Mr. Langston Hughes
634 St Nicholas Ave
New York 30, N.Y.

20 E 127 St

OLD CHESTON

A

Mr. Langston Hughes
20 East 127 St.
N.Y.C.

THE JEFFERSON SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE

575 Avenue of the Americas, New York 11, N. Y.
WAtkins 9-1600

DR. HOWARD SELSAM
*Director*

DAVID GOLDWAY
*Executive Secretary*

DOXEY A. WILKERSON
*Director of Curriculum*

DEAR FRIEND:

We invite you to examine the enclosed brochure, WHY DOES OUR GOVERNMENT WANT TO CLOSE THIS SCHOOL?, and to align yourself with several hundred professional and civic leaders in affirming the democratic right of the Jefferson School of Social Science to continue its educational program.

The current effort to close this Marxist school poses an added threat to freedom of inquiry in all other areas. It is a further step in the widespread inquisition now under way regarding the political opinions of educators, ministers, labor leaders, artists and others. Clearly, if Marxists cannot have their own school to teach Marxism to adult students who enroll on their own volition, and who can take it or leave it at their own discretion, then the dark night of McCarthyism has indeed settled upon our fair land.

Moreover, as a distinguished group of 153 educators in about 60 colleges and universities declared several years ago, in their STATEMENT OF AMERICAN EDUCATORS: "If Marxist schools can be labeled subversive, then social science teachers who assign Marxist materials or express Marxist views may be quickly subjected to the same label. Freedom of inquiry will be gravely imperiled."

We assume that you are not a Marxist, but that you are willing to support the democratic right of Americans to conduct schools for the teaching and learning of whatsoever they will—including the Marxist interpretation of social development. It is on this basis alone—as an expression of our country's devotion to and confidence in freedom of inquiry—that we solicit your support of the right of this institution to exist.

Please fill out and return the enclosed response sheet, using the addressed envelope here provided. We should appreciate receiving any further comment you care to make on the issue defined in the enclosed brochure.

412

The Jefferson School of Social Science

575 AVENUE OF THE AMERICAS
NEW YORK 11, N. Y.

RESPONSE SHEET

INSTRUCTIONS:

Record your response to one or more of the items listed below:

I - Expressing your *anonymous* opinion on two contradictory propositions;

II - contributing *anonymously* to the Jefferson School's Defense Fund; and/or

III - authorizing the *public* use of your name along with others who endorse the right of such a Marxist institution as the Jefferson School to continue its educational program.

Return this response sheet promptly, using the enclosed reply envelope.

I. ANONYMOUS OPINION POLL

(Check the proposition below which you consider to be valid. Responses will be used in statistical tabulation only, with no indication of the individual involved.)

1. Private educational institutions should be allowed to conduct their educational programs without interference from the Federal administration currently in office. Therefore, *it is not* sound policy for the current Administration to require a private Marxist institution like the Jefferson School of Social Science to register under provisions of the [McCarran] Internal Security Act of 1950.

2. Private educational institutions *should not* be allowed to conduct their educational programs without approval of the Federal administration currently in office. Therefore, *it is* sound policy for the current Administration to require a private Marxist institution like the Jefferson School of Social Science to register under provisions of the [McCarran] Internal Security Act of 1950.

II. ANONYMOUS CONTRIBUTION

I enclose $........ for the Defense Fund to help pay legal and other expenses required to defend the Jefferson School's right to continue its educational program. (Make checks payable to Joseph B. Furst, Treasurer.)

III. SIGNED ENDORSEMENT

You may list me along with other professional and civic leaders as endorsing the following: "*Our constitutional right of free speech necessarily includes the right of Americans to conduct schools in which to teach and learn the truth as they see it.* I believe, *therefore, that any attempt to suppress the teaching of Marxism in such an institution as the Jefferson School of Social Science represents a serious threat to all free inquiry."

NAME (print)

DATE

ADDRESS

TITLE, INSTITUTION, ORGANIZATION, ETC.

(for identification purposes only)

418

THE RIGHT TO TEACH AND LEARN

Our constitutional right of free speech necessarily includes the right of Americans to conduct schools in which to teach and learn the truth as they see it. I believe, therefore, that any attempt to suppress the teaching of Marxism in such an institution as the Jefferson School of Social Science represents a serious threat to all free inquiry.

Endorsed by:

PROF. PAUL A. BARAN, Stanford University

PROF. NELSON L. BOSSING, University of Minnesota

PROF. G. MURRAY BRANCH, Morehouse College

ATTORNEY JAMES L. BREWER, Rochester, N. Y.

PROF. LINDLEY J. BURTON, Lake Forest College

PROF. ROBERT S. COHEN, Wesleyan University

DR. W. E. B. DU BOIS, New York, N. Y.

PROF THOMAS I. EMERSON, Yale University

PROF. JOSEPH FLETCHER, Cambridge, Mass.

PROF. FOWLER V. HARPER, Yale University

PROF. ROBERT J. HAVIGHURST, University of Chicago

REV. DR. JOHN PAUL JONES, Brooklyn, N. Y.

PROF. CORLISS LAMONT, Columbia University

EMERITUS PROF. ROBERT MORSS LOVETT, Chicago University

ALBERT MALTZ, San Angel, Mexico

PROF. KENNETH O. MAY, Northfield, Minnesota

RT. REV. WALTER MITCHELL, Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.

DR. PHILIP MORRISON, Ithaca, N. Y.

DR. SCOTT NEARING, Cape Rosier, Mo.

DR. LINUS PAULING, Pasadena, Calif.

PROF. GEORGE SARTON, Harvard University

ATTORNEY FRANK SERRI, Brooklyn, N. Y.

EMERITUS PROF. LOUISE PETTIBONE SMITH, Wellesley College

I. F. STONE, Washington, D. C.

DR. PAUL M. SWEEZY, New York, N. Y.

PROF H. H. WILSON, Princeton, N. J.

... and more than 100 other intellectual leaders.

412

WAtkins 9-1600

DR. HOWARD SELSAM

Director

DAVID GOLDWAY

Executive Secretary

DOXEY A. WILKERSON

Director of Curriculum

March 12, 1954

Dear Friend:

The enclosed pamphlet—MAN'S RIGHT TO KNOWLEDGE: THE CASE OF THE JEFFERSON SCHOOL—analyzes an important issue affecting the right of all Americans to teach and learn the truth as they see it. We solicit your comments on the pamphlet—and also your support.

You will note on the last page of the pamphlet that many eminent educators and other leaders throughout the country have spoken up in defense of the right of the Jefferson School to conduct its educational program. Similar statements of support have come from professional and trade union leaders in many parts of the world, including England, Israel, Japan, Ecuador, Venezuela, Chile, Ceylon, Burma, Italy and Denmark.

These leaders recognize that the Government's efforts to suppress the Jefferson School under provisions of the McCarran Act represent another very serious aggression of McCarthyism against the democratic liberties of the people. As a distinguished group of 153 educators from 60 universities declared several years ago in their STATEMENT OF AMERICAN EDUCATORS: "If Marxist schools can be labeled subversive, then social science teachers who assign Marxist materials or express Marxist views may be quickly subjected to the same label. Freedom of inquiry will be gravely imperiled."

We invite you to associate yourself with the increasing number of leading citizens who affirm the right of the Jefferson School to teach and of the American people to learn the theoretical doctrines of Marxism if they want to.

If you agree that current proceedings against the Jefferson School under the McCarran Act constitute a threat to free inquiry in our country, we ask you to do the following: (1) Fill out and return the enclosed response sheet, using the addressed envelope provided. (2) Write letters of protest to the President and Attorney General—and ask your associates to do likewise, arranging for us to receive copies of such letters.
We thank you for your support.

P.S.—Additional copies of the enclosed pamphlet will be sent upon request to you or anyone you suggest.

412

VS.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES

AND THE

SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIES CONTROL BOARD

EXCERPTS FROM OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS

Issued By
Jefferson School of Social Science
575 Avenue of the Americas
New York City

ARGUMENT OF DR. HOWARD SELSAM,

June 25, 1954

(Hearings before Chairman Thomas J. Herbert of the Subversive Activities Control Board in the case of Herbert Brownell, Attorney General of the United States, Petitioner, vs. The Jefferson School of Social Science, Respondent, under the McCarran Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950, commenced in Washington, D.C., November 25, 1953. They were terminated June 25, 1954, with summation arguments from both sides. Dr. Howard Selsam, Director of the School, and Harry Sacher, Counsel for the School throughout the proceedings, shared the School's argument between them.)

(The following is the complete official text of Dr. Selsam's oral argument with the exception of a few very brief colloquies between him and Chairman Herbert that are not relevant to the content of the argument. PP. 3375-3390 of the official transcript.)

DR. SELSAM: May it please the Chair, I would like to appeal to the Board at this time not to issue an order to register against the Jefferson School of Social Science. I do so not only because of my interest in the Jefferson School, but also because of the impact such an order to register would have on all education in the United States, on all freedom of thought, freedom of inquiry, on the right..... of the American people to teach and to learn whatever they feel disposed to do. It would be ironical if an order to register against a school of the kind I represent were issued in this year in which, on the occasion of Columbia University's celebration of its 200th Anniversary, it had popularized the slogan, "Man's Right to Knowledge and the Free Use Thereof."

It is, I submit, this right to knowledge and the free use of that knowledge that is involved in this proceeding. It is a question of freedom of all education and all inquiry. The Harvard Crimson on June 16, in its Annual Survey of Academic Freedom in the United States, reported, and I quote from the New York Times, June 17:

"In recent months there have been indications of a growing cautiousness if not fear among the country's teachers."

If anyone has examined the press in the past few weeks, one cannot but have been struck by the overwhelming tone in the commencement addresses and the baccalaureate addresses given in your universities. For the first time, I believe, in our lifetime, if not in the whole history of our country, the overwhelming, predominant theme of these commencement addresses was that freedom of thought, intellectual freedom, was in danger in our country.

President Grayson Kirk, of Columbia University, in his address at the commencement at Harvard University, according to the New York Times, and I quote from the Times, "called on all university alumni today to help dispel the irrational fear that the nation was on the brink of revolutionary chaos."......

Similarly, Mr. Adlai Stevenson, in addressing the Vassar College's graduating class, spoke of the corruption of conformity and is reported as saying,

"Fear of social or economic reprisal or removal is depriving the country of leadership it should have and is deterring some from espousing unpopular causes, even though they believe deeply in them"

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President Nathan Pusey, of Harvard, told the graduating class of Harvard University just eleven days ago, and I quote:

> "During your college years our national life has been suffering from a peculiarly violent, festering mental ill health, a noxious growth of irrationality which, nourished and exploited by illiberal, scheming minds, presents a spectacle radically at odds with patriotic, democratic pretensions."

And Dr. Harold W. Dodds, President of Princeton University, told its graduating class in his baccalaureate address, and I quote:

> "Undoubtedly national anxiety helps explain why the intellectual has been picked out to be a whipping boy and has been so bitterly smeared as an egghead. The expediency of using one's head, even the right to use, is being challenged as rarely before in history. It is a curious paradox that it should be necessary to defend the right to think in a nation which has poured so much faith and economic wealth into formal education on a democratic basis as has the United States."

Similarly, Senator J. William Fulbright, addressing the students of the graduating class of the University of the South, warned them: "The primitive know-nothings are again on the march." He said that they were "determined to take us back into the Dark Ages." He said further, and I quote:

> "The amazing growth and the prestige and power of Senator McCarthy and his imitators represents a repudiation of the efforts of this country's Founding Fathers to remove the shackles from men's minds and spirits."

If I may just refer to one more, which is particularly interesting in this case, Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren addressed the graduating class of Wesleyan University at Middletown, Connecticut. He told them that the problem in the world today is the art of living together understandingly and at peace. He said, and I quote:

> "This problem will not be solved by technology, by nuclear physics, by chemistry, by radar, or by guided missiles, or any instrument of destruction. It will be solved, if it is to be solved, by the fundamentals that you have been taught in these halls of learning -- logic, philosophy, ethics, morality, religion and history."

May I call the attention of the Chair to the fact that one of the courses in philosophy that was given at Wesleyan University was that on the philosophy of Marxism given by a witness in these proceedings, Professor Robert S. Cohen, a course to which he testified.....

Here for the first time is a Federal law being directed against a school. The Jefferson School is threatened, not because of what it teaches, in the first instance at least, but because of who does the teaching or under whose auspices the teaching is done, or because of the associations of its teachers. Here is a doctrine of "guilt by association" with a vengeance.

Last November 8, the New York Times published an article on the subject of "Guilt By Association," written by the distinguished Columbia professor, Henry Steele Commager, and I would like to quote the concluding lines of that article:

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"It is time that we see this doctrine of 'guilt by associa-
tion' for what it is, not a convenient device for detecting
subversion but a device for subverting our democratic
principles and practices, for destroying our constitutional
guarantees, for corrupting our faith in ourselves and in
our fellow men."

I believe that this case is one involving guilt by association, but I think further that there is not only the issue of guilt by association of people, but guilt of ideas by association. The Government's interest in what we teach has been in large part based on the principle that our teaching does not deviate from the teaching of the Communist Party. I suggest that this opens up the whole question of the guilt of ideas by parallelism. Ideas are held guilty, not for what they are, but for who else holds them.

I cannot but recall that Copernicus, in the last years of his life,
was isolated and lonely. Pressures were brought to bear upon him to keep him from
publishing. One of the charges made against him was that Protestants held and seemed
to have a penchant for his astronomical ideas.

The same charge was brought against Giordano Bruno, and he went to the stake because, among other things, the ideas that Bruno was teaching were ideas that were widely accepted in the Protestant world.

Thomas Jefferson, similarly, was called a Jacobin, was labeled with all kinds of traitorous names, because he held many ideas which also were held by leaders in the French Revolution.

It matters not what the content of our teaching is or under what alleg-
ed auspices we teach, the danger is the same. It could be any other body of teach-
ing or any other body of teachers next -- the Unitarians, the Quakers (that is, the
Society of Friends), Single Taxers, Protestants, Catholics. Any teaching conducted
by a private group of citizens in accordance with the American principle of free
association of citizens to carry out their respective purposes, any teaching could
be brought before the bar of the law, brought before the courts, brought before
judicial proceedings, because a given Administration did not approve of such teach-
ings, or because others who held such teachings were not approved of, or because
those who taught were in association with others whose teachings were not approved
of.

This is, I sumbit, legislation to produce conformity. As long as any
ideas are threatened, no matter how obnoxious they may seem to those in the seats
of power, all ideas are in jeopardy, all teaching and learning are threatened.

We are a school. Students come to us to learn. Aristotle wrote in the
first sentence of his book on metaphysics this memorable sentence: "All men by na-
ture desire to know." Aristotle recognized that everywhere people wanted to know;
that everybody, no matter how humble or how intellectually advanced, still wanted to
learn, wanted to know.

Why do people come to us? They come to us of their own free will.
They come to our classes from all walks of life, especially those people who have
not had ample opportunity for education, who have not had the advantages of any
advanced education, often even of high school education. They want to know. They
want to be able to share in the accumulated culture of the ages. They want answers
to their questions. They want to know what makes things as they are. They want to
know why things are as they are. They want to know history and economics and poli-
tics. They want to know the literature of the past and the present. They want to
know philosophy and the arts.

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We have no other inducement and no other incentive to offer them but
because of people's natural desire to know, to learn. From this process we ex-
clude no one. Our doors are wide open. Anyone whatsoever can come in to our classes
and seek to learn, if he wishes, what we seek to teach.

In this present atmosphere of our country, with loyalty oaths for
teachers spreading from coast to coast, Congressional committees investigating
teachers, teachers are intimidated, teachers are frightened. Students, it has been
reported countless times, are increasingly afraid to ask questions or to embrace
unpopular causes.

All this I believe is an effort to deprive the American people of
freedom of thought that is our traditional heritage, the right to investigate, to
know, to learn.

I want to refer to our expert witnesses. Why did they come? Why did
they testify for the Jefferson School? Let me remind you, if I may, Mr. Chairman,
of what they testified to.

Professor Broadus Mitchell, of Rutgers, testified that the teaching
of Marxism was inevitable and inescapable. He further said that independent
schools such as the Jefferson School serve an exceedingly useful purpose in inform-
ing the American public. ....

And Professor Cohen, of Wesleyan, gave three reasons why Marxism should
be taught in our schools and colleges and in institutions of learning. They were,
very briefly:

(1) That it is an important, significant body of theory that is in the
world today, and needs to be known by educated people;

(2) That a large portion of the world embraces this doctrine, and if
we are to live with them we should understand the principles which guide their
thought and their behavior; and

(3) That Marxism, unlike any other doctrine before us today, presents
a unique challenge to everybody to examine his or her beliefs, to check them, to
reexamine them, not necessarily with the idea of embracing Marxism -- and this ques-
tion has nothing to do with its validity, as Professor Cohen said -- but with the
idea that people should arrive at views through their own thinking and through their
own examination and through the processes of logic and the testing of ideas in ex-
perience.

Dr. DuBois said at one point that he does not, he tries not to lecture
without referring to Marx because he doesn't want his auditors to be deprived of
the knowledge of Marxism as he was when he was in college.

The subject matter we teach, we believe contributes to making better,
more enlightened, and more democratic American citizens. Our courses show, not
subversion or conspiracy, but democracy and the heritage and the freedom of inquiry
and the democratic traditions of our country. We teach a theory of history and
society, a world outlook, a method for analyzing current developments.

It is of the essence of education in a democracy that it not be limited
to official schools; that citizens be free to associate themselves for education,
expressing their interests, their points of view, their beliefs. Adult and working
class education under labor, trade union, and other auspices, has been an old Ameri-
can tradition that goes back at least to the second quarter of the last century,

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and to oppose this, to curb it, to try to stop it in any way, is, I believe, to run
counter not only to our democratic traditions, but to seriously hamper our country
in solving its problems in the years to come, and seriously to hamper our citizens
in their right to investigate, to inquire, to test ideas through logic and exper-
ience.

I would like to quote from an article by Robert M. Hutchins, former
President of the University of Chicago, since connected with the Ford Foundation,
an article on The Dangers Facing Education in the U.S. Today, published in Look
Magazine, March 9 of this year. Among other things, Mr. Hutchins said, quote:

"Those who oppose free inquiry can be neither Americans nor free. They do not believe in democracy. They do not understand our Constitution. They have no faith in the democratic process."

The right of Americans to teach and learn has already suffered terrible
blows in the past few years. Teachers are afraid. Students are afraid. The Jefferson
School has already suffered from being labeled subversive and has already suffered,
and, with it, freedom has suffered from these proceedings themselves. An order to
register would further darken the land and put out the lamps of learning.

I will conclude very briefly. I would like to quote a famous sentence
from the great Dutch philosopher, Baruch Spinoza, from his Theological and Political
Treatise published in 1678 to defend the freedom that then existed under the Dutch
Republic. Spinoza wrote, I quote:

"Now, seeing that we have the rare happiness of living in a
republic where everyone's judgement is free and unshackled,
where each may worship God as his conscience dictates, and
where freedom is esteemed before all things, dear and precious,
I have believed that I should be undertaking no ungrateful or
unprofitable task in demonstrating that not only can such free-
dom be granted without prejudice to the public peace, but also
that without such freedom piety can not flourish nor the public
peace be secured."

President Harry Truman, in his veto message on the McCarran Internal
Security Act of 1950, issued on September 22 of that year, said that this law would
put the Government of the United States in the "thought control" business. Let us
not put the Government of the United States in the "thought control" business.

I would like at this time to call the Chair's attention to a brief state-
ment that we submitted today to the Attorney General of the United States, signed by
197 prominent educators, professionals, clergymen, people prominent in other walks
of life. It reads:

"Our Constitutional right of free speech necessarily includes
the right of Americans to conduct schools in which to teach
and learn the truth as they see it. I believe, therefore, that
any attempt to suppress the teaching of Marxism in such an in-
stitution as the Jefferson School of Social Science represents
a serious threat to all free inquiry."

I would be happy to submit a copy of this with the signatures appended,
if the Board wishes.

May I appeal to the Board, in closing, not to put the Government in the
"thought control" business; to get the Government out of the "thought control"

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business by dismissing the petition and not ordering the Jefferson School to regis-
ter under the Internal Security Act of 1950.

CHAIRMAN HERBERT: The Chair would like to ask one or two questions, if I may,
Doctor. As I understand your presentation in the record, you are contending that
any education be entirely free and completely unregulated.

DR. SELSAM: Not necessarily entirely unregulated. There are rules, for example, for degree-giving institutions. There should not be freedom of education to teach illegal acts, to teach incitement of violence or anything of that kind; of course not. But within the traditional laws of our land, I think that education should be and must be completely free.

If I may add one word, I participated in a conference for two days just a few weeks ago at Antioch College in behalf of the Antioch College Community, which includes all teachers and students. We had a panel of educators from Ohio State, from Antioch, from Oberlin, from Chicago and other institutions. One thing that was practically unanimously agreed on through these two days of discussion was that if the freedom of Marxists was threatened, whether their right to teach in the colleges or to have schools of their own, the freedom of all other teachers was also threatened, and that therefore the educational world must defend the right of all to teach, subject to the traditional tests of competence, and so forth.

CHAIRMAN HERBERT: I would like to give you a concrete example. You wouldn't contend that I should have the right to go out and set up a sort of specialized agricultural school to teach how to raise and grow marijuana weed, would you?

DR. SELSAM: No, I certainly would not. That is sufficiently regulated by the laws of our country.

CHAIRMAN HERBERT: In other words, you don't advocate absolute liberty to teach subjects which go into the field of the unlawful?

DR. SELSAM: Absolutely not.

CHAIRMAN HERBERT: Very well. Thank you.

# # # #

ARGUMENT OF ATTORNEY HARRY SACHER

June 25, 1954

(The following is the larger part of Counsel Sacher's summation argument. Most of what is omitted pertains to technical legal arguments of no special interest to the general public. As this was Mr. Sacher's third major argument in this case - the first being at the opening of the hearings, November 25, and the second on a motion to dismiss at the close of the Government's case on February 16, 1954 - it was not his intent to cover here all the constitutional issues involved. These excerpts are taken from pp. 3390-3423 of the official transcript.)

MR. SACHER: May it please the Chair, I wish that we were engaged here in the trial of a case under what, in my opinion, would be a better law than this one, more consonant with the rights and liberties of the American people, so that I, too, could join counsel for the Petitioner in paying my tribute to the abilities which you have demonstrated in this hearing. If I refrain from doing so, you will understand that that flows exclusively from the fact that I can only deplore the auspices under which those fine qualities of yours are employed in this proceeding.

In the same breath I should like to say, after listening to Dr. Selsam, that it would be a dark day, indeed, in the history of our country if men like him should, by virtue of an order of this Board, be silenced in the teaching and dissemination of the truth as they see it, for I think it is not too much to say, on the basis of what he testified to before you, and on the basis of what he has said here this afternoon, that he and his colleagues in the Jefferson School have worked and taught in the spirit of that famous dictum of Thomas Jefferson's, which is emblazoned on the walls of the Jefferson School in New York City, which reads as follows:

"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people; they are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberties."

I have had more than one occasion in the course of these proceedings to bespeak what I regarded as the constitutional issues which are necessarily involved in a consideration of the Internal Security Act of 1950, both on its face and in its application to this Respondent. It is not my intention this afternoon to do more than to say that I hereby incorporate by reference, with the same force and effect as if fully and at length set forth herein, all the grounds and reasons on which I have heretofore asserted the unconstitutionality of the Act, both on its face and in its application to this Respondent.

Your Honor has heretofore said that as an administrative agency you would leave the determination of those questions to those agencies of Government to whom you thought our Constitution confided the determination of such questions, namely, the courts, and that you would proceed on the premise that the statute is constitutional on its face and that, so far as its application was concerned, you would operate here according to your best lights.

I wish, therefore, to address myself to those considerations which you have indicated lie properly within your province. Among those considerations is necessarily the question of what the proper construction of the statute is in the first instance. What does the statute mean? What does it authorize this Board to do? Against whom may the Board issue orders? On what evidence may the Board issue orders requiring registration? ...

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Let me therefore begin with first things first. By that I mean, there
being no charge in this proceeding that the Jefferson School is a Communist-action
organization, and the charge being confined exclusively to that of saying that the
Jefferson School is a Communist-front organization, the first question I raise is
whether or not the statue has so defined a Communist-front organization that it can
be said, on the basis of the evidence adduced by this Petitioner, that the Jefferson
School is the kind of organization or institution which it was within the contempla-
tion of Congress that the statute should be applied to.

So let me read how Congress defined what it called a "Communist front."
I respectfully refer the Chair to Section 2, paragraph (7), of the Subversive Activi-
ties Control Act of 1950, which describes Communist-front organizations in these
terms. I quote:

"In carrying on the activities referred to in paragraph (6), such Communist organizations" -- meaning Communist-action organizations -- "in various countries are organized on a secret, conspiratorial basis and operate to a substantial extent through organizations, commonly known as 'Communist fronts', which in most instances are created and maintained, or used, in such manner as to conceal the facts as to their true character and purposes and their membership. One result of this method of operation is that such affiliated organizations are able to obtain financial and other support from persons who would not extend such support if they knew the true purposes of, and the actual nature of the control and influence exerted upon, such 'Communist fronts'."

I respectfully suggest, Mr. Chairman, that this provision that I have
just read to you is deserving of the most careful consideration and analysis in
light of the evidence which has been adduced before you.

What are the two leading ideas in this provision? They are, I submit,
the following: (1) that a Communist front is defined by the provisions to be one
which is created and maintained, or used, in such a manner as to conceal the facts
as to its true character and purposes and membership. It was that kind of an organ-
ization, I submit, that Congress intended in the first instance to reach.

Does the Jefferson School of Social Science fall within that kind of a
definition of a Communist front? You will recall, Mr. Chairman, that in the open-
ing speech that I made before a word of evidence was adduced in this case, I impat-
liently, almost youthfully, maligning the many years that already hang on this gray
head of mine, jumped in with the proposition that the Jefferson School openly,
frankly, avowedly declares what it teaches, why it teaches what it teaches, to whom
it teaches those things, and by whom. You will recall that there were any number
of teachers listed in the first catalog ever published by the Jefferson School, in
which various people were described in so many words as Communists or Communist
officials or Communist functionaries. From the first day of its organization, the
Jefferson School frankly, avowedly and publicly declared in its brochures and cata-
logs that it was and is a Marxist institution teaching the principles of Marx,
Engels, Lenin and Stalin.

No one, and as Gimbels in New York says, absolutely no one, but no one,
could have looked at any catalog of the Jefferson School of Social Science and been
deceived for one moment as to what, why, to whom, and by whom, what was going to
be taught and what was being taught in the Jefferson School of Social Science was
being taught.

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So the Attorney General has in the first instance failed to prove that the Jefferson School of Social Science falls within that characterization which was included in Section 2, paragraph (7), for the purpose of indicating whom Congress intended to reach.

The second purpose indicated in the provision was that the method of operation of organizations should be such that they should not be in a position to coax or wheedle or solicit financial and other support from third persons by such concealment of its purposes and objectives as to obtain money and support which they would not have obtained had people known what their purpose was.

Here again, no one could contribute a single penny to the Jefferson School, no one could cast upon it a beneficent glance, without knowing that he was doing so in relation to an educational institution whose primary concern was with the teaching of the principles of Marxism.

Mind you, you have heard talk here with a certain amount of sneer from counsel for the Petitioner, as well as some witnesses, concerning courses on singing, and teaching, and sewing, et cetera. The fact of the matter is, however, that the Jefferson School of Social Science never gave a course on how to sew a skirt and seek to conceal under this skirt that it was teaching students to sew, the fact that it was teaching the principles of Marxism. There is no such evidence in this case. No. As I say, from the inception of the school, this school boldly and articulately declared for the world to know, precisely what it was teaching; and if it taught other things besides theories of political economy, theories of the origin and nature of the universe, and theories of the origin and nature of man and of human society, it did so in an effort to fill a void which is particularly pronounced in a great city like New York, which seems to be a concentrated realization of that old saying that God must have loved the poor, for he made so many of them.

So there are many men and women in New York City who have not enjoyed the privileges, the educational opportunities, which those who would destroy the Jefferson School enjoy, and it is to them that the Jefferson School gives the benefit of its teaching.

So I suggest to you in the first instance, Mr. Chairman, the provisions of Section 2, paragraph (7), contain part of the definition, part of the requirement of proof that must be made, assuming that the statute has any constitutionality at all, in order to justify the issuance of an order by this Board.

I cannot, of course, in the course of this argument -- concerned, as it will be, with the meaning and construction of the statute -- wholly ignore the constitutional considerations which must enter into a construction of the statute.

CHAIRMAN HERBERT: I have no intention of attempting to prevent your doing so.

MR. SACHER: I understand that, Mr. Chairman. I wish only to explain that it is an orthodox canon of construction that a statute must be so construed that it will not do violence to any constitutional provision, if consistent with the provisions of the statute it may be so construed. So, since I am voluntarily placing myself within -- for the moment, and only for the nonce, and without prejudice, at cetera, to my constitutional position -- inasmuch as I place myself within this limited framework, I wish to suggest that in approaching the construction of the statute, one's eye must always be cocked on the Constitution, and more particularly on the First Amendment of the Constitution, because, Mr. Chairman, you can stray from the Constitution only at the peril of the Constitution. That is the rock to which, particularly in this case and in cases like it, the Board must be attached. Come whatever

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waves, and however mighty, that seek to tear you from that rock, I respectfully submit, Mr. Chairman, that the Board can remain true to the Constitution only so long as it clings by every fiber of its being to that instrument.

What specifically have I reference to here? It is that the Constitution of the United States in so many words prohibits Congress, and therefore every creature of Congress, including this Board, from abridging freedom of speech and of the press and of assembly, as well as freedom of religion. That constitutional provision has been so interpreted in our country that one is at liberty to teach and advocate anything, so long as he does not create a clear and present danger of a substantive evil which it lies within the power of Congress to prevent.

We ought to understand what this case is and what it is not about. This case is not one which charges that this Respondent, the Jefferson School of Social Science, taught or advocated the duty or necessity of overthrowing or destroying the Government of the United States by force and violence. You can look through all of the pages of the first petition and of the amended petition filed by the Petitioner in this case, the Attorney General, and you won't find the ugly words "force or violence" anywhere in this petition. He hasn't accused the Jefferson School of Social Science of teaching or advocating the forcible or violent overthrow of the Government. It doesn't appear anywhere.

Do you know, Mr. Chairman, that the Petitioner here doesn't even charge that the Jefferson School of Social Science taught, let alone advocated, violent revolution. That word "revolution" appears in the petition, but not "violent revolution." Thus you will find at Page 8 of the amended petition, in Section 3, paragraph (3), subdivision (d), the following words:

"Students at the Jefferson School were instructed in the Communist principle that revolution is necessary to overthrow capitalism in the United States."

That is the full extent of any reference in this petition to any "dirty" words, the only reference in this petition. Does that charge the Jefferson School of Social Science with anything that is improper or unlawful?

Mr. Chairman, I find it difficult to believe that if you were teaching Marxism-Leninism, that you could possible avoid teaching that there is a principle of Marxism-Leninism that revolution is necessary to the overthrow of capitalism in the United States. It just can't be done. That is part of the principles of Marxism-Leninism, and if you teach it you have to say one of the principles that Marxism-Leninism contains is the principle that revolution is necessary to overthrow capitalism in the United States.

Does that mean violent revolution? I don't think so, Mr. Chairman, because if that is what the Attorney General meant, he should have said so. I can't attribute to him the illiteracy that would inhere in any other suggestion, for in the case of United States v. Dennis, Judge Medina, in his charge to the jury, said the following - you may find this exact language, Mr. Chairman, in 9 F.R.D. 394.

"I charge you that the word 'revolution' in its broadest significance is generally used to designate a sweeping change; as applied to political change, it denotes a change in a method or system of government or of the power which controls the government. It is frequently, though not always, accomplished by or accompanied by violent acts, but it need not be violent in its methods. It does not necessarily denote force or violence."

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So what we have here in the petition is one specific reference to what was taught in the Jefferson School, and that is simply a statement of teaching. It doesn't say that any teacher in the Jefferson School incited people to revolution, peaceful or violent. It simply says -- referring, of course, to this provision on Page 8 -- that students at Jefferson School were instructed in the Communist Party principle that revolution is necessary to overthrow capitalism in the United States.

Unless the teaching of this principle is criminal anywhere else in the United States, unless it is unlawful in any other institution of learning in the United States, it cannot be unlawful in the case of the Jefferson School and it cannot provide the basis for an abridgement of the right of Jefferson School not only to teach what it is teaching, but to use the facilities of the mails and the radio, et cetera, and to have its students and members, et cetera, free from the disabilities imposed upon them by this Act.

In that connection, let me again refer to Judge Medina's charge in the Dennis case. This, Mr. Chairman, you will find in 9 F.R.D., that is, Federal Rules Decisions, at Page 390. It perhaps will also explain why Professor Broadus Mitchell and Professor Cohen and Dr. DuBois appeared to testify as witnesses in this proceeding.

Parenthetically, may I say I regard it again as most remarkable that counsel for the Petitioner should have ignored such fine, worthy men and the important testimony they gave.

Here is what Judge Medina said:

> "It is not unlawful to conduct in an American college or university a course explaining the philosophical theories set forth in the books which have been placed in evidence by the prosecution, such as the Communist Manifesto, Foundations of Leninism, and so on. Of course these books are to be found in the public libraries, and in the libraries of American universities. Indeed," continued Judge Medina, "many of our most outstanding and sincere educators have expressed the view that these theories should be widely studied and thoughtfully considered so that all may thoroughly appreciate their significance and the inevitable effects of putting such theories into practice."

If that be true, on what theory does one apply disabilities and inhibitions and prohibitions against the Jefferson School? ...

I respectfully submit, Mr. Chairman, purely as a matter of law, constitutional law, that Congress may make no law which imposes any disability upon any citizen, inhabitant, organization, or institution in the United States, designed to curtail freedom of expression, unless and until there is clear and present danger of a substantive evil which the Congress may prevent. We haven't reached the stage in the United States where any rational person will suggest that opposition to the policies of the Government within what Judge Learned Hand calls the universe of discourse, has reached such a danger that we must apply prohibition by law.

Abridgements need not be cast in the shape of criminal punishment. Abridgements may lie in the imposition of taxes. Abridgements may lie in the imposition, such as this statute places upon parties, of other civil disabilities. In other words, anything that operates to restrain the free and uninhibited expression of ideas in any realm is subject to the condemnation which is implicit in the First Amendment.

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You addressed a question or two to Dr. Selsam, and if you don't mind, I should like to suggest an answer or two to the questions.

CHAIRMAN HERBERT: I hope you understand that my question was solely to as fully as possible understand the position of Dr. Selsam and his contention.

MR. SACHER: Right. The principle which has the sanction of the Constitution as construed by the Supreme Court -- and, as Mr. Justice Hughes said many years before he ascended to the bench, the Constitution is what the courts say it is -- so I say that the courts have construed the Constitution to mean, even down to this day, including Dennis v. United States in 341 U.S., to mean that utterances may not be punished criminally or civilly unless they create a clear and present danger of evils that lie within the power of Congress to prevent. Consequently, even the teaching of the making of marijuana cigarettes cannot be --

CHAIRMAN HERBERT: That wasn't my question. I want to correct you on that.

MR. SACHER: All right. What is the question?

CHAIRMAN HERBERT: The question was directed to the right to teach the raising of the marijuana weed. I did not say anything about making marijuana cigarettes.

MR. SACHER: I see. In other words, you have removed the danger one step further from realization.

I respectfully suggest that the same rule exists. In other words, only if, in the context of given circumstances, there appears to be a danger that the teaching of the methods of raising marijuana weeds may be realized, clearly and imminently, then may that teaching be prohibited.

If I may, in a personal reference, say something about my argument in the Supreme Court in the Dennis case, I remember that when I argued the clear and present danger rule, Mr. Justice Douglas asked me whether I would apply that rule in time of war, and I said, "Definitely, Your Honor." There is nothing wrong with the principle. It has universal application. All you have to do is consult the circumstances, that is all.

My rule -- not my rule. That sounds silly. The rule as enunciated by the Supreme Court is that utterance may be proscribed or punishable when they present a clear and present danger of substantive evil, and obviously opposition to Government policy may in time of war create such danger more immediately and more imminently than they would in time of peace, and consequently all you would do would be to apply the principle more quickly in time of war than you would in time of peace.

So here, vague and indefinite as the standard admittedly is, you have at least a verbal standard by which to measure the circumstances in which utterance of any kind may be suppressed.

Let me also make it clear -- for it is apparent from the argument and the whole trend of presentation of the Attorney General that the notion that seems to possess him and his counsel is that there has already been some kind of an adjudication in the United States, an authoritative adjudication, that the mere teaching of the principles of Marxism-Leninism, the mere teaching, without advocacy, without incitement to action by language reasonably calculated to incite to action, is sufficient to predicate a condemnation of the teaching. They are all wrong. Even in the Dennis case, Judge Medina charged the jury that they could find the defendants guilty not solely on the basis of what they taught and advocated; they could find, he said,

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the defendants guilty only if they found, in addition to such teaching and advocacy -- namely, of the duty and necessity of overthrowing the Government of the United States by force and violence - these elements: (1) that they entertained the specific intent to bring about the forcible and violent overthrow of the Government of the United States as speedily as circumstances would permit; and (2) that they were shown to have done so by language reasonably calculated to incite those who came within the hearing of their teaching and advocacy, to embark upon such action.

None of that is present here. ....

Then I have heard some other things said here, to what end I don't know. I have heard it referred to more than once that there was theistic teaching in Jefferson School. I don't like to say it too loudly -- theistic teaching in Jefferson School.

CHAIRMAN HERBERT: You must say it loud enough that the Chair may hear you, or the point will be utterly missed.

MR. SACHER: Touché. It may very well be that the Attorney General would prefer to have religion taught in schools, but that, Mr. Chairman, can be only a personal preference. It cannot be his preference as the Attorney General of the United States, and it cannot be this Board's preference as a board. Why? Because of the First Amendment. Freedom of religion means not only the freedom to believe in and worship any God that you please, but it means the freedom not to worship and not to believe in God -- because the moment we open the sluices to the notion that you have to believe in God, the next step is, you have got to believe in your God or my God. That is the choice then. So we had better leave well enough alone, and we had better not ask for an order of registration against an educational institution because it, whether wisely or foolishly, thinks that there isn't sufficient evidence to satisfy a scientific mind of the existence of a supernatural being.

All I can do, Mr. Chairman -- and I hope you Republicans in the room will forgive me if I find it necessary to call upon that patron saint of democracy, Thomas Jefferson, in support of the proposition which I have just uttered. You will recall that I quoted it to you. I do not flatter myself, but I flatter Jefferson when I say that you will recall that I quoted to you the following from his writings:

"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others, but it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty Gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket or breaks my leg. It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.

"Subject opinion to coercion. Whom will you make you inquisitors? Fallible men, men governed by bad patience, by private as well as public reasons? And why subject them to coercion? To produce uniformity. But is uniformity of opinion desirable? No more than face and stature."

So I say to you, Mr. Chairman, whether for good reasons or bad, I know not which, the Petitioner, although he takes the view that it is wholly irrelevant under this statute as to what is taught and why it is taught, by whom and to whom, nevertheless reaches out in various ways hoping that in some way there will be created a favorable soil for the application of the statute to this Respondent.

.....

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I should like, in the few remaining minutes that I have, to say a
word or two about the matter of registration and why, in the light of the things
I have said to you here this afternoon, a registration order may not be made con-
sistently with the Constitution or with the intention of the statute.

I should suggest, Mr. Chairman, that, unlike the power of taxation,
of which it was said a long time ago the power to tax is the power to destroy. The
power to require registration is not [properly] the power to destroy. Registration
can have only one legitimate purpose, namely, disclosure of that which would other-
wise be unknown.

That there never was and that there is not now any need to require
any registration by the Jefferson School, because of the openness with which it
avowed its purposes, has already been made clear, but I submit that the purpose of
the registration here is not to compel the disclosure, but the purpose is to des-
troy. Whether this objection be one that may properly be addressed to the statute
itself or whether it ought to be addressed only to the attempted application in
this case is perhaps not too material, for the important question, I submit, is
whether the purpose of the application of the statute and of the statute itself,
for that matter, is to destroy in any event an organization which comes witnin its
orbit.

You see, Mr. Chairman, this statute doesn't require just registration.
This statute requires that there shall be certain disabilities even after you re-
gister. In other words, as you so well know, an organization which is required to
register may not use the mails, may not use radio and television facilities, unless
it announces that it is a Communist organization.

For the moment I don't refer to the other disabilities against mem-
bers which the statute provides for. But it is very interesting to notice that,
although the statute contains provisions for the separate designation of organiza-
tions as Communist-action organizations and Communist-front organizations, it re-
quires one kind of designation to be made by an organization of itself when it comes
to make the announcement concerning itself. What I mean is that you will find in
the statute - may I give you the exact section; it is Section 10 of the Act --that
when it comes to making an announcement, both Communist-action and Communist-front
organizations describe themselves in such an announcement as a Communist organiza-
tion. The requirement is that they shall put on any publication, envelope, wrapper,
et cetera, which they mail, the words "Disseminated by ___________, a Communist
organization."

I submit that this fusion or confusion between the two is designed to
place each type of organization in an identical category so that it may quickly
suffer the death which the statute is designed to inflict upon those which come
within its terms.

I therefore suggest to you, Mr. Chairman, that since this is the pur-
pose of the statute, and not a regulatory purpose, namely, one which would seek the
disclosure of evidence which would otherwise not be made, in the light of all of
the considerations I have placed before you, it requires the denial of an order.

How deleterious the proceedings heretofore taken against the Jefferson
School, either specifically or as one of a group, were, was established in the
course of the evidence when we submitted Respondent's Exhibit M, which indicated
how at each period in recent years, as a result of governmental action, there was
a substantial decline in the number of students whom Jefferson School could attract.

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So you find that upon the promulgation of the President's loyalty order in March, 1947, there was a very substantial drop of approximately 3500 students in the en- suing year. Then the school succeeded in recouping some of that loss, only to find that in the fall of 1950 there came the Internal Security Act, accompanied by a similar drastic drop in attendance. Finally came the coup de grace last year when the Attorney General initiated proceedings before this Board, and again there was a substantial decline in attendance.

No organization can survive if it complies with the provisions of this Act when an order for registration is issued.

In the light of the considerations presented to you this afternoon and those laid before you on previous occasions, I respectfully request that the Board dismiss the petition herein on the grounds urged by the Respondent.

# # # # #

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SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATION OF SACB CHAIRMAN THOMAS J. HERBERT

(On December 30, 1954, Chairman Herbert, designated by the SACB as its hearing officer in the Jefferson School case issued his "RECOMMENDED DECISION," a document of 221 pages with a 3-page Appendix containing information on the witnesses that had appeared for both sides. The complete Summary and Recommendation follow, from pp. 216-221 of Chairman Herbert's report.)

The evidence in this proceeding discloses the history and activities of the Jefferson School of Social Science from its inception to the present. The School emanated from a fusion by the Communist Party of two former Party-controlled schools - the Workers School and the School for Democracy, both located in New York City. It was created as a result of a Party decision to concentrate its educational efforts in this area into one organization and couple teaching the hard core of Marxism-Leninism with an approach having a "broad appeal to the masses." The selection of the School's name was prompted by the established Communist Party technique of using names steeped in American tradition.

When the Party made its decision to organize the Jefferson School, it delegated the task to its foremost educational and cultural representative, Alexander Trachtenberg, since convicted of a violation of the Smith Act. An Organizing Committee was then formed to serve under Trachtenberg's supervision, and the facilities and resources of the Party were utilized in establishing the School. It commenced operation in January 1944, and has been since in continuous operation. The Organizing Committee, almost all of whom are identified as Party members or functionaries, became the School's first Board of Trustees.

Throughout respondent's existence its Board of Trustees, Administrative Staff, and Faculty have been comprise in large part of individuals identified in this record as members, functionaries, and, in numerous instances, high officials, of the Communist Party; and Alexander Trachtenberg, referred to above, has been on the Board of Trustees since the School's inception. The factor of interlocking personnel is an important means utilized by the Party to exert its domination and control of the School; and this factor indicates, as well, that the School exists primarily to serve a vital Party function.

In every facet of its operations the School is aided and supported by the Party; and, conversely, by the very nature of its activities the School aids greatly the Party in the latter's pursuit of its ultimate objectives.

In its teaching and allied activities the respondent looks to the Party for the "correct" positions on domestic and international questions and current interpretations of Marxism-Leninism. Invariably, the School has not deviated from the Party's policies in its teachings and activities; and this has at times entailed drastic revisions of what has been previously taught and espoused by the School, due to like changes in Party positions. In other words, respondent echoes the Party's program in its teaching.

Inasmuch as the School is operated to teach Marxism-Leninism, i.e., Communism, as interpreted and enunciated by the Party, the considerable evidence of record establishing what is taught at the School, as well as the School's purpose in so doing, has been reviewed at length.

Contrary to the Jefferson School's recurring contentions, it is not

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an educational institution engaged principally in teaching "ideas"; nor is it, in
reality, in the category of a school engaged in the academic pursuit of learning.
Nor is it a school conducting a seminar in philosophical theories, principles of
economics, and the political and social sciences. Rather, it is an organization
which operates, primarily, to train its students, the great majority of whom are
Party members, in the Party's programs, strategy, and tactics; this in the form
of teaching Marxism-Leninism as interpreted by the Party.

There is no interference here with academic freedom. None exists at
the Jefferson School. Under rigid Party control and discipline it is utilized
as the Communist Party's principal training ground for effective membership and
leadership therein. In so functioning, it engages in clandestine practices and
security measures foreign to an educational institution purportedly open to the
public.

The School teaches, pursuant to a fundamental tenet of Marxism-Lenin-
ism, that any principles and programs there propounded are useless unless united
with action under the Party's leadership; and action in furtherance of Party pro-
grams is continuously fostered. The basic proposition of Marxism-Leninism taught
and advocated by the School, because espoused by the Party, is that our present
form of "capitalist society," represented by the Government of the United States,
must be destroyed through a proletarian revolution and replaced by socialism under
the dictatorship of the proletariat; that such revolution requires the use of
force and violence; and that the leading force in such revolution - without which
it cannot be attained - is the Communist Party. The inescapable and desired ef-
fect of its activities is to aid materially the Communist Party in the latter's
pursuit of its goal. Thus, in the final analysis, the School's activity is cal-
culated to result in such action.

Respondent's reiterations concerning freedom of education and the
Constitutional right to teach from a partisan standpoint the so-called philosophy
or social science of Marxism-Leninism necessitates here a statement to the effect
of this report on this issue as the Presiding Member conceives it, lest the pur-
pose of this report becomes beclouded and misunderstood.

The Presiding Member is firm in the belief that, under our Constitu-
tional system, free access to ideas as such must be maintained in the open compe-
tition of academic inquiry. So long as such a system obtains, ideas will then be
sifted by enlightened minds after study and research, and accorded their appropri-
ate values. This is as it should be and this report should in no manner be con-
strued as in derogation of this principle.

The writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, however unorthodox or
distasteful they may be considered, remain for all to pursue privately or in any
institution of learning in the land which desires to present them. Thought control,
coercion to conformity, suppression of ideas, and book-banning are alien ideas to
the Presiding Member. Let it be clear that this report affords no basis for cast-
ing adverse reflections on those who, in the exercise of academic freedom, teach
or study Marxism-Leninism.

Respondent has contended that freedom of academic inquiry under the
Constitution necessarily involves the right to knowledge and the free use thereof
(Tr.1893). Here is the crux of this matter. The right to free use of knowledge
has always been subject to certain limitations; the right is conditioned upon use
for lawful purposes. To maintain that schools for safecracking or pocket-picking
or how to produce marijuana should be permitted to operate without limitations,
under the claimed Constitutional right of freedom of education, would be absurd.

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Respondent agrees that education cannot be entirely free and unregulated; that there should not be freedom of education to teach illegal acts or to teach incitement of violence. To say that all should be free to teach or study Marxism-Leninism, and to analyze present day institutions in that light, is a far cry from holding that respondent, dominated and controlled by the Communist Party as it is, should be permitted to function as a Party training school without regard to the provisions of this Act, on the ground that it is dispensing knowledge which may be freely used. The use which respondent advocates for the "knowledge" it dispenses is aimed directly at aiding the Party to achieve its goal of destroying this Government. This being true, academic freedom is not here involved.

Upon the overwhelming weight of the evidence in this proceeding, it is concluded that respondent is directed, dominated, and controlled by the Communist Party of the United States - a Communist-action organization - and that respondent is primarily operated for the purpose of giving aid and support to it.

It is found, therefore, that respondent is a Communist-front organization.

## RECOMMENDATION

It is recommended that the Board issue an appropriate order under the terms of the Act requiring the Jefferson School of Social Science, respondent herein, to register with the Attorney General of the United States as a Communist-front organization.

# # # # #

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STATEMENT BY THE JEFFERSON SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE

December 30, 1954

Chairman Thomas J. Herbert's recommendation yesterday that the Subversive Activities Control Board order the Jefferson School of Social Science "to register with the Attorney General of the United States as a Communist-front organization" marks another aggression against free inquiry in our country. Our institution will contest this recommendation before the full Board and, if necessary, carry its appeal to the courts.

Mr. Herbert, who conducted hearings in this case as a one-man panel, asserts in his report that "There is no interference here with academic freedom." Apparently he is sensitive to last summer's declaration by 197 professional leaders in our country and many others abroad that "any attempt to suppress the teaching and learning of Marxism in such an institution as the Jefferson School of Social Science represents a serious threat to all free inquiry."

That threat inheres in this whole proceeding, and is in no way lessened by verbal protestations that the question of academic freedom is not here involved.

This eleven-year-old educational center for working people is a school, teaching ideas, and open to all who care to attend. Some of the theoretical ideas here taught, particularly those of Marxism-Leninism, are objectionable to the national Administration in power; so it moves to suppress those ideas by resort to the thought-control (McCarran) Internal Security Act of 1950. The onerous "registration" provisions of that Act were designed and would surely operate to destroy any organization to which they are applied.

The Jefferson School will not yield its constitutional right of free speech, not will the thousands of students who enroll here for study. Just as throughout the nine-months hearings in this case, we will go right ahead with our educational program; and we expect some 2000 students for the 70-odd courses offered in our Winter Term beginning on January 17.

There are many signs that the people of our country are sick and tired of such McCarthyite attacks on free speech as this effort to close down the Jefferson School. Mr. Herbert must have noted that the voters in the recent elections defeated every openly McCarthyite candidate who ran for public office.

We consider it our patriotic duty to resist efforts to suppress this institution by the full use of every means provided by the laws of our country.

Howard Selsam, Director

David Goldway, Executive Secretary

Doxey A. Wilkerson, Director of Faculty and Curriculum

# # # #

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THE JEFFERSON SCHOOL of Social Science

575 AVENUE OF THE AMERICAS, NEW YORK 11, N. Y. • WATKINS 9-1600

DR. HOWARD SELSAM, Director

DAVID GOLDWAY, Executive Secretary

Dear Mr. Hughes:

During the past two years some 200 leading Americans signed "A Statement on the Right to Teach and Learn Marxism," a copy of which is enclosed, together with a list of the signers. This statement was occasioned by the Attorney General's motion to have the Subversive Activities Control Board order the Jefferson School of Social Science to "register" as an alleged "Communist front organization" under provisions of the (McCarran) Internal Security Act of 1950.

Hearings in this case before a panel of the SACB proceeded for more than six months, and in late December, as you must have read, Chairman Thomas J. Herbert filed his report recommending that the Board order the Jefferson School to "register."

On March 18, Attorney Harry Sacher and I will contest this recommendation in final arguments before the full Board. We should like to have a personal statement from you to submit at that time to the Board and the press.

The enclosed brochure presents the essence of the contentions of the Attorney General and the SACB Chairman, together with our counter-arguments. The School's statement to the press (see p. 19) was printed in full in The New York Times of December 31; and we have reason to believe that many sober minds in our country are disturbed by the implications of this case and its meaning for all freedom of thought and expression. That is why we think personal statements now from a number of professional leaders like you would carry considerable weight.

I am certain that as you read Chairman Herbert's "Summary and Recommendation" you will be struck by his cavalier over-riding of our arguments concerning academic freedom. His answer to them falls under two heads:

1) "There is no interference here with academic freedom." And the reason? It is because: "None exists at the Jefferson School." Such a non-sequitur could be applied to any school set up and designed to present a particular point of view in any realm of thought, whether it be Protestant, Catholic, Single-tax, Rosicrucian, or any other.

2) "The right to free use of knowledge has always been subject to certain limitations; the right is conditioned upon use for lawful purposes. To maintain that schools for safecracking or pocket-picking or how to produce marijuana should be permitted to operate without limitations, under the claimed Constitutional right of freedom of education, would be absurd." He says this in spite of the fact that none of the government's witnesses testified to a single illegal act the Jefferson School taught or that was committed by any of its students. His conclusion is based solely on the Government's assumption that all Marxist teaching is aimed "at aiding the Party to achieve its goal of destroying this Government," and that, "This being true, academic freedom is not here involved."

264

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This, we submit is the "big lie" of McCarthyism and one which threatens to destroy
the whole fabric of civil rights and constitutional liberties in the United States.
In these proceedings, in spite of everything we protested to the contrary, this
"lie" came from Government witnesses all of whom were either professional informers
of the type of the notorious and confessed liar Harvey Matusow, or FBI agents
planted in the School and paid for their services in providing such testimony.

We will continue the fight for our right to exist and to function as any school
does by teaching and discussing ideas and theories in our classrooms to all who
wish to come. We will carry our case to the Supreme Court if necessary.

Meanwhile we appeal to you to examine carefully the enclosed materials and to send
us a statement of your position on the issues involved. A sentence or two might
suffice, although fuller analysis would be useful.

Very sincerely yours,

tu-555

P. S. If you do not have the time or inclination to draft your own statement,
please sign the one provided below, and mail to us promptly.

I have read the "Summary and Recommendation" of Chairman Thomas J. Herbert to the Subversive Activities Control Board in the case of the Jefferson School of Social Science. I find unwarranted his inference that "academic freedom is not here involved," on the alleged ground that students of the Jefferson School may, at some unspecified future time, make "unlawful" use of Marxist-Leninist teachings. I believe that to seek to suppress the teaching of Marxism-Leninism at the Jefferson School is to threaten all freedom of teaching in the realm of social, political and economic theory.

Date

Signed

DR. HOWARD SELSAM, Director

May 20, 1955

Dear Friend:

The enclosed document presents the responses we received to our
recent appeal for support of the Jefferson School's right to exist.
They protest the Attorney General's attempt to suppress our School
through use of the "registration" provisions of the McCarran Law.
Copies were submitted to the five-member Subversive Activities Control
Board at our final hearing in Washington on April 15.

We think that these letters, together with the signatures to the
prepared statement, represent a significant reflection of the best in
our American democratic heritage and its belief in freedom of speech
and assembly. A number of those who did not publicly lend their names
to our support did write, nevertheless, of their interest in our case
and its outcome. Others write directly to the SACB or to the Attorney
General.

No final decision of the SACB has yet been announced. In case an
adverse decision is handed down, we plan to appeal to the Court of Appeals
of Washington, D.C., and ultimately to the Supreme Court if necessary.
In so doing, we will not only be defending the right of such a school as
ours to exist, but also challenging the constitutionality of the whole
"Communist-front" provisions of the McCarran Internal Security Act of 1950 --
an act built on the un-American principle of guilt-by-association, both
of individuals and ideas.

This whole procedure has been extremely costly to an institution
that operates at best with a constant deficit. Whether or not you have
given us the moral support of your name and statement, we appeal to you
to support this principled and Constitutional struggle for civil rights
by financial assistance.

Checks can be made payable to Dr. Joseph B. Furst, Treasurer (Jefferson School Defense Fund).

264

Mr. Langston Hughes
20 East 127th St
New York, N.Y.

Enclosed please find check of $................... for ................... reservations
at $5.50 each for the Twelfth Anniversary Dinner.

Name ....................................................

Address .................................................... Zone....................

Telephone ....................................................

Make checks payable to Dr. Joseph B. Furst

575 Avenue of the Americas • New York 11, N. Y. • WA 9-1600

Please list your guests on the reverse side

MY GUESTS WILL BE

NAME

ADDRESS

1. ..................................................

2. ..................................................

3. ..................................................

4. ..................................................

5. ..................................................

6. ..................................................

7. ..................................................

8. ..................................................

9. ..................................................

10. ..................................................

108

DR. HOWARD SELSAM
*Director*

May 22, 1956

Dear Friend:

Despite almost overwhelming odds, the Jefferson School is
now completing another school year -- its 13th.

Having survived the dark days of McCarthyite persecution,
this embattled educational center for working people looks for-
ward to greater opportunities in the days ahead.

New questions are being raised on all sides. All of us are
rethinking old approaches and are facing up to exciting new
challenges. The possibility of a world of peaceful coexistence,
the task of charting an American road to socialism, the fight
for Negro equality, the knotty problems of the 1956 elections;
these and a dozen other big questions need answers.

Firm, solid theory is an indispensable requirement today as
never before. The people of our community need the Jefferson
School -- a school that teaches the social science of the work-
ing class, that rejects and exposes bourgeois apologetics, and
at the same time turns its back on dogmatic formalism.

Yet there is this ironic fact. At the very moment when the
need for our School is greatest, it stands in imminent danger of
not being able to open its doors in the Fall because the long
years of persecution have whittled down its enrollment to below
the subsistence level. Meanwhile, at the very moment when the
Supreme Court has delivered a blow against the McCarran Act and
the SACB, the School faces costly legal proceedings in its own
fight against the Justice Department and the SACB.

Certain that the friends of the Jefferson School will not
permit it to succumb at such a moment of new opportunities as
this, we are making a direct personal appeal to you and 499 others.
We ask you for a $10.00 contribution. _The $5,000 thus contributed_
__will guarantee continued operation of the School.___

We enclose a stamped, addressed envelope. Send us cash, or
a check made out to Dr. Joseph B. Furst, Treasurer. DO THIS AT
ONCE.

tu/555

412

November 27, 1956.

Dear Friend:

We regret that we could not inform you personally of the decision to close the Jefferson School prior to the announcement in the press, but the exigencies of the situation made this impossible. We do feel it desirable that all those who have helped the School, who have shown interest in its work, or who have simply come forward to defend its right to exist, should hear from us directly with regard to such a momentous decision.

The official statement of the Board of Trustees is enclosed and is self-explanatory. We wish to call your attention, however, to two questions which troubled us in making our decision.

First is the gap left in American intellectual life by the absence of a single public center where the principles of Marxist scientific socialism can be taught, studied and discussed under the leadership of people who believe in them. Sooner or later, means must be found to allow the freedom of the public classroom to adherents of these principles and to students who wish to learn about them from teachers who can present them-- as John Stuart Mill put it-- "in their most plausible and persuasive form."

Second is the deep concern we feel in having to give up the legal fight for the right of the Jefferson School, or any such school, to exist free of government persecution. We received extraordinarily gratifying support in this three-year-old battle; and it grieves us deeply not to be able to carry it through to possible victory in the Supreme Court of the United States. The hard fact is that, with mountainous debts, we cannot continue in existence and therefore cannot pursue this fight further.

On behalf of the Trustees I wish to express our warmest appreciation to all who have supported the Jefferson School in any way. We tried to do our best; and we trust that in the future others will again establish a public educational institution dedicated to interpreting socialist thought to the people of our country, and free from control by governmental or economic vested interests.

246

STATEMENT OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE

The Board of Trustees of the Jefferson School of Social Science voted formally on November 26, 1956, to terminate the institution's existence at the close of the current fall session.

Founded in 1944, at the flood-tide of progressive labor and people's movements stimulated by the anti-fascist war, the Jefferson School flourished over many years, and made notable contributions in interpreting Marxist socialist thought to large numbers of people. There have been more than 120,000 enrollments in courses at the School's main center, not including added thousands in extension classes and annexes. In one year alone, 1946-7, there were more than 14,000 enrollments. The Board is confident that the understanding and inspiration provided by the School will live on in the minds of its many thousands of students, and will continue to be reflected in their daily lives.

During the past nine years, the Jefferson School has had to wage an up-hill fight against unwarranted persecution by the Federal Government. This began with the Attorney General's inclusion of the School on his list of so-called "subversive organizations" in December, 1947. It continued in more intense forms during subsequent years, culminating in the "Order" of the Subversive Activities Control Board that the School register under provisions of the McCarran Internal Security Act -- an order grossly violating the rights of free speech and assembly guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Although this S.A.C.B. order is still on appeal in the federal courts, its harmful effects on the Jefferson School have been catastrophic and irreparable. Thousands of students have been deterred from enrolling at the School by fear they might lose their jobs or suffer other political reprisals. The resultant loss of income, aggravated by the heavy costs of legal defense, has created a financial situation in which it is impossible for the School to continue its program.

The Trustees, Administration and Faculty of the Jefferson School are confident that the closing of this institution in no way marks the end of public Marxist education in the United States, but means only that this School can no longer continue to operate. They are confident that the needs and interests of working people and others will bring into being new agencies and institutions for the furtherance of Marxist education.

575 Avenue of the Americas
New York 11, N. Y.
November 27, 1956