The Hartford Courant Editorial Board, "Are We Afraid of Freedom?"
As anti-Communist hysteria overtook American politics and society in the late 1940s and early 1950s, culminating in the televised McCarthy hearings, many Americans spoke out against the culture of fear that had been so quickly inculcated. By the early 1950s, dissenters would include popular broadcaster Edward R. Morrow and Washington Post cartoonist Herblock. As early as 1949, newspapers like the Hartford Courant questioned the assumptions of the Truman Doctrine and excessive fear of Communism.
As you read, consider:
1. Is Communism a credible threat, according to the editors? Why or why not?
2. How should American citizens respond to the new world order? What about American leaders?
Over all of us hangs the threat of communism. Though the cold war with Soviet Russia is not now being fought with arms, it is a deadly war. The overwhelming proportion of the American people have been convinced by three decades of Soviet history, and especially by Soviet actions in the four years since the war, that the masters of Russia plot our downfall. Whatever twisted ideals may lie behind communism, its aim is to conquer the world and make it a police state ruled from Moscow. Where opposing forces are weak, the Communist threat takes the shape of military might. But most dangerous is the insidious penetration of ideas.
How are we to defend ourselves against this double attack? If we stop to think, we know it is silly to fear Russian arms. Despite Russia’s vast resources, it is inconceivable that there is a present danger that the Russian Army, Navy, and Air Force—even with the atomic bomb—can conquer us. The real danger is not the armed strength of the Russian national state but the subtle, intangible penetration of ideas.
It is when it comes to defending ourselves against this attack on the mind that Americans differ among themselves. Many among us rush to embrace the seemingly natural way of seeking to stamp out Communist ideas. Hence the current wave of loyalty purges, censorship, suppression, snooping, and intimidation. Yet these are the very stuff of which the police state is made. If we resort to them, we shall fasten upon ourselves the very chains we want to keep off.
The only way to fight dangerous ideas is with ideas that are more magnetic. And we have them, if we will but trust them. They run through our history from the beginning. . . Yet now many would, in the name of freedom, turn their backs on freedom. The House Committee on Un-American Activities would examine textbooks in schools and colleges. We laughed at, and scorned, Hitler’s book burnings. But in what essential is this different? And so it is in all the other places, whether in the Atomic Energy Commission, elsewhere in government, in labor, and wherever Americans look with distrust upon their neighbors. . .
Why should we hate Communism? It is neither so new nor so fearsome as it seems. All that is new is the technique of fifth-column infiltration. And even that is only a new twist in the old game of conquest. The basic threat of ideas we have met before in our history. It is no defense to persecute individuals for what they think or for their motives, still less because some self-appointed patriot points an accusing finger at them. . .
Acts of spying or of sedition are punishable now as they always have been. Through it all we shall be strongest if we prosecute individuals, not for what they say or think, but only for what they do. When acts of subversion are proved in court, let punishment be swift, sure, and relentless. . .
In this land of freedom the danger from communism is not nearly so great as the danger from suppression. To fear communism is to ascribe to it a strength it does not have. It is fantastic to suppose that Americans can be tricked into trading freedom, the hope of mankind that they hold in trust, for communism. Students in our schools and colleges, our people in government or out of it, are not such fools and weaklings as to fall for the dark, conspiratorial philosophy of communism—unless by prohibition we indicate to them that it has a fascination we dare not face. If communism were really as strong as that, nothing we could do, no wall of defense we built, no suppression by methods as ruthless as those of Russia’s own secret police, could keep it out.
Source: Hartford Courant Editorial Board. “Are We Afraid of Freedom?” Jeffrey A. Engel, Mark Atwood Lawrence, and Andrew Preston, America in the World: A History in Documents from the War with Spain to the War on Terror. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014. Print. 178-179.
As you read, consider:
1. Is Communism a credible threat, according to the editors? Why or why not?
2. How should American citizens respond to the new world order? What about American leaders?
Over all of us hangs the threat of communism. Though the cold war with Soviet Russia is not now being fought with arms, it is a deadly war. The overwhelming proportion of the American people have been convinced by three decades of Soviet history, and especially by Soviet actions in the four years since the war, that the masters of Russia plot our downfall. Whatever twisted ideals may lie behind communism, its aim is to conquer the world and make it a police state ruled from Moscow. Where opposing forces are weak, the Communist threat takes the shape of military might. But most dangerous is the insidious penetration of ideas.
How are we to defend ourselves against this double attack? If we stop to think, we know it is silly to fear Russian arms. Despite Russia’s vast resources, it is inconceivable that there is a present danger that the Russian Army, Navy, and Air Force—even with the atomic bomb—can conquer us. The real danger is not the armed strength of the Russian national state but the subtle, intangible penetration of ideas.
It is when it comes to defending ourselves against this attack on the mind that Americans differ among themselves. Many among us rush to embrace the seemingly natural way of seeking to stamp out Communist ideas. Hence the current wave of loyalty purges, censorship, suppression, snooping, and intimidation. Yet these are the very stuff of which the police state is made. If we resort to them, we shall fasten upon ourselves the very chains we want to keep off.
The only way to fight dangerous ideas is with ideas that are more magnetic. And we have them, if we will but trust them. They run through our history from the beginning. . . Yet now many would, in the name of freedom, turn their backs on freedom. The House Committee on Un-American Activities would examine textbooks in schools and colleges. We laughed at, and scorned, Hitler’s book burnings. But in what essential is this different? And so it is in all the other places, whether in the Atomic Energy Commission, elsewhere in government, in labor, and wherever Americans look with distrust upon their neighbors. . .
Why should we hate Communism? It is neither so new nor so fearsome as it seems. All that is new is the technique of fifth-column infiltration. And even that is only a new twist in the old game of conquest. The basic threat of ideas we have met before in our history. It is no defense to persecute individuals for what they think or for their motives, still less because some self-appointed patriot points an accusing finger at them. . .
Acts of spying or of sedition are punishable now as they always have been. Through it all we shall be strongest if we prosecute individuals, not for what they say or think, but only for what they do. When acts of subversion are proved in court, let punishment be swift, sure, and relentless. . .
In this land of freedom the danger from communism is not nearly so great as the danger from suppression. To fear communism is to ascribe to it a strength it does not have. It is fantastic to suppose that Americans can be tricked into trading freedom, the hope of mankind that they hold in trust, for communism. Students in our schools and colleges, our people in government or out of it, are not such fools and weaklings as to fall for the dark, conspiratorial philosophy of communism—unless by prohibition we indicate to them that it has a fascination we dare not face. If communism were really as strong as that, nothing we could do, no wall of defense we built, no suppression by methods as ruthless as those of Russia’s own secret police, could keep it out.
Source: Hartford Courant Editorial Board. “Are We Afraid of Freedom?” Jeffrey A. Engel, Mark Atwood Lawrence, and Andrew Preston, America in the World: A History in Documents from the War with Spain to the War on Terror. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014. Print. 178-179.