TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1954
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
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(PAID ADVERTISEMENT).
cCarthyism Is the Clear and
Present Danger
Hearings to outlaw the LYL under the McCarran
Act are being resumed today in New York. In a previous
session, the LYL, invoking the First Amendment, moved
to terminate the proceedings, and offered to prove that
McCarthyism, rather than the League, presented a clear
and present danger to America. The League's offer to
prove its charges in open hearing before the McCarran
Board-with the right to subpoena McCarthy, Jenner,
Velde, etc.-was rejected.
On this page are excerpts from the legal document
(offer of proof) submitted by the League to the Mc.
Carran Board.
THE LABOR YOUTH LEAGUE IS
PREPARED TO PROVE THE FOLLOW-
ING STATEMENTS OF FACT:
These proceedings which seek to outlaw an organiza.
tion of young people will, unless terminated, GREAT-
LY INTENSIFY THE DANGER, CLEAR, PRESENT
AND IMMINENT, OF A SUBSTANTIVE EVIL
THREATENING THE HEART OF DEMOCRATIC
SOCIETY. This substantive evil is McCarthyism, defined
by former President Truman as a "horrible cancer .. .
eating at the vitals of America."
A The Labor Youth League is prepared to prove that
this substantive evil is recognizable and well defined,
and will call to the attention of the Board the publicly
stated expert opinions of Americans of all creeds, faiths,
and political persuasion, including among others, the
opinions:
FORMER PRESIDENT HARRY S. TRU-
MAN:
"... the corruption of truth, the abandonment of
our historical devotion to fair play . . . the abandon.
ment of the 'due process' of law ... the use of the big
lie and the unfounded accusation against any citizen
in the name of Americanism or security ... the rise to
power of the demagogue who lives on untruth ... the
spread of fear and the destruction of faith in every
level of our society."
GENERAL COUNCIL OF THE PRESBY.
TERIAN CHURCH:
"The shrine of conscience and private judgment,
which God alone has a right to enter, is being invaded.
Unamerican attitudes towards ideas and books are be-
coming current. Attacks are being made upon citizens
of integrity and social passion which are utterly alien
to our democratic tradition. They are particularly alien
to the Protestant religious tradition which has been a
main source of the freedoms which the people of the
United States enjoy."
An integral and central objective of McCarthyism
is the creation in this country of A GENERATION
OF UNTHINKING, MILITARIZED, BRUTALIZED
YOUNG PEOPLE, WHICH CAN BE A READY
PROP TORECKLESS DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN
MILITARY ADVENTURES. The Labor Youth League
will prove that the results of this proceeding will be to
intensify the already serious effects of McCarthyism upon
America's young people.
EDUCATION
A The Labor Youth League will prove that this pro.
ceeding encourages McCarthy's threat to the funda.
mental right of young people to learn and study and its
aim to mold a robot-like generation of unthinking, un.
inquiring, frightened youth.
1. The Labor Youth League will bring to the at.
tention of the Board, the following publicly stated expert
opinions, among others:
"Public education in America is under the heaviest
attack of its history."
-Arthur D. Morse, "Who's Trying
to Ruin Our Schools?" McCall's
Magazine. September, 1951.
'Principals become detectives; the students, the parents,
the community become informers. Ears are cocked for
tell-tale signs of disloyalty . .
"What happens under this Feinberg law is typical of
what happens in a police state. Teachers are under con-
stant surveillance; their pasts are combed for signs of
disloyalty'; their utterances are watched for clues of
dangerous thoughts. A pall is cast over the classroom."
-Mr. Justice Douglas of the Supreme
Court of the United States.
2. The stifling of free inquiry has been greatly accel.
erated by the conduct of CONGRESSIONAL INVES-
TIGATING COMMITTEES. Expert public opinion
proving this will be called to the attention of the Board,
including:
"' have been present at the Jenner hearings. They
are of a character to make any honest American sick
to his stomach regardless of whether he thinks the vic.
tim may be or may have been a fellow-traveler. I have
seen only one sight to be compared with it-a Spanish
bull fight where half a dozen men stick sharp knives
into the bull to enrage him before the matador-in this
case, the committee chairman-closes in for the kill . ..
Our Congressional inquisitors will attack any or all
professors whose opinions they dislike. That will be
the moment when McCarthy will move into the bull ring
to do his stuff. As in the past, he will produce his
professional ex-Communists such as Budenz to say
that Professor X was known to them as a fellow.
Communist."
-Mrs. Agnes E. Meyers, a director
of the Notional Citizens Commission
for Public Schools.
3. In conclusion, the Labor Youth League will prove
that a proceeding which seeks to outlaw an organization
of young people, working youth, and students, because
of their exercise of the right to learn and study and to
engage in free inquiry, will inevitably encourage the Mc-
Carthyite plan to mold a generation of unthinking, un.
inquiring, frightened youth.
MILITARIZATION
B The Labor Youth League will prove that this pro.
ceeding will encourage the plan supported by the
McCarthyites to create a militarized young generation
under the domination of the drill sergeant, as recruits
for a world destructive atomic war.
1. The McCarthyite-backed plan to place the entire
young generation under military control is unfolding at
a time when the United States is already the most heavily
militarized country in the world. Reports and official
documents will reveal the following facts:
Over 3,500,000 young men are in the armed forces.
Of the total United States population, 2.32% are in
the armed forces, compared with 2.04% in England,
2.12% in France, and 1.25% in the U.S.S.R., according
to U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT, June 12,
1953.
2. The perspective of the administration and big
business circles is to maintain the 'garrison state' as a
permanent American institution. Such statements will
be shown to include:
The Federal Security Agency which places the life
span of the garrison state' as "five years, ten years, or
indeed the rest of our lives."
3. The keystone of the 'garrison state' is the plan
to place the entire generation of American youth under
military control. The Labor Youth League will prove that
this plan will center around the attempt to enact Universal
Military Training during the next year.
The National Council of Churches of Christ in
American states, "U.M.T. would be a signal to the whole
world that Congress had abandoned hope of a peace.
ful settlement of International differences."
4. The military threatens to take over and CON.
TROL ALL THE EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS
of this country.
The Committee Against Militarization in Education,
headed by Albert Einstein, warns against "military
training units, increased use of schools and colleges as
recruiting grounds, and military propaganda directed
towards students and faculty."
Armories are replacing liberal arts buildings, as
happened at New York University.
Whole schools are converted to military establish-
ments, as was done with Champlain College.
5. The past and present administrations plan to
create ARTIFICIAL WAR SCARES to bolster the econ-
omy and impose regimentation upon all aspects of Ameri-
can life.
The United States Department of the Navy speaks
of "the psychological aim" of producing "controlled
anxiety" among the population.
The UNITED STATES NEWS states "The cold
war is the automatic pump-primer. Turn a spigot, and
the public clamors for more arms spending."
6. The attempt to create a militarized, brutalized
generation has as its main objective the creation of cannon.
fodder for an atomic third world war. The circles dom-
inating the present administration and in control of the
great monopolies, spear-headed by the McCarthyites, con.
template new, reckless and bloody military adventures
which threaten to lead to the catastrophe of a third world
war and atomic destruction.
7. This McCarran Act which seeks to outlaw an or.
ganization of young people, in part because of its opposi-
tion to Universal Military Training and atomic war, will
have the inevitable effect of deterring and intimidating
young people from continuing their op position to U.M.T.,
the total militarization of youth, and the catastrophe of a
third world war.
JUVENILE DELINQUENCY
C The Labor Youth League will prove that this pro.
ceeding will encourage the McCarthyite design to
create a brutalized, degenerate and amoral generation of
youth.
1. Experts unanimously publicly warn against a grave
and impending disaster threatening the moral health of
American youth. These include:
A national survey by the Associated Press, January,
1953 states: "It is difficult to think of children as burg-
lars, gangsters, drug addicts or murderers. Such has
become the reality, however."
The National Association of Training School and
Juvenile Agencies warned that youth delinquency, which
has "increased twenty percent since the start of the
Korean War" has now reached "the crisis stage in
Ameirica."
Justice John Warren Hill commented that juvenile
delinquency is affected by "the derangements of the Cold
War."
2. The big business aimed at demoralizing American
youth includes the publishing of "comic books."
Comic books, said a recent legislative report, are
largely "devoted to the dehumanized, concentrated and
repetitious showing of death and destruction." They de.
pict only "murder, blood andasex," said a UNESCO
committee. A New York Legislative Committee reports:
"During 1952, more than 100,000,000 copies of comic
books were sold each month in the United States-a
total of well over a billion copies for the year."
3. The McCarthyites are openly inciting young peo.
ple toengage in FORCE AND VIOLENCE in an effort
to destroy democracy.
Rev. Dr. Ralph Sockman has stated that recent
events have "left the way open for mob rule and mass
hysteria, with McCarthyism as a major political force."
The testimony of the Chief of the Operations Re-
search Office stated: "In a life-and-death struggle, it
sometimes is necessary to lift the curtain of morality and
civilization from men's souls to expose the brute be.
neath."
And compare the statement of the former German
Reich-Fuehrer: "A violently active, dominating, intre-
pid, brutal youth-that is what I am after. Youth must
be all those things. It must be indifferent to pain. I
want to see once more in its eyes the gleam of pride and
independence of the beast of prey... In his way shall
I eradicate the thousands of years of human domesti.
cation."
UNIONS
D The Labor Youth League will prove that this pro-
ceeding encourages the McCarthyite design to create
a defenseless generation, deprived of trade union protec-
tion and at the mercy of employers and fascist dema-
gogues.
The following is indicative:
Senator Butler, a well-known McCarthyite, indicated
his target when on May 15, 1953, he defined what he
called "crypto-socialists." He said, "They are always
liberals, and it is in the name of liberalism that they
speak and act . . . in the field of labor, which next to
foreign affairs is the -most sensitive and fertile field of
socialist infiltration, collectivist attitudes manifest
themselves primarily in a pre-union, anti-management
bias."
DISCRIMINATION
E The Labor Youth League will prove that this pro.
ceeding will encourage the aim of McCarthyism to
mold a generation of divided, prejudiced, hate-filled
youth.
The following is indicative:
The National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People, in 1953, stated:
"Already there is discernible a pattern which tends
to link the advocacy of full equality for Negroes and
other minorities to subversion or 'un-Americanism.' In
some communities, textbooks, courses of study and
teaching techniques dealing with human relations and
minority group situations have been condemned or
eliminated on the ground that these are not 'American'
... It is conceivable that any organization working for
inter-racial democracy may be challenged for its cam.
paign against race prejudice, discrimination and in.
equality."
YOUTH ORGANIZATIONS
F The Labor Youth League will prove that this pro.
ceeding will encourage the McCarthyite design to
hamper, if not destroy, the right of young people to asso.
ciate together in organizations of their choice.
Many important youth organizations throughout the
country have already been subjected to attack, among
others, the SDA.
Republican Congresswoman St. George stated in
Congress, June 4, 1953: "1 have been interested for
some time in the Students for Democratic Action and
am grateful that Mr. (Fulton) Lewis has given us some
of their history and background. This is another case
of a front organization masquerading as an innocent
cultural organization, while it is quietly and effectively
doing yoeman service for the fellow travelers, who are
infinitely more dangerous than avowed Communists."
G THE LYL WILL PROVE THAT ITS OWN AC.
TIVITIES, FAR FROM CREATING ANY DAN.
GER OF A SERIOUS EVIL, ARE AND HAVE BEEN
DEVOTED IN LARGE PART TO HALTING THE
DANGER, CLEAR, PRESENT, AND IMMINENT OF
THE SERIOUS EVIL OF McCARTHYISM.
In coming weeks, the LYL will again seek the oppor.
tunity to prove the above propositions in an effort to have
the proceedings terminated. For us in Michigan, the
forthcoming Un-American Committee hearings can also
only be viewed as a further intensification of the clear
and present danger of McCarthyism.
URGE ATTORNEY GENERAL BROWN-
ELL TO DROP HIS UNCONSTITU-
TIONAL ATEMPT TO OUTLAW
THE LYL.
URGE REP. CLARDY TO KEEP THE
UN-AMERICANS OUT OF MICHI-
GAN.
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