The Nome Nugget

THATS THAT
By BRUCE GUSTIN

Former Assistant Secretary of War Louis A. Johnson told a Senate committee that as early as 1938 he and the late President Roosevelt knew "war was coming and we could not stay out of it."

But that isn't what Mr. Roosevelt told the American people.

A lot of fathers and mothers never will forget his Boston speech on the eve of the 1940 election when he assured them "your boys are not going to be sent into foreign wars."

Some good should come out of the House un-American activities committee's investigation of Communist activities in the moving picture industry. When John Howard Lawson, screen writer, was asked whether he is or ever has been a Communist, he refused to answer. The sub-committee conducting the probe voted a contempt citation against him. That set the stage for a judicial determination of a vital question. Does a Congressional committee have constitutional authority to ask and compel American citizens to tell whether they did or ever have been Communists?

At first thought, it might seem to be an invasion of civil rights to hale Americans before a Congressional committee and insist that they tell whether they are or ever have been Communists. Poisonous to Americanism as Communism is, it is not yet classed as a crime in this country.

The Communist party still is allowed a place on the ballot. Whether Congress can constitutionally outlaw Communism in the United States is yet to be determined.

Any American, when asked about participation in any crime, has a constitutional right to refuse to answer on the grounds that he might incriminate himself.

But that right does not apply in an inquiry into Communist activities because there is no law against being a Communist. The Congressional theory is that the investigating powers of Congress are so broad a Congressional committee can ask and require an answer to any question which does not connect a witness with a crime, no matter if his answer exposes him to public hatred and scorn.

Why any American citizen who is not and never has been a Communist should hesitate to so testify is puzzling. Being free of any Communist taint is something to be proud of, not ashamed of. Violent overthrow of our constitutional system of government is one of the aims of Communists. They should be exposed so the American people can know who their enemies are.

Communist party policy everywhere is made in Moscow. Any doubt, which may have existed, that Reds in all other countries are considered a part of the Russian Communist organization was removed recently. At a conference in Poland, Communists from nine European countries announced creation of a new Communist International "Information Bureau."

Then General Zhdanov, one of the ringleaders at this conference and member of the Russian politburo, called upon Communists and their sympathizers everywhere to join the Soviet government in a fight to wreck the Marshall plan for European rehabilitation.

Zhdanov's "appeal" to Communists everywhere to support the Russian fight against the Marshall plan was in reality an order. Publication of his statement in the Communist newspaper Pravda made it official. Russian papers operate under Soviet dictatorship. When Pravda speaks it says what the Russian government decrees it shall say. And the same men who constitute the Soviet government rule the Communist International.

That the first allegiance of Communists in the United States is to Soviet Russia, instead of to their own country, was made plain early in World War II. When the conflict started, they denounced it as an "imperialist" war and bitterly opposed American aid to Britain, France and Poland. Russia then was an ally of Germany. But when Hitler broke with Stalin and the Nazis invaded Russia, then American Communists changed their tune and acclaimed the Allied cause a "holy crusade" against Fascism.