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ee ease . -) Lo. 4 : 4 7 + a . _@. . é en ee . 23 _ ab __ rhe 4. 12 ' (~ Db - NEW REPUBL:”: Henry Wallace A Bad Case of Fever : “| q W: AMERICANS are not a calm and reflective people. // tance. Russia in 1917 was not and never had beers The same traits which built a great aation—youth, \\ democracy. Her despotic government had been smast , vigor, eathusiasm—can be dangerous when turned toevil ‘by a great war and the nation was utterly prostrate a-: purpose. Americans, since the foundation of the Repub- /( helpless. To suggest that 77,000 Communists—on 1: lic, have been overready to see Jacobins, Bolsheviks or basis of Hoover's statistics—could take over an Americ: Communists under the bed. Such hallucinations unbal- ion of 140 million people is too fantastic to deseti anced us following ‘World War I, but after a few years, | {serious consideration. : > Our sanity began to reassert itself. Now the disease has Y I share the confusion of many other people in int’ ~ xeturned. The shrieking of the press, the war whoops in _preting the President's formula for smelling out Reds* Congress, the foaming of professional patriots, the awful the government. It appears that from now on the Att. dangers which are hinted at in the recent presidential ney General will form all final judgments on this subj.} executive order requiring federal employeestobe screened for the American people. We are told that disloyal Po for loyalty—all these are designed to give the average sons will no longer be tolcrated in the government; American a fever, a bad case of Red fever. If a man’s far, so good, though there is no clear de“nition of wl? fever goes high enough, unless you watch him carefully is meant by the word ' ‘disloyal’ cithee in the Presidens there is ao telling what he may do. order or anywhere else. Among the corclusive bases f ; Several ways are open to treat the discase. One is to evidence is to be ‘ ‘membership in, affiliation with > discover its causes, to remove them wherever possible sym pathetic association with any forcign or domesticas!] 4 and to offset theic damaging effects. The loud noises, ciation. . . designated by the Attorney General as tot: " for example, made by the press and Congress are clearly” tarian, fascist, Communist or subversive. . ..” (Teal continuing to make the patient's condition worse. Ad- = mine.—H. w.) Now it becomes a little clearer what t " mittedly, the noise is difficult to stop, but it might President means. The way to determine whether or no'! be offset partially by a few intelligible words of common —man is loyal is to Ict the Attorney General declare whet!” ceason. , or not he is disloyal. If he is declared disloyal, that sho-4 _ Another therapy is to pretend to the patient that his _he is not loyal. Q. E. D. : } “hallucinations are justified, that these are real, concrete ° - " “causes which have made him ill. This is the technique of I THERE any reason to belicve that our witch hunt w the witch doctor exorcising evil spirits. To make it more be successful? Many thoughtful students of histc plausible, a few innocent victims are hunted down, have already warned us that the best way to make t." flayed and boiled. Presumably, the patient then gets bet- © Communists a real threat is to drive them undergrour ter. This would appear to be what the Administration To this I would add that one sure way to unsettle ¢-. considers a rational and scientific approach. faith of non-Communists in their government is for tl: To many others, the testing operation, the litmus paper —_ government to badger and bait innocent mea. a for loyalty which is proposed in the President's executive Certainly there can be no doubt that every governme *: order, appears’ manifestly absurd. For one thing, the executive should have the right to dispense with su operation bears no relation to the size of the real problem. ordinates who have shown themselves incapable of g- J. Edgar Hoover says that when Russia was taken over _ ing undivided, unqualified allegiance and fealty to t by the Communists, the country contained one Commu- oath which they took on becoming public servants.’ nist for each 2,227 persons, while today in the United — would not want as a colleague on the New Republic c $j. States there is c 1e Communist for each 1,814—the in- who in his off-hours preached the sermons of reactic’ #! = " :ference being clearly that the US is in more danger now —_I would not want the contents of the paper leaked | ‘than Russia was in 1917. Even if Hoover's statistics were advance to scme daily scribbler for another sheet. I hs 5 [ true—and I do not know where he gets thegt—he is the right to demand that my co-workers be with me, a-' \ overlooking other factors which are of overriding i impor- our government has the right to know that its servai; & ,. ft at