Court Opinion

ID: 9641422
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:31:28.423601+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:36.994575
License: Public Domain

CLARK, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I find it neither easy nor pleasant to disagree on this issue, one of the more momentous which has come before us. Despite hoary precedents, public satisfaction with judicial review of legislative acts has not been such as to invite judges to embark thereon hastily or willingly. Even in'the field of civil rights, where we are admonished that the ordinary presumption in favor of constitutionality is either faint or nonexisting,1 it is not yet clear that the courts can accomplish permanent changes in the ways of men’s thinking. Yet the precedents compelling scrutiny are precise and pointed, and the presence before us of one citizen deprived of his liberty and probably of his future livelihood makes it impossible to evade judicial responsibility to serve as that “haven of refuge” which the courts must offer a dissident minority. Chambers v. Florida, 309 U.S. 227, 241, 60 S.Ct. 472, 84 L.Ed. 716. And the necessity of decision becomes all the more pressing when, as I think it obvious, no more extensive search into the hearts and minds of private citizens can be thought of or expected than that we have before us. If this is legally permissible, it can be asserted dogmatically that investigation of private opinion is not really prohibited under the Bill of Rights. In other words, there will then have been discovered a blank spot in the protective covering of that venerated document. Judges and courts, presidents and executive departments, together with all the administrative agencies, must conform; and, indeed, so must the legislature when exercising its prime function of legislating. Only when it refrains from carrying its activities to their constitutional climax will it, and it alone, be exempt from respecting the most cherished of all our democratic privileges. I cannot accept such a consequence and hence must express as best I may the reasons why I think this result is invalid.
As I have indicated, the precedents requiring judicial scrutiny of this legislative activity are beyond question; and conflict of view may arise only as to the proper outcome of the scrutiny in a particular case. The leading case is Kilbourn v. Thompson, 103 U.S. 168, 190, 26 L.Ed. 377, where the Court held invalid an investigation of a judicial nature into the possible losses of the United States on the failure of Jay Cooke & Co. and upheld an action for false imprisonment brought by a recalcitrant witness against the Sergeant-at-Arms of the House of Representatives.2 Speaking for a unanimous court, Justice Miller in the course of an historical survey trenchantly stated that “we are sure that no person can be punished for contumacy as a witness before either House, unless his testimony is required in a matter into which that House has jurisdiction to inquire, and we feel equally sure that neither of these bodies possesses the general power of making inquiry into the private affairs of the citizen.”
Later cases which have upheld investigations of official wrongdoing have quoted' and followed this statement. Thus, in Sinclair v. United States, 279 U.S. 263, 291, 292, 49 S.Ct. 268, 73 L.Ed. 692, the Court, in reiterating the principle stated in McGrain v. Daugherty, 273 U.S. 135, 173, 47 S.Ct. 319, 71 L.Ed. 580, 50 A.L.R. 1, that neither House of Congress was invested with general power to inquire into private affairs and compel disclosures, but only with limited power of inquiry to carry out *94its constitutional function, went on: “And that case shows that, while the power of inquiry is an essential and appropriate auxiliary to the legislative function, it must be exerted with due regard for the rights of witnesses, and that a witness rightfully may refuse to answer where the bounds of the power are exceeded or where the questions asked are not pertinent to the matter under inquiry.
“It has always 'been recognized in this country, and it is well to remember, that few if any of the rights of the people guarded by fundamental law are of greater importance to their happiness and safety than the right to be exempt from all unauthorized, arbitrary or unreasonable inquiries and disclosures in respect of their personal and private affairs. In order to illustrate the purpose of the courts well to uphold the right of privacy, we quote from some of their decisions.” [279 U.S. 263, 292, 49 S.Ct. 271.] And the Court then proceeded to quote from Kilbourn v. Thompson, supra, 103 U.S. 168, 26 L.Ed. 377; Re Pacific Ry. Commission, C.C.N.D.Cal., 32 F. 241, from the opinion of Mr. Justice Field at page 250; and Interstate Commerce Commission v. Brimson, 154 U. S. 447, 14 S.Ct. 1125, 38 L.Ed. 49. See also In re Chapman, 166 U.S. 661, 17 S.Ct. 677, 41 L.Ed. 1154; Jurney v. MacCracken, 294 U.S. 125, 55 S.Ct. 375, 79 L.Ed. 802; and particularly Marshall v. Gordon, 243 U.S. 521, 37 S.Ct. 448, 61 L.Ed. 881, L.R.A.1917 F 279, Ann.Cas.l918B, 371, reversing United States ex rel. Marshall v. Gordon, D.C.S.D.N.Y., 235 F. 422, where the Court held invalid a legislative sentence of imprisonment for contempt for the writing of a defamatory letter to a subcommittee of the House. So, too, the power and the duty of the courts to scrutinize congressional investigations, lest they transcend constitutional limitations, has been constantly assumed and reiterated by text writers.3
Hence the somewhat general popular assumption that the congressional power of investigation has no apparent limits is quite contrary to settled precedents. Indeed, the United States Attorney, with becoming frankness, concedes as much. We must turn therefore to the authorizing resolution and statute under which this Committee acted. It is desirable at the outset, however, to define our present problem and show its necessary limits. In a discriminating review, Constitutional Limitations on the Un-American Activities Committee, 47 Col.L.Rev. 416, 426, 429, it is said that “there are three possible constitutional objections which may be raised against the validity of an inquiry like that undertaken by the Committee on Un-American Activities: (1) Congress cannot undertake a completely unlimited inquisition in the area protected by the First Amendment. (2) The purpose of the Committee to accomplish by publicity what cannot validly be done by legislation renders the whole investigation unlawful. (3) A standard of guilt sufficiently definite to allow enforcement of the Committee’s demands by penal sanctions is not established.” It is clear that the writer finds the third the most serious of all. Thus, after stating the standards for the wording of a penal statute, ' he Continues: “Logically, a similar rule should apply to enactments authorizing congressional investigations which are to be aided by a broadly worded criminal statute. It is doubtful whether the measures authorizing the Committee meet any of these standards. Viewed in this light, there are serious constitutional objections to a conviction under section 192 of any witness who refuses to answer a question put to him by the Committee.”
Now the problem before us, and the only *95one at this time, is whether or not the conviction of this defendant under 2 U.S.C.A. § 192 is valid. We have not before us other aspects of the Committee’s activities, involving, for example, the voluntary testimony of witnesses disparaging of others, the possible incidence of the law of libel, and so on. Questions as to these matters may await the framing of definite issues presenting them; here we should pass only upon the one issue whether or not this defendant was properly deprived of his liberty. Hence we have to consider the third grounds suggested by the writer reinforced so far as here pertinent by the question as to the First Amendment suggested by the first ground.
Now the statute itself is general, making no attempt to define pertinent inquiries of Congress. Obviously it must be filled out by the form and expression of authorization in a particular case. We turn therefore to the key words of the resolutions creating.and continuing the original Committee and the statute passed last year which is the present authority for the Committee’s actions. These are all in the same wording, making the adjective "un-American,” without further definition, the foundation stone of all the activities. Pub.L. No. 601, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., Aug. 2, 1946 § 121(b) (1) (q), 60 Stat. 828.4 The Committee is first authorized “to make from time to time investigations of (i) the extent, character, and objects of un-American propaganda activities in the United States.” Then continue further powers discussed below; even had these been more definite (as they are not), they would not have lessened the force, or the dangerous vagueness, of this initial broad grant. All attempts to explain the meaning of the key word “un-American,” either on the original creation of the Committee or on its later renewals, have been avoided or opposed. On the other hand, there has been a definite and successful intent to continue this Committee without any restriction as to its scope, and hence, as characterized by one of its members, as “the most powerful” committee of Congress.5
The Sinclair case indicates that the actual construction of the authorizing resolution by a committee may have some bearing on its interpretation. But the experience of this Committee’s activities now for nearly a decade is instructive in the contrary direction, that is, as showing that there are no bounds to its asserted and exerted powers. A review of these activities need not be undertaken here, since it has been done thoroughly elsewhere6 and since the various committee reports, congressional debates, addresses and articles of members, and general publications are freely available. It has never made any secret of its strength and its intent to use that strength to the utmost. Suffice it to say here that its range of activity has covered all varieties of organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the C. I. O., the National Catholic Welfare Conference, the Farmer-Labor party, the Federal Theatre Project, consumers’ organizations, various publications from the magazine “Time” to the “Daily Worker,” and varying forms and types of industry, of which the recent investigation of the movie industry is fresh in the public mind. While it has avoided specific definition of what it is seeking, it has repeatedly inquired as to membership in the Communist party and in other organizations which it regards as communist controlled or affected. It has claimed for itself the functions of a grand jury to focus the spotlight of publicity on those it considers subversive, in order to drive them from their jobs in private and government employment and their offices in the trade unions. It has gathered a file on over 1,000,000 persons and organizations, claimed to be a “file on every known subversive individual and organization in the United States today,” and has submitted lists of allegedly subversive government employees to the Attorney *96General for investigation. Generally speaking it has avoided the suggestion of legislation. No legislation has come from the Committee itself. Its activities, however, are considered to have led to the legislation held unconstitutional as a bill of attainder in United States v. Lovett, 328 U.S. 303, 66 S.Ct. 1073, 90 L.Ed 1252.7 Hence neither the legislative authority nor the actions pursuant to it suggest or permit any 'limitations on the investigation of the spoken or written word.
If, on the other hand, we look to contemporary thought in the matter we find a like vagueness in the adjective. Perhaps the nearest to concreteness is in the emphasis made by certain leading industrial organizations and others upon what they like to call the “American way” or the “American theory of free enterprise.” It is not a strained interpretation to consider that the converse trend, strongly resisted by many of our citizens (as, of course, was their undoubted right), which led to increased governmental regulation a decade ago, could be included in the intended content of the investigation. As a matter of fact, the testimony at the recent movie investigation found the necessary unAmerican qualities for which the Committee was searching in films which placed bankers in an unfavorable light or talked “against the free enterprise system.”8
Further subdivisions of Public Law 601 introduce the concepts of subversive propaganda attacking the principle of our form of government, viz., “(ii) the diffusion within the United States of subversive and un-American propaganda that is instigated from foreign countries or of a domestic origin and attacks the principle of the form of government as guaranteed by our Constitution.” The word “subversive” here conveys no additional meaning, since that is a term completely undefined in this Act or elsewhere in our Criminal Code.9 And the clause as to attacking the principle of our form of government, as guaranteed by our Constitution, cannot be given any specific content. The.freedom of amendment per.mitted by our Constitution makes possible advocacy of the most extensive changes in our governmental form. It cannot be that the advocacy of amendments urging change in the relation, for example, of the Executive and Congress, the subject recently of several popular books, is subversive. In Schneiderman v. United States, 320 U.S. 118, 137, 144, 63 S.Ct. 1333, 1343, 87 L.Ed. 1796, the Supreme Court noted the provisions for constitutional change by amendment, with the many changes since 1787, and held that these “refute the idea that attachment to any particular provision or provisions is essential, or that one who advocates radical changes is necessarily not attached to the Constitution.” It suggested, indeed, that if any principle was essential, it was freedom of thought. Would not a suggestion by either an American or an English scholar in the field of government that the English parliamentary system or the present program of the English Labor party contained useful object lessons, for Americans come within the broad language and the broad interpretation of the authorization? After all, “subversive” means *97“tending to subvert,” which, in turn, means “to pervert or corrupt (one) by undermining his morals, allegiance, or faith; to alienate.” Webster’s New International Dictionary, 2d Ed. Unabridged, 1939. But advocacy of a change in political thought is certainly an attempt to undermine the faith of the present. All of this points to and underlines the real vice of so vague and ambiguous an authority when so determinedly marshalled against minority views. It invites and justifies an attempt to enforce conformity of political thinking, to penalize the new and the original, to label as subversive or un-American the attempt to devise new approaches for the public welfare, in short to damn that very kind of initiative in experimentation which has made our democracy grow and flourish. Cf. West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 642, 63 S.Ct. 1178, 87 L.Ed. 1628, 147 A.L.R. 674.
Since this is a penal statute we are called upon to enforce, standards so vague and doubtful should be adjudged insufficient under the settled requirements that prohibited conduct must for criminal purposes be set forth with clarity, so that the person to whom it applies may determine what conduct is legal and what is not. This has been often applied in the ordinary criminal law, as in United States v. L. Cohen Grocery Co., 255 U.S. 81, 89, 41 S.Ct. 298, 85 L.Ed. 516, 14 A.L.R. 1045, and more recently in M. Kraus & Bros. v. United States, 327 U.S. 614, 621, 66 S.Ct. 705, 90 L.Ed. 894, holding too indefinite a Maximum Price Regulation of the Price Administrator under which criminal prosecutions had been undertaken. “No one may be required at peril of life, liberty or property to speculate as to the meaning of penal statutes.” Lanzetta v. New Jersey, 306 U.S. 451, 453, 59 S.Ct. 618, 619, 83 L.Ed. 888.
But we may pass beyond this defect to face the major issue whether or not an authorization so broad is compatible with the First Amendment. I think we can say without reservation of any kind that, had legislation been actually formulated in the exact terms of the authorization quoted, its unconstitutionality would have been conceded. As has been- often pointed out, that Amendment, in securing freedom of speech against any abridgment by the Congress, does not authorize a partial lessening of the freedom or anything less than complete protection. True, in the well-known formula devised by Mr. Justice Holmes in Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 52, 39 S.Ct. 247, 249, 63 L.Ed. 470, the Congress has a right to protect the safety of the state when that is endangered; and hence when words “are used in such, circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils” against which Congress may legislate, they may be prohibited or penalized. As lately defined in Bridges v. California, 314 U.S. 252, 263, 62 S.Ct. 190, 194, 86 L.Ed. 192, 159 A.L.R. 1346, this means “that the substantive evil must be extremely serious and the degree of imminence extremely high before utterances can be punished. * * * For the First Amendment does not speak equivocally. It prohibits any law ‘abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.’ It must be taken as a command of the broadest scope that explicit language, read in the context of a liberty-loving society, will al-, low.” Now, when this country is at peace, it is hard to discern such circumstances of “clear and present danger.” Indeed, the teaching of experience, after nearly three decades of a well-nigh pathological fear of “Communism,” under constant investigation by Congress, Ogden, The Dies Committee, 2d Rev.Ed. 1945,14-37, might suggest that there was more to be feared from the fear itself than from the supposed danger. During that period we have had two major threats to our economy, but they have come from different sources. One (domestic) was the economic crisis of the thirties; the other (foreign) was the attack by Japan and Germany. Each compelled for its meeting the adoption of measures seemingly “un-American” in the present context. Moreover, the inhibiting influence of the fear on governmental action upon both the domestic and the international fronts is quite obvious.
It is, of course, true that Congress, not the courts, has the responsibility of determining the need and extent of legislation *98within constitutional limits. And since it may forbid propaganda of dangerous proportions when it 'chooses, it obviously may investigate the need of such prohibition. But when it attacks not merely dangerous propaganda, but in effect all argumentation .^departing from the then norm, there is no justification for the wide reaches of its claim of authority. In truth, it seems not a matter of great difficulty to provide for an investigation of proper scope which would impress all as being constitutionally justified. For Congress has already been able to translate the constitutional formula into an adequate working tool of protection, as needed. In the Alien Registration Act of 1940, 18 U.S.C.A. § 10, it has defined the crime there legislated against in terms of knowing or willful advocacy of “the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government.” Such a formula, held constitutional in Dunne v. United States, 8 Cir., 138 F.2d 137, certiorari denied 320 U.S. 790, 64 S.Ct. 205, 88 L.Ed. 476, could be easily made the appropriate yardstick of justified investigation into the evil reaches of treasonable propaganda.
It is contended, however, that the scope of the investigation is not to be defined in the same manner as the resulting legislation. But it is hard to see how the scope of the investigation can be broadened beyond the point of any possible valid legislation. An argument much stressed is that, since there is an area of legal activity for the Committee within the constitutional limitations, therefore the investigation as a whole is to be supported, and only illegal activities rejected. Passing the practical impossibility of then isolating anything as beyond the permitted investigatory scope, such a view is logically indefensible in the light of constitutional principles. Of course it is only the going beyond the constitutional limitation which ever renders legislative acts improper. True, one can say that the question is, as so generally, one of degree. But the excess is. the important question here. The fact that a bucket of water may be life-giving to a man dying of thirst does not render foolish the attempt to curb the excesses of a raging torrent. Under this argument Congress might properly pillory a person for refusing to advocate the nationalization of private property generally because it has power to regulate private property, provided it does so with due process of law, or take it upon the award of just compensation. A doctrine that the lesser legislative power always justifies the exercise of the greater investigative power, including control over opinion, will lead to strange analogies indeed!
Moreover, we must face the practical consequence' of such a theory. Clearly it makes the power to investigate limitless. Since there is always an area of permissible activity to the legislature, for, indeed, its function is to legislate at large for the public good, the dram of good must always sanctify the dubious remainder. With such a thesis the power of suggesting constitutional amendments of unlimited scope could also be utilized to justify any sort of investigation — a thesis interestingly enough expressly rejected by an Australian chief justice. Colonial Sugar Refining Co. v. Attorney-General, 15 C.L.R. 182, 194, 195. And his decision was carried further on appeal, in Attorney-General v. Colonial Sugar Refining Co., [1914] A.C. 237, 252, 257, to the conclusion that, by reason of the excess of power, the entire grant to the legislative commission was invalid.
A corollary of this argument, one much pressed, is that only specific questions can be objected to by a witness before the Committee and that in cases such as the present, where the witness has not been sworn, he has no redress. But this, it is believed, is to confuse the issue before us here. We need to keep in mind the character of objections available at the examination proper. They will include personal privileges, such as that against self-crimination, in whatever attenuated form they still exist in legislative investigations,10 and the per*99tinency of the question to “the question under inquiry.” 2 U.S.C.A. § 192. But if the investigation is as broad as thus assumed, there is no logical or rational way of determining that the question is not pertinent to “the question under inquiry.” How can it be said that even the stark question, “Are you a Communist?” is not pertinent to an inquiry into un-American propaganda when the latter may be defined as broadly as it has been in actual Committee experience? The real objection is very clearly to the assumed scope of the investigation. Cf. Attorney-General v. Colonial Sugar Refining Co., supra. That is a question of initial power, which should properly be raised at the outset of any inquiry by the person at whom it is directed. Logically he assumes the validity of the investigation if he starts to testify. Indeed, practically and legally there is a real question, under the extremely broad view of waiver developed with respect to appearances before congressional committees, whether he may not have waived any objection of validity by thus proceeding. See United States v. De Lorenzo, 2 Cir., 151 F.2d 122. But even if so strict rules may not be applied, there seems nothing gained in any practical sense by a requirement that a witness must be sworn and give his name and address before he can resist the unconstitutional breadth of the investigation. Such a procedural formality has no reality in the context of the broad scope of the First Amendment.
Moreover, emphasis on this point of procedure belittles, as well as nullifies, the constitutional objection. Under our scheme of legal values constitutional issues must always be raised, if at all, by some persons affected thereby. They cannot be considered and determined in vacuo. Nevertheless where those issues are of vast importance they should be considered in the light of their broad significance, and not wholly in the narrow concept of the single individual who presents them as a kind of vicarious avenger for the public weal. When we concentrate our gaze solely upon the refusal to testify as to party affiliations, it is hard for us to feel very sympathetic with the refuser. The general feeling that one should stand up and show his true colors, particularly when, as here, the inquiry is given a strong patriotic tinge, has led naturally to the public confusion which mingles strong condemnation of Committee procedures with some belief in its assumed objective. This quite normal reaction that a Communist, as well as any one else, should say what he is when the fact is of importance to the public good could be allowed its natural scope if, first, however, the investigating authority is properly limited to constitutional objectives. Indeed, given a search directed against propaganda for the overthrow of the government by force or violence, it would seem perfectly fitting as a matter of detailed examination — to test a witness’ denial of illegal activities— to inquire whether or not the person investigated was a member of any organization that advocated such principles.11 Hence, whenever the initial validity of the investigation is properly set forth, the investigation can then proceed in a workmanlike way to accomplish its express purpose, subject only to specific problems as to the pertinency of particular questions and the conduct of the hearings, with particular reference to the procedural safeguards to be accorded the individuals under investigation.12
*100I have not dwelt upon the question whether the Committee’s activities, being in form directed only to investigation of words and acts after they have taken place, can nevertheless be considered an abridgment of the freedom of speech. For it is too well established now for question that our Constitution does not follow the earlier English view of penalties after the event for such curtailment, but does prohibit any acts tending to prevent persons from exercising that broadly important right. Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297 U.S. 233, 56 S.Ct. 444, 80 L.Ed. 660; Bridges v. California, supra. Here there can be no doubt of that intended and actual consequence of the investigation. The Committee announces its desire that the persons it finds guilty shall forfeit their jobs in public and private industry and shall be subject to prosecution for any collateral crimes which may have been disclosed, and generally shall be exposed pitilessly to public condemnation. That it is successful in its purpose the daily papers show. There can be no doubt of the obvious and direct abridgment of the right freely to speak and express one’s opinions which is thus achieved.
The right of congressional investigation has been so important, so productive of good in so many instances in our history, that no one would wish to hamper it improperly. And it is true, as many urge, that the force of public opinion and the expression of the electorate at the polls must remain its main source of control. But in the narrow, though important, field of constitutional liberties, more control is' desirable. For the extreme power thus wielded candes the seeds of its own ruin if it is not constitutionally exercised. Indeed the mixed and confused public reaction to the activities of this Committee signifies as much. Any investigation involving the freedom of expression of views or beliefs is sure to be disturbing to our historical conceptions of democracy unless it is conducted to such ends and in such manner as to command the support of public opinion. Yet the Committee has been under constant and searching criticism from even the most conservative elements in our society, who can in no sense be guilty of “red” tendencies ; while even those who support its objectives do so in general with more than an apology for its methods. Such a situation, even if legally invulnerable, is a potent source of weakness, preventive of any long-range accomplishment. Friends and supporters of the congressional power may well fear its present exercise here and find the application of a proper restraint a source of strength in the long run, rather than the reverse.' For a widespread belief that the Committee is acting in an unAmerican way to even an American end will destroy the Committee’s usefulness in the eyes of “a’ liberty-loving people.”
I would reverse for dismissal of the indictment.

 Schneider v. State of New Jersey, 308 U.S. 147, 60 S.Ct. 146, 84 L.Ed. 155; United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U.S. 144, 152, n. 4, 58 S.Ct. 778, 82 L.Ed. 1234; Thomas v. Collins, 823 U.S. 516, 520, 530, 65 S.Ct. 315, 89 L.Ed. 430; Jackson, The Struggle for Judicial Supremacy, 1941, 285; 40 Col.L.Rev. 531; 51 Yale L.J. 798, 802.

 Mr. Kilbourn eventually recovered a large verdict, which was ordered paid by Congress. Kilbourn v. Thompson, 11 D.C. 401, 416, 432, MacArth. & M. 401; Re Pacific Ry. Commission, C.C.N.D.Cal., 32 F. 241, 253; Pepper, Family Quarrels, 1931, 157; 23 Stat. 467.

 McGeary, The Developments of Congressional Investigative Power, 1946, 106, 114; Hamilton, The Inquisitorial Power of Congress, 23 A.B.A.J. 511; Stebbins, Limitations of the Powers of Congressional Investigating Committees, 16 A.B.A.J. 425; Dimock, Congressional Investigating Committees, Johns Hopkins Univ. Studies in Historical and Political Science, Ser. 47, No. 1, 1929, 117, 149, 153-158; Eberling, Congressional Investigations, 1928, 383; Landis, Constitutional Limitations on the Congressional Power of Investigation, 40 Harv.L.Rev. 153, 226; 1 Wigmore on Evidence,-3d Ed. 1940, § 4k; 8 id. § 2195; 47 Col.L. Rev. 416, discussed infra.

 The original resolution was H.Res. 282, 75th Cong., 3d Sess., 88 Cong.Rec. 7568, 7586, 1938. For the continuing resolutions, see 47 Col.L.Rev. 416, at 417, 418.

 For detailed citations see 47 Col.L. Rev. 416 et s'eq.; Ogden, The Dies Committee, 2d Rev.Ed.1945, 38 et seq.; and see also United States v. Lovett, 328 U.S. 303, 308-313, 66 S.Ct. 1073, 90 L.Ed. 1252.

 See note 5 supra.

 While it was a special committee, no bills were referred to it; since it has been made a standing committee it has originated no legislation. The second statute, cited note 9 infra, was introduced by a Committee member and the Supreme Court has attributed to its work the provisions attached to appropriations denying federal employment to members of a political party or organization advocating the overthrow of the government. See United States v. Lovett, supra, 328 U.S. 303, 308, 66 S.Ct. 1073, 90 L.Ed. 1252; 47 Col.L.Rev. 416, at 427, n. 109.

 See the daily papers, notably the N. Y. Times for Oct. 22-25, 1947.

 The title clause of the “Alien Registration Act of 1940” begins, “An Act to prohibit certain subversive activities,” 54 Stat. 670; but it contains no further reference to the term. Nor does it appear at all in the later act of the same year for the registration of certain organizations carrying on political activities. 54 Stat. 1201-1204. The codifiers either thought it of little significance or were troubled by what to do with it; thus it appears, under the rubric “Same,” in the title clauses of all sections of both acts in 18 U.S.O.A. §§ 9-17, but in only two in 7 F.O.A., Tit. 18, viz. §§ 11, 12. For an attempt by another committee to formulate a definition of subversive activity, see United States v. Lovett, supra, 328 U.S. 303, 311, 66 S.Ct. 1073, 90 L.Ed. 1252.

 The privilege against self-crimination, if claimed, is intended by 2 U.S.O. A. § 193; 28 U.S.O.A. § 634, not to excuse testifying, but only to prevent use of the testimony for later criminal prosecution. For the problems raised by these statutes and the easy waiver of the privilege, see United States v. De *99Lorenzo, 2 Cir., 151 F.2d 122; and compare Eberling, Congressional Investigations, 1928, 287, 288, 339, 389, 390, questioning their validity. The plea of privileged communications between lawyer and client seems not to have been sustained in the proceedings before Congress which led to Jurney v. MacCracken, 294 U.S. 125, 55 S.Ct. 375, 79 L.Ed. 802. See Seabury, The Legislative Investigating Committee, 33 Col.L.Kev. 1-3.

 In Schneiderman v. United States, 320 U.S. 118, 63 S.Ct. 1333, 87 L.Ed. 1796, the majority over vigorous dissent held the evidence insufficient to show that in 1927 the Communist party was advocating the overthrow of the government by force and violence. See also Bridges v. Wixon, 326 U.S. 135, 65 S.Ct. 1443, 89 L.Ed. 2103.

 Discussion of procedural safeguards to persons investigated — not pertinent to our present issue — would include such matters as the justification of finding “guilt by association,” cf. De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U.S. 353, 57 S.Ct. 255, 81 L.Ed. 278; Schneiderman v. United States, supra, 320 U.S. 118, 154, 63 S.*100Ct. 1333, 87 L.Ed. 1796; Bridges v. Wixon, supra, 326 U.S. 135, 147, 163, 65 S.Ct. 1443, 89 L.Ed. 2103, the protection of counsel, the presentation of written statements by witnesses, the right of cross-examination, and so on. Dimoek, Congressional Investigating Committees, Johns Hopkins Univ. Studies in Historical and Political Science, Ser. 47, No. 1, 1929, “Ex Parte Inquisition,” 161-163; MeGeary, The Developments of Congressional Investigative Power, 1940; Rifkind, J., charge to Grand Jury, Oct. 7, 1947, N.Y.Times, Oct. 8, 1947, p. 20; Report of the President’s Committee on Civil Rights, “To Secure These Rights,” 1947, 165; Pub.L.No.601, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., Aug. 2, 1946, § 133(e).