing up the current problem...
...Perhaps this placing of original blame explains something which some in Wisconsin have wondered about: the hesitancy of Democratic leaders to slug it out with McCarthy in Washington...
...Congressional committee investigations...
...It is too bad that things have come to such a pass that a book like this must be written...
...His analyses of the case histories of this process—the cases of Alger Hiss, Judith Coplon, and Dorothy Bailey—are calm and reasonable...
...Barth is an editorial writer for the influential Washington Post...
...government loyalty checks and their effect upon scientific research and education...
...And those of us who work in the fields of journalism, history, or politics have been acutely conscious of the pressures which Barth discusses...
...It was a little thick," Barth writes, "to hear Administration spokesmen denounce Sen...
...No doubt Sen...
...It is to be hoped that it will help move the nation back to the paths of liberty...
...This is no new thought, of course...
...We watch ourselves...
...McCarthy deserved to be excoriated for calling as witnesses against reputable men discredited ex-communists and professional informers...
Vol. 15 • March 1951 • No. 3
