COMMUNIST THREAT

Two Resign From Anti Partition League
Following the disclosure in the CATHOLIC HERALD Of a Communist threat to the Irish Anti-Partition League, the former priest-chairman of the League supported the ('ATITOLIC HERALD statements last week, while the chairman and the hon. secretary of the League denied them.
This week comes news of the resignation of two committee members.
One of them told the CATHOLIC HERALD : "I am resigning as a protest against
the way Fr. — (the priest ex-chairman) was treated, and due to the tendency of Committee members to allow a free hand to Communists among them."
The raison &Oro of the League being the winning of the goodwill of the people of this country to the just. desires of Irishmen for the removal of the Irish border, Catholics are becoming increasingly aware of the grave issue confronting officials of the League, if their goodwill is also to be solicited.
The Committee should show Catholics that the League is not only not " tainted," but, even more, that the suggestion made in the ex-Committee member's statement mentioned above, which amounts to saying that the Committee is weaker than its alleged Communist minority, is false.
Sufficient facts have been brought to light to warrant the suspicion at least of "tainted"-nese. Witness the following, the avowed contribution of one of the Committee members to the columns of a monthly: " A powerful Anti-Partition move ment should be supported by all true Republicans, who, seeing in it a means to reach the people and lead them to ultimate freedom, should join it and work in it for the conversion of its members to their views and for the perfection of its machinery for militant ends."
One Committee member, a Catholic,
admits that " the man may be Red," but excuses his own association with the League on the ground that far more good can be done by Catholics remaining and giving the League the benefit of their contact, than by "surrendering the whole thing completely and for good to the Reds."
A reply to the League officials' denial of a Communist threat to the League, by Seumas O'Cleary, the writer of the first report on the subject, appears on page three.