The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1939-07-06
Let's Would Stab
Free Thinking
Famous Editor Cites Facts
In Startling Exposure
Of Drive
BY EUGENE LYONS


Editor of The American Mercury, au-
thor of Assignment in Utopia
(From an address at the Camp
Tamiment Institute)
There is no need to labor the fact
that there is no trace of cultural and
mental freedom on the totalitarian
Right. The various fascist and near
fascist groups make no pretense of
honoring the Bill of Rights in the do
main of mind and spirit any more than
in the domain of political life. They
are honest to the extent that they
openly admit that they consider dis
honesty the best policy, abhor demo-
cratic ideas, and aim to exterminate
those who will not be regimented.
On the Left, however, we are con-
fronted with totalitarian ideas and
attitudes wrapped in democratic
phrases. The menace to free thought
from that direction, / am convinced,
is greater and more immediate pre-
cisely because it is insidious, hypo-
critical, deliberately disguised to use
the innocent and trap the unwary. 1t
operates through such organizations
as the League of American Writers
which, ostensibly supporting creative
freedom, has no room for writer's who
denounce the suppression of creative
freedom in Russia or it's suppression
elsewhere by agents Of Stain. 1t oper-
ates through the so-called League for
Peace and Democracy, which either
ignores or actually applauds fascist
methods if they are used in Russia or
by Stalinists.
Thousands of well-meaning, high
minded Americans give their names to
such false-face movements. Most of
them realize their mistake after a
while, and withdraw angry or shame
faced. But more innocents in the
meantime have entered to take their
places.
Cultural life in certain American
cities, especially in New York, is con-
stantly under the pressure of what ]
can only describe as an intellectual
red terror" l know l am laying my
self wide open with such statement
because that terror is not thing that
can be proved. Yet all of US who have
contacts with the world of publishing
journalism, the theatre, education are
aware of it. Writers who offend the
fashionable Leftist ideas of the mo-
ment-ideas that more or less conform
to the Communist Party "line"-feel
the full force of that terror. The So
called liberal magazines turn on them
certain literary critics jump on their
work, they are Stunned by the ere
spectacle" liberals and radicals who
rule the roost socially in the city, anC
made to feel outcasts in a thousand
ways. In extreme cases ugly ISLANDERS
are set afoat and their regulations
are plastered with mud.
How does this intellectual red ter.
ror operate? Through Stalinists anc
fellow-travelers in key positions as
reviewers; through strategically placed
communists on most of the papers ant
magazines, including the most con
servative publications; through under
lings in the publishing houses; through
the penthouse parties of the wealthy
pseudo dO-revOlutionsts.
Anyone who has felt the impact OF
that terror could tell you how it work
ed in his case: John Dewey after he
exposed the Moscow purge trials
John Dos Passos after he discovered
how the Kremlin's agents were under
mining the Loyalist cause in Spain
Edmund Wilson after he dared crit
cize the Soviet paradise; hundred
others | could mention. These are bis
enough to take it and laugh it off. Bu
what of the run-of -the-mi writer's
actors and teachers.