Evening star., 1941-09-17

interested in this strange phenome-
non of unanimity, he will find that
when it came to appointing sub
committee of five members of the
Interstate Commerce Committee of
the United States Senate, it hap
pened that four out of the five
selected happened to share the iSo-
lationist views of the chairman of
the committee-S6hator Wheeler
who did the appointing.
Maybe this should not be called
q conspiracy but coincidence.
Anyway, if the Idaho Senator looks,
for instance, at the situation in
the city of Chicago. he will find
more condolences. Thus, the lead
ing newspaper there, with a huge
circulation in five adjacent States,
is isolationist. The head of the
leading university in Chicago is an
isolationist. The leading retail mer-
chant in Chicago is head of the
isolationists' committee for the Ma
ton and the leading industrialist
in Chicago is also an isolationist.
Writers Outraged.
Yet nobody on the anti-isolation-
ist side has asked for an investiga-
ton or has risen to question the
reason for these condolences. SINH
larly, Senator Wheeler of Montana
led with maSterful courage the fight
against President Roosevelt'S bill to
pack the Supreme Court, but he has
not hesitated to pack with isola-
tioniStS the subcommittee which Is
investigating the movies. If Sem
ator Clark is interested in why so
many writers have condemned the
manner and method by which the
Senate subcommittee has conducted
the inquiry into the alleged propa-
ganda in the movies he will find
that many of them have been out
ragged by the tricky manner in
which the power of subpoena has
been used and also by the plain
misuse which has been made of
the functions of a congressional
committee that was never au-
thorized by vote of the Senate to
conduct the inquisition now going
on.
The isolationists have as much
right to advocate a pro-Nazi course
as the other side has to advocate
an anti-Nazi course for the Gov
ernments policy. But no member
of the Senate and no committee
has the right to uSurp legislative
authority or to violate the Bill of
Rights.
The right of any movie editor
or newspaper or magazine editor
to reflect public sentiment as he
sees it in his literary endeavors is
tnviolate.
The Nazi tactics abroad in break
ing down individual liberty began
with a state of mind exactly like
that being exhibited by the Senate
subcommittee tendency to create
distrust and foment racial hatreds
and to break down the public con-
fidence in prevailing mediums Of
expression.
Arbitrary Reprisals.
The isolationist Senators who
have made this blunder will find
that the public has lost interest
already in whether propaganda in
the films was or was not stimulated
by producers. Instead, the public
Is now interested in why a group
of United States Senators have be-
come offended at motion picture
producers and writers who are anti
Naz and why isolationists want to
suppress perturbation of the wanton
cruelty inflicted on innocent people
hy the Nazis.
American public opinion has been
divided on war issues and the 1so-
lationist side of the argument has
had substantial following in
America but if that side begins to
lose adherents it will be because of
the mistakes in judgment made by
It's leaders and especially by the
group in the Senate subcommittee
Who have revealed that they want
10 see a punitive hand laid on those
who disagree with them.
The Roosevelt administration has
shown symptoms of arbitrary re-
prisal against those who disagree
with 1t and the Senate isolationists
certainly have a precedent for the
use OF congressional committees to
smear American citizens for their
views on public questions. AS has
no often been said, however, two
wrongs do not make single right
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