THE DANGER OF McCARTHYISM

An American Examination
SIR.-The New York Times carried an item about ten days ago, quoting from your editorial "McCarthy Danger" in your March 12 issue, which prompted me at that time to write you, but past experience has taught me to be wary of slanted versions of news that suit better the policies of the Times rather than give the unbiased story readers should get. So I waited for my copy Of THE CATHOLIC HERALD to see for myself. Sure enough, the Times's dispatch quoted only the parts of your essay that . gave McCarthy the worst of This sort of reporting. has. I am sure, resulted in much confusion and erroneous conclusions regarding the Senator's activities on both .sides of the Atlantic.
Your theme seems to be based on the conclusion that McCarthy and his methods are wrong, therefore Catholics should disavow him. Now it has not yet been proven that McCarthy is that bad. although quite a segment of the secular Press in this country would have you believe so. It's a most peculiar thing that methods of Congressional investigation are never questioned in any type of inquiry except where they touch upon Communism.
Then the howls go up regarding the inquisitorial character of the hearings, the lack of judicial processes. the parading of past mistakes, etc. Many. many, of Us Americans believe that it is not unjust to require cx-Communists to stand up and be counted.
No matter who in Congress took on the job of investigating Communism, he was sure to be subject to a most intensive, unremitting campaign to discredit him. That was certain to follow, whether he was Congressman Dies (Protestant and Democrat); Congressman Parnell Thomas, from my town (Protestant and Republican); Senator Pat McCarran (Catholic and Democrat); or Congressman Velde (Protestant and Republican). The history of all of these men, and now McCarthy, shows a definite pattern of attack on them, not on the issues, but on side matters that serves to divert the attention of the people and lead them away from a sound judgment which the facts, if kept in view, would steer them to. It seems reasonable to assume, in considering this history, that if McCarthy goes down under the present assault, any future fighter against Communist penetration of America will suffer the same way. There is no doubt that McCarthy has struck very telling blows against Communism. The violence of their counter attack shows this. Credit must be given the Communists for their early, if not original, use of the term "McCarthyism" as an effective weapon of this counter-attack. Finally, your editorial asserts that McCarthy has initiated "a kind of reign of terror" and that he has exposed "mostly minor offenders whose record is not clean." These are matters of opinion. In my work I get around to many places throughout the United States, and see no reign of terror among the ordinary Joe Doakes comprising our citizenry. Perhaps this opinion of yours is based upon Eleanor Roosevelt's speeches and writings. She has the faculty of looking with equanimity upon conditions in Tito's Yugoslavia. but secs much cause for alarm in conditions here. As to "minor offenders." I do not understand how one could come to such a conclusion if he were to read the thousands of pages of testimony resulting from the various Congressional Committees' efforts.
You are absolutely right. of course, to advocate that we Catholics strengthen with Christian principles and life the spiritual and moral values that are the real foundations of true freedom. But many of us believe that in addition, you have gen to meet the Communist threat with effectual measures to force them and their works into the open.
John E. McGinnis 589 Franklin Turnpike.
Allendale, N.J., U.S.A.
"The Catholic Herald" did not question the right of Congress to investigate Communism as well as to judge the loyalty of those who were once Communists and fellow-travellers. Its criticism was of Senator McCarthy's methods in the investigation. We recommend a reading of the recently published "The Age of Suspicion" by the Editor of the "New York Post" (to be reviewed in our columns). It is of some interest that a review of this honk in the current "New Statesman" suggests that the author of this attack on the McCarthy methods has "an excessive concern with domestic Communism . . . he, and the many liberals who think like him is convinced that Russia is not only a slave State, but is inherently aggressive." And it charges him with inability to "understand why many Europeans, including Socialists who have been as antiCommunist as he, or as critical of Soviet policy, should have grave misgivings. about American attitudes . ." This flaying of McCarthyism, in other words, conies from an Amcrican adjudged by many of our Socialists to be far too anti-Communist. For the benefit of some of our A merican critics, whose letters are hardly printable, we would say that this paper during the war stood very alone in the Anglo-Saxon world in expressing its unhappiness about the Russian alliance and Allied policy versus Russia. If it criticises McCarthyism today, it is because its aims are the same-not to batter anyone down for the sake of doing so but to establish conditions for a just and free society, based on Christian values.-Editor, CATHOLIC HERALD.