NOTES IN THE NEWS
Hitler and his master propagandist Joseph Goebbels could be heard in what was ostensibly an attack on Zionism. People and nations can disagree honestly and honorably on the various aspects of...
...These alarms reached ridiclous heights in the 1958 elections when ultra conservative candidates for almost any office in almost any state were running, not against the opponent on the ballot, but against Walter Reuther, president of the United Auto Workers and vice president of the AFL-CIO...
...Now comes evidence that even among students—traditionally the most rebellious group in any nation —the Soviet government commands allegiance, confidence, and a considerable degree of fervent, nationalist patriotism...
...The St...
...In the midst of this controversy, the American Civil Liberties Union has raised another academic freedom issue which is infinitely more complex and far-reaching, but which has gained little public attention...
...There is one last chance of wiping it out, but it is already too late to avoid leaving a lasting stain...
...But there is an ancient Russian proverb that also seems to us to be appropriate: "When money speaks, the truth is silent...
...Indirect costs of sponsored research may in some instances be so great as to cause an imbalance in the various disciplines, if the university is forced to divert funds from the social sciences and humanities to help underwrite research in the natural sciences...
...Money and Truth The greatest danger to the political well-being of the United States, judging by the alarms of the extreme reactionaries, is the threat that the labor unions and their "bosses," through the lavish spending of huge slush funds, are about to take over the country...
...Developmental activity is fostered at the expense of fundamental research, in the interest of immediate practical application...
...What do such levels mark if not the areas of safety and danger, even by conflicting and confused AEC standards...
...The American students report that their Soviet counterparts have a strong sense of being a "new generation" destined for a better fate than were their fathers...
...But four of the many extreme reactionary groups, Americans for Constitutional Action, Christian Nationalist Crusade, For America, and Pro-America, representing only a handful of wealthy men, together spent more than $200,000— two and a half times as much as COPE...
...Some of the results and some of the problems the ACLU sees are: HThe application of government security procedures in universities doing classified research limits the freedom of the school administration in selecting its own staff, and often conflicts with the personal rights of faculty members...
...The Republicans spent $1.6 million and the Democrats just under $1 million in this period...
...Then what on earth are they...
...But the ACLU is not suggesting that institutions of higher education summarily reject financial support from government, foundations, and industry...
...His efforts met with such admirable success that in 1954, in the course of a state investigation into Communist activities, New Hampshire's Attorney-General Louis C. Wyman demanded the camp's guest list on the grounds "there is reliable information some of the people are Communist...
...Uphaus had taken the directorship of World Fellowship summer camp at Conway, N. H., in 1953 for the purpose of holding "disputatious meetings" and bringing together "people who have nothing in common...
...The contempt citation, handed down in 1956, has been through the state courts, the United States Supreme Court, and is now back in the state courts—with one last appeal still pending...
...American students, living among Soviet students under the new exchange program, reported to the New York Times that, roughly speaking, Soviet students fall into two general groups: % The orthodox, those who take intellectual guidance wholly from the nation's Communist leadership, subordinating personal considerations to those of the party...
...Uphaus refused to surrender the list, contending the state investigation to be "a direct invasion of Christian conscience and authority higher than that of the state...
...Now, Armour and the two AFL-CIO unions representing its employes have added luster to their enlightened decision— and emphasized that it is no idle gesture—by choosing Clark Kerr, president of the University of California, as impartial chairman of the management-labor Automation Fund Committee which will administer the program...
...In the light of this persistent attack on union activity in the political arena, we found particularly interesting a report filed with the Clerk of the House of Representatives on political expenditures for the first eight months of 1959...
...It contradicts independent scientists and research organizations that have determined conclusively that certain local areas in the United States have indeed received many times the fallout of the country as a whole...
...A very important facet of academic freedom .. . is the freedom of the university to manage its own affairs...
...There's an old American saying, which would seem to apply here, that "money talks...
...The Western world can be ashamed of the displays of anti-Semitism that have tarnished its shield of freedom, but only the Soviet government has stooped to using it as a tool of foreign policy, in a foul effort to inflame still further the intense hatred of the Arab for the Jew...
...Reeling, Writhinsj, & Arithmetic The Atomic Energy Committee seemed to be up to its old tricks again in a report on fallout data issued in the closing days of last year...
...Soviet Student Loyalties It seems a universal human difficulty to accept the fact that other people believe deeply in, and are intensely loyal to, concepts completely contradictory to one's own cherished beliefs...
...A clue might be lurking in another AEC statement we found even more baffling: The report said recommended maximum permissible fallout levels "are not levels which mark a boundary between safety and danger...
...Does the AEC consider fallout "safe" unless it knocks you dead on the spot...
...There could be no better comment on this pioneering effort than that of Kerr himself in accepting the chairmanship of the committee: "This demonstration of teamwork between Armour & Company and the two unions representing its employes is a fine example for management and labor throughout the country, for it is a joint effort to solve an inevitable problem—the effect of scientific progress on both industry and on its workers, and on the general public, for the good of all...
...Trading Freedom for Money To those concerned with the civil liberties of individuals, the loyalty oath required of college students under the federal loan plan is a clear-cut violation of the students' personal freedom, and a threat to academic freedom...
...But over the years the AEC's educational efforts have reminded us as has nothing in our experience of the brand of education described by the Mock Turtle in Alice in Wonderland: "Reeling and Writhing . . . and the different branches of Arithmetic —Ambition, Distraction, Uglification and Derision...
...Does the AEC mean that the entire United States is a "hot spot...
...They feel the "mistakes" of the Stalin era can never be repeated...
...Willard Uphaus, 69-year-old Christian pacifist, on a charge of contempt of court...
...The critical, who regard themselves as searching observers, free to criticize developments outside the discipline of official organizations, but by no means critical of basic premises...
...Uphaus has steadfastly held his ground, "a-stiff-necked-rebel-in-the-name-of - conscience," as he was called admiringly by the arch conservative Boston Herald...
...The ACLU, in a thoughtful statement issued after a careful study of the problem, says yes...
...f Grants are more readily available to the larger and stronger schools, thus hampering and weakening the smaller colleges in the competition for staff, students, and finances...
...Millionaires of London and Paris," "financial backers in Wall Street," "huge profits for imperialism" were typical phrases that recurred throughout the broadcast...
...The purpose of the AEC reports is to educate and inform the public...
...Kerr has become one of the most respected and most active leaders in understanding and resolving labor-management problems...
...Through it all Dr...
...Little opportunity is given to the highly individualistic research person who investigates those paths into which his curiosity rather than a planned program directs him...
...Louis Post-Dispatch, one of many newspapers supporting the doctor's cause, in an editorial published before the jail sentence was imposed, asked "whether New Hampshire shall insist upon its pound of flesh in a grotesque echo of a bygone McCarthyite hysteria .. . it will be a black mark on the United States as well as New Hampshire—a very black mark —if Willard Uphaus goes to prison because .. . to recall the words of the late Justice Holmes .. . he believes 'more than some of us do in the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount/ " That black mark is now upon us...
...Funds for sponsored research are more readily available in some fields of knowledge—notably the physical sciences—than in others, so that important areas of scholarship, particularly the humanities and social sciences, may be neglected...
...Much of John Foster Dulles' foreign policy was based on his simple faith—shared by a great many of his fellow Americans—that Communism was certain to collapse internally...
...This strikes us as an unusually curious statement...
...McCarthy's Grotesque Echo The sovereign state of New Hampshire celebrated Bill of Rights Day in mid-December by jailing Dr...
...While the ACLU recognizes that "our colleges and universities are irrevocably dependent" on non-academic sponsorship of research, "the short-term and long-term effects are not receiving the careful study they merit...
...A growing number of colleges and universities are recognizing this threat and are either refusing to participate in the plan or are cooperating under protest...
...More than five years later, the attorney general is still demanding the list and the genial doctor is still refusing...
...To Dulles it was incomprehensible that the Russian people could give their hearts to a system so anathema to himself...
...The AFL-CIO's Committee on Political Education, the political voice of more than 15 million union members, spent $78,000 (all voluntary contributions), 2.6 per cent of the overall $3 million spent on politics during the eight month period...
...The state supreme court captured the spirit of the occasion and refused to release the gentle, soft-spoken, religiously motivated educator pending an appeal of the lower court decision...
...People and nations can disagree honestly and honorably on the various aspects of Zionism, but the Moscow diatribe, broadcast in Arabic and beamed at the Middle East, dredged up the hate slogans of the Nazis in portraying the creation of the state of Israel as a conspiracy by "Jewish international bankers" to grab the oil resources of the Arab world...
...Rather, it stresses that such support creates problems in preserving academic freedom which can be solved only by nationwide recognition and discussion...
...Yet the evidence has mounted over the years, particularly since the death of Stalin, that the Russian people are overwhelmingly loyal patriots, with a sincere belief in the Soviet system and in their government's stewardship...
...Without attempting to analyze the 2,618 pages of data, we would like to pass on a few comments in the report which raised questions in our minds: In a summary discussing the fallout "hot spots/' the AEC said: "Strontium-90 soil values [in the 'hot spots'] are not higher than the average for the United States as a whole...
...The question is: will the rapidly increasing non-academic—especially federal government—financing of research destroy the freedom of the university to manage its own affairs...
...Tor the Good of All' One of the few bright spots in last year's labor-management relations picture—surely one of the bleakest periods in many years—was the development of a program by Armour 8c Company to retrain and relocate workers displaced by automation in the meat packing industry...
...It all started back in the dying days of the McCarthy Era...
...All of this would indicate that far from crumbling for lack of popular support, the Soviet system may grow in strength as the "new generation" becomes the leaders and managers of the system and the nation to which their hearts belong...
...The federal government alone is spending annually $440 million in college and university research—as much as two-thirds of the total—and foundations and industry contribute many tens of millions more...
Vol. 24 • February 1960 • No. 2
