Evening star., 1939-10-31

w QlIo House EFFORTS Will HOW Ue Ut
Lvered at various party gatherings,
What will be the issues? There is
a FAINT murmur here and there that
the Dies Committee Investigating
Un-AmeriCan Activities may give the
Republicans some of the ammunl-
ton they are looking for. They
would like nothing better than to
paint the New Deal and the Demo-
cratic administration as somehow
sympathetic with communistic ideas.
Something of this sort was tried
here and there in the 1886 campaign
without success, but the country at
that time was not in the mood to
listen to cries of Communism, be-
cause the country was bulging with
soldier bonus money and pump
priming" prosperity through w. P.
A. and P. w. A.
The fact that President Roosevelt
has manifested his displeasure over
the operations of the Dies Com
mittee, calling recent disclosures "a
sordiu procedure" has given rise to
the belief that when the committee
seeks further appropriations, the
Republicans may be found support
ing the Texas chairman, while the
administration Democrats struggle
to put an end once and for all to
the committees explorations among
left wing friends of the New Deal
Innocent Parties Injured.
Unfortunately, the so-called anti
commullStic wave which has been
fostered by various interests
throughout the country is not en-
tlrely concerned with SubverSive ac-
tivities on the part of organizations
which get money from foreign gov
ernments but anxious to discredit,
if possible, various labor union lead
ers as a part of the capital-labor
quarrelS of the hour Then, too,
there is undoubtedly good deal of
behind-the-scen effort to tie up
the liberals to Communism by in
ferences and innuendoes. Chairman
Dies and his committee Gid not set
out to do any "Witch-hunting"
among Democrats but to get at Fas-
Cist and Communist activities which
might have been inspired by foreign
institutions and set up with their
money. But the trail is so difficult
to establish, records are SO often
destroyed, that a dragnet technique
by the committee has injured many
innocent parties.
Representative Dies has declared
that he does not by any means OBJ
ject to the espousal of Communist
ideas as such by an American, and
that his fight is not against free
speech or the transmission of
thought as such in our political
system, but that he is trying to eX-
pose the connections between these
Communist or Fascist organiza-
tions and foreign governments.
What will Immediately be asked
by the disinterested byStander is
why the Department of Justice has
not been unearthing this sort of
thing, and why it requires a con-
gressional committee to do the de-
tective work which ought to be done
under our existing laws by the
G-men employed by the Federal
Government? There was a time
when the Dies committee and the
Department of Justice claShed. but
they were supposed subsequently, to
be working together.
Republicans Interested.
Tho Paprhlipo,,e ,,ot,roI,, o,o l.,
terested spectators. They, too. may
insist on knowing why more has not
been done to run down subversive
activities. Evidence is apparently
easier to get, now that many Amer
lean Communists are turning their
backs on the Russians because of
their recent excursion into the arms
of Herr Hitler But a mere red
batting crusade is not likely to be
countenanced. even by Republicans.
Much injustice can be done by
accusing persons of foreign birth
of being tied to either Fascism or
Communism.
The Dies committee has earned
the enmity of the New Dealers.
Have the New Dealers, then, been
restraining the G-men, or have the
Department of Justice agents inves-
tigated the alleged clues and found
them barren of substantial evidence?
In either case, as the Dies COM
mlttee continues its deliberations,
the disclosures thus far made may
be the subject of considerable con-
troVersy when the 1910 campaign
begins, because at the moment pub
lie feeling seems to be running high
In America against the dictatorship
states. It may be difficult, inciden-
tally to establish the premise of
any great friendship at the White
House for either Stain or Hitler,
Judging by recent communications
from Washington to Berlin and
Moscow.