How Much Is Enough?

In a voice which would have made even the Gettysburg Address sound like the chant of a tobacco auctioneer, the clerk of the U.S. Senate droned out the message which President Truman and his aides had worked over so long and earnestly. Prosaically spoken, the words dealt with a passionately debated issue: How can a nation defend its freedom against those who would claim freedom's privileges in order to destroy freedom?

"Today we face most acutely the threat of the Communist movement, international in scope, directed from a central source and committed to the overthrow of democratic institutions throughout the world," the President's message said. "The good sense of the American people [has] utterly rejected the false political appeal of Communism . . . The real dangers . . . come . . . from espionage, sabotage and the building up of an organization dedicated to the destruction of our Government by violent means."

The Innocent & Misguided. "Nevertheless," he said, "there are some people who wish us to enact laws which would seriously damage the right of free speech and which could be used not only against subversive groups but against other groups engaged in political or other activities which were not generally popular." The President was obviously talking about the Mundt-Ferguson bill, which Republicans in Congress were vigorously sponsoring.

Instead, Harry Truman wanted from Congress only a few legislative patches to be applied here & there to the espionage, sabotage and immigration laws already on the books. This, said he, would be enough to take care of Communism without endangering the Bill of Rights. He wanted to extend the present statute of limitations in the espionage laws (which saved Alger Hiss from a severer charge); he wanted more authority to deal with deportable aliens, and registration of "persons who have received instruction from a foreign government or political party in espionage or subversive tactics."*

Korea & Klaus Fuchs. Would this be enough to check Communist espionage and subversion? Obviously, a large part of Congress didn't think so. Harry Truman had sent his message (which spent more time arguing against the powers he didn't want than in favor of the changes he did want) in order to head off the Mundt-Ferguson bill, already approved 9 to 1 by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The bill would compel Communist groups in the U.S. to proclaim themselves treasonous enterprises of a foreign power (the obvious alternative would be to go underground). It would require registration of the Communist Party and all its members, and of Communist-front organizations and their officers. It would bar Communists from Government jobs, make it a crime for them even to "make application" for passports. Organizations declared to be party-line would have to label their mail "Disseminated by --, a Communist organization." A member of a Communist outfit would be subject to imprisonment and fines if the organization refused to register and he remained a member; he could get as much as five years in prison for every day he failed to register.

The bill had formidable opponents, including the big labor unions, and the non-Communist American Civil Liberties Union. Michigan's Homer Ferguson, however, argued that his bill had the support of a committee of the American Bar Association. The Senate had once let a bill similar to Mundt-Ferguson die. But Korea and Klaus Fuchs had changed a lot of minds.

*Among them, such top U.S. Communists as National Secretary Gus Hall and General Secretary Eugene Dennis, who learned Marxist revolutionary techniques at Moscow's Lenin Institute.

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