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University Daily Kansan Tuesday. Feb. 27, 1962
Thurmond's Commissars
Unquestionably the weirdest thing to come out of Senator Thurmond's activities in the "military muzzling" inquiry was the tape-recorded grilling by his agents of a group of Marines. Gen. Shoup, Corps commandant, put it mildly indeed when he said the incident "can but cause wonderment."
The wonderment, we think, arises from the fact that this silly business was an attempt to establish a kind of ideological quotient for the Marines questioned. The object was to discover whether the Marines would give the proper anti-Communist response (as defined by the interrogators) to such questions as "Is there a difference between a pacifist organization and a subversive organization?" and "How many nations have fallen to Communism since 1936?" If a Marine gave what the quizzers regarded as a "leftist response," he was to be reported to his commanding officer.
Has it occurred to anybody in the Thurmond outfit that this is precisely the kind of thought control which the Communists try to apply to their troops? It is an integral part of the Communist system to attach party commissars to the armed forces for the purpose of maintaining indoctrination in the party line. Ideological identification of the individual is accomplished by the Communists in exactly the same mechanical way —by asking trick questions to which the answers can be interpreted by a party doctrinaire, as appropriately red, pink or white.
It is a truism that the extreme right and the extreme left share a common antipathy to the values of a free society, but the point has never been so well illustrated as by this incident. Those who share the Thurmond point of view evidently do not even comprehend that free men are fundamentally different from the intellectual robots of totalitarianism. They do not know that anti-Communism is a spurious test of Americanism because an anti-Communist can be, and often is, an enemy of everything the free society stands for. They do not understand that the application of Communist methods to free men is an exercise in self-contradiction.
(From the Feb. 11 St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
Rightist Revival Nothing New
(Continued from page 1)
volumes. (Sample titles: "Higley's Sunday School Lesson Commentary," "The Bible Vs. Communism," "I Led Three Lives," a set of the "Harvard Classics," and five or six mystery novels by Erle Stanley Gardner.)
DR. BENSON'S penetrating eyes twinkle as he talks, and he chuckles occasionally. But he turns grave and persuasive when discussing his favorite subjects: the Communist conspiracy and the free enterprise system.
"The Commies have infiltrated our government," he told me. "Look at Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White. They got caught, but how many didn't?"
He smiled, and left the question unanswered.
"And they've infiltrated our churches and schools. You'd be crucified in some circles for saying that, but I've got proof right here from the FBI and the House Un-American Activities Committee."
DR. BENSON can talk long and convincingly of the way communism is undermining all aspects of American society, and to prove his points he likes to deliver lengthy quotations by memory from Nikita Khrushchev, or conduct imaginary conversations between anonymous Communists.
But his specialty is the American economic system, and Alfred P. Sloan, the late president of General Motors, considered his views on this subject to be so sound that in 1949 he awarded him grants totaling $300,000 to produce animated color cartoons for "economic education."
Dr. Benson presently is worried about America's loss of markets to foreign competitors.
"I WAS TALKING just the other day to one of our major steel companies," he remarked. "I asked him. How are you getting along with your competition with foreign countries?" And he said, "Oh, it's rough. They've got us underpriced 10 to 50 dollars in every category."
Dr. Benson explained that to understand the problem of America's lost markets, one must remember that "every Commie, every fellow traveler is trying to bury us, since Khrushchev issued his international directive on that."
One way they are doing this, he said, is to create bad feelings between employer and employee.
"AND INSTEAD of doing its duty, labor is demanding shorter hours and higher wages. Well, that's the Commie program, don't you see?"
Dr. Benson is manifestly hurt because of the way he has been treated in the press. He concedes that he and his associates are "a bit conservative," but he objects to having been "lumped together recently with some of these extremist groups.
"We have been carrying on our work in an honorable way for 25 years, and while you're here I want you to look around and draw your own conclusions."
HE TELEPHONED N.E.P., a separate corporation from the College which has its rent-free quarters on the campus, and asked that I be shown through its offices.
As I walked away from the administration building, students were converging on the college cafeteria for lunch. One of them directed me to a 3-story classroom building at the edge of the campus.
Inside, I was met by one of N.E.P.'s vice presidents, Howard W. Bennett, a plump and gregarious former General Electric executive.
HE GUIDED ME through a group of offices on the third floor, and introduced me to N.E.P.'s eight secretaries, all of whom appeared to be extremely busy.
Flags were ubiquitous, as were copies of the Declaration of Independence. Bennett showed me N.E.P.'s 150-seat auditorium and explained that the organization has access to the college printing press.
Before I left, Bennett took me into a stock room and gave me about 90 pieces of literature — a copy of everything on the shelves.
"COLLEGE STUDENTS like to read," he remarked, "so this ought to keep you occupied for a few days."
days:
Among the material Bennett had given me were 15 or 20 reprinted speeches originally delivered at freedom forums. Here are some sample quotations:
- From Commander Paul Terry, educational program director of the Union Tribune Publishing Company — "Every American should report evidence of disloyalty or subversion to the Federal Bureau of Investigation promptly. Remember, the FBI is the best insurance that we have..."
- *Brig. Gen. William P. Campbell* (ret.), N.E.P., vice president — "May I speak frankly and seriously, not as a retired Army general with four wars to my credit, but as a humble American citizen moved to anger by the threat of Communist treason in our national life. Unless we take strong positive action — Pro-God and
He took the question seriously. After pondering a moment, he answered, "If we were infiltrated, I think we'd know it."
Anti-Communism — we are headed for a Russian Hell here and the Devil's Hell hereafter."
- Herbert Philbrick, former counterspy for the FBI — "I've met a few of the individuals who were privileged to learn the secrets of the Gaither report in Washington. D. C. It was reported that two of those who attended the secret sessions had a heart attack before they could get out of the room."
BEFORE LEAVING the Harding campus, I stopped at Dr. Benson's office to say goodbye. Half-jestingly, I asked him a final question: Is there a chance that the campus might be infiltrated?
And then he added, in distinct understatement:
"A radical left-winger just wouldn't be comfortable here."
Letters
Editor:
When the principal apologist chosen to defend a cause is one whom students and faculty already feel hostile toward, many attend with their minds already closed and with the purpose of giving him a difficult time. His statements carry no weight and, in fact, he does his cause harm.
Either HUAC investigates because its members (who are much closer to the facts than any of us) feel the situation is serious enough that investigation is needed, or it investigates because its members like nice headlines. The latter seems a little difficult to believe, especially since the campaign was started to do away with the committee. The less publicity the committee gets the better are its chances for survival.
Because this was the situation last week in the debate accompanying the film "Operation Correction." I feel that many students who attended have been given an unjustifiably strong prejudice against a committee of Congress and against the film "Operation Abolition."
Daily Hansan
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Sound and Fury
That Old Disagreement
Disagreements between newspaper readers make crummy reading for the average reader, but since I think Instructor Pringsheim and I may be moving toward a resolution of our differences, perhaps I can comment again on "responsibility."
N
In his comment in last Friday's paper, Mr. Pringsheim says that responsibility is the "task of the individuals making such statements and of the editors of newspapers publishing such statements." Agreed, 100 per cent. He says the editors of the Kansan shouldn't have printed YAF statements about members of the economics and political science departments because the YAF apparently was interested in "entertainment and in "livening" up the Daily Kansan.
COME NOW, sir. Have you ever seen, talked to a real live YAF'er? They do believe the Departments are crawling with liberals, socialists and worse. They aren't interested in entertaining anyone. Like Joe McCarthy, they want to sweep out the cells. But at one of their meetings, suppose someone said that it would make good publicity to conduct a poll of the departments. Well, then, what are their motives?
No, I won't buy the concept of motives as a criterion. Too uncertain. I do agree, wholeheartedly, with proof. But here we can do no more than agree on a principle; so that individuals are not hurt, unnecessarily and unfairly, those making the charges must provide some kind of proof. But that's so much easier said than carried out, and if you look, sir, on page one of the Kansan the day your letter appeared you will see what I mean.
There is a story reporting Dr. Wescoe's disagreement with a story in the Kansas City Star. As I read it, the Chancellor is saying the Star was wrong. Now, that's a serious charge and it involves the newspaper's integrity just as much as the YAF charges involve the political science department's integrity. Now, let's use Mr. Pringsheim's criterion, proof. The Chancellor's proof is "partially listening to a KLWN tape recording of the affair." Now, is this adequate proof, really? Would it hold up in a court of law? Doesn't it depend on where the tape recorder was located? And why "partially" listened? Etc., etc.
NOW, MR. PRINGSHEIM may answer, "I was there and I agree with the Chancellor." And this is the point. Proof comes down to a personal point of view if we push it to its extreme, and that's bad, for one man's proof is another man's hogwash. While I'm on this, look at Prof. Charles Landesman's letter to the editor of the Lawrence Journal-World in Saturday's paper where he takes issue—as he should—with the dreadful account of the discussion at the showing of "Operation Correction." But what's Landesman's "proof?" His opinion of what he thinks he said. Hardly proof.
Doesn't this take us back to where I began? That barring the illegal—and there are laws against damaging reputations by verbal and written means—things should be out in the open. I'd hate to have the editors of the Kansan or the administration filter through their sieves of "motives" and "proof" what I can read, just as I'm sure Mr. Pringsheim would not allow me to judge what he could or could not read.
—Faithful Reader
Worth Repeating
These businessmen and lawyers were very adroit in using a word with fine and noble associations to cloak their opposition to vitally necessary movements for industrial fair play and decency. They made it evident that they valued the Constitution, not as a help to righteousness, but as a means of thwarting movements against unrighteouness.—Theodore Roosevelt